ROULA SKOULA and the Greek Perspective

One of our main goals of this trip (both in the academic and personal sense) was to understand the way the Greeks view their own history and culture. Roula Skoula (pictured in her nifty visor), an intelligent Cretan woman who served as our tour guide, played a big part in this goal.

It was very interesting to get some insight into the way Greeks are taught their history, and how that differs from how other schools of thought view it (Dr. Joseph Smith, or Joe as I know him, as leader of our group and most knowledgable on these matters, helped to fill in gaps in this area).

I'm sure there were plenty of times when there was a curious difference in the way Roula explained some things to us, but a couple stand out in my head:

• Greek coffee tastes curiously similar to Turkish coffee...

(Pictured: Andrew sipping on some "Greek" coffee in Nafplion, with a view of the 999 Steps)

• Also interesting: Roula mentioned several times that the Romans did not alter anything when they went to Greece, but Joe later mentioned that there used to be a statue of Antony and Cleopatra (in a carriage, if I recall correctly, but don't cite me on that!) on the Propylaea, or monumental entrance, of the Acropolis in Athens (pictured)

• And, Roula once mentioned something about the architectural style for mosques being taken from Greek architecture, as if mosques never existed until Muslims came to Greece (I admit, I have some personal bias in this situation, but this blog is from my perspective, so there! lol).

(Pictured: me inside an ancient mosque in Crete)

I hope that whoever reads this won't take it as me saying that the Greeks are different from other cultures in that they may see some their history differently than people outside of their culture. This is NOT the case! I'm sure most, if not all, cultures do this in some way. In fact, there are whole areas of research in communication that study this clashing of histories. And I'm sure some parts of their history align with the way other cultures outside of theirs see it, but to be frank, that's not that interesting!

Learning about the Greek perspective taught me a lot about how everything is seen differently from each culture's (or even each individual's) perspective. I think the best thing to do in this situation is try to understand things from several points of view, like we did this summer.

Maybe one day I'll get the Turkish perspective on coffee! :P