I'm coming home, coming home...

Six hours until we head to the Athens airport and nine until our plane leaves for Paris. Once in Paris we have a four hour layover then a eight(?)hour flight to Detroit. It will definitely be a long day and as of right now I'm not planning on sleeping until 7am on our flight. We'll see how that goes. Wish me luck and pray for safe travels!

The home stretch

Well its not much of a stretch. We have a full day in Athens tomorrow then we leave at 4am for home. Its going to be about a 17 hour trip back with layovers and stuff. I'll be traveling back in time and will be back on Thursday only to be picked up from Sau at about 6:30 from my lovely sister.

Today was a 6 hour travel to Athens from leptokaria. Yesterday I laid on the beach and did some shopping. That's really all for now... So close to home :D

From Greece with love,
Bri

Climbing and climbing and climbing

I've been terrible about posting the last couple of days, but it's because I've been so busy and tons has happened. Two days ago we conquered Mt. Olympus, well at least as much as we could conquer. It takes so long to climb that we were only planning on going to a certain point where it becomes treacherous for anyone who isn't an expert to climb. My group actually didn't even make it to that point though. We were on our way up and it was about lunchtime when it started pouring. Dr. Tom told us to just go back and find shelter, because there was none at all where we were. So we climbed farther back down and got a little bit of shelter from the pouring rain. The thing was, we were high enough for there to be snow so the rain was freezing. Our shelter was a few tall pine trees but they were really sparse so we were still getting pretty wet. We ate what we wanted of our lunches then began our hike down in our wet wet clothes when the rain stopped. Once we got down we realized that we were really only about fifteen minutes from our stopping point. Lame. Oh well, I'm proud of climbing four hours up a mountain. It was another three hours going down. By the end we were still wet and very tired. 

Yesterday our itinerary led us Meteora. It was truly magnificent and led to more climbing. We went to one of the monasteries there, which was literally on the top of a cliff, in the misdle of more cliffs. My explanation cannot do it justice, so honestly, just google Meteora monasteries. Look for a building on cliffs. Stare. Be amazed at how anyone could build that. Be jealous, I went there. We also went to a workshop where icons are made for the churches and just for people in general to have. Icons for the Greek orthodox are basically just symbolic paintings of Jesus, the saints, and stories from the Bible. It was pretty cool. Everywhere they used hold it was actually legit sheets of 24 carat gold that they glue on. I thought about getting a painting because I had just seen how they were made an painted and I thought it was pretty amazing, but I didn't for two reasons. First, a small one (about 2x3 in) was about 15€, which is about $25, and i thought that was a little out of my price range. Its probably because of the gold. Second, I vowed never to have a creepy picture of Jesus in my house. Not that I think Jesus is creepy, but some of these pictures are just creepy in my mind. I mean baby Jesus always has a man face. That's just unusual. So I did not buy one. And that was my day :)

Today we went to Phillipi, where Phillipians was written. It was pretty cool, more ruins. Got to see where Paul and Silas went before the magistrates in acts 16 and where Paul baptized Lydia. That's all for today!

Driving with the windows down...

I only wish I could drive with the windows down. That's ine of the things I miss the most, driving in the nice weather with my windows down. Instead, I'm in a crowded tour bus with no room for your knees, so having them removed before you ever have to take one, maybe a good idea. Ha just kidding. But really, crowded tour bus, no room for your knees, about a billion flies attacking every part of your body, and air conditioning, Which I hate as it cannot compare to natural air. So this is where I was much of the day because we drove to a few site Which were actually a decent ways away. we went to some museums. And saw some ruins. We went to Alexander the great's hometown so we learned alot about him. Tomorrow we're climbing mt. Olympus. That's supposed to be a six hour hike. Wowee! That's all I got!

With love from Greece,
Bri

Watching as the cars go by

Today was not terribly exciting at all. Just a five to seven hour bus ride in which I watched two episodes of How I Met Your Mother, journaled a bit, and finished my book, Water for Elephants, which was amazing. We did stop briefly to see the site of the battle of 300 ( you know like the movie). That was pretty cool, I wish Joe was there with me because I really think he would have thought it was neat. And we also stopped where there were some hot springs, which smelled like hard boiled eggs gone bad. But they were warm, not hot and a few men we didn't know hopped right on in in front of us (luckily in suits, which is sometimes uncommon... We think we saw a woman today on the beach without a top). So that was all for the day. We safely arrived in northern Greece at leptokaria camp and tomorrow? More museums.

With love from Greece,
Bri

Oh to be stranded in Greece...

What is the worst that could happen on a cross cultural trip? You go ahead and make your guesses, but I think Josh Fitzsimmons would have his own opinion: being stranded in a Greek city with no money, no phone, no phone numbers, and no Greek. And we didnt find out he was left until we were about 2 1/2 hours away. So that was the haptic excitement of the day. The teachers have now assigned us numbers so we can do a sort of drill call each time we get on the bus. Other than that we explored Olympia and learned all about the first Olympic games and saw more ruins which were pretty cool and more museums which could've been cool if we didn't spend so much time on certain things in two museums. Tomorrow I probably won't have much to say because we have a six hour drive to northern Greece. We'll be there for a week. That's all I've got and I need to journal now. Journaling specific things for a grade = no fun.

From Greece with love,
Bri

And so it begins...

So it's the beginning of the crazy day and I don't have a ton to say but I figured I'd update while I had time. I did a little shopping last night and Got some souvenirs. Went to bed around midnight and was awakened at 7 and 7:40 by the sound of church bells as loud a if they were right in our room. Now I'm up and ready for a full day in Olympia doing I don't even know what then a 5-6 hour ride from Olympia to Athens. Yay. That's all for now!

With love from Greece,
Bri