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!