Delphi Day 2: "Anne's directions are shit" - Finn, age 7

So the next morning we wake up bright and early, go eat a delicious breakfast of Greek yogurt, honey, and chocolate chip bread and then get ready to go look at the museum and upper part of the archaeological site.  Now one would think that before bringing 30 students plus the faculty director and her family one would check to make sure the museum was actually open, right?  Well Anne must have chewed some laurel leaves that morning because we got to the museum and there was this big sign that said "CLOSED ON 14 NOVEMBER". Sweet.  Of course, Anne being Anne didn't apologize and tried to pass the blame off on someone else.

So we had a whole day in Delphi with nothing scheduled.  So while Anne was talking to us a bit about the geology of the region, she pointed out this really pointy, steep mountain where, if you were convicted of the worst kind of heresy, you would be marched up there and thrown off.  Anne also said that there was a little path that led up said mountain.  So we decided to hike it.  Good thing I brought shorts, because by 10:30 am it was already pushing 70.  Jealous homies in MN?!?! ;)

So here were the directions Anne gave us to get to the trail.  "Walk into town and find a church.  Then go behind the church and crawl up about 30 meters.  Then find the path.  Once you're at the place with water at the top, find a barbed wire fence, find where it was broken [Anne did this personally herself] and cross it.  Then walk until you see around the mountains."  This prompted Elaine's 7 year old son to proclaim to his Dad, "Anne's directions are shit!"  All Dad said, was "that word's not appropriate" in the most "yup, you're right, but I'm still trying to parent you so I really should correct your language" kind of voice.  The little dudes didn't end up hiking, but the rest of us started off.

I need to run more.  End of story.  I was as red as a strawberry 10 steps in.  But, I didn't let it beat me and kept going, stopping quite a bit to take pictures because the ground was too uneven to look around while you were hiking.  This trail had SO many switchbacks!  You'd think that you were making pretty good progress, but then you'd look down the hill and see that actually you'd only gained about 10 feet in elevation.  So frustrating, it was like the song that never ends in trail form.  Me, Mark and Brittany were lolly-gagging behind all the other people who were trying to go Steve-pace, aka warp speed, so we assumed we'd never catch them, but then we turned the corner and guess what?  The group was all exhausted from trying to be macho and fast that they had to sit down for half an hour to rest.  Slow and steady my friends, slow and steady.

So we had no idea what Anne meant by the place with the water, so we just kept following the trail marked by black and yellow lines.  Eventually we ended up coming across this abandoned goat farm.  And then Kelsey started seeing a bunch of shotgun shells all over the ground.  This prompted the second best quote of the weekend, "I've seen enough Lifetime movies to know that this doesn't end well."  We were all a little unnerved by this, but then, while we were standing by the goat farm, we saw this guy with runs strapped to his back walking around the hills!

We were all freaking out.  And then the guy started walking towards us, ahhhh! Turns out he was just hunting for some birds and sent us on our way.  We were about to head down the mountain when I thought I might have spotted the mythical barbed wire fence.  So we all started running toward it.  Turns out it was just a pen for some more goats.  BUT it did lead us to these really cool rocks where we could climb out and look over the whole of the mountain and the sea.  It was an amazing view.  Everything looked so big, but it wasn't overwhelming.  More like we were alone in a big back yard.  

After taking the opportunity to take some good pictures and just sit there and look a while, we made our way down the mountain.  While the way up was a pain because of endurance, the way down was not so friendly to my knee joints.  Too many uneven rocks.  So by the time we got down, we were all hurting pups.  We spent a while sitting in town before we had to catch our bus.  A couple of the guys had gotten lost on the way down and were late getting on the bus.  Anne took this opportunity to chew them out over the loudspeaker for being tardy.  She then turned around and was 30 minutes late getting on the bus after lunch...

I fell asleep on the way back and good thing because that bus smelled sooooo bad backed with 30 sweaty, dirty, hikers.  Even Talulah refused to sit in the back with us because it was so stinky.  A shower was in order when I got back to my apartment and I couldn't even wait long enough for the hot water heater to do its magic before hopping in.

Delphi Day 1: Laurel Leaves do not make you Prophecy

The day started off rather traumatically as we saw a dead cat on the plaza on the way to the bus.  It was really gross, but we were all more concerned about how Talulah, a self-proclaimed cat lover and 10 year old kid would react.  She did pretty good props to Andrew the dad for diffusing that situation.

We rode the bus for about 2 hours before getting to this little monastery to walk around.  It was really beautiful and there were two incredible Byzantine churches there.  Unfortunately due to an earthquake, time, and moisture nearly all of the frescoes were complete restorations.  The scenery was breath taking too.  Lot of giant mountains everywhere.  And it was raining a bit so you could see the clouds that were getting caught in the mountains.

We toured the monastery for a bit, more like wandered around in the rain, and then got back on the bus and headed to this little town right outside of Delphi for lunch.  Anne, our prof, told us that they make really good fried cheese and I thought "I like cheese and I like fried things, so let's get some."  So we went to Anne's favorite place for lunch.  Two hours later.....we're still sitting there and should have been on the bus 45 minutes ago.  Whoops!  But Anne stopped on the way back to look at slippers, so we had an impromtu family photo shoot with all the shaggy haired people.  We had a bunch of fun, my stand in brothers and I, poking fun at each other.  Funny thing is, we all do kind of look related....

We finally got to Delphi and went down to the lower part of the sanctuary were the temple to Apollo is.  There we had a little lecture.  Anne was mostly rambling about how here and her friends like to reenact the oracle by fasting and chewing laurel leaves to see if they have hallucinogenic properties.  Yup, she went to Berkley in the 60s.

After my daydreaming hour, we checked into our hotel.  It smelled really good, like the Yankee Candle store.  A bunch of the girls just hung out and had a super stereotypical girl talk hour before we went to dinner.  Dinner was good, but nothing really to write home about.

After dinner, I went with Sienna and Ryan back to his room to watch Percy Jackson, the Lightning Thief.  You know those awkward situations where you are totally the third wheel and Mr. Handsy totally wants you to leave so he can make a move on your roommate?  That was my life for an hour.  So uncomfortable, so I decided I was 'really tired' and left.  I ended up having another girl talk and then hitting the hay.  

Halloween Re-Do

So because the actual day of Halloween was lame-o, we decided to do it up right the next weekend, costumes and all.  One of the other kids at our school really likes planning parties, so he rented out the entire 3rd floor of the Hard Rock Cafe in Athens for us to have a Halloween Party. Score!

A bunch of girls and I decided to be the stray cats of Athens (seriously, they're everywhere!) and Sienna was the mouse that we were chasing around.  We had to make ears out of paper, color them with crayons and attach them to head bands, but this was the most comfortable Halloween costume I have had since Princess Leia in '02: a t-shirt, leggings and athletic shorts :)

-- Note to boys everywhere : Gap cologne smells good! --

We went over to some of the guys's apartment and hung out for a while, playing card games and taking pictures. Then we headed out.  It took a while to get to the Hard Rock, but it was worth it.  The DJ played all those old school, "oh yeah I forgot about that song, but I love it!" songs and we just sang and danced the night away.  There were some creepers there (as there always are), but the vast majority of the other CYA kids were super friendly!  A bunch just came over and introduced themselves which is great! Apparently the other half of our program wasn't as open to new people, so they're extra glad were sociable!  And thank goodness we didn't have much to do the next day, because I didn't get back till 3am and fully intended on sleeping till noon.

Halloween Abroad

So we got into Athens on the early morning of the 28th and spent the next couple days lounging and kicking butt on the scavenger hunt.  Then came the 31st aka the best day of the entire year.  The only bummer was we were going on a day trip to Sunion and wouldn't be returning until all Hallow's Eve was well under way, so no dressing up this year for me. First in 22 Halloweens :(

Anyways, sentimental moment over, that morning was the 2500th anniversary of the original Athens marathon, so me and my roommates headed out to the finish line and watched the poor suckers who were running come in.  We saw a bunch of the 10K-ers cross and they just looked so proud of themselves!  It was great.  And then we heard this big roar and saw the rent-a-cops (who were really cute btw, see my creeper pic below if you don't believe me :) freak out and then the truck with the time clock drove by and then......the winner of the marathon ran literally 10 feet in front of me!  And he didn't even look like he was working that hard!  We saw a few more finishers including the first woman - who looked like she could kick anyone's ass - and the first Greek.

Awesome runners in costume (yay Halloween!) They ran 10K in sandals!

THE WINNER!!!

Kara - you would love it here :)

After all this, we hopped on the best and went to Sunion which is at the southern most tip of Greece.  The bus ride was rather painless, no motion sickness this time.  We got there and thought that it was going to be a kind of structured trip like all our others had been, but we got off the bus and Elaine said "be up at the Temple of Poseidon at 5, have fun on the beach."  So we had nearly 5 hours to frolic around.

The water was a little too chilly for my liking, but some braver souls (or stupider) jumped in.  I wandered around, played soccer on the beach, and got a tan.  Jealous?  It was the first Halloween when I didn't have to try to figure out how to discreetly wear 95 layers of clothing to keep warm :).  We also buried Elaine's kids in the sand and decorated it to look like Sand Mermaids and Sand Gremlins.  Best costumes ever!

It came about time for us to head up to the mountain.  We had heard tales of a foot path the led you up so you didn't have to walk back to the highway and then go us, but it turned out to be pure fable.  Or we were too stupid to find it.  So I decided that the best idea was to just climb up the mountain - in a skirt and nature sandals.  I made it, led the way actually, and the stupid wussy boy following kept complaining, but we made it up to the temple a good 20 minutes before the people who took the highway so hah!

The temple was really cool!  We watched the sunset over the sea and took lots of pictures, but sat and just looked a lot too. And because of daylight savings, the sunset an hour earlier so we left and hour earlier and I had time to watch Buff the Vampire Slayer (the movie of course) with the roommates. "What do you have that the other slayers didn't?  My keen fashion sense!" Love that movie (and miss you Bri!).

Click here, then here, now turn around 3 times and do the hokey-pokey...

So this commenting thing, in order to do it there are a couple hoops to jump though, none of them are set on fire though, don't worry.  So, you have to click on the title of the post, that'll bring you to the "post page" and at the bottom of that page there will be a little box that you can type a message in.  Use it please!  Thanks!

You'll Like This One, AP

So I know that I'm a fabulous writer and all, but I also know that most of you probably skim the words and head straight for the pictures.  You people (AP) will like this one.  In order to aquaint us with this new city our group is in, my director Elaine created a photo scavenger hunt throughout the city.  On the line was eternal glory.  Eternal glory and a trip to the bakery :)  So me, Sienna, Molly, Abby, Madison, Kasey and Martha set off with Elaine's daughter Talulah to kick some butt.  Here's what we found (with a few humerous anecdotes):

Re-enacting when the King got bit by a monkey in the National Gardens and died 3 days later.  Note the various and sucessive stages of death we're in...and Talulah in the tree.  5 points.

Mimicing statues.  1 point each.

Photo with a gaurd.  There were a buch of them standing around, but this guy was the only one that would take a picture with us.  The rest of them freaked out and kept saying "I'm married, I'm married" and "no facebook".  I know my creeping abilities should get me a job with the CIA, but really?!?!  We didn't even know their names! How on earth would we be able to find their wives?!?  And even if we did, what would we say?  "Ummmm, your husband took a picture with our group so that we could win a scavenger hunt and get to eat cake...." Really, guys!  We just wanted the points. 

Re-enacting olympic sports outside the Zappeion (the fencing hall during the first modern Olympics and later the Olympic village in 1906).  I'm curling :)

Photo with a street vendor. 2 points.

Photo with a street musician.  2 points.

Uggliest outfit in Athens.  3 points for 3 ugly outfits.

Coolest grafitti. 2 points.

Most strays in a picture.  3 points for 3 sad puppies plus a bonus point for the baby turtle we rescued from the road.  He's in the shoebox.  Side note: I saw 15 cats on the staircase by my apartment on Monday.  15!!!!

Photo with gyro shop employees. 2 points.

It was a ton of fun and we got really well aquainted with the city in only a couple hours.  We ran into a group of the guys as we were eating lunch and a couple of them were cocky enough to think they could find everything without a map.  Stupidos...  Needless to say they lost.  What is worth mentioning is that WE WON!!  Woot woot!  Eternal glory is ours!  We had a lot of fun rubbing that into everyone else's faces all last week.  Totally worth Sienna almost getting pick-pocketed (she'll even say so) and having to track on a very valuable 10 year old.

In the Words of Evan Johnson: Oxi Day is the Most BS Holiday Ever.

So we finally got into our apartment around lunchish on Friday, which happened to be Oxi Day.  It's a national holiday to celebrate when the Greeks said "no" to Fascism during WWII.  In reality it's an excuse not to go to work and party a lot, kind of like Memorial Day, or Labor Day, or the 4th of July..... 

The main problem with Oxi Day is that all grocery stores are shut down.  We had a loaf of bread and a tub of strawberry jelly (aka pop-tart filling) that was supposed to last us the whole day.  Kayla ate all of her ration for breakfast using the logic that she'd be really full now and then not get hungry later.  Right Kayla...  Sienna and I tried our darndest to space out our eating so that we wouldn't get hungry, but really, who were we kidding?  So after a shower and a nap, we went out looking for a grocery store that by some grace of God was open.  What we found was a tiny, borderline sketchy Asian market.  Good enough. 

I bought ramen.  It tasted like Pad Thai so I was more than happy, but I can't tell if that was because I had been eating bread and jelly for 6 days or if it actually tasted good.  I'll have to go back and get some more to know for sure. 

I spent the rest of the day napping, eating noodles, and watching Rome on Molly's computer.  So much for getting out and exploring the new city.