Thanksgiving Break!

I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving break with lots of turkey and pie! We had a lovely Thanksgiving Break traveling around the Peloponnese. We started our journey on Thanksgiving day and went to the Corinth Canal, where you could bungy jump off of, unfortunately it was closed when we were there. We then stopped at the Epidavros theater and saw the temple of the god of medicine, Asclepius, along with the stadium. The theater was pretty cool with acoustics that can be heard all the way to the top of the theater. We did test this by dropping a coin. We ended our day with Nafpoli, it was a really quaint little town. I didn't go swimming b/c it was a bit cold, but I did climb the fortress/castle on the top of the acropolis. It had an amazing view, especially during sunset(pic). We had our Thanksgiving meal that night at the hotel. They made three turkeys for us, but the meat was a bit dry and the stuffing inside was rice and ground beef which looked kinda gross. We had Greek salad, potatoes, and then flan for dessert. Some of us weren't that satisfied so we went to a Gelateri for gelato which was amazing and made up for the dessert at least.

Friday we were back on the bus heading to Mycenae for the morning. It is an ancient city of ruins of the Mycenaean people. It had a graves inside its walls, along with a palace in the center. It was very neat to see and learn. We did go into the museum they had and saw some of the replica items that were buried with the dead and some other pots and inscriptions. We were back on the bus after an hour or so and headed to Sparta. (This is Sparta!!) There really isn't much in Sparta, not even paraphernalia of the movie 300. But Robert, history prof., took us to where he is excavating, the theater(pic.) which was really cool to see and the view was spectacular. However, the Spartans were obsessed with training males and sending them to war that they had little time to reproduce so they ceased to exist b/c they forgot to keep reproducing, which I thought was kind of funny. From Sparta we headed up to Olympia for dinner and the night. Dinner did make up for Thanksgiving, it was really good. We stayed in and watched movies because we don't have tvs in Athens.

Saturday was an exploring of Olympia. First we went to an Olympic museum that described the first Olympics that existed. It was very interesting. We then went to the ruins, where we saw the Temple of Hera, some treasuries, the stadium, the Temple of Zeus, and the gymnasium. The temple of Zeus (pic) was huge, or at least what was left of it. We did go to the museum which had some statues and artifacts found at the site. We were free for the day after the museum and a few of us went to a jewelry place that had 50% off items (score). Most of us just chilled and did homework until dinner. After dinner in our room we had a Harry Potter party with 13 people on 3 beds. It was almost half of our group. It was a blast, we watched Harry Potter IV until our tv cut out towards the end of the movie.

Sunday was a long day on a bus, driving back to Athens. It took 5 hours, which wasn't that long compared to the 7 hours I'm used to in order to get to Minnesota or the 8 hours to Aurora, IL. Now I am just getting some odds and ends done before I go for my trip to London on Wednesday! I can't believe December is two days away, but I can't wait to see you all soon! Miss you and love you all! Keep well!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NOAH!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NOAH-MAN!!! This post is dedicated to my little nephew Noah, who turns one year old today! I wish I could've been at his party in Omaha, but from what I heard he had a great time with family and friends. And made his mommy feed him his cake like a little prince! (I wish I could have seen that, I bet he was so cute!) I know he will have a fabulous day seeing his family in New Ulm for Thanksgiving and will have a grand time eating the big turkey feast! I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with family and friends! Love you all with many thanks and blessings!!

A weekend in Athens

So hopefully everyone had a wonderful weekend and ready for the big turkey day!! I wish I could have turkey, but hey I'm in Greece so I really can't complain. hehe. I at least want to hear what everyone did for Thanksgiving when you get the chance.

This past weekend, I stayed in Athens. We have already seen most of the museums and acropolis for our classes, so we decided to see the shopping aspect of Athens! ;) On Thursday a group of us went to New Moon, which was good, and I will not trail on with it since most don't want to hear it or are big fans and want to discuss. So on Friday we went shopping and I got a custom made pair of sandals that actually fit!! Imagine that, and they were not too expensive which was nice. That was my big purchase on Friday.

On Saturday a small group of us went to a Christmas festival, which was really exciting when we heard about it. But it was a little anti-climatic when it was mostly based for kids aging 10 and under, and I know I didn't fit in that age class anymore. So we wandered around there for a bit, looked at the shops and the quickly melting ice skating rink(pic above), while listening to Greek Christmas music. It was enjoyable. Although, I think the best part was on the walk to find it we past this park that had a jungle gym and a grass area to play soccer, like a regular park. But then off to the side were tanks, fighter planes, and helicopters that kids were climbing on.(pics below) It was quite a contrast, but was pretty awesome! I almost joined the kids climbing on it, again it was the age thing that stopped me. :)

On our way back we met with our directors randomly and they took us to a champagne and sparkling wine tasting convention. It was in a nice fancy hotel and we had to have a secret password to get our glasses. Once we went around it was so much fun! However, some people were kind of mad we were there because they knew we were not going to buy anything and were just there for the drinks. But they were good drinks and all I need was 5 tastes before I was tipsy. (Don't worry I didn't do anything completely embarrassing.)

Sunday was a homework day, and I had to attend a Greek Orthodox service for my Theology class. It was interesting, a lot of sitting, standing, sitting, and standing again. But was very interesting to attend.

So far school sucks with all the homework and projects, but they are slowly getting crossed off the list. I hope school is going well for all that are still attending. And I hope that everyone has a blessed and thankful Thanksgiving Day celebrated with family, friends, and loved ones. Happy Thanksgiving!! (save some pumpkin pie for me!!)

Delphi

I hope everyone had a great weekend and so far a fabulous week. School is going as well as it can, homework is of course a pain when all you want to do is go and explore Greece. But I am almost done with some classes and I am getting super excited for Thanksgiving!!!

This past weekend we went to Delphi. We left early on Saturday for a three hour bus ride, which was not that horrible. We arrived in Delphi around noon and had lunch. From the picture above you can see that there is no town around the ruins. The town is off to the right about a mile or so and is named Delphi. However, archeologists are told that there was a town built somewhere near the ruins which is the true town of Delphi, but because of the mountains and the terrain it does not seem possible. But Robert our history professor took us to the lower sanctuary, which in the picture is off to the left and lower. There they had treasuries, temple of Athena, and a gymnasium. All were really cool to see even though there was not much left. We called it a day by 2:30pm and went to our hotel, which had an amazing view, and decided to walk around the town. Sadly, everything was closed so we didn't wander for too long. I did some homework and took a nap until dinner and then played some games after dinner and then called it a night.

On Sunday, was when we climbed up to the higher sanctuary where the temple of Apollo resided, the Athenian treasury was there, some other treasuries, a theatre, and the stadium was at the very top. I nearly died hiking up it, but what else is new. The view was spectacular, and the picture above is on the hike back down from the stadium with the theatre in the foreground, then the temple of Apollo behind it, and the Athenian treasury is the small square building. The mountains everywhere just added to the gloriousness.

We went to the museum there which had a lot of artifacts from the sanctuaries. We then started making the trip home, but we stopped at a monastery, St. Luke (not the famous St. Luke), which was built with the most beautiful scenery. Honestly, these monks sure no how to pick'em. One of my classmates said she wouldn't mind becoming a monk with view a like that. We made it back to Athens by 4pm so we had plenty of time to make a cake for my roommate, Brita, who's birthday it was. We made her dinner and bought a bottle of wine for her, so I think she had a good birthday.

Like I said this week has been filled with homework and busyness. However, tomorrow I am planning on seeing New Moon (twilight) with some friends and before that ordering pizza. So it will be a relaxing start for the weekend. Hope you all are doing well and getting better if you have been sick or hurt. I miss you all so much, especially during this time of year. I love you all!!

Videos

Here are some videos!! One is from the marathon that I posted earlier and the other is some soldiers that are marching, training to be guards that where the funny looking outfits with the puff balls on the shoes and tights and kilt-ish skirts. I'm sorry the camera work is not that steady or great, but I was very tired when I took these videos. Hope you enjoy!

Kriti

Well, based on the beautiful picture above you can guess that I have been enjoying the beach in November! However, I have heard that the weather hasn't been that horrible back home either. This past week was my first week of classes in Athens. Classes are a bit more challenging here than in Rome. It seems as if we have a lot more busy work and reading, but on a plus side we get done with classes pretty early. My language and culture class I get done with before Thanksgiving with a final, Theology is done on the 8th December with a reflection of the class (no final woot!), Senior Sem is done on the 9th of December with a paper, and the only two tests I have are Art and History. However, there are a lot of presentations, quizzes, tests, and papers in between now and the end of classes.

This weekend all of us went to Crete as a group trip set up by our directors. It was great because we had cabins for the boat rides to and fro, and a bus that took us everywhere and to our hotel. The horrible part was that on the Friday that we arrived we had to disembark at 6am. We then went in Knossos for breakfast and then to an archeological site of an ancient Minoan town. It was wiped out by a huge tidal wave that was caused by a volcano in Santorini. The ruins that were left were interesting to see, however, we had no idea what we were looking specifically at, which kinda was a downer at 8am in the morning. Then from there we went to the Museum in Knossos that had a a lot of artifacts that were found from that Minoan city. There were a lot of little jewelry, vases, and statues. It was really neat to see how well preserved they were after we saw the ruins from the Minoan city. From there we found lunch and then got on the bus to go to our hotel in Heraklion the capitol of Crete. On our way into the city we drove past beaches so you can imagine the first thing we did once we got to the hotel. We went to the beach even though it was 4pm in the afternoon. The beach we went to was very pretty and had a beautiful sunset view. I believe that we swam in the Aegean Sea. The next day, Saturday, was ours and it was a beautiful day! We went to the light house and then went to the beach again to take advantage of the weather. We stayed there for the bulk of the day. We did go shopping and waited for the sun to set over by the light house. That night we had to get back on the ferry by 8pm and once again wake up on Sunday at 6am.

Sunday was a fun day!... Like I said we had to be up before 6am to get of the ferry, but when we sailed into Athens it was pouring rain. So I fashionably wore my red poncho over my pjs. I made it back to the apartments by 7am and dropped of my things ate a little and went back out in the rain to volunteer for the Marathon here in Athens by 7:30am. It was a marathon that starts in Marathon, Greece and ends at the stadium in Athens which is 26.4 miles I believe. My job was setting up water bottles at the tables and carefully holding them out to runners as they ran by so they could drink some water. I was scared of getting in the way, but I got it down after a while and towards the end there were more walkers and joggers, so they weren't going lightening fast past me. The first runners of the marathon were from Africa and were amazingly fast! I did get a video of them and will have to post it. It was a fun time and luckily when we started passing out water to the first runners at 10am it stopped raining. I got done around 1pm or so and then preceded to do homework, unpack, find some lunch and be productive. Naturally, I am paying for it today, Monday, because I am very bitter with my comments when I am tired which I feel kind of bad...sort of...some deserve it. hehe just kidding.

I hope everyone else's weekend was just as glorious as mine. I heard it was 70 degrees in Nebraska and I hope it was just as warm in Minnesota and Illinois. I hope everyone is as well as can be and everyone's activities/jobs/school are going well. Please keep me posted on little things I do have computer access a lot more than in Rome!! Miss you and love you all!

Athens, Rodos, Kos, and Thira

Hello to Everyone! Happy Halloween!! I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween full of candy and costumes. This past week has been my fall break, so I will start from the beginning and try not to make it too winded.

On Saturday 24th October I made it to Athens safe and sound with all of my luggage. We had a bus arranged to take us to CYA (College Year in Athens). It is located next to Panathinalkon Stadium which I believe is the old Olympic Stadium for the Olympics. CYA is an amazing school that has a lounge, computer lab, library, cafe, laundry facilities, etc. It reminds me a lot of home at CSB/SJU but the view is stupendous! You can look out of the lounge balcony or front door and see the stadium and then the Acropolis. It is great. So once we got settled in our apartments for a few days five of us decided to go island hopping. (Just for name sake it was Carissa, Ali, Ellen, Paul, and me).


On Monday we caught a 5:30pm ferry from Pireas to Rodos (Rhodes). It was a 13 hour ride which wasn't that bad, except we slept on hard wood floors. When we landed, it was a perfect day. We found our hostel and set out to venture in old town, which was like the Old Market with shops and restaurants. It was fun to look. We tried to find Kolassus which his feet were left, but when we asked people told us that the statue can't be found anymore. So we just laughed and ventured to a castle/fortification. Then we found the light house/ Fort of Nicholas which is the picture above. You can see that a storm is coming in too with those awesome looking clouds. The ocean view was spectacular! We then bought tickets for our next adventure, got some dinner, and called it a night.


Wednesday we went to Kos. (Wednesday was a Greek holiday of when they said 'No' to someone a long time ago...shows how much I'm getting to know the culture hehe). They had some music performances and the army marched/paraded down the street. Kos was beautiful!! I loved it better than Rhodes. The ocean was a green-blue and the part of town we wandered around was so cute. We first saw the tree of Hippocrates which was odd! The tree was bent in a weird way and still living! We also saw some of the ruins, the Insulae (apartments), fortification, and the temple to Aphrodite. The picture above is of some of the ruins we saw, plus the greenery which was so nice to see from being cooped up in a city for two months. Just to burn time we sat on the dock of the port and looked out at the ocean and Turkey across the way. It was sooo serene. We then walked through a fortification wall which was really neat, I think Alan you would have thought it was pretty cool. Again the clouds rolled in so we decided to seek shelter for dinner. We waited around until 8:30pm when our next ferry took off.


We made it to Thira(Santorini) by 2am on Thursday. We stayed in Fira, and the hostel picked us up from the port and we were able to get in to our rooms and sleep comfortably. Mostly all of Thursday we spent at the hostel sleeping and waiting for the other group to meet us. On Friday we rented ATV s(Four-wheelers) and went around the island. We went to the Perissa beach which was a black sand beach. It was very cool but very cold because we were at the end of the season. The guys went for a swim but I couldn't even take off my sweater. We then drove to Oia to watch the sunset, which is supposedly the place to watch the sunset. And it is very true. Above is one of the pictures I took of the sunset. But Oia itself is beautiful, it is built in the side of the cliff and looks fabulous. After the sunset we drove back to Thira, ate, and went out to the bars. I had a lot of fun, but stayed out way too late. Let's just say 5 hours of sleep was not enough.

The next day, Saturday Halloween, was supposed to be another amazing day in Santorini, but it was very cloudy, windy, and looked stormy. We found out that the ports were going to be closed on Sunday and that we wouldn't have our 7:00am ferry. So we scrambled to get packed, tickets for a 3:30pm ferry, returned the ATVs, and got down to port. It was a lot more crazy than it sounds because some of the group was hungover and wanted to stay and deliberately miss the ferry and miss class on Monday. Finally we convinced everyone and made back to Athens on a very rocky and stormy boat ride. Mom you would have hated it sooooo much!! We made it back to Athens by 1am and hit the hay.

Sunday the 1st of November is a nice relaxing/laundry day since nothing is really open except for CYA. I am slowly getting ready for our first week of classes. Iam excited, but not looking forward to the studying part of it. However, CYA offers a lot of extra activities and they have fencing!! ;) I would love to do that however it is a bit expensive, but there is always paintball as an alternative, since I have lost my touch with shooting. hehe I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween and October. I miss you all so much, eat extra butterfingers and swedish fish for me! Love you all and keep in touch!!