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

Jumpin all over the world

Hey there from Olympia! Once again I have wifi. Today we saw alot of ruins and went to two boring museums but it was nice and hot. We got to see one of the ancient theaters and went all the way to the top and could hear people at the bottom perfectly. It was so cool. We also got to see where king Agamemnon ( the king who went to battle against the Trojans in the trojan war over Helen) lived. His palace was in- guess what?- ruins.  But they have an idea of where the bathroom was that he was murdered in. And we got to see his tomb which was a beehive tomb. That just means it was sort of in the shape of a beehive. That was pretty cool too. Today was a good day but we were in the bus too much and tomorrow is a full day in Olympia with a 6+ hour drive back to Athens. Busy busy. I think tomorrow will be the halfway point for being gone so that's a plus because although it's beautiful and wonderful here I miss home terribly. I'll still try to love Greece as much as I can while I'm here, I may never go back...

From Greece with love,
Bri

To walk in the footsteps...

Today we got to walk in the footsteps of The apostle Paul while we spent the day in Corinth. We saw the place Paul was tried in Corinth and a possible place where the synagogue was. I was amazed because the ancient city of Corinth was literally buried by dirt and things were built over the top. I cannot fathom why a city would just be covered and built over. Apparently Seattle is the same way. So all we were able to see were the excavated ruins, which were still cool but hard to imagine in their former glory, bustling with people. Anyway we also saw the ancient temple of the goddess Aphrodite. And some pretty vulgar and disturbing things went on in her temple. Afterward we drove to our hotel and had two hours to get settled and ready for dinner. I had what they call here spaghetti in the oven which is just baked spaghetti with tons of cheese and ham on the top. So good! Tomorrow we'll be going to alot of places with Greek names. Then we end up in Olympia, bit hopefully I'll have wifi to tell you all about he Greek places tomorrow!

From Greece with love,
Bri

So I haven't written in a while an here's why...I feel I can say why now because all is well. I left ali's iPod on a bus and dissent have it or Internet for three days but now it's back! Today we head o Corinth and I'm not sure what were doing. The bus is here so I have to go more later!

Lovely Patmos

So we've spent the last two days exploring the island of patmos and it's been absolutely wonderful! The water is so so blue and the skies match, it's like a paradise. This was the island where the apostle John was exiled and all I could think was that I would gladly be exiled here! Today we've gone to a nunery and a monastery and to the cave where they think John mightve written revelation. Now we just get some time to relax. At 11:55 pm our ferry will take us back to the mainland and well get there around 6 am

So right now I'm laying by the pool basking in the wonderful sun. It's not too hot and it's not too cold. We are now on the island of Patmos and today has been a relaxing day. We have explored the island a little bit and got some great pictures. I'm so sad I can't upload them to show you all. I had some great Greek pizza for lunch complete with olives, feta cheese, and tomatoes I don't like tomatoes but this was wonderful. All we have left to do today is eat dinner and listen to a 20 min lecture. So thAts all for now!
From Greece with love,
Bri

History and politics

Right now I'm on the boat. We're going to the island of Patmos and we're staying in a hotel so it should be fairly nice. so far, and I hate saying it, what we've seen is kind of boring. We went to this big hill which was actuallly a tomb from a war on Marathon beach in Greece, so that was kind of cool. I mean under that hill of dirt and stuff was human bodies. I think I'm kind of morbid like that, I find that stuff fascinating. We also went to the US embassy and learned about the political and economic stuff. Fun fun. Tomorrow we'll be....well I'm not sure. We'll get to patmos at like 2 in the morning and sleep i think. Maybe we'll be going to a monastary and maybe to the beach. I'm really not sure. The weather is a little chillier than I thought it would be, and right now all of the swaying of the boat is really weird. I don't normally get motion sick, so we'll see how I do. We still have 4 hours to go. I think I'll sleep a bit too. The wildflowers are beautiful here, poppies and these purple flowers everywhere. Oh and I got a picture of a horse to show Joe's little sister Aubrey. I also noticed them twitching and want to know why they do that. She'll probably know.
With love from Greece,
Bri

Day one in Greece

So it's 9am and we just hAd a wonderful Greek breakfast filled with bread and. Fresh fruit and pastries.we arrived at the cosmovision center, a camp in Greece, our main home base last night around 6. I crashed around 9:30. And slept so well. TodAy we're heading to Marathon, whatever that is, I'll tell you all about it later. Then we are going to he US embassy.after that we will be getting on a boat headed to the island of Patmos, where John wrote the book of Revelation. We will overnight on the boat and arrive in Patmos at 2 am. And we'll be there two days. That's all for now!

From Greece with love,
Bri

I'm HERE!!! We are at a camp center, but we're leaving tomorrow for the island of Patmos. I'm exhausted. Way to go jet lag! I haven't really seen much yet, so not alot to report. Talk to you all later!

From Greece with love,
Bri