The Peloponnese trip was great. Unfortunately, I have no idea where we were for most of the trip. It's not that my memory doesn't serve me right, it's just that I couldn't understand the tour guide when she told us and I didn't care enough to ask. I can tell you some of the important things that we did and hopefully that will hold your interest.
The first day we went to Mycenae, which was awesome! Actually it was just like another site that we've been to so far. We saw ruins and stuff. The most interesting part was the Lion's Gate, which has this big triangular shaped rock holding the arch up.
We stayed in a hotel in some small village in the mountains, which was nice. There was a nice view from the window in the room across the hall from mine. My room had a great view of our bus.
The next morning we were supposed to go rafting, but it rained and the river flooded so that fell through and we ended up going on a long hike through the mountains to see some monasteries. The hike really was awesome, though. I liked going to the monasteries because they weren't actually tourist attractions and it was very quiet. We broke up into two groups so that probably helped some. 'Twas good. After that we drove for a long time to Olympia.
Olympia ended up being great. For those of you who don't know basic word derivations, Olympia is where the original Olympic games were held (Athens had the first modern Olympics in 1896). It was raining pretty much all day and all of the ruins were outside, so at first that wasn't fun (and also why I didn't take a whole lot of pictures), but it ended up being a lot of fun when we got to the stadium. We got to run all the way down the track and back. Then Mark and I had a synchronized dance competition against LaRell and Cabot. Now, I'm not going to say that we were the first, but I'm sure it's rare for people to have a synchronized dance competition in the rain at the original Olympic Stadium (I feel like I could be a baseball commentator, just coming out with random obscure statistics).
Then we drove home.
On Tuesday, 12 of us went in groups of 4 to the school next door to help with the English class. That was fun. I had 4 boys in my group that were all 12 years old. We played a game.
Today we went to Delphi. It was pretty cool. It was just a day trip so we left this morning and then got back before dinner tonight. We saw some ruins and then went to the museum.
Tomorrow some of us are going to see Watchmen in Athens. I'm looking forward to that.
We're leaving on Sunday morning for another two week trip to northern Greece and Turkey. So there's that.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
i forgot to tell you that i have agoraphobia..
Some might say that it is my fault that I have so much to type right now because I've waited 2 weeks to submit another blog post. I would have to agree with these people. There is a lot that has happened but thankfully my memory is better than that of a goldfish.
When we got back from Egypt we had a day to rest (which I actually spent updating my blog) and then started classes again. There's not too much to say about classes except that I am doing well in all of them.
We went to church in Athens last Sunday morning and then spent the say running around like mad to make it to the Roman and Greek agoras before they closed. The agora is the ancient marketplace, for those that don't know. It was interesting to see the sites, but I forgot my camera, so if you really want to see pictures then you should look them up on the internet. They do have the only complete temple at the Greek agora. Complete in the sense that it still has its original roof and is not nearly as deteriorated as most of the others. The Parthenon was actually in the same boat until about 200 years ago when the Turks occupied Greece and stored ammunition there. During the Venetian wars, a stray Venetian bullet went into the Parthenon and blew it up. I'm saying all that from memory, though, so don't look it up and prove me wrong. There is a good chance that I'm wrong.
Sunday night I went with a few others to the church in Glyfada again. It was still good. Dino drove us back in his van. I'll go ahead and note that every car here is a standard, so riding in the back of a crowded van that rocks back and forth a little bit every time the driver shifts gears as well as the fact that there was someone talking in my ear the whole time made me feel pretty car sick, so I went to bed pretty quickly after getting back to the Artemis.
On Monday night there were 10 of us that went to a soup kitchen in Athens to help out, which was a really good experience. There were over 300 people that came, most of them non-English speaking Muslims. A lot of them actually spoke French, which Roman loved because he got a chance to talk to people in French. One lady got really mad at me because I spilled about a drop of soup on the table in front of her (not on her at all). I cleaned it up but she continued to glare at me for about 5 minutes, which I thought was funny. I went upstairs to the kitchen a guy clean the pots after everyone was served. I wore an apron so it wouldn't get all over my clothes (but it still did a little bit), and when I went downstairs to get another pot some of the people there laughed at my tea-pot covered apron. It was all good fun.
There's a bit of an argument on campus about the name of one of the dogs. I gave Flapjack his name for no particular reason other than him being my favorite one, but Devin and Roman both claim that they named him Copper. Hunter calls him Buddy but since he calls everyone that it doesn't really count. I've got roughly half of the people here calling him Flapjack, while others call him Copper. It's true that whoever it was called him Copper before I named him, but Copper is too boring a name for this dog. He's definitely Flapjack.
I didn't really get out much in the first week that we were here, but on Friday I went to the store with Ben and Cabot. We found a little trail right next to the little shop we went to and ended up going hiking for 4 hours. Flapjack stayed with us the whole time. We made it to the other side of Porto Rafti, where we found this big open field with some caves to climb in and sat there for a while. Then we climbed out through one of the caves and jumped a fence to walk through someone's vineyard to get to the street. We had to lift the fence to left Flapjack through because he couldn't make it over and we couldn't get back over to pick him up.
On Saturday I went to Athens with Brittany, Tillie, and LaRell. We just did some shopping and walking around. That's really all I have to say about that.
We had church at the Artemis on Sunday afternoon so we had some time to do whatever we wanted beforehand. Roman, Cody, and I went walking along the coast to the other side of Porto Rafti. We were trying to make it to some cliffs to look out but after walking for about an hour and a half and getting within a half hour of getting there we decided that we had to turn back to make it home in time for church.
We were supposed to leave yesterday to go to the Peloponnese, which is the big peninsula in the southern part of Greece, but there was a mix up with the travel agency. They had moved our trip to the first week in April because yesterday was a Grecian holiday. Tim managed to get the trip moved to Wednesday and got us a day trip to Corinth for yesterday.
We saw some nice stuff in Corinth. It was really the first place that we've been to that Paul spent a lot of his time ministering to. We went up to the Acrocorinth, which is the high point, where there was an old castle. Morgan has had a bad knee the whole trip and Rebbecca was going to wait with her at the bottom since it's at least a 30 minute hike but Jordan got Roman, Justin, Richard, and me to help carry her up. We took turns carrying her on our backs but it turned out to be really tough because it was so steep. We got it done though. Cody and Hunter carried her down after we ate lunch and sat up there for about 45 minutes.
We had classes this morning so we wouldn't have to have them on Saturday. They weren't bad, though. We watched a movie in Paul and Greek is always pretty fun. Who knew that Anthony Hopkins played Paul in a made-for-TV movie early in his career. It's actually a pretty good movie so far though. It's interesting to note that the role that Anthony Hopkins played right before he played Paul was Adolf Hitler.
We leave tomorrow to continue our trip. It should be fun. We get back on Friday night. It's a beautiful day out right now, though, so I'm going to go ahead and go outside.
When we got back from Egypt we had a day to rest (which I actually spent updating my blog) and then started classes again. There's not too much to say about classes except that I am doing well in all of them.
We went to church in Athens last Sunday morning and then spent the say running around like mad to make it to the Roman and Greek agoras before they closed. The agora is the ancient marketplace, for those that don't know. It was interesting to see the sites, but I forgot my camera, so if you really want to see pictures then you should look them up on the internet. They do have the only complete temple at the Greek agora. Complete in the sense that it still has its original roof and is not nearly as deteriorated as most of the others. The Parthenon was actually in the same boat until about 200 years ago when the Turks occupied Greece and stored ammunition there. During the Venetian wars, a stray Venetian bullet went into the Parthenon and blew it up. I'm saying all that from memory, though, so don't look it up and prove me wrong. There is a good chance that I'm wrong.
Sunday night I went with a few others to the church in Glyfada again. It was still good. Dino drove us back in his van. I'll go ahead and note that every car here is a standard, so riding in the back of a crowded van that rocks back and forth a little bit every time the driver shifts gears as well as the fact that there was someone talking in my ear the whole time made me feel pretty car sick, so I went to bed pretty quickly after getting back to the Artemis.
On Monday night there were 10 of us that went to a soup kitchen in Athens to help out, which was a really good experience. There were over 300 people that came, most of them non-English speaking Muslims. A lot of them actually spoke French, which Roman loved because he got a chance to talk to people in French. One lady got really mad at me because I spilled about a drop of soup on the table in front of her (not on her at all). I cleaned it up but she continued to glare at me for about 5 minutes, which I thought was funny. I went upstairs to the kitchen a guy clean the pots after everyone was served. I wore an apron so it wouldn't get all over my clothes (but it still did a little bit), and when I went downstairs to get another pot some of the people there laughed at my tea-pot covered apron. It was all good fun.
There's a bit of an argument on campus about the name of one of the dogs. I gave Flapjack his name for no particular reason other than him being my favorite one, but Devin and Roman both claim that they named him Copper. Hunter calls him Buddy but since he calls everyone that it doesn't really count. I've got roughly half of the people here calling him Flapjack, while others call him Copper. It's true that whoever it was called him Copper before I named him, but Copper is too boring a name for this dog. He's definitely Flapjack.
I didn't really get out much in the first week that we were here, but on Friday I went to the store with Ben and Cabot. We found a little trail right next to the little shop we went to and ended up going hiking for 4 hours. Flapjack stayed with us the whole time. We made it to the other side of Porto Rafti, where we found this big open field with some caves to climb in and sat there for a while. Then we climbed out through one of the caves and jumped a fence to walk through someone's vineyard to get to the street. We had to lift the fence to left Flapjack through because he couldn't make it over and we couldn't get back over to pick him up.
On Saturday I went to Athens with Brittany, Tillie, and LaRell. We just did some shopping and walking around. That's really all I have to say about that.
We had church at the Artemis on Sunday afternoon so we had some time to do whatever we wanted beforehand. Roman, Cody, and I went walking along the coast to the other side of Porto Rafti. We were trying to make it to some cliffs to look out but after walking for about an hour and a half and getting within a half hour of getting there we decided that we had to turn back to make it home in time for church.
We were supposed to leave yesterday to go to the Peloponnese, which is the big peninsula in the southern part of Greece, but there was a mix up with the travel agency. They had moved our trip to the first week in April because yesterday was a Grecian holiday. Tim managed to get the trip moved to Wednesday and got us a day trip to Corinth for yesterday.
We saw some nice stuff in Corinth. It was really the first place that we've been to that Paul spent a lot of his time ministering to. We went up to the Acrocorinth, which is the high point, where there was an old castle. Morgan has had a bad knee the whole trip and Rebbecca was going to wait with her at the bottom since it's at least a 30 minute hike but Jordan got Roman, Justin, Richard, and me to help carry her up. We took turns carrying her on our backs but it turned out to be really tough because it was so steep. We got it done though. Cody and Hunter carried her down after we ate lunch and sat up there for about 45 minutes.
We had classes this morning so we wouldn't have to have them on Saturday. They weren't bad, though. We watched a movie in Paul and Greek is always pretty fun. Who knew that Anthony Hopkins played Paul in a made-for-TV movie early in his career. It's actually a pretty good movie so far though. It's interesting to note that the role that Anthony Hopkins played right before he played Paul was Adolf Hitler.
We leave tomorrow to continue our trip. It should be fun. We get back on Friday night. It's a beautiful day out right now, though, so I'm going to go ahead and go outside.
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