Cruising the Greek Islands

Knock the Greek Island Cruise off the list of trips for this semester.  I guess you could say that is a little bit of a misnomer because we also dock in Turkey, right near ancient Ephesus.  But I’ll get to that.

The trip started on Friday where we arrived very early at the Port of Piraeus in Athens to depart.  We sailed through the afternoon and arrived at Mykonos for the evening.  There, we were able to enjoy free time to just roam the island for a few hours. 

Students walking through the pedestrian streets of Mykonos.

To get to and from the island of Mykonos from our cruise ship we had to take tender boats.  When I was going back to the ship from Mykonos, my sunglasses flew off out of my shirt and into the sea.  I tell you this story because I bought the sunglasses there, on Mykonos, back in the spring semester of this year and I lost them there 6 months later.  I guess it’s poetic in some way.  Anyways…

Saturday began with an early morning visit to the archaeological site of ancient Ephesus.  We docked in the port of Kusadasi, Turkey and grabbed our bus on over to Ephesus.   On the way to the site we saw a fun little extra thing out the window.  We passed by the only remaining standing pillar belonging to the famous Temple to Artemis (one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World).  Ephesus is quite a big site, compared to the other places we go.  After Ephesus, we drove back to the port and went into a rug factory store.  They tried to sell us on rugs, but let’s be honest, no college kid is going to buy a $500 rug.

HUG Fall 2011 in front of the Library of Celsus at Ephesus.

After Ephesus, we had time to chill until we arrived at Patmos that afternoon.  Yup, another biblical place to scratch off the list.  The group toured the alleged cave where John received his revelation.  After that, the group continued on up the mountain to tour a very old monastery that was built on Patmos.  Instead of going up to the monastery this time (I’ve been there 3 other times already) I sat at a coffee shop with all the adults, just admiring the scenic view we had from way up on top of the island. 

Sunday was the last day of actual cruising with a morning stop to Crete and an afternoon visit to Santorini.  This time we did something different at Crete.  Instead of taking the group on the usual tour of the Palace of Knossos we just gave everyone free time to explore Crete.  I took this opportunity to sleep-in a little because the past two days of leaving the boat at 7 was starting to get to me.  I got up and out of the boat around 9:15 and walked around Crete for a while.

While walking around Crete I managed to run into some students and we continued to explore the island together.  I was able to find and show the couple of students with me a church that I visited when I was here as a student back in the summer of 2009.  It is a church built to honor Titus.  Inside, they claim to have the skull of Titus that you can look at.  Now, the way that have it sitting in a box only allows you to see the top of the skull.  So, it could be just a rock, or another random skull.  Who knows?

The Church on Crete that claims to have the skull
belonging to Titus.

Santorini was the final stop of the cruise.  This was probably the best visit I’ve had to Santorini.  We got on the Island early and were able to visit in sunlight, during sunset and even at night.  We were able to see Santorini in all of its beauty, with all different lighting.  Here, I replaced the sunglasses that I lost two days earlier at the first stop of the cruise.  And with that triumphant purchase my Greek Island Cruise came to a close for this semester.

Santorini just before sunset.

We returned back to the Artemis early Monday morning to begin another week of just average Greek life and studying.  No big deal…

Next time I’ll cover our trip to the Peloponnese.  See you guys then…metaphorically of course.   

Santorini just after sunset.

Beautiful, isn't it?

Something to Hold You Over

As I promised, I am trying to be a more frequent and consistent blogger.  However, this post is going to be short because nothing incredibly significant has happened yet.  We have not had any big trips this semester, but that is about to change.  Today is Tuesday, and on Friday of this week we set sail for our Mediterranean Cruise.  I'll post about that when we return.  After the cruise, we will be pretty busy at a steady pace going to and from places.  Until then I wanted to leave you with a little something. 

Last week the Bison (Harding University's student newspaper) asked me to write an opinion article about HUG.  Many of you may have already read my article, but I decided to let it serve as this week's blog post.  Next week I will have more to say, but for now I hope you enjoy reading more about what we do here at HUG and the impact it leaves on the students who come here.

Here is the link to my article, The Sword is Powerful Like His Master.  Enjoy.

A New Beginning (My 3rd Semester)

The fall semester has gotten off to a good start.  The students have been here for exactly one week and we have already done a lot.  We began with our traditional tour of Athens.  This included (all are hyper-linked if you want to know more about them):

• The Acropolis (the Parthenon)
• Mars Hill
• The Plaka
• The New Acropolis Museum
• The 1896 Olympic Stadium

HUG Fall 2011 Group Pic on the Acropolis.

Listening to Paul's Sermon to the Areopagus, while
sitting on Mars Hill.

This group is different from the past two groups I have been here for.  This group only has 21 students, whereas the last two groups had 31 and 32.  There is nothing wrong with a group this size and nothing wrong with bigger groups.  It's just interesting to see the different group dynamics that come along with the size of the groups.  It has been fun to see that for this group.  On their first free afternoon they all decided to go the beach together.  The group has already started to grow together as a family, which is great!  It's what we are all about here at HUG; becoming a family and seeing amazing things together.  I can't wait to see what is in store for this group as the semester progresses. 

Students following along with Pau's sermon in the Bible.

Today we went to the National Archaeological Museum and this past Saturday we went to Cape Sounion.  That's everything big we've been to.

Our Greek Island Cruise is coming up next and everyone is excited, me included, even if it is my 4th one.

I'll have more to post along the way but I'm going for shorter blog posts so as to keep people engaged longer.  I will use this post, however, to promote HUG.  We have recently jumped into the world of social media with a Facebook Page and a Twitter account.  I hope you will follow along by "liking" our page, www.Facebook.com/HUGreece and following us on Twitter, @HUGreece.  It will give you even more, constantly updated content about HUG and our adventures. 

Poseidon's Temple at Cape Sounion during sunset.

One of the students has a great view of the sunset at Cape Sounion.

I hope you enjoy these shorter posts.  I will try to keep them this way and with lots of pictures.  I know I've made promises in the past about blogging and keeping them shorter but I figure now, at the start of a new semester, is a good place to start.  Stay tuned; we have big things coming here at HUG!

Egypt, I Thought There Were Only 10 Plagues

Egypt was great, despite the dreaded sickness that attacked 33 of our 42 travelers. And yes, I was one of them. We will get to that in a moment. Egypt was completely safe. I never felt in danger, not for a moment. In fact, many times as we drove through towns we could see people cheering and applauding our bus because they were glad tourists were there. Tourism is such a huge part of their country’s economy, they were glad to be getting business. It was fun getting to have most of the sites completely to our group, unlike when I was in Egypt during the summer of 2009. I know what a crowded tourist season in Egypt looks like. Let’s look at our trip chronologically. I’ll break it down day by day to make it easier to follow and read.

Me outside the Pyramids with the Sphinx.

Day 1: We arrived in Cairo and stayed in this ridiculously nice hotel. It was huge. It was like an oasis in the middle of the desert. No site-seeing today.

Day 2: We went to the Giza Pyramids, went in the Great Pyramid, stood in front of the Sphinx, went to Memphis and then took a night train to southern (Upper) Egypt. It’s called Upper Egypt because the Nile flows from south to north. I don’t think I had an actual mattress on my bed in my train car. I woke up the next day so sore in my shoulders and ribs. I stayed that way for the next four days, remember that.

Day 3: We got to our cruise boat after seeing the Temple of Philae. We were excited because our group was the only one on the cruise ship. We had it all to ourselves, not a single other person. Later that day we took about a 30-minute camel ride through the middle of the desert to a Nubian Village.

Giant Statue of Ramses II in Memphis.

Day 4: We cruised more and saw the Temple of Kom Ombo and Edfu. We got to Edfu via horse draw carriages, pretty fun.

Day 5: This was when the cruise started to attack. We had an early wake up call and went to the Valley of the Kings at 6 am so we could beat the heat. We went in 3 tombs there and they still had paint on many of the walls. Brilliant colors of red, yellow and blue served as a stark contrast to the brown hues that dominate Egypt and most of the other tombs. About 11 people had to stay behind on the boat because they were getting really sick. (I’m assuming the cruise did it, although I’m not 100% sure, just my theory.) In fact, that afternoon, I started to feel kind of sick as well. I was just ridiculously tired and could hardly move. I had a fever and was just hot the whole time in my room, and I couldn’t even sweat. I was miserable, like many, many others.

Camel Ride through the desert to the Nubian Village.

Day 6: I’m still not feeling great, but I wasn’t that bad. I never had to sit out on a site. There were plenty of people who were way worse off than me. We went through and toured the gigantic temple complex of Karnak and then Luxor. The Karnak temple complex is the size of a city; it is humongous. That day we ate McDonalds for lunch, a very welcome taste of home.

Statue of Egyptian god Horus at Temple of Edf

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I should also tell you that by today, I’m just now not sore from our over night train ride from Day 2 (yes, it took that long to get over the soreness). However, tonight, we were supposed to take our overnight train back up north to Lower Egypt, but then something happened. We were told that there were strikes at the train station, nothing political or having to do with the revolution; just usual strikes and we would not be able to take the train. Everyone on the bus cheered! So then we departed from Luxor about 3-4ish in the afternoon and got to our hotel that night in Cairo at 3:30 am. We also stopped a few times for bathrooms and dinner at a hotel. Most people were still glad we did the bus. I was glad because now the train wouldn’t make me sore for the rest of the trip the day I got over it’s previous attack on my body.

Mohammed Ali Mosque in Cairo.

Day 7: We visited the Mohammed Ali Mosque in Cairo and the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities. In the museum we saw King Tut’s famous burial mask. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures because they were not allowed. I also paid a little extra, like most students, to go in the mummy rooms. We saw about 30 mummies of very famous pharaohs, like Akhenaten, Ramses II, some of the Tutmoses and so on. In fact, they had unwrapped many of the mummies so we could actually see their faces, skin, teeth, fingernails and even hair. I was able to look the mighty Ramses II in the face, possibly the same Pharaoh that Moses confronted, and I was looking him in the face! Unbelievable! There are big debates on when the Exodus happened. There are basically two big dates and I saw the Pharaoh that represented each date. No doubt I looked upon the face Moses did. Incredible! That day we even saw some of the buildings that were scorched from the revolution that took place this past January.

Temple of Edfu.

Day 8: We visited old Coptic Cairo and the oldest Mosque in Africa (that is still in work today, in fact, we were there during their noon day prayer time) and then we began to drive towards the Land of Goshen. We stayed at a hotel right next to the Suez Canal. By tonight at dinner I was just now feeling back to 100% health. Which was good because I would need it 2 days from now, when we could climb Mt. Sinai.

Day 9: We basically just drove to get to the base of Mt. Sinai in the Sinai Peninsula. We went in a tunnel under the Suez Canal and came out in Asia. Yes, part of Sinai is in Asia. That night I ate dinner and went to bed about 9 because we were going to have a ridiculously early wake-up call, 1 am.

Sunrise on Mt. Sinai.

Day 10: I wake up and begin hiking up Mt. Sinai at 2 am. We are in the complete middle of the desert. There are no cities near by to give off light; it is total darkness. The stars are like sprinkles dotting a birthday cake. I can now understand how it would be impossible to count them. It is so dark that a cloudy arm of the Milky Way stretches across the sky for everyone to see. We began the slow ascent up the man-made trail. It is not very steep, just a continual zigzagging on a constant incline.

Me on the top of Mt. Sinai for Sunrise.

 About 4 am it is getting brighter, light began to glow on the horizon where the sun would soon rise. The last 20 minutes are stairs to the peak. That was where it got rough. Your legs would quake like Jell-O and make you stop every once and a while just to rest.

I got to the top and had to put on both my jackets, it is freezing and windy. I lay down on the massive rock on the top of the mountain and just took it all in. We rested there for about an hour and saw the disc of the sun quickly rise above the other mountains into view. Just 3 hours earlier I saw some of the darkest night I have ever seen and now it was so bright. I could see the entirety of the desert around me. Absolute desolation. Beautiful. And to think, Moses climbed this same mountain to meet with God. Incredible!

We had a brief devotional where we sang a few songs and prayed. The descent took less time than the climb and we were back at the hotel for an 8 am breakfast. Then we went back to the base of the mountain to visit St. Catherine’s monastery where we had a private tour by an American monk. After the tour, we drove all the way back to Cairo for our last night in Egypt.

Genuine Hieroglyphics in a temple.

Day 11: Slept in and left the hotel at 11 to head to the airport. Came home to Greece and it was great! Everything in Egypt is brown. From the sand to the buildings, it’s all brown. And everything is flat! As we flew over Greece it was great to see the shockingly blue Aegean followed by rolling green hills dotted with short silvery-green olive trees and tall, pencil thin, dark-green Cyprus trees. I was relieved to know my eyes could still process color. To top it off, as a group we ate at Dimitri’s (my favorite Taverna) for dinner that night. A gyro never tasted so good.

We saw many more Temples, Mosques, Churches and Sites, I just tried to shorten it to the highlights, but I guess all of Egypt is a highlight. Even though so many people were sick for much of the trip, it was still a great time and I know that no one regrets it, no matter how sick they got. It is truly a blessing to visit such an ancient and historically significant place. I know it impacted all of us in many ways.

We did go in a Pyramid after all. Scratch that off your bucket list.

I’m sorry this one ran for so long, but it was about as short as I could make it to effectively cover the Egypt trip. I’ll try to keep the other posts shorter. We’ll see how well that goal works.

Time For a Reboot

I know what you are thinking, “Wow, it’s been a ridiculously long time since the last blog post!”  And you are right.  I’ve been thinking, and I’m going to reformat how I write and present this blog.  It was too long before and thus it became almost a burden to write.  

Another reason I got behind was because I was getting used to my first semester here.  Things started to get really hectic at the end (finishing my last college class, trips, planning various activities, final banquets stuff, etc.).  However, my first semester as the assistant to the director was terrific.  We had a great group!  I couldn’t have asked for a better first group.  

Now we are 1 month into my second semester, a new group of students.  They are terrific as well!  Seriously.  Everything is going great.  We have already done our full day Athens tour, gone on our Peloponnese tour (Corinth, Mycenae, Epidaurus, Nafplion and Olympia) and we just returned from our trip to Egypt two days ago, Saturday, June 11.  

I will blog about Egypt in a few days.  Boy, do I have stories and pictures to share.  I hope you look forward to that post, because it is coming.  I promise.  I know you may doubt that since it’s been almost 3 months since my last post, but one of those months was a month we had no students (between semesters) so I’m cleared of that one.  

Get excited, this blog is going into season 2, and we’ve learned a lot since season 1.  It’s going to be good. This was just to let you know that I haven’t abandoned you and that I’m bringing this blog back to life.  See you in a few days. 

In Eternal Catch-Up

Let’s try to knock all of this out in one blog post.  Ok, it might take two, but I will catch up and stay on top of this, especially next semester when I won’t have Geology taking up my free time.

Pretty soon after Israel, as in a few days, we had a rogue fire alarm go off at 4:30 in the morning.  I grabbed a shirt and ran out into the hallway about the time Dr. James was coming down from his floor.  He was going to the office, like I was, which, if you remember, is just 5 steps diagonally to the right across the hall when you walk out of my apartment.

Well, this fire alarm woke me up, but for some reason I immediately thought it was a burglary alarm.  So deep down I’m nervous cause I’m thinking there is a good chance we have people in the Artemis but, at the same time, I’m trying to get psyched-up to fight if I have to.  Ridiculous I know.  However, when Dr. J first saw me and said it was the fire alarm as we were both going into the office to shut it off I immediately realized that that made a whole lot more sense.

After turning the alarm off, Dr. J and I walked throughout the entire Artemis trying to find any signs of fire or smoke.  I even discovered a new room that I hadn’t been into.  I’m telling you, this place is like a maze, or Hogwarts; there is always something new to be found.  In fact, as I write this, on March 14, I just discovered a new room 3 days ago; kind of a sub-room in the laundry room that I didn’t know existed.  Crazy!  And I like to think I’m a very observant person. 

Ok, that covers the fire alarm fiasco. 

Next, sometime the week of the fire alarm, we threw a little surprise birthday for Mark.  We’ve been trying to do unique things for everyone on their birthday, things that fit their personality.  For Kelcey’s birthday we did a scavenger hunt.  For Mark, Mrs. Beth made this famous pasta recipe from the HUF program since he was a HUF student before.   After dinner, we arranged a bonfire down at the beach.  This meant I started shuttling students down via the large white van.  Oh, by the way, it’s the manual car I’ve been practicing on with Mark teaching me.  This was my first time to really be out on real roads, taking people.  At the beach we just chilled around the campfire and even sang some.  It was a great time all around.

Looking down at the Torch and Starting Blocks for the
Marathon race in Marathon, Greece. 

That weekend (at least I think it was, the timing is not important) we went to Vravrona and Marathon.  Both sites are only a little ways away.  Vravrona is only about 4 or 5 miles behind the Artemis, in fact, it’s where we (the people who built the hotel before us) get the name for our building, the Artemis.  Check this out, it’s really neat (at least I think so, being a huge Greek Mythology nerd).  As Agamemnon was sailing from Mycenae towards Troy, for the Trojan War, he was said to have stopped at Vravrona, just a handful of mile behind our building.  While out, he killed a stag sacred to Artemis, goddess of the hunt and nature and whatnot.  The only way he could make propitiation for this sin was to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia.  Until he sacrificed his daughter, Artemis made sure there were prevailing winds that kept him from launching back off to continue his journey for Troy (which is located in Turkey).  Vravrona had a temple to Artemis, and that is why our building is named the Artemis, because it’s so close to this site.

Unfortunately, when we arrived at Vravrona, the archaeological site was closed, only the museum was open.  You can see most of the site from the road just looking over the fence.  This is a site that I didn’t even go to as a student.  I reported on it for a project and had my professor take us, but we only looked over the fence then because it was closed then too.  Maybe one day I’ll be able to walk around Vravrona.

Marathon really only had two things, a giant burial mound for those that fought in the battle of Marathon and the starting blocks for the current Marathon.

Burial Mound in Marathon.

I’ll cut this post short at here.  I know you don’t want really long blog posts.  Next time I’ll talk about the Peloponnese (Southern Greece) trip.  

Spring Trip to Israel

I know, I have taken forever to resume this blog but things have been incredibly busy.  Now I’m trying to play catch up on a good many things.

Israel was amazing, of course.  About half the things we did were totally new to me.  We had the legendary Harding favorite guide for Israel, Yossi.  He truly made the trip what it was.  It was awesome to be able to be in Israel for a second time. I know many people go their entire lives without being able to travel there; I am truly blessed.    

To make this quick, I will just list some of the places I visited:

·      Tel Aviv

·      Mt. Carmel

·      Mt. Beatitudes

·      Mt. Tabor (possible sight of the transfiguration)

·      Nazareth

·      Jerusalem

o   The Western/Wailing Wall

o   The Temple Mount (including walking a tunnel under the wall)

o   The Dome of the Rock

Standing in front of the Dome of the Rock.

o   The Old Market (found a store there named “Alabama: The Heart of Dixie.”)

·      Garden of Gethsemane

·      Mt. of Olives

·      The Garden Tomb (what a tomb that Jesus would have been put in looked like)

·      Dan

·      Caesarea Philippi

·      Caesarea Maritime

·      Capernaum

·      Bet She’an

·      Floated in the Dead Sea

·      Took a boat on the Sea of Galilee

·      Stood on the banks of the Jordan River

·      Hikes through the beautifully empty Judean desert

·      Into Palestine for Bethlehem

The hikes through the Judean desert were awesome.  It was so empty and wide, it was crazy!  Definitely in my top favorite things we did.

Hiking through the Judean Desert

Staying in a kibbutz was a fun experience.  Each time I felt like I was living in the DHARMA barracks from LOST (you know I had to mention Lost in this blog).  

One of those rooms was mine in the kibbutz.

People in Israel were so friendly.  You could talk to anyone.  I talked to this private guard at our first hotel in Tel Aviv.  She was 21, my age, and came from a Jewish family.  She grew up in California but moved here when she graduated high school and joined the military to do her two years of service and was now out and working as a private guard.  She was currently with a Birthright Israel group from Hungary (I think they were from Hungary.  This is the problem with blogging a month out).  Talking to her was one of the highlights of my trip.  I really got to see and understand what the nation of Israel is and what it is like to someone of the Jewish faith. 

Being in Israel does not feel like a foreign country.  So many people speak English and the entire country is really, really nice.  There were so many times we were on the highway and you could have easily forgotten that you were not in America; it was beautiful.  Don’t think of Israel as desert; that’s only half right.  Northern Israel is very green and luscious.  Jerusalem is at about the middle of the country and that is where it starts to become like a desert.  If you keep traveling south, towards the Dead Sea, then it is very desert-like.  In fact, it is a desert.    

Our Muslim camel that gave our students rides. 

It was amazing how many other countries we saw visiting Israel.  There were tons of people from Nigeria.  The funny thing was that in Israel, the temperature was about 60 to low 70s everyday.  Well, the Nigerians that stayed in our Kibbutz were always wearing huge winter coats, gloves, scarves and toboggans, even inside at dinner.  I guess it felt that cold to them.  We also saw groups from China sitting around biblical sites reading out of their Bibles and listening to their tour guide. 

Standing on the Mount of Olives looking down on the
Old City of Jerusalem.

It’s amazing to see that such a small piece of land, Israel, about the size of New Jersey, can mean so much to so many people around the world.  Think about it, everyone is focused on this part of the world.  It is important to Jews, Christians, Muslims and even followers of Baha’i.  It was awesome to be there.  I’m so excited to be able to visit there three times a year; I am truly blessed.  I know this was a very short post that doesn't do Israel justice.  Hopefully, you'll still be reading the blog this summer when I go again.  You can also check out my album on Facebook for more pictures.   

My First European Soccer Game

After a long hiatus, due to traveling through Israel, I am back.  We just got back from Israel yesterday; however, this blog post is going to be about what we did the night before we left for Israel. 

After about two weeks of living in the Artemis with no real travel under this semester’s belt, the students were anxious to do something big.  So, the night before we were to leave for Israel, just about all the students found something big to do.  Probably not the best time to go out and do stuff, but no one could resist.  About 5 students went with Vicky (our receptionist and Greek teacher) to go see a play in downtown Athens.  In addition to that, 17 students and myself went to the AEK football (American soccer) game in Athens. 

Those of us going to the game first went to the mall in Athens.  We had a couple of hours to walk around, shop (if you so chose) and eat dinner.  One of the students and I split a bucket at KFC in the Athens mall.  It tasted great!  It was almost identical to the KFC back home.  A bunch guys went to the Ruby Tuesday in the mall and ate a ridiculous amount of ribs. 

The stadium is just one subway stop from the mall, but we decided to walk it because the time on our previous tickets had expired and we didn’t want to have to pay another 1.40 euro (yes, they have raised the price of subway tickets, while we’ve been here this semester!) just to go one stop when we would have to buy tickets again after the game.  Also, I wasn’t exactly sure where the subway stop was around the Olympic complex (the game was being played in the 2004 Olympic Stadium).  It only took us about 15 minutes to walk there from the mall. 

As we entered into the stadium complex many from our group bought scarves and other AEK paraphernalia.  As our group purchased items at the stands entering the park we were told a very colorful (to say the least) story of a drunken fan’s favorite AEK football victory… 

Our seats were amazing.  We were about row 19 I believe, from the field!  We were right even with the goal line.  If you bisected the corner-kick corner that line would just about hit us.  Needless to say we got to see a great game on our end of the field. 

This was my first soccer game to ever go to, even though I played the game from kindergarten through 10^th or 11^th grade.  It was so much fun.  If we were about at 11 o’clock in the stadium, on the ground level, then AEK’s “super-fans” were at about 6-7 o’clock in the upper deck.  They were really something to watch.  They threw toilet paper and flares and yelled songs all game long.  The stadium was really empty.  In fact there was only maybe 20 people in front of us, in all the 18 rows below us in our section.  Only half of the stadium was being used, and it was not very full at all.  I should also tell you that this was some sort of a rivalry game, from what I’ve been told.  The team name was Aris (after Ares, god of war) and they were from Thessaloniki (you may know it as biblical Thessalonica). 

After the game we walked back to the mall’s metro station and got on the rail to head back home.  As we waited on the platform for our metro, fans were there, chanting and singing, even though AEK lost 2-1.  Even once the metro got there the fans were singing on the actual metro as we zipped across Athens and into the outlying areas.  Dr. James met us at the Koropi metro station since the buses had quit running for the night.  He took all the girls back and then came back for all us guys. 

Even though “our team” AEK lost, we didn’t care.  It was still an awesome cultural experience and I hope that this group will want to go back for another game.  I’m always down for a game.  Especially since the ticket for our great seats only cost 20 euro, not a bad deal… I guess.

Soup Kitchens, Bon Fires and Fashion Shows...What a Week

Alas, it feels great to be writing about what just happened in the past few days and not from what happened over a week ago.  Monday was our first chance to help out with the soup kitchen.  Dr. James drove 8 students and myself into downtown Athens via the big white passenger van (more on why I wasn’t driving the van in a minute.)

We left the Artemis about 5 pm and it took us an hour an half to get to the soup kitchen in downtown Athens.  The reason it took so long was because the metro was on strike that day so everyone had to drive.  Traffic was crazy!  I was in charge of navigating, via Dr. James’ iPad. 

We made it to the soup kitchen, which was on the 8^th floor of the building, at about 6:35.  We sat up there until about 7:30, once the preaching finished, and then began to serve the soup.  Let me step aside to explain.  The 8^th floor overlooks the 7^th floor.  The 7^th floor is a large room with rows of tables and a small stage at one end, like you would see at an elementary school or something. 

I went down to the 7^th floor to serve all the round tables that hugged the two perpendicular walls.  The longer of the two walls had huge windows that looked out onto…wait for it…the Acropolis, which was all lit up.  It was an amazing site!  It truly looked like a picture.  After my group served our tables we went back up to the 8^th floor to begin washing the bowls.  We had to do this because another group was coming in as soon as the first group finished eating.  So, all in all, we washed every dish, some multiple times.  At the end of the night we found out that we served about 400 people, which is more than they’ve had in the past year.  Before we left, we went up to the roof, the floor just above us to get a nice look at nighttime Athens, especially of the Acropolis. 

Afterwards, about 9, we meandered our way through the windy pedestrian streets of the Plaka to make our way to Sabbas, many a HUG students favorite gyro place.  It was astounding how empty the Plaka was.  What was even more astounding was the view we had once again of the lit-up Acropolis.  As we looked up the narrow streets we could see the well-lit Acropolis, a very cool excursion all around. 

Tuesday was an interesting day, the first day I practiced driving stick.  The only downside was that there are not really any parking lots around here I can just go to and practice.  Instead, I had to learn on the back streets of Porto Rafti.  Actually, to get the white van (now you see why I couldn’t drive the students into Athens in the van Monday) out of our complex I had to back out and circle around (almost a 3-point turn) which probably was not the best thing to start on.  I definitely killed it enough for my first time. 

That night, a group decided we have spent enough time watching movies at night so instead we were going to have a bonfire down at the beach.  After dinner I took 4 other students with me, along with firewood, and drove down to the beach.  The rest of the group, basically all but 5 students took about 30 minutes to walk to the beach.  It was ridiculously windy and took forever to start a fire, however, once we got it started it was a great fire!  I had to ferry most of the students back because it was so cold.  I took about 5 car loads back and then a few students decided to walk all the way back.

When I went to pick up the last group, I rolled up on them singing.  It was a great time with about 9 students.  We were the only people on the beach except for two people that walked up.  The started to talk to us and we found out that they were here on a mission trip from Florida.  Weird!

Wednesday I spent some more time that afternoon practicing driving stick.  I killed it much less than the day before, so that’s always good, slowly improving.  That night, some students were planning to go to a fashion show in Athens, however, the tickets they thought they had fell through.  So, we decided to have our own fashion show here at the Artemis.  Naturally I “SUITED UP!”

Everyone who participated in the Fashion Show.

Thursday it rained all day, really hard.  The students decided to watch movies all day; the first one was Hercules.  Great choice!

Today, Friday, we just chilled around.  Doing work.  Typical day of class.  I did payroll for the students for the first time.  I think they were excited to get paid.  I also helped plan out a soccer (European football) trip tomorrow.  We are going to watch AEK vs. Aris at the 2004 Olympic Stadium in Athens. 

This may be my last post for a while.  We are leaving on Sunday for a trip to Israel.  I’m taking my netbook with me, but we’ll see how much Internet I actually get there. 

Talk to you guys later.  Thanks for following along.  

Playing Catch-Up: A Week in Review

Today I’m going to attempt to do the impossible, catch up on my blog.  (An eerie silence falls over all the blog followers.)  Yes, even though it is over one week after the last day I wrote about in the previous blog post I shall catch up, mainly because nothing of great touring importance happened, but maybe you’ll still be interested in following my life here. 

Sunday- We woke up whenever we wanted to (Lazy Sunday wake up in the late afternoon call Parnell just to see how he’s doin’…..Anybody?  Ok, anyways).  We left for church at 3:30 to give us a while to walk around and explore Glyfada.  Glyfada is like a suburb of Athens that is really nice.  Our church meets in the Kong Palace Hotel, the place that HUG used to live in during the early days.  Church meets at 6, but it takes about 30 minutes to get there and then we were just going to chill until church.  There is a Starbucks a block behind the church that most of us went to.  At church we are the majority.  There were about 20 others.  This is an English speaking service.  It’s somewhat of a church plant, for lack of a better word, of the church in downtown Athens.  The same preacher, Dino, preaches.  He is also the boss of Aristotle Travel, the travel agency we use here at HUG. 

Looking down on Porto Rafti from the mountain.
You can see the HUG building about in the dead middle.

Monday was the first day of class.  After class, we took a group of kids to the Koropi metro because they wanted to go into Athens.  Dr. James drove the large passenger van and I followed with the small blue sedan behind him.  After we dropped those off at the metro station the other 5 students continued with Dr. James and I on to the Greek equivalent of Best Buy.  It was a fun little adventure, seeing where Greeks buy their electronics.  Then we went to the “Famous Brands” factory outlet mall.  It’s not like an outlet mall you would think of in America.  It was a huge building, like a Wal-Mart or Sam’s, that had little half rooms, or dividing walls, where different stores had their own room.  We saw stores such as Nike, The North Face, Tommy Hilfiger, New Balance and many, many others. 

Then I drove back to Porto Rafti with the students in my car.  We drove all around Porto Rafti.  We took a right at the “Y” and went all the way to the paid beach and up the mountain to look back on Porto Rafti.  Then we went back to the “Y” and went to the left and drove a while, eventually up a mountain to a fort.  We found out later that the fort is a nice restaurant.  Then before coming back to the Artemis we stopped for ice cream. 

The road to the right of the "Y."  Far left is the parking for the
private beach.

The first group of the semester to hike the mountain.

Tuesday- I finally led a group of students on a hike up the mountain across the street.  Even though it had rained nearly everyday since we’ve been here, we decided to go anyways and hope the mountain wasn’t too slippery.  It was only slippery in a few places.  
It took an hour from the front door to get to the top.  Coming day was pretty rough.  It was very thorny!  It was thorny on the way up too, of course.  However, I guess we came down a different way because it was even worse on the trip down.  My right arm was scratched to shreds.  I turned around to see those behind me and slipped into a huge thorn bush.  That wasn’t the funnest fall I’ve ever taken.  However, one of the students was laughing at my fall and not 30 seconds later she fell into it herself.  I told her that I took out most of the bush for her so she wouldn’t have so much pain.  It is my job to look after the student after all. 

That night, Slagle and I had dinner with the James, Mrs. Ragsdale and Dr. Hopper.  It was a great night to catch up and visit.

The Golden Mask of Agamemnon.

Wednesday was just a typical class day.  
Nothing super special. 

Thursday we took the group to the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.  Once again, we had our tour guide from Saturday, the Ancient Athens tour, James.  He walked us through the museum.  I especially loved seeing the Golden Mask of Agamemnon, the Statue of Zeus and the actual arrowheads from the battle of Thermopylae again for a third time.  That was Thursday.

Friday was just another day, until…The Power went out.  The James left, taking a group of students to the outlet mall again and left me in charge, with the Thompsons (the visiting professor) here too.  The power went out and Meitek, our handy man, had to show me where all the fuses were and how to open the back gate into the campus manually because he was about to leave.  I walked out to the gym only to find that its alarm was going off.  I had to call Meitek on his phone to figure out how to turn it off.  After about an hour and a half in the dark, the electricity came back.

Famous Statue of Zeus.  Possibly
Poseidon, but most think it's Zeus.

Saturday was nothing noteworthy; except that Matt Gulley came to tell us about the Soup Kitchen work that we can help with every Monday.  That night we all got to go out and eat on our own.  I went with a group to To Misos, the place that Matt Parks and Justin Jones thought was run by the Greek mafia.  It wasn’t as good as Dimitris (the one just down the street) but it was good to try a different taverna (yes, that is taverna, not tavern).  

Sunday we chilled and were able to sleep in.  Breakfast crew made pancakes, and they were awesome.  I had five.  Church was once again that night in Glyfada. 

Now I am caught up with this week.  Monday was interesting since it was this groups first time at the soup kitchen in Athens.  I will post about that soon.