A Final Fond Farewell

Wow, where the heck has the past 4 months gone?! It only seems like yesterday that I was filling out the application and waiting in anticipation to hear the exciting news that I was going to live in Italy and Greece for 4 months! This is probably the last time you'll hear from me, but I've had so much fun keeping up with this blog!

I wouldn't not have traded anything about the past 4 months for anything in the world, even the challenging, most difficult times I will treasure (as cheesy as that sounds) I have learned so much and have recieved a much appreciated awareness of these amazing cultures and world. I have come to know and love my family of 29 here so well and I am so sad to leave them. It is going to be so strange to be going home and not having them around every single minute of the day. But on that note, I am so excited to be going home and seeing all of you, especially in time for all the snow and Christmas! Thank you so much for all your prayers, they are greatly appreciated. And defintiely will be needing them now with my travels home! :)

So, a final fond farewell! I'm am now Ireland bound for a few days and I'll see you all on the flip side!!

Much love,
Laura :)

"Spring Break!" Thanksgiving weekend, Greek style!

I think it's safe to say our theme for this weekend, and actually has been since then, was "spring break!" How? I have no idea. It kind of started on our climb up Mt. Parnassus in Delphi, but has pretty much stuck with our group. Haha, beats me! :)

We were off to Olympia for a 4 day weekend of excitement and a celebration of thanks! (and boy do I have plenty to be thankful for!)This has been the very first Thanksgiving I've celebrated away from my family and not to mention out of the country! Crazy! (Thanksgiving is certainly not celebrated in Greece!)



Canal in Corinth! (the picture doesn't do justice)



Our excursion started bright and early thursday, Thanksgiving morning (and we had a day free of classes!) Destination: Peloponnese Islands! And mom, no we did not take a boat at all or even ferried the bus across to the islands because they are connected to the mainland. haha. Just thought I'd let ya know ;) We had a number of stops to make before checking into our hotel for the evening in Nafplio (which they unfortunately had no shampoo. I know, sounds desperate, but I like my shampoo) First place was Corinth! Robert, our accompanying professor of history, wanted us to see the Corinth canal, saying it was absolutely huge. Well, he wasnt lying. We stood on the bridge the crosses it and boy was it quite high. During the tourist season/summer months, you can actually bungee jump off this bridge into the canal. How sweet would that be! Believe me, if we had the chance, I definitely would have given that a try! Bungee jumping in Greece?! Come on! (don't worry mom, I never got that chance) Anyways, this was more of a pit stop because we enjoyed the bathroom and eating ice cream before out next stop and you never know when that is going to be!



Who loves ice cream?!



Temple of Asklepios



Lunch!



Well, that next stop ended up being the site of the Temple of Asklepios (healing god). It was a beautiful setting actually for such ruins, but Robert pointed out a lot of restoration and reconstruction has been taking place making it look rather "disney-esque!" Robert is quite the character, I think his favorite quote to use is "Ta-Da, Jazz hands!" (imagine a very proper englishman saying that in a british accent! Too funny!) We enjoyed our bagged lunch that our school provided for us which was rather delicious! I love the fact that school makes us lunch everyday, even if we go on excursions! While eating our lunches of spinach pies and sandwiches, we had a dog begging from us. This is nothing new though, stray dogs and cats are seriously all over the place, everywhere in Greece! And it was also Kyle's 21st birthday, so Elaine brought some delicious treats to share in celebration! I think chocolate baklava has become a new favorite dessert (look out, I'll be making it for Christmas!)

Ancient Theater

After scarfing down our lunches (I don't know about anyone else, but I was starving) we headed to the ancient theater. This is known as the best preserved ancient theather were Greek tradegies were preformed. It was beautiful! Apparently if you drop a coin at the very center of the stage, you can hear it perfectly clear at the very top of the theater. Of course we had to put this to the test and it definitely was true! The acoustics were fabulous! Beth and I proceeded to be brave and sing in front of everyone. And when I say sing, I mean an attempt to sing happy birthday to Kyle! So I can now say that I have preformed in an ancient Greek theater! Brittany and I continued to quote Shakespeare our whole time there. I'm not sure why Shakespeare because he wasn't Greek at all, but we still did anyways! Robert even preformed a quote from Oedipus the King, which is much more fitting for this setting I'd say!

(Insert quote here)

 Back on the bus and on to Nafplio, where we would be enjoying our Thanksgiving dinner, at the hotel. How classy! The entire bus ride was gorgeous as we weaved in and out of the mountains along the coast and Nafplio sits right along the coast as well. Nafplio reminds me a lot of Hawaii. Granted, I've never been there at all, but it's at least how I picture it! Palm trees line the walk way along the sea and the pier. Mountains surround this all ready gorgeous view of the sea!

The beauty that is Nafplio!

We immediately dropped our stuff off in our hotel and went on our walking tour of this small town. Robert pointed out the Acropolis (the highest point in the city) and mentioned that w can climb to the top. Then he added after climbing 860 stairs. Holy moly! Well, we at least gave it a try. We got to one point to admire the already spectacular view (not even half way up) and decided to hike back down and roam the quiet streets of Nafplio instead.



There the Acropolis!



I was fine with it because some people made it to the top, but said it was closed. A few os us enjoyed wandering around the streets window shopping. We would come across some high end jewlery stores and pick out what kind if engagement rings we like and bla bla bla, all that fun stuff! After viewing most of the town and its stores we went back to the pier and enjoyed the view while sitting by some heat lamps (which I think is a fabulous invention: you can sit outside even during the colder months and still stay warm!) Despite the fact that we were going to be eating our thanksgiving feast in less than two hours, some of the guys still got sandwiches and drinks as a "snack." Typical, I guess :)



Meghan and I :)



It is so fun to see everyone get dressed up in their fancy shmancy clothes! And boy did we look like a classy group if I do say so myself. Girls pulled out their finest dresses that they could throw in their backpacks and guys brought out their silk ties and dress pants! It was fabulous! We were shnazzy!

And the dinner was just as good. Different, but still pretty tasty. And thankfully, we had turkey! Apparently it is a bit of a chore to get turkey here in Greece. Who knew? But each table had their own turkey to carve and even stuffed with stuffing (not the typical stuffing though) We shared Greek potatoes, cabbage salad, bread and a Greek dessert. I have no idea what it's called but it is a caramely pudding almost, similar consistency to Spanish flan. It was pretty good once you get past the interesting texture. It was just great to share a thanksgiving meal with our entire family abroad!



Jordan carving the turkey!



Greek potatoes!

 But it still didn't feel quite like Thanksgiving. For one, it felt like I was in Hawaii and secondly, my family family was missing. I was able to call them, which made the night fun (I can tell they all had a bit to drink) but rather chaotic to be talking on speaker phone with 5 people! haha! Shortly after we stuffed ourselves with stuffing (no pun intended) and turkey, we returned to that same outdoor seating area on the pier to enjoy some drinks. I ordered a sangria. Hands down, best sangria I have ever had! absolutely delicious! the 5 of us who were at a table together (Sam K, Sam B, Mikala, Dan and myself) passed the night by playing one of our groups favorite games: hot tub (its much more fun than it sounds) We basically ask each other any sort of question which can reveal secrets, wishes, crazy stories...you name it. It is rather entertaining! It was such a relaxing, beautiful evening along the coast line with fabulous company! Cheers!

And on to Sparta we go! We first make two stops at  two different Mycanean Palaces. The first was called Tiryn. robert showed all around this, what was once, massive Palace ruins, pointing out all the different rooms and what kinds of rooms they were. He placed volunteers where pillars would have gone so we could get at least an elemantary glimpse of the past. We even threw in our knowledge of Doric, Ionic and Corinthian column types!



Our column volunteers! :)





Lions Gate



"Spring Break!"

The second palace felt even more massive. It was on a towering hill over looking the valley. You walk right under the lion (or griffin, we're not too sure) gates and you can only imagine what this place was like thousands of years ago bustling with royalty. Towards the end of the tour with Robert, we found this narrow, rather dark tunnel. There was a sign that read something to the fact that it was dangerous to venture in there. As usual, we paid no attention to this sign and went down into the deep chasm. It continued to go deeper and deeper underground. The walls became even more narrow the farther down we went. Eventually, it became so pitch black that there was no way to see your hand if you put it right in front of your face! Needless to say, our cameras were clicking right and left. The flashes were our only means of some sort of momentary light! It was so cool!So adventurous we were! We thought maybe it would lead us to some underground burial site or something of that interesting sort. However, we were just a little dissapointed when it finally ended with just a huge mud puddle. Oh well, the anticipation was the fun part. If you ever venture down into this tunnel, be aware of random posts in the middle of the stair well. I learned the hard way and ran right into it. Let's just say it was not the most pleasant feeling to have you're head hit metal in the pitch black darkness....

Deep, dark chasm



"We just went spelunking..again!"

After this deep tunnel and darkness, the Treasury of Atremis was next. It was a huge and built right into the hill! These treasuries are basically to store all the belongings or treasures and riches of the person that dies. It was absolutely massive!! 

After checking out all these palaces and treasuries, our most anticipated destination was next. THIS. IS. SPARTA!!! (It's not everyday you have a reason to shout that!) First of all, the bus ride there was quite interesting. We weaved in and out of the mountain sides, switch back roads, lots of hills...a lot of us were getting car sick I think. The queeziness was contagious. But we finally arrived in the little town of Sparta. (And when I say small, I mean smaller than St. Joe small, which is saying a lot...) BUT we got our first glimpse of Christmas lights! We were all too excited to see them! Straight from the bus to the hotel and onto Ancient Sparta (or at least what is left of it) There Robert taught us all about the Spartan warriors (women warriors as well, and they were tough)! (Ask me about the Spartan warriors when I get home, there are some interesting stories about them) And of course, there was no way that we could leave until Zeus (Kayla's camcorder) caught out battle scenes and our own shouting duel of "THIS. IS. SPARTA!"

 

Spartan women were tough, and so are we!



There's Leonidas (aka Gerard Butler from 300)





So that is Sparta. It definitely seems cool being able to say I've been there, but it was acutally really interesting to see! It all put us in a warrior type of mood! haha Let's go conquer the world!

What better caption than "THIS. IS. SPARTA!"

Later that evening, the hotel again supplied us with another fantastic dinner! After which some us passed our down time playing card games!! What you might ask? Old maid and Mafia. What can bet that?! Our mafia stories were hilarious! Death by mcdonalds and death by eyelashes...But what a fun night playing some card games!

The next morning came all too quickly. Olympia was another bus ride away. Again, it was another very small town, filled with a lot of closed souvenir shops (an jewelry shops!) It was a very relaxing afternoon actually. We enjoyed some gyros (pronounced like "euros"...dad. haha) and shopped around the little town of Olympia! There are some beautiful hand crafted jewelry stores, so naturally we had to peek in those stores! There was a little dessert cafe on the corner of the town with the most delicious looking desserts. I'll jsut say "slave to yogurt." (yogurt with Greek honey and fruit is phenomenal!) Some of us actually returned to this same place later that night, after our dinner at the hotel to enjoy some drinks! Like, stawberry daquaris and milkshakes! What a combination, no?! So delicious! I don't know what it is with our group, but we sure like to play the hot seat/tub game and thats exactly what Meghan, Kelsey, Mike, Sam, Kristin and I played for hours that night enjoying our daquaris! I will say that this game is a great way to know people though! :) 

It was our last day of our 4 day Thanksgiving weekend. What better to go out with a bang than with a legit sprinting race on one of history's very first Olympic stadiums of ancient Olympia?! We definitely did so! Olympia was absolutely incredible. Here are just a few pictures for you to take a look. We also toured the museum containing artifacts from this same site. What a "spring break" it has been! :)



On your mark, get set, GO!

Ready to run!

These are ruins of a Christian Basilica!