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. 

Ancient Athens: The Big Olive

The Parthenon

Saturday was an early day.  We all had to be on the bus by 8:00 a.m.  (that’s midnight for you central timezoners) to begin our trip into Athens.  We picked up our guide James once we got close into Athens and began our guided tour.  It was great having a guide.  He really knew his stuff, especially from a biblical perspective.  He was able to relate how Daniel foresaw the rise of Greece and who exactly Daniel was referring to.  

The day started with a quick stop to the 1896 Olympic Stadium.  1896 was when the modern Olympics were first revived.  From here we went on to the Acropolis.  We started our trek up the mountain, stopping at the theater on the way up.  We eventually arrived on top.  It was a beautiful morning.  We could see all around Athens from up there.  It was great getting to see the Parthenon up there (a third time for me).  I believe much of the scaffolding was down from the last time I was there.  

Looking onto Mars Hill from the Acropolis

After spending some time on top of the Acropolis we traversed down just a little bit to Mars Hill or the Areopagus, where Paul may have spoken.  The Areopagus was the name of a place as well as the body.  It’s like how you could say Congress and mean the body of people or the building they meet in.  So, there is some scholarly debate as to whether Paul actually spoke on the Areopagus or somewhere else to the Areopagus.  We sat up there and sang a song or two, then Dr. Thompson talked a little, followed by Dr. James reading Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill.  This was my fourth time to sit up there and read the sermon on Mars Hill and it’s still as amazing as the first time if not more. 

Dr. Thompson and Dr. James speaking to us on Mars Hill.

After that, we began to walk the entire way back down the Acropolis to the ancient Agora.  This included the best-preserved temple in Greece, the Temple to Hephaestus. 

We then continued into the Stoa and the museum inside.

The Temple to Hephaestus

Once we finished looking at the Stoa we continued to walk through the Plaka a ways to our lunch stop.  After lunch we went to the New Acropolis museum which opened during the summer of 2009, when I was here as a HUG student.  We went in it when I was here but we had to wade through a crazy amount of people so it was nice to not have such a crowd.  Plus, this time we still had our great guide, James. 

This ended our first day of touring.  It was great!  And, it was great to be a part of it again.  I am truly blessed to be here again.  I’ve learned so much more even this second time around.  I'm glad to be on this adventure again from another perspective; I'm loving every second of it from this perspective.  

90% of Life is Just Being Confident

Yes, I am still a little behind, but we are getting there.  Friday was another big day for the students.  They were allowed to sleep in, but we advised them to get up by about 9 or 10 so they could start adjusting to the different time zone here.  Many were awake at 8:40 when I came down to show breakfast crew how to do their job and to go with them to the bakery where we buy the breakfast pastries.

The day carried on and it began to rain.  I checked the weather and it looked like it was going to rain much of the afternoon.  This posed a dilemma.  We were going to take the students to Cape Sounion, a cape  where a temple to Poseidon sits that is known for its sunsets (it also has an interesting mythological tale linked to it, pertaining to the Minotaur).  However, there won’t be much of a sunset if it’s raining all day.  So at lunch, about 1:40, we decided to postpone the trip to Sounion for later and do something we were planning to do a few days later.  We decided to take the students into Athens via public transit so they would know how to do it on their own.  This made me nervous because I only did it 3 or 4 times when I was here and that was 2 years ago.  And now they wanted to teach the students a different way into Athens, a way that I had not done before. 

I had literally about 15 minutes to change, get ready, get the directions, get the money from Dr. James and get half of the group to go with me to begin the odyssey (see what I did there) into Athens.  Dr. James and Mrs. Beth were going to take the other half of students.  The visiting professor, Phil Thompson, and his wife went with my group.

We began our journey by walking about 50 yards up the street from the Artemis to the bus stop.  We all got on the bus and bought our ticket to the Koropi metro station.  The bus from Porto Rafti took us to Markopoulo.  There, we waited for about 20-30 minutes for the next bus to pick us up and take us to the Koropi metro station.  By the way, the place we waited wasn’t the town square like we used to when I went to HUG.  The town square is having a nice big fountain installed so I guess buses can’t wait there.  So, they had us wait on the edge of town beside a building and an empty lot. 

A short bus finally came to take us to the Koropi metro station.  Once again, when I was at HUG it was a full-sized bus.  This bus could only carry like 20 people, or less.  I had 13 of the 31 students with me, as well as the professor and his wife.  So a few of our group had to double up, while myself and another guy or two just stood since some local Greeks were taking up the other seats. 

We got to the Koropi metro station where we got tickets and finally got on the blue metro line.  This is a different way that what I was used to.  We used to get on the suburban rail (yellow line), ride to the Athens Mall that overlooks the 2004 Olympic Stadium, switch to the green line and then ride all the way into the Plaka.  We taught the students to take the blue line all the way in from the Koropi metro.  I had to make sure we were on the correct platform and on the correct end of it.  (Yes, even though it was the same track, different metros pull up to it on different ends.  You have to make sure you are on the correct end for your metro, otherwise it eventually splits to a different track.)  Here we got on and rode it all the way to Syntagma Square at the base of the Greek parliament building.

Athens Metro Map

After two hours of public transit we finally made it.  Did it take us this long when we were here (this is to my fellow summer 09 HUGer’s)?  I didn’t remember it taking this long.  We took a different route and since it’s winter the buses and metros may not run as often.  Anyway, I took my group around the Plaka and positioned them so they could see a little of the Parthenon, since it was right above us on the Acropolis.  I let my group roam around and told them to meet back at the three-story Starbucks at a certain time.  I then had to run back up to Syntagma Square an hour later to pick up Dr. James and his group and show them how to walk to the Plaka from there. 

After a while, it was time for my group to begin our journey back.  I don’t think it took quite as long because we took a different railway out.  We rode the blue line for a while and then switched onto the yellow line since it came sooner.  Either one would get us back to our original metro station, the Koropi metro station.  From there we had to do the bus thing again, including one transfer.  We finally made it back to the Artemis at 8 where we pulled out the dinner that Fofi, our wonderful chef, had left in the warmers for us.  Dr. James group stayed an hour longer since they were an hour later getting to Athens.

What I learned from this is that confidence is everything.  I never felt super confident about understanding the transit system when I took it in as a HUG student.  Now, I had to lead a group of 15 others on a route that was almost completely different than what I was even shakily use to and I had no time to prepare; I just had to lead.  I figured the best thing to do was to look confident, ask the right questions of the transit workers and use all of that to lead with at least the appearance of confidence.  Afterwards, I told the students that all that was pretty new to me.  I didn’t have much more knowledge or experience about this than they did.  However, if you do things with confidence then it usually turns out alright.  Usually.  This time it did.  We got on all the correct buses and metros (a quick shout out to my Rafina crew).  

Lesson of the day: 90% of Life is Just Being Confident.  I’ll let you decide on the other 10%. 

And So It Begins!

So I know I am terribly late at starting this, but then again, am I?

This is a blog about my new job as Assistant to the Director at the HUG (Harding University in Greece program). We live a little outside of Athens, in Porto Rafti, Greece. Each semester, spring, summer and fall, students from HU come here to study and learn all about the ancient world. We take tours all over Greece including areas around Athens, the Peloponnese (Southern Greece), a Greek Island Cruise and even trips to Egypt and Israel. This semester we have 31 students joining us in this journey. I was in their shoes during the summer of 2009. I also came with the Harding University Honors Abroad program for two weeks in the summer of 2007. Through this blog I want you to be a part of the journey as well.


I’ve been here for one week now. I was supposed to leave for Greece on Tuesday, January 11, but the crazy blizzard that hit the south kept me from leaving until Friday the 14^th. It was too quite for the first few days I was here without students. I arrived on Saturday and we got to work getting ready for the students’ arrival. Sunday we (The directors and I. Anytime I say we before the students arrive I am referring to the director, Mike James, his wife, Beth James, and me.) went to church at Glyfada (a suburb of Athens) at 6 pm at an English speaking church. We ate dinner with Dino, the preacher, and his wife. Dino is also the owner of Aristotle Travel, the agency we use to plan all of our trips. It was great getting to meet them and begin forming a relationship with them.

The rest of week we spent time doing work, fixing rooms, checking whisper sets (the devices students use to listen to the tour guides at stops), changing batteries, creating and printing booklets and cards of info for students, going to places so I could be familiar with the area and so much more. I loved every minute of the work, even if it seemed tedious, I loved doing it because I could see that everything I was doing mattered. It was important for the students, helping the program. I was in the office from 11 am – 2:30 am (yup both of those are am and they are in the correct order) and time flew. We had about a 1-hour lunch break and a 2.5-hour dinner break and that was all. Like I said, it didn’t even feel that long at all.

Wednesday came and a student came early because she lived in Europe. We went to the airport to pick her up that night and on the way there a bus passed us that was being escorted by police to the airport as well. We followed them in to see that it was a sports team. We went up to McDonalds to eat while we waited for the girl’s plane to arrive only to find some of the sports team up there. After asking one of them we found out that they were the Thessaloniki (a city in northern Greece, as in biblical Thessalonica) soccer team. That had played the Athens team that night and tied them 1-1.

We came back at 10 am the next morning, Thursday, to pick up the rest of the group. It was great to have students now. The Artemis (the name of the old hotel that HUG stays at in Porto Rafti) was never meant to be so empty. We (the directors, girl we picked up the night before and myself) all drove to the airport to pick up the group and the chartered bus met us there to bring the group home. This leaves a problem, how do we get the car we drove in home? Answer: I drove it all the way from the airport back to the Artemis, about a 15-minute drive. So I did. Fret not, that is a part of my job. I have a license that allows me to do this. I got lost for about 1 minute in Markopoulo, the town about 4 miles from ours. I knew I was probably lost when I made this one turn. I thought I made the turn early as I did it. The signs to direct you places are great here. They were set up for the 2004 Olympics to help people get around. I drove towards the center of town (Markopoulo) and eventually saw the sign pointing back to Porto Rafti. Now I know for sure how to get there as well as Glyfada and back. However, learning the Glyfada route is not related to my airport trip, I learned it earlier.

Once we got the students to the Artemis we showed them everything, introduced them to the staff and tried our best to keep them up and going until about 9 or 10 pm to help them adjust to their new time zone. This included a walking tour of Porto Rafti. We walked down the street and took a turn to the left at the “Y” and walked for a while hugging the edge of the Aegean. Then we came back and took a right at the “Y” and bought the students ice cream. Then I took the group on by myself on down to the point, another 25 or 30-minute walk and juts out into the Aegean. It was beautiful.

Students at "The Point"

When we got back I had to train the dinner workers, as I had trained the lunch workers earlier, on how to do their job. That’s one of my duties, training, paying and being in charge of the student workers. I also had to walk through the entire campus and show the RAs how to close down the campus at night. After a few more things to keep them awake, like playing a name learning game, we let the students go to bed, and they were definitely ready for it.

Thus the semester began. Trust me, it will only get more interesting. I’m just trying to start a habit of blogging. Today we went to Athens. I will post about that in the next day or two. Now that I got the blog started I will keep it up every couple of days. So, bookmark this, “follow” it or just keep checking in to see if I’ve posted something new. I’m glad you are taking this journey with me.