From Kalimera, to Guten Tag, to Bonjourno!

Well, it feels like just yesterday that I was writing my last blog about Athens, and here I am at the end of our break already.  The past week has truly flown by, and I can’t believe that we are already on the last leg of study abroad: ROME.  I’m actually not quite there yet – currently documenting mid-travel on the train to Rome.  We should be there in less than two hours, and we are all very excited to get there and get settled in.  Our travel during the past week has been eventful for sure, filled with a couple small problems but overall 100% enjoyable.  We had the pleasure of running into many people that we knew, which is hilarious considering how big some of these cities are!  We ran into some guys from the Roman Greco program at Dachau, Megan and her parents from our own program in Munich, and Gretchen and her parents in Florence.  It was so fun seeing familiar faces around Europe.  I’ve found that I really enjoy bouncing around from place to place, getting a taste of many countries and cities along the way.  We did a lot, so prepare yourselves.

Our first stop for break was Munich, Germany.  Like I mentioned previously, we had quite the time getting a flight out of Athens due to the strikes, so when we finally got to the airport, we were relieved.  We had a connecting flight in Thessaloniki, where I observed some differences between air travel within countries.  When we got to Thessaloniki, we had to go through security AGAIN to get to our gate.  This really surprised me, and wasn’t quite as fun since security is one of the worst parts of air travel.  That job is an important one though, so even though it was a hassle, I am always thankful for airlines keeping me safe.  We landed in Munich in the evening, and the very first thing I noticed when I stepped off the plane into the dark night was my breath.  Having it be cold enough to see my breath reminded me instantly of home.  As we walked into the airport and then into the city, I felt more and more like I was back in Minneapolis.  The more we stayed in Germany, the more I saw how similar it was to home, which may be why I enjoyed it so much.  We stayed in a very nice hostel called Wombats Hostel.  Why was it called Wombats?  I don’t really know, but we really enjoyed staying there.  In Germany there was only 5 of us traveling, so we had a random roommate each night of our stay there.  The first night we met a guy from Australia, who was very nice and polite.  The second night, we never even met the guy – he was gone when we went to bed and then slept through us getting ready in the morning and leaving.  The third night we met a guy from Taiwan.  He told me that he spent 8 months in England learning English and now he was taking another 8 months to explore different architecture.  I really admired him for being able to take that much time out of his life to learn about different countries.  I don’t think I could ever be gone that long from home, so I thought it was pretty cool.  He also plays the piano, so we bonded over that of course.

Saturday, we spent the day in Salzburg, Austria.  I fell in love with it instantly – it’s a very pretty city.  The architecture is great, plus the landscape encompassed within snow-topped mountains added so much beauty.  When we got there, we had a common food within Germany called Döner.  It reminded me a lot of a Gyro from Greece – it was basically shaved meat with a sauce, tomatoes, onions, some type of chili pepper all inside a toasted large bun-like bread.  They were delicious.  After this, we walked the city for the entire day.  We saw the Mirabell Gardens, which were very elaborate and beautiful.  It was fun seeing all of the Austrian wedding couples getting their pictures taken.  We also saw a fortress called Festung Hohensalzburg, which was filled with medieval artifacts.  Close to this fortress was the cemetery that was used at the end of the Sound of Music where the Von Trapp family hid with the nuns.  Now, when I was little, I used to watch the Sound of Music over and over and over.  It has always been one of my favorite movies, so seeing parts of where they filmed it was so much fun for me.  We also saw the church where Maria and the Captain got married.  We ended our day there by getting dinner at a place that had waffles.  These waffles were amazing – many kinds to chose from.  It was pretty cold in Salzburg, so we were freezing at this point and really enjoyed the warm hot chocolate and waffles.

The next day, we spent the morning at Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp created.  Honestly, before we got there, I was pretty nervous.  It’s a weird feeling, knowing that you are going to a place where so much evil took place.  It’s something that you feel like you don’t want to see, but something you know you have to.  I’ve always wanted to see a concentration camp, because it is such a big part of history, even though it was a dark one.  I felt like I owed it to all those who where affected by the terror to pay a visit.  We had a tour guide walk us through, which I’m really glad we did.  He knew so many details that made the scenes real for us.  I was surprised to learn that Dachau was more of a camp for political enemies, such as those openly against the Nazis and priests.  Even though it wasn’t an extermination camp, they still tortured and killed thousands and thousands of victims.  Some of the stories we heard were sickening.  The way I felt walking around the camp is very hard to describe.  It is very eerie, like I could feel the presence of all that took place there.  There were a few things specifically that stuck out to me.  First of all, they did medical experiments on these prisoners.  For example, they would put a prisoner in gear they used in cold waters, immersed them in freezing water, and waited to see how long they could live before they died.  Also, towards the end of World War II, they had so many dead bodies that they didn’t have enough coal to cremate them with.  So to compensate, they used dead bodies to burn dead bodies.  Unbelievable.  When the war had ended, the people in the town of Dachau were walked through the camp to see everything that was taking place there.  It was beyond words to describe the reactions of these people as they walked through and saw the horror.  How sickening would it be to find out a mass extermination and mistreatment of human beings was going on right next to where you lived.  I have learned about the Holocaust all of my life, been to the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C., and seen many pictures and read many books, but nothing compares to actually being where it took place.  I still can’t believe that I walked the same path that so many others did who went through something so unbelievably terrible.  It was very eye-opening…even though it was difficult to take in, I highly recommend that everyone see a concentration camp sometime during their life – it really puts things into perspective.

After Dachau, we spent the rest of the day in Munich, seeing the technology museum, many beautiful churches, and the glockenspiel.  My favorite part about it was simply walking around and enjoying the beautiful fall colors and weather.    We then had dinner at the Hofbräuhaus, which is a famous German/Bavarian restaurant in Munich.  They have huge mugs of beer and many interesting dishes.  I had a pork steak and au gratin potatoes, which I enjoyed very much.  I ended up really liking Germany a lot, so I was very disappointed to have to leave so soon, but we were all very excited for Italy!

We spent our first couple of days in Venice.  I felt like I stepped into a movie scene when we started walking around the city – it is very beautiful.  Even though it rained the whole time we were there, we still were able to walk around and appreciate the sights.  When we got there, we were very hungry, so we went to a restaurant looking for pizza.  This was not a difficult task – pizza and pasta are everywhere!  We got some gelato afterwards, our first taste of real Italian gelato, which is just as good as everyone says it is.  Gelato shops are so easy to find – there are many shops on every street.  The next day, we spent all of our time walking around the city.  We saw the famous St. Mark’s Basilica, which was beautiful.  One of my favorite parts of Italy so far is seeing all of the Latin in the churches.  Even though I’m pretty rusty on the vocab, I can pick out bits and pieces J.  Since it was raining like crazy, we got to walk along these raised platforms to walk through the squares.  In the evening, we made a delicious pasta dinner and had a great discussion afterwards about aspects of life.  One of my favorite parts of this abroad experience has been the wonderful conversations I’ve had with people.  I have learned so much from people just by talking to them.  The next morning, we found out from Katie (who was in Cinque Terre with her family) that the towns were flooding like crazy due to the rain and sure enough, our train was cancelled.  We were able to get our tickets changed to Florence, which was very lucky.  We were so grateful to Katie for warning us.

We tried not to see too much of Florence, because we are going there later as a group over Thanksgiving weekend.  We got there in the evening, and our hostel map recommended a restaurant that gave you a first course, second course, dessert, and a glass of wine for 12 euro.  It was a very nice restaurant, the food was great, and we really enjoyed walking the city at night.  The next day, we took a day trip to Siena, seeing the San Domenico Basilica as well as seeing the beautiful Tuscan countryside.   On Friday, we walked around Florence for a while until it was time for our train to Rome.  And that is where I am at!  I don’t have pictures at the moment, but as soon as I consult my photographer, I will post later this week with some pictures J she took some incredible pictures of these beautiful places!

Looking forward to being settled in Rome and for another brand new experience.  Hoping all is well at home!

Peace and Blessings,

Laura

Farewell, Athens

Here I am, sitting at my desk, writing my very last post for Greece....unbelieveable.  It seems like just yesterday we were hiking up the steep streets with our pounds and pounds of luggage, trying to find our apartments.  Tomorrow morning we fly out of here for our week break between Athens and Rome.  We will be visiting Munich, Venice, and Cinque Terre (not a bad line-up if I do say so myself), and then settling in Rome on the 28th.  I'm sorry that I have been slacking on the posts, but I made a decision that I would do just one more post for Greece and then pick back up posting around once or twice a week in Rome.  So let me catch you all up with what I have been up to recently.

Our last weekend together as a group took place in the little town of Delphi.  Yes, this is the place where ancient Greeks went to talk to the famous Oracle.  Now, our faculty leader for this trip was our history professor from Britain named Robert.  At the beginning of the semester while teaching class, Robert announced to us how glad he was that he wasn't taking us to Delphi...to put it in his words, Delphi is a "shit-hole."  After letting him go on and on about how much he hated Delphi, we then broke the news to him that it said on our schedule that he was supposed to take us to Delphi...he just smiled and shook his head and we all burst out laughing.  So after hearing him say that, we were very intrigued about Delphi.  Our first stop was at a monastery, which was very beautiful!  We then saw the actual ruins of Delphi, which was very cool...and of course I have another Robert story.  As we were walking through the site, Robert had stopped and was lecturing to us when an Italian man with a couple others walked by, stopped right next to us, and the Italian man started blabbing to them very loudly.  It was a little distracting for us, and Robert was visibly angry.  I was nervous about what he would do, because when we were at the Acropolis, he told a group from Japan who was walking by to "shut up a little bit" and another group of people at Delphi he called "very strange people."  After they had walked by, he proudly told us that "someone should put a bullet in his head."  I'm sure you are getting an idea of what this professor was like :).  Honestly, he was a little proud, but his humor is hilarious.  He made our classes very fun with his subtle humor.  After seeing the sights, a few of us went out to explore the town, which I kid you not, has two roads.  We managed to walk around for an hour, and when we returned we ran into Robert.  We told him we had explored Delphi, and he asked us what we did with the other 55 minutes of the hour.  We really enjoyed our professors' personalities :) they will be missed!  Even though Delphi was very small, I wouldn't have used the phrase "shit-hole."  It was a nice 2-day trip, and we got to see some great history.

The foggy, cloudy view out of our window

The monastery at Delphi

Athenian Treasury

Our last weekend in Greece we spent in Athens.  A couple people in our programs had birthdays, so we celebrated those as well as did a little last minute fun.  And by last minute fun I mean bungee jumping in the Corinth Canal.  Yep, I'm being serious.  My friends from the program Jen, Ali, and Brandon also wanted to do it, so Saturday morning we got on a bus to Corinth and did it.  Honestly, it was beyond words.  Standing on the edge of the platform, looking down, and seeing a giant Canal below is slightly nerve-racking.  As much as I'd like to be fearless, I was pretty nervous!  But this was something that I really wanted to do, to check off of the bucket list.  They counted down from 5, so that meant you had to jump or you looked pretty foolish.  You jump out, with your arms wide, and free fall for about 5 seconds until the rope catches you.  Then you swing and bob up and down a few times, hang upside down, pull a chord to flip you upright, and then you get to sit in the air, looking at a gorgeous view.  I'm so glad I did it, and even though it's scary, I would recommend it to others - there's nothing like it!  We purchased a video of 3 of us doing it, so I will try to get that on here sometime so you can see it happen live.

Corinth Canal - where we bungee jumped!

Jen and I, looking excited! (or nervous??)

And....there I go

That doesn't look so scary, right?

The whole group with our awesome helpers

This past week, we had finals.  Believe it or not, studying for finals is WAY worse when you are studying abroad.  It is sure hard to stay focused, but we managed to get the job done.  Our final for Art History was the toughest - we had to memorize pots, sculptures, dates, styles times 10.  One apartment made a giant study board on their wall to help us study.  But after Tuesday and a batch of chocolate chip cookies and lemon cookies, we were done!  My favorite part of this week and probably my whole time in Greece was spending time with a couple Greeks our age.  Alex, who I mentioned in a previous post, was the girl who let us come to her bakery.  Megan, my roommate, had spent some time with her and her friend Nikos and invited them over to make dinner.  They made us a traditional Greek dish called moussaka, a greek salad, and tzatziki (a Greek sauce made out of Greek yogurt, cucumber, and garlic).  It was very good, and so much fun having them teach us how to cook it!  We also enjoyed watching them interact with each other.  They pick on each other just like we do with our friends.  They then played some cards with us and a game called "The Night Falls at Palermo."  If any of you know how to play the game "Mafia," it is just like that.  It was so much fun.  Nikos then invited us to lunch at his house the next day made by his parents!  We couldn't believe it!  So today he brought us to his house for lunch.  If you can believe this, his parents speak no English, which actually made things 100 percent entertaining.  It was also very fun for us to see him interact with his parents, and his parents with each other.  They would bicker in Greek, but you could still see such a strong sense of family - I really love how important family is to them.  They had a beautiful table set out for us on their balcony, and as we sat down for lunch, the mother immediately started dishing everything on our plates.  She made us cheese pies, two Greek salads, sausage, lamb, pork/bacon wrapped around eggs, bread, tzatziki, liver, jello, and a cake.  It was hilarious having them sign to us - she even rubbed Jen's belly when Jen said she was full. She just kept dishing us more food - we were so full afterwards!  And yes, I had the liver.  If you can believe this, it tastes kind of like steak with a funky after taste.  I did like it, but it was tough getting past the fact that it was liver :).  All in all, we really enjoyed our time with Nikos and Alex.  They were so kind and hospitable to us - they gave us so much without us even asking.  What is amazing is that even though so much may separate us culturally, we have so many similarities.  They are living life just like us.  We were really lucky to meet such great people here, and we are very sad to leave them!

As I'm sure you've all heard from the news, Athens has been having some intense strikes and protests going on.  In fact, we are lucky to be flying out tomorrow!  Originally, we were supposed to fly out on Thursday, but because of strikes, all flights were cancelled on Wednesday and Thursday.  Because of this, we had moved our flights to Saturday (the earliest day at the time).  We were very disappointed, because this took away much of our time in Munich.  As Jen put it when I was talking to her, we rolled it off our shoulders, put it into God's hands, and low and behold the strike was removed on Thursday!  Unfortunately, they had merged the Munich flights on Thursday into one and it was completely full...but we managed to get our flight moved up to Friday, giving us one more day in Munich!  We were so incredibly grateful!  Like I said, the strikes are pretty bad here right now.  Yes, the garbage crew isn't picking up the garbage, so it's piled high on the streets.  Yes, all of the museums and tourists spots are closed often.  Yes, it is a pain.  Am I ready to leave?  Oh yeah, but not because of the situation here.  I'm ready to leave because I have a whole new country ahead of me to live in.  I'm so excited to experience Rome and other parts of Italy.  I can't wait for this travel inbetween to Munich, Venice, and Cinque Terre.  The new experiences are something I always look forward to.  But I really enjoyed my time here.  Strikes or no strikes, I got to experience some pretty incredible things here.  I saw God's beauty everywhere I went, in nature and in the people.  This is something I will never get to experience in the same circumstances again.  I have been blessed beyond words to have been here.  Greece is a great place, and I will definitely miss it. I'm never going to forget my time here.  But yes, it is now time for the next chapter!  Again, it shocks me how fast this is moving.  I'm not sure if I will be able to post while traveling, so if not, I will talk to you all from Rome!

Peace and Blessings,
Laura

The Beauty of Challenge

Happy Tuesday friends!

Time for a weekly update.  This past weekend, we spent our time in Meteora.  Meteora is an Eastern Orthodox complex filled with 6 monasteries sitting on top of giant natural sandstone pillars.  The word 'Meteora' in Greek means "suspended rocks," "suspended in the air," or, "in the heavens above."  A very fitting description for a place like this I think.  But before I describe to you our wonderful experience there, I will tell you about our transportation mishaps that occurred beforehand :).  We were instructed by the travel agent that works with our school to go to Terminal B to get to the bus we needed to get to Meteora.  So, we got on the metro, found out that we had to pay extra to get on the one that goes all the way to the airport, and we made it with plenty of time to spare.  Well, after talking to the ticket office we found out that we were not in the right place for the bus we needed.  We hopped on a bus that was supposed to take us to the appropriate bus station.  After going past our stop, getting on another bus, and going back to our appropriate station, naturally we had missed the 9:30 bus we had intended to get on but luckily we got on an 11:30 bus.  Once we finally got there after a 5 hour bus ride, we were so happy to be in one of the most beautiful places we had ever seen.  We stayed in a family-owned hotel run by the most helpful and kind Greek people.  The room that I stayed in was like an apartment style cabin - it was awesome!  They even made us breakfast in the morning.  Since we got there in the evening, we went over to the rocks to do some climbing and exploring.  We got up pretty high, climbing up pretty steep hills and getting incredible views.  We then went to dinner at a place the hotel recommended for us and had some pretty tasty food and good conversation.  Walking around outside at night reminded me of home.  The air was cool and crisp like the fall weather at home, and we could smell bonfires and see the stars.  The next morning was when we visited the monasteries.  I saw three of them, and each one was very beautiful.  They had certain things on display, like texts written in the 11th century and even earlier, which blows my mind.  Coming back, we also had some travel issues, finding out the bus we wanted to take was full and getting back later than intended but oh well - we had an Art History quiz the next day and gave us plenty of time to study and quiz each other.

Kate and I :)

One of the monasteries

People still don't know how they were able to build these

The city we stayed in

True beauty 

Heaven!

A couple highlights from this week so far have been going to a karaoke bar on Monday night and eating dinner with our Theology professor earlier this evening.  Monday was Andrew's birthday, and so our entire program group went to this karaoke bar called Mike's, an Irish pub.  It was so much fun - pretty much everyone in our group went up and sang in groups which was really cool.  Pretty great entertainment and an enjoyable night!  Then tonight, a small group of us had dinner with our Theology professor just to ask him questions.  After hearing him lecture during class, we really had the desire to talk to him more, and we are so glad we did it.  He is a very wise man.  Even though he is a Greek Orthodox priest, different from my own faith, we learned so many things from him.  This religion is very, very similar to my own and a lot of the beliefs are the same.  I had been pretty ignorant of this before, so I recommend taking classes to learn about other religions.  You'd be surprised what you can learn from them.  One of the big topics we discussed with him is being challenged.  A lot of times, it is easy for us to stay in our comfort zones.  We like being around what is familiar, especially when it comes to beliefs.  But as we discussed with this professor, how can your own faith take root and grow, or be strengthened if we never are challenged?  I've decided that having people similar to me in my faith is a beautiful gift, but having people different from you in your life is also a wonderful gift to have, one that makes you grow so much.  Relationships with people are so important.  Having a vertical relationship between you and God is so important, but having a horizontal relationship with Him is just as important. Never forget to look for God around the world and the people you see...He is everywhere!  Don't be afraid to be challenged sometimes...it can be a good thing!

More to come eventually!  Take care!

Peace and Blessings,
Laura