knowledge.

I'm so bad at keeping up with this. Part of the problem is that internet service sucks here majorly. anywayssss. Since the last time I wrote I've been to Sifnos (which was awesome because we had a beach right outside of our hotel), Milos (which was beautiful and had a beach that looked like the moon), Delphi (which kinda sucked because its really just a fake town leading up to the big archeological site of the ancient city), Olympia (which was a little cooler than Delphi but not by much. Although the Ancient cities at both places were really neat to see), and Napflion (which was really neat because it had cliffs we could jump off of into the water).
In Sifnos we stayed in the little town right by the port. This was definitely the most old fashioned and quaint Greek city/Island that we went to. Sifnos is known mostly for its food and pottery and both were awesome. Unfortunately I wasn't able to purchase any of the pottery but it was all really beautiful. Its tradition in Sifnos to eat chick pea soup every Sunday afternoon for lunch, so we were able to do that. It was my first time trying it and it was delicious. very very good. Like I said before our hotel here was right on the beach which was really nice because we could just go hang out there between classes/excursions. We bought a football one afternoon and played a game of two hand touch football. Which turned into tackle because its more fun that way. I had bruised knees, cut legs, and sore muscles for days afterwards but it was so worth it. The next day we played a game of volleyball against some fellow Americans we met on the beach. We lost which was dumb. We took a bus tour of Sifnos which wasn't as fun as the bus tour of Naxos but it was still cool. We drove through the hills up to the main city which was very similar to Mykonos but unique in other ways. Though all the walls were whitewashed, they incorporated pieces of the ancient city into the buildings such as old columns or pieces of old walls. It was very neat. Overall, Sifnos was pretty great. Just don't talk to the boys that ride motorcycles.
We took a day trip to Milos one of the days we stayed in Sifnos and it was such a good idea. I cant remember the name of the beach we went to but it looked like the surface of the moon. The white rocks were formed from compressed ash and there were caves and craters everywhere. It was gorgeous.
After Sifnos we went to Athens for a couple days which was nice because it was somewhere familiar. By this point most of us were craving something/anything American so we went to the big mall in Athens in search of American food. The boys made us go to Hooters which was dumb because the food was overpriced and tasted weird. Greeks don't know how to make barbecue sauce, ranch, ketchup, or any condiments really. We were going to see a movie in the big movie theater they had there but we didn't want to miss the last metro back to our hotel. so that didn't happen.
We left Athens via bus (no more ferries everrr! so awesome.) and stopped in Delphi for a night/day. This was probably one of my favorite archeological sites that we went to. The whole city was built on a mountain so it was pretty tiring getting to the top where the stadium was located and also where we had class. I just loved seeing the little parts of the city that remind you that it’s not just a pile of rocks, but a place where real live people used to live hundreds of years ago. After studying so many different facts and scientific studies, it's easy to write history off as just an epic tale . Its easy to lose the human; the parts that made everything happen. But when you stop and realize that you are standing in the same spot where someone else, hundreds of years ago, lived their everyday life- it's pretty surreal. It makes you wonder what parts of our cities and cultures will live on. What are we leaving behind? Anyways. We also saw the Castalian Spring at the Delphi site which is pretty cool if you know much about mythology.
Olympiaaaa was next. We only spent a day/ night there as well. We went to the museum on the archeological site the first night we were there and it was pretty alright. All the museums really have the same stuff in all of them- lots and lots of pottery. But there was a really cool, very large circular disc there that was originally on top of one of the temples (I think it was the Temple of Hera but I'm not sure) that was awesome because it looked like a stargate. I love stargate. Also there was an armed Aphrodite statue which was pretty badass (it was either here or at Delphi I cant remember). And I decided that if I had to be a mythological creature I would be a centaur because there were also some really sweet centaur statues. The archeological site of Olympia was pretty similar to all the other sites as well. Except there was a large amount of straw and pine cones on the ground which cut my foot. It still hurts. While there we saw the stadium where they would perform their running races. So we totally raced. I didnt win but its whatever.
Next stop was Napflion, which is spelled a billion different ways but I'm just going to stick with this one. Napflion is right on the coast and our hotel was in the port so we had a really beautiful view of the water. We found a place here to jump off of a walkway into the water, which was about a 20 foot drop. It was super scary but definitely worth it. Oh, also probably 3/4 of the group got really sick here. Like vomiting uncontrollably for a few days, sick. Only me and few others somehow dodged it. It was pretty much like 28 days later except no one died.

On our way back to Athens we stopped at Acrocorinth and a few other small archeological sites. All were interesting but pretty similar to each other. However, the coolest one- Mycenae, hands down. Maybe I just appreciated it the most because we studied so much about it in class, but probably not. it was just cool. First, it had the Lion's Gate which was epic. The pictures I post will not do it justice. Second cool part, it had an empty underground cistern used to store water and that was the scariest coolest place ever. It was basically 3 flights of stairs down into a black abyss. Chris and I went down before all the tour groups got there and overcrowded it. So it was just us and a flashlight and I got attacked by a pack of gnats and almost peed my pants because it smelled so weird and was so dark but it was pretty great. Third cool part- There were three huge excavated Tholos tombs that we could just go into. The first had no roof, but the second had been fixed up a little bit so it was covered. It had the coolest acoustics in it and we spent forever just being dumb and stomping our feet and saying weird things so we could hear the reverberations.
Noooow we are back in Athens for 3 more days and then we leave for the airport at 3 am on Wednesday morning. Its going to be a looong trip home and I'm dreading the 4 hour layover we have in Germany, as well as the 4 hour layover in Chicago. Gross. Welllll I will post pictures later when the internet decides to work better. Oh Greece <3

a long overdue update.

I apologize for my lack of posts. We’ve just been so busy everyday and we have limited internet access. I’m in Naxos now which is an Island in the Aegean Sea. We were in Athens until the 1st, and then Myknonos until the 3rd. In 3 more days we get to go to Santorini, which I’m superrrr excited about. Ok, so, here’s what we did in Athens:

The first day we went on a walking tour of our neighborhood in the city. We saw the Temple of the Olympian Zeus, a very old church in Athens, saw the changing of the guards at the Parliment, and much more. Our hotel was in the best spot because we were situated among all the ruins and the modern city. Plus we had a perfect view of the Acropolis from our balcony which was amazing. We spent the next few days going to classes and on small excursions with the group. We went to the National Archeological Museum which was very cool. Although me and a few others got lost trying to find it. That happened quite a few times, even with my keen sense of direction. ha. When we went to the Acropolis everyone was supposed to meet outside the entrance to the Theater of Dyonisus, and me and a few other ende up on the completely wrong side of the mountain. Which meant we had to walk all the way down, around, and back up. We had a map and directions and everything and I feel like we would have been fine, except we can't read any of the street signs because none are in English. Oh well. Our detour allowed us to find one of the great little resteraunts that we ate in later that week.

The food. sooo good. I found that the restaurants in Athens and Mykonos were very touristy with high prices and mostly the same selection. However, if you dug deep enough you could find the good, family owned authentic Greek resteraunts. One night in Athens we were wandering the meat market looking for a place that sold seafood (not realizing that all the fresh fish was gone after lunch time) and we came upon a little place with just one person eating inside. I knew it was going to be good when the man working inside was offended when a person I was with asked the prices of the food right away. He said, "Where are you from? How can you ask the price of food before you've even seen it or tasted it? Are you crazy?" So he took us back to the kitchen and we got to look at all the food that had been prepared and try different dishes. I ended up ordering this plate of vegetables that was so good. And a Greek salad. which i don't think ill ever get tired of. Its a tomato, cucumber, and green pepper mix with some olives, a huge chunk of feta cheese on top, and an olive oil and vinegar dressing. Its just the best. We found a great place last night to eat here on Naxos as well. for 12 euro we got a huge plate of sardines, calamari, shrimp, tzatziki, and french fries. Also we ordered octopus on vinegar which is so delicious. I tried it early that day in this small restaurant in the middle of the mountains that we stopped at during our bus tour. It was a little place owned by the old man and women and they gave our bus driver and tour guide a plate of meatballs, a type of goat cheese, and the octopus tentacles while our group bought waters and sodas. Our tour guide let me try the cheese and the tentacles- the cheese was a little bit too sour for my taste but the octopus was so good. I could eat it everyday.

The beaches here. are great. In Athens we took a train and a metro to get to one that was 45 minutes away. That one wasn't the greatest because it was a little too rocky, but it was still fun trying to navigate the metro system when none of us can read or speak any Greek. We went to a beach yesterday here on Naxos and it was the best by far. The water was completely clear and blue, and it was so salty that you could float without even trying.

I have to go to class now, but I will post again with pictures and more of what we've been doingggg.


-Abigail Marie.

the stale taste of recycled air

Soo I'm in the airport right now waiting to board my plane. Its going to be such a looong flight. We take off at 2:30pm and arrive in Athens at 1:10pm, which I believe is like 6 am here. oh lawd. I was driven to the airport yesterday by both of my former Spanish professors which was pretty hilarious. They brought their 2 year old son Ivan with them and he was the best travel partner ever. He wants to be an orchestra conductor when he grows up so he was constantly singing and waving his arms and pretending to play different instruments. oh and also we sang jingle bells about 45 times in a row. Here's his sweet little face:
alrighty. I will post again when I find an internet cafe in Greece. yesssss.