The Delphic Disco

In classical times, the Pythia of Delphi was a woman in demand. Folks from all over trekked to her sanctuary to ask life’s most poignant questions:  How might I live a more pious life? How shall I contribute to the improvement of my community? and perhaps most importantly, Who my baby daddy? Mystical vapors would arise from a chasm in the earth, intoxicating the priestess, and thereby imparting to her Apollo’s responses to questions, sacred and profane. Trippy, huh?  For today’s visitors, Delphi, the ancient “navel of the world,” is a lens into the spiritual practices of old.And so, upon visiting Delphi in 2006, my history class expected to admire the Tholos of Athena and Apollo’s Temple, not a hopping club scene. Sometime after the Delphic Museum and the Charioteer, however, we became eager to escape academia and the heavy resonances of the ancient world.  A small, rowdy group chatting outside of our hostel indicated to us that while young tourists can’t get inebriated on Apollo’s vapors, they choose the next best thing. Still, having recently left Rome, we thought that the prospect of a serious par-tay in this quaint city seemed hopeless. In Delphi there is no risqué part of town; sedate shops line the streets.  Even the payphones kiosks lack the dangerous, lurking-in-the-shadows, graffitied quality of Roman payphones. Then we stumbled upon a tiny discotheque.

Continued…