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