We are a herd of mountains goats!



Byzantine Monastary



Ambiguity: (n) The possibilty of interpreting an expression in 2 or more distinct ways. AKA: things simply not going according to plan. This was actually a question we had for our initial interview for studying abroad: How do you handle ambiguity? Pretty sure most of us had to ask for a definition of ambiguity and I think this weekend in Delphi was a legit answer for us all. Quite the "ambiguous" weekend and not a single complaint from any of us. Except maybe the professor...(Wow, how many times did I just say ambiguous?!)

 

Anyways, we were all bright eyed and bushy tailed at 8:30am Saturday morning. However, on our way to our bus, we were greeted by a horrible scene of a dead cat on the sidewalk. Lovely. Let's just say not the most pleasant  sight to see in the early morning. We hopped on out jumbo tour bus and the 3 hour bus ride to Delphi commenced. I think everyone had their headphones in and the head bobbin' (as in sleeping) was running rampant in a matter of 15 minutes--myself included. Our first stop was St. Luke's monastary, Byzantine monastary (I think that's what the name was). Once seeing it, it reminded me of Subiaco or Assisi back in Italy--it was chilly and rainy in the moutains which is perfect monastary-visiting weather. It was a gorgeous Orthodox Church--frescoes and icons covered every inch of wall (part of the ceiling was actually gold) and the views were spectacular! The monastary actually makes its own homemade honey among others goods and it supported by those profits, so of course I had to get some real homemade Greek honey (apparently made from Thyme?) I have yet to try it! I even got a thank you hug for buying some. haha



That is lamb



Food. Pretty sure that's what was on everyone's mind at the moment and thank goodness lunch break was next on the agenda. We were dropped off on the outskirts of this quaint town on a mountain side and were told to meet the bus on the other side of town. That's helpful, there's more than one road the bus could be on. Eh, oh well, we wandered through the streets of this town, called Arahova I belive, in search of restaurants. It's a little ski town and reminds me so much of down town Stillwater--Home!! That's beside the point...6 of us, Ryan, Lauren, Brittany, Beth, Mark and myself stop at a  little tarverna along the way and we share a delicious lunch of fried cheeses, bread, chicken soup and lamb. Let's just say I have yet to eat a meal here in all of Europe that I did not thoroughly enjoy--that's how wonderful the food is!





We looked at our watches and realized we had to bounce! Plus we didn't exactly know where our bus actually was. Expecting the 6 of us to be the last ones with everyone waiting for us, we speed walked through the hilly streets, found the bus only to discover we were the very first ones. Sweet! So, to pass the time a little rock hill climbing was in store and enjoyed some breath taking views (little did we know what was in store for the next day though...). Once everyone found our hidden bus, we had our next stop to get to for some lecture/note taking. Where? Only the sanctuary of Apollo, of course (Probably best known for the Oracle that was dedicated to Apollo)!

It's a beautiful sanctuary of ruins, especailly at sunset. We listened to Anne (our Art History prof) tell us about the various, interconnecting myths of the gods and the oracle and so forth as we watched some mountain goats on a ridge above us. Too cute! Well, it was closing time for the sites, we were kicked out and had to trek up the swtich back pathed hill all over again. We got our work out today. Luckily Mike piggy backed me up the last portion of the hike! Next stop: Hotel! Hotel Acropole with spectacular views from our balconies and just in time to see the sun fully set behind the mountains! A group of us girls chillaxed for a bit, turned on the TV and to our surprise found a channel playing movies in english! That's definitely the first! Not to mention the very first movie I've seen since being over here. I didn't really watch much of it, but none the less. We eventually rolled out of bed to check ot the shops around Delphi's town--jewelry is definitely a big thing here! I couldn't really afford much of it, but it was fun to window shop!

Stomachs were growling...what else is new though (with this deliciously nutritious food, we're always hungry :) ) We walked to our fancy restaurant and started with some typical Greek appetizers: fried cheese (like a mozzarella stick), spinach and feta pie (P.S. I officially love feta cheese now!), grape leaves with rice and crab stuffed inside, eggplant/olive and tzatziki sauces with bread. It reminded me of what we had for our welcome dinner here and our girls dinner with Elaine! Yum!



Greek Appetizers

 Course 2: cabbage salad. This is the easiest most delicious salad: cabbage with shredded carrots and vinegar. woo-la! Course 3: grilled chicken with a side of egg noodles in tomato sauce. Soooo good!! Gah! Good thing I love to try new things! Then, dessert: no idea what it was. It was some sort of white cake with a sweet syrup. We were stuffed! This calls for a glass of wine and some card games back at the hotel with the chicas. Stellar evening!! (some even got some Brazilian cigars to try! haha!) We had an early wake up call the next morning, so I called it an early night.

Whose ready for four hours of museum visits/art history lecture?! (Breakfast first of course--with famous Greek honey on bread!) Well, we were all prepared with our notebooks and pens in hand to look at ancient pottery and Greek archeaological sites for the day. However...

Now, what are the chances thast the day we go, the whole musuem + site are all closed for municipal elections?! Yup, that's right. We drive 3 hours just to see this site and it's closed. Well, what can ya do? Here's where our ambiguous selves took over. Let's go rock climbing!! We were all in the mountain goat sort of mood this weekend anyways. So we had a massive changing session on the bus (good thing we're all comfortable around each other haha!) I mean, how can you climb a mountain in jeans? Shorts were a necessity! But what moutain? Mt. Parnassus of course! (Those that committed heresay back in antiquity were thrown off this peak. Comforting realization. ) and let me tell you, it was awfully high! (Over 8,000 ft I think) Believe me, we climbed to the top of it! Even with sketchy directions we still made it! Not to mention coming across a ton of shot gun shells and seeing a guy walking around with a shot gun. We all thought he was going to shoot us for being on his property. Don't worry though, he was just hunting. Our guess: mountain lion. And we weren't on his property...I don't think. We found a bunch of animal bones. One of which was a vertebrae from the lumbar region of some animal (thank you anatomy for helping us identify!) We scaled (legitimately) mountain sides, hiked switch back rocky paths, scrambled through horribly thorny plants, got lost, ran into a guy with his shot gun to see the most gorgeous view in the entire world! It felt as if we were in fact on top of the world (far from it, I know) I could see for miles! It is something pictures just don't do justice to. Wow. Enough said. I wish you all could have experienced along with me! I kept thinking of how much Dad and Sara would have completely dominated and loved this cilmb! Here's some of the pictures!



That's the peak we climbed up to



What goes up, must come down. Us included. Great. now we have the whole trek down. Our knees and legs were sore towards the bottom from the hiking down steep hills for the whole way. Once at the bottom, we admired out accomplishments--sweet! We just spontaneously climbed a mountain. No big deal. One thing is for sure, you could definitely smell the evidence that we did back on the bus. Wow! Long story short, we ALL needed showers. So worth it though! P.S. I just would like to take this time to thank my chaco sandals. I could not have done this climb without them! So thank you! I have cuts/scars all over my feet (and sweet new chaco tan lines!) but they were stellar companions! Gotta have some battle scars anyways! Best purchase, hands down.

We needed some nourishment, we all sweated off our breakfast. Gyros! We return back to Arahova to enjoy gyros, or to be technical, souvlaki pitas. Oh man, that hit the spot! Picture this: a flaming hot pita with fresh veggies, veal, tzatziki sauce, mustard and topped off with nothing else but spicy pepper and french fries! That is what's up! French fries inside totally makes these gyros! Satisfied and tired, a 3 hour bus ride of sleeping sounded wonderful. Which is basically what went down anyways.

I think we all found our honest answers: we all handle ambiguity like champs! Wouldn't have changed it for anything!