All good things come to an end...

Final post, a little bit too late, but I was told that I need to recap the last week of the trip to add closure =)

So we were in the Netherlands and it was great.... the weather was wonderful and we visited most of the country one day, Amsterdam the next, and then Utrecht (the city we were staying in) on the third. Those pictures are in the album that is at the end of this post.

Then on that Monday (May 5) we went to England!! My nephew Christopher met us at the ferry port at 6:30 AM and drove us around the area. The first day was spent hanging out at the Air Force Base and in Cambridge. The Air Force Base is about an hour outside of London, so on Tuesday we went into London and spent the day in there. We hit up all of the highlights... Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, London Eye, Covent Gardens, Green Park, British Museum, Hyde Park, and of course a West End show. We didn't go inside too many of the sights because of the budget issue, but we were sure to ride the London Eye (which was really spectacular!) and we saw a lot of great sites by walking from one place to another.

At the end of this night, we saw Spamalot in the West End theater district. It was such a good show!! Very well produced and the theater was beautiful, too. I had the soundtrack but had never seen the production so that was really exciting and fun to me.

The next day was very low-key. We started out the morning by going to a viewing area to watch the Air Force planes practice taking off and landing. It was interesting... some of the local people make a sport out of this. They are there faithfully every day with their binoculars and paper and they record which planes are used when and for how long and stuff. It was really cool to watch though because they were taking off right over our heads. Then we went to Kelli's apartment and watched movies and TV for the rest of the day. It was very relaxing.

On the next day, we drove out to Stonehenge. It was about 3 hours from the AFB so we had a bit of a drive in the morning, but Stonehenge was worth it! It cost a bit of money to get close to the rock formation, but it was really cool and interesting how the rocks were so big and clearly not naturally from that area, but nobody really knows how and why they were there. People seem to think it was for some type of religious ceremony. Scientists estimate that they were put together 5,000 years ago. Wow!

Then we drove to Windsor to see the Windsor castle. When we got there, we couldn't miss the castle because it was so large and beautiful, but when we got to the entrance we looked at the cost per person to get in and probably would have laughed in the employee's face if it would have been an appropriate reaction. It was way too expensive, so we walked around the outside and then spent a little time walking around the streets of Windsor.

The next day we went to the airport to leave and come back home. Chris drove us two hours to get to Heathrow Airport and our plane was to take off at 2:30. We arrived with plenty of time, said our goodbyes to Chris and then waited in the airport. We took off about 15 minutes late because of a traffic jam on the runway, and we had been told it would take 9 hours. Well, even with our late start, we got to the airport an hour early!! That was wonderful... we got off the plane and had carried all of our luggage with us so we didn't have to wait at baggage claim, which meant we were able to cruise through customs and security because everyone else was still waiting. Funny side story... the customs immigration forms give you two lines for "Countries you have visited prior to US arrival", and Lissie and I didn't have enough room!! It was really funny.

Anyways, my parents and Andy were waiting for me when we came into the main area of the airport. It was great to see my family again, and it was definitely a relief to see familiar faces!! Then Andy came to Duluth for a day and spent time with me and my family.

One piece of bad news was that on the ride back from the London airport, Christopher got into a bad car accident. He is still in the hospital today, over a week later, and is being flown to Texas tomorrow for more surgery. I feel like it is a little tiny bit my fault, and I know I shouldn't feel that way, but I still feel awful that he was driving back from bringing me to the airport. Anywho, if you could pray for him and a quick recovery, that would be great. If you're not already being kept up-to-date and would like to be, just let me know.

But anyways, that was my adventure in a nutshell. Now we have to create a final scrapbook project for one of our classes which will be a huge project that I haven't started but probably should. It has also been insane to think about the trip that I just completed... it has been a little over a week now, so things have started to sink in a little bit and I can't really wrap my mind around all that we did. I would LOVE to share more stories with you if you want to hear them, and I have more than enough pictures to show, so please just let me know!!

But until then, this is my final album of the highlights of the trip. This covers the rest of Paris, Netherlands, and England. I hope you enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000718&l=db6a7&id=1273320032

Photos...

No real blog entry now... not much to say since the last one. We left Paris and are now in the Netherlands with Andy's family's family's friend's family.... ask me sometime.
Anyways, I really like it here, too. They drove us all around today showing us nearly the whole city and tomorrow we are going to Amsterdam.
But I put up pictures from Siena, Pisa, Zurich, and Paris. Enjoy!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000699&l=84f3f&id=1273320032

France is more than just fries and toast...

Since my last update, we finished up our time in Switzerland with a trip up Rigi mountain to see the Swiss Alps from the top of one, to Luzern to see the Old Town, a gorgeous church, and the William Tell bridge and then a day spent in Zurich seeing the churches and people watching. The weather was beautiful and sunny and we spent quite a bit of time basking in the sunshine! Then we got on a train to Paris on Monday.

So we made it to Paris… and we are leaving again tomorrow! A few days was enough for me, though. It is a nice city, but I really don’t think it is all that it is hyped up to be. This might, however, be because it has been raining for the past three days straight… the whole time we have been in this city. We spent the first evening walking to the Eiffel Tower (6 miles!!) and then we climbed up it, which is definitely something that has to be done here! We were there for the sunset so we saw the city lights come on and were actually in the tower when they turned those lights on! It was pretty spectacular. The downside of this was that there were so many people there, it was ridiculous. We were pushing our way through crowds the entire time… there were a lot of people in super small areas and it took us over an hour to stand in the two lines to get down from the top in the elevators. But it had to be done, so we faced the crowds.

The next day we saw Notre Dame, La Chapelle Church, and the Musee d’Orsay. Funny story about the Orsay Museum… we saw an advertisement banner hanging off of it the day before that was talking about a Corinth exhibit within the museum. We were pretty excited because we went to Corinth in Greece and thought it would be fun to see an exhibit on it. Well we got to the museum and stood in the ridiculously long line that took us nearly two hours to get through because it kept winding like a snake throughout the whole courtyard, and about halfway through, we realized that the Corinth exhibit wasn’t about the city in Greece, but it was a collection of paintings by a man named Lovis Corinth. Slightly disappointing, but we figured since we had already been standing in the rain for an hour, we might as well stay for the rest of it. It was a pretty good museum and worth our time, I guess. We saw a number of Van Gogh paintings so that was pretty cool.

We took a walking tour of the Montmatre district that included seeing the Moulin Rouge, a few of the cafés featured in the movie Amelie, and the Sacre-Coure church. That was cool.

Today we went to the Louvre. Everybody has been right… the Mona Lisa isn’t nearly all it is hyped up to be… it is like 11x17 so it’s not very big and I don’t really understand why it is so good, but whatever. I braved the crowds and took pictures of it anyways. I also saw the Winged Victory statue and Venus de Milo. They were all pretty cool. We spent like two hours wandering around after that. There is so much to see in the museum, it is incredible!

Then we went to see the Opera Grandeur… the Paris Opera House that was rumored to have a phantom living underneath it—subject to Gaston d’Lerox’s novel and Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical. It was beautiful. Then we faced public transportation again (and were let down yet again) to get out to Napoleon’s Palace in Versailles. We didn’t go in the palace because it closed an hour after we (finally) got there and it cost 10 Euros to enter so we didn’t think it was worth it, but we wandered around the gardens for a while. We saw the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul and saw Napoleon’s Apartments in the Louvre that morning so didn’t feel like we were missing too much inside, and the gardens were beautiful.

So that’s my story. I don’t particularly like Paris. This might be because of how much I really liked Switzerland, but I am ready to leave tomorrow. I feel like I have seen all that I wanted to. Today, Lissie and I were actually trying to think of things to do with our time. I hope the weather is better elsewhere.

I am also very excited for these last two parts of the trip. Tomorrow we go to Utrecht, Netherlands, where we are staying with a family that I met a few months ago through a long line of friends’ relatives’ friends…. Ask me sometime if you want the whole relation story. It’s quite complicated. Anyways, they are great people and I am excited to see them again. Then on Sunday we are going to London to meet with my nephew Chris! By the way, in case you were wondering and haven’t been reading all of my posts, the whole luggage thing has worked out perfectly and all of the plans have been settled for the rest of the trip and I am quite excited for them! And then next Friday, after nearly five days, we are flying home!! I will hopefully try to update at least once more before I get home.

Also, Lissie and I have walked 84 miles since we left the group 10 days ago. This brings our grand total of miles walked up to 442 for the semester.... can we hit 500 in the next 9 days? I think so... we've been averaging just under 10 per day so far. Hooray!!

I also have some more pictures!! They only go through Rome though... I'm working on the ones since then. Enjoy!!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000696&l=54b57&id=1273320032

Italian Escapades

Wow, so this is Italy! It’s truly a shame that I couldn’t spend more time here because it is truly a beautiful country. Lissie and I have been taking trains everywhere and have had a great chance to see the countryside. To be quite honest, however, most of it looks exactly like Greece. But it is still beautiful!

Our first day of travel was long… 3-hour train, 16-hour ferry, 5-hour train again. But we finally got there and were able to meet the other six from Concordia who flew directly to Rome the day before. We all went out to dinner at a restaurant called “Concordia” that we figured was pretty appropriate.

If you can believe it, Lissie and I saw the majority of the large sites in Rome within the only full day we were there. We saw the Spanish Steps the first night so were able to cross them off our list. We got up at 5:30 AM to get to the Vatican by 7:00 when it opened. We saw St. Peter’s Basilica when there were maybe 20 others there (first picture) and it was still quiet inside (absolutely gorgeous!!) and then took the Cupola tour and climbed up into the top of the basilica and then up into the cupola and saw the Roman skyline. It was gorgeous. Then we went to the Vatican museum which was filled with so many things that I don’t even know what to say. We were told that if you spent one minute in front of every piece in the museum, you would be there for over 14 years! Needless to say, we had to pick-and-choose what we saw. The second picture shows a painting on the ceiling... a PAINTING. Not a sculpture. It was amazing. We ended up going to the rooms of paintings, Egyptian stuff, map room, modern art, and of course the Sistine Chapel (third picture). Everybody says it is beautiful, but you have no idea until you can see it for yourself. It was crowded with tourists, so that wasn’t very pleasant, but the frescos were gorgeous!!

This is where my blog pictures end... I haven't taken the rest off of my camera yet. They will come in the next one hopefully!!

Then Lissie and I went to the Coliseum and took a tour of the inside. It is colossal… just like its name. It was originally used as an arena for gladiator fights and other types of violent entertainment involving people and/or animals.

Then we walked to the Pantheon which is a domed church that defies the laws of physics because of how it was built. The dome doesn’t have many supports on it and it is miraculous that it is still standing. It was very pretty inside.

Then we went to the Trevi Fountain which is just as spectacular as pictures show. We both, of course, threw money in backwards to ensure good luck, a good life, and a return to Rome.

Then we walked to the Church of Santa Maria di Maggiato (or something like that) which was one of the only other churches in Rome to rival St. Peter’s in size, although it was obviously significantly smaller. It was also very pretty inside.

We met our group for supper at the Arch of Constantine which was near the Coliseum. The 8 of us walked to the Piazza Navona for dinner. Three of them have birthdays coming up soon, so we celebrated that tonight by dressing up and eating nicely. It was delicious! Then we split up and went back to our respective hostels to sleep.

Lissie and I walked 14 miles on that day….. needless to say, our feet hurt by bed time! It was also kind of funny because the first night we were there, it stormed incredibly hard and we got caught in the rain and were soaked from head to toe. Our shoes were soppy and we weren’t looking forward to having to put them on again for our long day of walking. That obviously didn’t help our sore feet by the end of the day, but it wasn’t as bad as either of us anticipated, so we were grateful for that.

The following day, we went to the Roman Forum, the Palantino, the Circus Maximus, and the Mouth of Truth in the morning before 12:00 when we had to get back to the train station. We got on a train around 1:10 and came to Siena, which is about 3 hours away. We had a huge bus fiasco because the public transportation here isn’t clear to non-Italian speakers, and since it is a small town, not many people spoke English. We finally found a hostel to stay in… it is a bit out of town but is quite nice. We met a woman from Australia who helped us get to the hostel and then joined us for dinner at a local pizzeria that was delicious!! We had an early night because we wanted to have an early morning!

The first bus that drove by our hostel left at 7:20 AM, so we decided to catch it and see the city all morning. We got to the first church, called the Duomo, before 8:00 AM. The church is covered in black and white marble so it resembles zebra stripes. It looks really gorgeous. We found a pamphlet that had a walking tour of Siena, so we followed that around the older parts of the city. We saw a few other churches, a few gorgeous views of the surrounding areas, and we ended in the Piazza del Campo which is a large square outside of a governmental building and is used for horse races twice a year. Unfortunately it happens in like March and September, so we weren’t anywhere near seeing them. By this time we had walked over 4 miles and it wasn’t even 10:30 AM, so we caught a bus back to our hostel and decided to try and get on an earlier train to Pisa.

We got into Pisa early, easily found a cheap hotel and then we wandered aimlessly around Pisa for the night. We had pizza at a restaurant that looked at the tower, had gelato on the lawn in front of the tower, and had a relaxing night without anything pressing on our minds.

We left Pisa this morning and got on a train at 11:45 that eventually landed in Zurich. We spent over 9 hours on the train today, but Switzerland is gorgeous!! We are here for the next three days (which should all be nice weather) and I am so excited to see the mountains!

Speaking of nice weather, I hear the weather back home is going to suck these next few days. That's too bad.... you should probably order sunshine and warm weather for when I get home, though. Thanks, that'd be great!

More pictures!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000694&l=dd2fd&id=1273320032

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000696&l=54b57&id=1273320032

Coming to a close....

Wow, my last blog entry for the official semester. For some reason, I thought I would have more than 21 blog entries… oh well! School officially ends tomorrow, although I finished all my homework and projects three or four days ago (which felt really good!). But don’t worry, faithful followers—I will try to write periodically while I am traveling around Europe for the next three weeks, as well.

Before I get too far into this, I want to say that I officially lived up to the name of my blog… I had an olives and cheese sandwich! I was pretty excited.

But anyhow, we had a wonderful last few days in Turkey. We saw a lot of really great sites like the ancient city of Ephesus, the wonderfully preserved churches in Cappidocia that are built into the sides of funny looking rock structures (that's what the picture is of), and a final two days in Istanbul exploring the Grand Bazaar, Suleyman the Magnificant’s mosque, a cruise down the Bosporus. We had a ridiculously long bus ride one day—14 hours with only one stop besides bathroom breaks—but even that was OK because the dynamics of our group are so great. I am really going to miss the other 22 people on this trip when it is over.

We got to Athens yesterday and had a free day today. I had a terrible morning trying to sort out things with the Greek post office to ship a large box to London so we don’t have to lug it around Europe but also don’t have to pay three times the amount to ship it to the United States. Today is Saturday, and apparently every Hellenic Post branch doesn’t ever ship packages weighing more than 2 kilo, and the only one that does is closed on Saturdays. (Fun fact… 2 kilo is 4.4 pounds, and our suitcase was roughly 30 kilo-- ~66 lbs. Somehow we got a price quote for that weight from the post offices that we went to… go figure. Ugh!!)

Anyways, after taking the metro three times carrying a 66 lb suitcase and three large cardboard boxes, visiting two different post offices, crying in front of one postal worker who had no idea how to handle a 20-year-old crying in public, and traveling for two hours, we finally made it back to the hotel and were EXTREMELY frustrated. The post office suggested splitting it into 15 2-kilo boxes at 21 Euro per box… we said no. The front desk called UPS and they said they could ship it for nearly 500 euro—that’s about $800. We said no. But We have two lifesavers in the group and they offered to take our bags on the plane under their name (since you’re allowed to check 2 bags when you fly) and then it will be waiting in Fargo for us whenever we come pick it up. Hooray! This means that nobody reading this will get souvenirs those first few days I am home, but you’ll have to deal with it. :-) Plus, these two people are saving Lissie and I almost 60 euros a piece. Thank goodness!

Other than that, I am really excited and sad. We are having a going away party tonight with our language lesson teacher from the beginning of the trip and also a viewing of our acting workshop that I wrote about in February (if you didn’t read that entry, you should. It was the strangest thing we did all trip and you will understand why I am excited to see the video that they made!). Lissie and I are going back up the Acropolis tomorrow morning as a last hurrah and we are going to leave on a train at 11:38 in the afternoon (although we’re leaving our hotel at like 10:30 to allow for ample time since neither of us really know what we are doing!).
I will update this when I get the chance… my guess is that I will have lots and lots of time on trains and ferries to write, the only problem is sketchy internet in the hostels. We’ll see, and I plan on keeping up-to-date as well as I can.

One final note… please pray for Lissie and me. We don’t know what we are doing and are kind of winging it and we both confessed to each other last night that we are scared out of our minds. It is going to be such a good adventure that we are sure we won’t ever regret doing it, and I will be sure to keep track of all the stupid things we do because we don’t know better. But if you could keep us in your prayers, I would be very grateful.

Take care, everyone!

I also have more pictures from Turkey!! Enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000688&l=250f0&id=1273320032

Mmmm... Turkey!

Sometimes I feel like my sister.

If you know my sister, you might know that this is a good thing. But you might also know that she has a tendency to be starstruck whenever she has the chance to meet somebody famous. Well last Monday, I had the opportunity to have a private audience and meet the Patriarch of Constantinople, His All Holiness Bartholomew, and I’m still nearly giddy about it.

At this point, we were still in Istanbul. We went to the building called the Patriarchate, the place that the Patriarch lives and works, and got a tour of the church that was on site. Then we were ushered into a beautifully decorated room that the Patriarch has meetings in and stuff. Dr. Roy Hammerling brought students here to meet him two years ago and he warned us that His All Holiness is a very busy man and might not have much time to talk to us and that we should be prepared to be ushered in, take a picture, and then him having to leave. Well we sat there for about 5 minutes until His All Holiness came in. He walked up to the front of the room and sat in a chair and started speaking to us. He started out by saying how he was pleased to meet us and then continued talking for 20 minutes! He talked about the efforts of the Orthodox Church to partner with the Islamic faith in Istanbul to create a more peaceful atmosphere for everyone. He talked about the Interfaith Dialogs that they have been setting up, one of which was in Athens in early February and our group actually went to listen to it.

This whole time, I was in awe of how professional and soothing this man was. His All Holiness Bartholomew is 68 years old and the 270^th patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church and he is fluent in five languages. His voice was soothing and very easy to understand. It felt like he was talking to us for a lot longer than 20 minutes just because of his elegance. He is a world leader, having worked closely with people like Pope Benedict and met important international leaders. When he was done, he gave us all cross pendants. The back of the pendant says “Patriarch Bartholomew” in Greek. We then gave him a few gifts as well. We gave him two CDs with music written and/or performed by Concordia professors and ensembles. We gave him a book on the history of our college and also a book on the college with an article written in it about the last time a Concordia group met him. He saw that and joked saying, “Who will be the one to write a story about this meeting?” and Roy Hammerling said, “Where’s Emily? There she is; she is our resident journalist. She’ll write about it.” He looked at me and smiled.

One of my favorite parts was when he was giving us these pendants, we walked by and shook his hand. Even though we are in Turkey, he is patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church so they all spoke Greek within the walls of the Patriarchate. We took Greek language lessons when we were in Greece, so although I don’t consider myself anywhere near fluent, we all know simple phrases like yes, no, please, thank you, etc. When I shook his hand, I said “Hiero Poli” which means “Nice to meet you” and he looked at me and smiled and said “Hiero Poli” back to me. That made my day!

After we all got our necklaces and a piece of chocolate, he ended his speech by talking directly about our college. He said, “Concordia. What a beautiful name. It means One in Mind, One in Heart.” This was a beautiful way to end his speech because he had been talking about the unity of the Greek Orthodox Church and the Islamic faith.

So that was my exciting news of that day. We ended up forgetting to take a group picture with him (dumb!) but I got a few as he was speaking so that will have to be good enough. I feel very honored and excited about it.

One little bit of fun news after that. We spent the last three nights in Ephesus. I was excited to see Ephesus because of the history with St. Paul and other Christian things, but I had no idea how many things there were to see here and how big the site is! It was really cool to see these sites and learn how much history is in this place besides the short period of time written about in the Bible. But the fun news doesn’t come from an ancient site.

After seeing ruinous ancient cities, we were told we were going to a leather shop. We were told that we shouldn’t feel obligated to buy anything but that they would give us really good prices on leather jackets. I was expecting a factory or something, but we got there and they brought us into a room with a runway in the middle! We’re all shifting our eyes at each other, telepathically sending the message of “what’s going on??” Pretty soon, the heavy bass music starts and we’re all wondering what is going to happen next. Almost immediately, five models come out and begin modeling the leather jackets. Now this wouldn’t be a big deal except it was so different from what any of us were expecting. Then about halfway through, there was one guy who winked at Ingrid and I an we both began laughing, and then the next time he came out he came over, grabbed my hand, and pulled me up on the runway! Another model pulled Brock out of our group and we both went into the back and put on a leather jacket and sunglasses and strutted our stuff down the runway! I couldn’t stop laughing the entire time because of the overall ridiculousness of the situation, but I had so much fun!

Then we went into their shop and tried on some jackets. A few people bought one, but the cheapest ones were marked at Î595 which is like $800+. Nobody paid full price because they did give us good deals, but they were still not any cheaper than $200. I tried on a chinchilla jacket that cost Î20,000… approximately $35,000 or so. Ridiculous. Needless to say, I didn’t buy anything.

So there are two fun stories from my last week in Turkey.

Plus, I have more pictures! There are 60 in each album so there are quite a few to look at (I’m sorry!!) but the first one is of the last part of Santorini and the first part Istanbul, the second is the last half of Istanbul, Troy, Pergamon, and the first day in Ephesus (including the Temple of Artemis… one of the seven wonders of the ancient world!), and the third is Ephesus, Priene, Didyma, and Miletus (they are all ancient cities that are ruins now, so don’t feel bad if you don’t recognize any of the names except Ephesus J)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000662&l=acfc0&id=1273320032

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000674&l=5c489&id=1273320032

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000675&l=40d24&id=1273320032

Enjoy!

Island Hopping

Greetings!! I know it has been way too long since my last entry and I apologize for that. This one will recap our last week, March 27-April 5, in the islands!

First of all, I want to say that the Greek islands are just as beautiful as they are in any picture that you see of them. None of that is fake... it is beautiful there!! It was kind of sad to leave Crete after the month that we spent there, but we were all pretty excited to go to the islands.

Our first stop was Tinos. We got there and it was rainy and windy… not exactly conducive to beach time. Tinos is a really interesting island. There is a large monastery dedicated to the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary (when Gabriel told her she was going to be the mother of Jesus) and it is a popular pilgrim destination. It is located at the top of the hill, and people visiting will often start at the bottom of the hill and crawl on their hands and knees to the top of the hill as an act of humbleness. There is also an icon in the church that was found buried in the ground. A vision came to a woman named Pelagia in a dream and told her where the icon was buried. She eventually became a saint and there is a nunnery on the island dedicated to her. Anyways, Tinos is an incredibly religious island and there wasn’t much to do there because all of the tourist shops were either closed or sold icons only. The weather was also consistently cloudy, rainy, and windy, so it wasn’t exactly a welcome beginning to our island adventures.

The second stop was Mykonos. We were here for three nights. This is probably the most picturesque island that we were on. All of the buildings are whitewashed with blue or green trim. I asked someone why houses in Greece look like this and they told me that it was because of all of the patriotism that the nation holds. Their flag is blue and white, so the houses are a representation of their patriotism. Very interesting! There is also a line of windmills on the coast that are very conducive for gorgeous pictures.

Weather when we were traveling wasn’t very nice still… extremely windy and cold. But the second day we were in Mykonos was a free day for our group and the sun came out and the wind stopped and it was beautiful! This island is very developed and touristy so there were a lot of shops open in the shopping district. Many were getting ready for tourist season coming up soon and were repainting their trim and stuff, but there were still plenty of places to buy jewelry.

Mykonos was also the moment I realized how much I dislike tourism. I work as a tour guide on the William A. Irvin in the summer, so I already knew a little bit about how annoying obnoxious tourists can be, but I’ve gotten to the point on this trip that I no longer consider myself a tourist in Greece. During one of our days here, a cruise ship pulled into port and all of the inhabitants got off for the day to go shopping. It was ridiculous how obnoxious they were with their disrespect for the local people and disregard for the local culture. It was clear that they were on vacation and felt like the world revolved around them and that all of the people in Mykonos were there to serve them. The worst part was that all of the shop owners would group us in with the cruise ship people and automatically treat us significantly different than they did before. Even if we walk into the shop and offer a greeting in Greek (Kalimera—good morning or Ya sas—hello) they would scoff a little. It made us all not want to shop in their stores just because of the rude vibes they were giving off because of their disdain of tourism.

Anyways, we also went to the ancient site of Delos. This is really close to Mykonos but uninhabited and preserved as an ancient city. Myth says that this is where the god and goddess Apollo and Artemis were born. Myth also says that the island was barren until they were born and then flowers bloomed all over… and there were definitely a lot of flowers there when we visited!

We all know that the world is small, but I have a real-life example of how small it is. There was a group of older adults touring the island at the same time as us, and at one point we had stopped to talk in the middle of a path and they walked through us. There were two people with Minnesota Gophers hats on and we got really excited and were like, “Yay Minnesota!!” It turns out that the entire group was from Minnesota. If that wasn’t cool enough, Dr. Roy Hammerling told someone the two in the hats we were from Concordia College in Moorhead, MN, and some others in the group overheard… Apparently they are both Cobber alumni! And not only that, their son is also Cobber alumni and went on a May-seminar here with Dr. Schmoll and Emeritus Olin Storvick!! How crazy and small of a world is that??!?

The next island was Santorini, which is most likely the island that you will see in pictures or movies about Greece. Santorini is an active volcano. It used to be round but about 1500 BC the volcano erupted and sunk most of the island so now it is a crescent shape like a backwards ‘C’. It is beautiful. We stayed in a town north of Fira which is in the middle of the crescent. It was about 15 minutes to walk into town and shop, which was done quite often. We also took a boat tour of the islands of Santorini which included stopping and swimming in hot springs and climbing the island with the volcano. It was gorgeous and a lot of fun.

We watched the sunset in a town called Oia—pronounced ‘ee-ah’. We sat on a rooftop that said “No Entry—Keep Out” but we climbed on it anyways. In our defense, we are almost positive that nobody was home, and we needed a place to eat our picnic dinner and sit comfortably for the sunset. It was beautiful!! I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to take a bad picture of that sunset.

We also visited a black sand beach in Santorini. That was really cool. Since the weather actually cleared up for us in the islands, it was nice to sit outside and enjoy it. We spent a few hours on the beach in the late afternoon until the sun went down and it got too chilly to be comfortable, but it was fun to sit with a small group of people and just hang out.

So that was the short version of our island adventures. If you want the long version, come talk to me when I get home and I would be more than happy to show you all of the pictures and tell you more stories than I feel like most people want to read on a blog. We are now in Istanbul and have been here for three days but are leaving early tomorrow morning. I have an amazing story about what we did today concerning His All Holiness the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew, but that’ll have to wait because I am all blogged out.

More pictures, though!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000658&l=b1486&id=1273320032

Take care and keep reading!

God-shaped hole

Right now we are in a small village called Vamos. Since my last update, we went to Chania, Crete, which is the third largest city in Crete and is right on the water. We were there for a few days. We have been in Vamos since last Thursday and will be here until this Thursday when we will get back on a ferry and travel to the Greek islands of Tinos, Mikonos, and Santorini for a week!

The rest of this entry is part of my travel journal that I am keeping for my class. The things that I wrote have been on my mind recently though, and I think it's interesting enough to share with all of you.

I promise I am not usually a negative person, but there have been times on this trip where I have been fed up with people. Nobody in particular, just constantly being surrounded by people and never being able to find personal time has been very frustrating. During the first few weeks of this trip, I diligently did my daily devotions and offered up prayers to God whenever something was bothering me. But as this trip has progressed, I have found fewer opportunities for personal time and time alone with God, and it got to the point of being unnerving.

This kind of thing happens so gradually that it is almost unnoticeable at first. I think the first time I noticed how much I was suffering because of the lack of personal time was at the Orthodox Academy of Crete when we prayed over our dinner for various people we all knew who were suffering. Upon finishing the prayer I felt a sense of revitalization and new awakening and I remembered how good it felt to thank God for the meal and to pray for others. This sparked discussion over dinner that night about how much we miss saying table grace.

The event most recently that has offered me personal time was on Good Friday. I had an awful and frustrating evening because I was trying to solidify plans for my post-semester excursion with Lissie Jacobsen and a bunch of hurdles were presenting themselves in my path. We have to make special reservations on certain trains that will cost extra money. The cost of the ferry isn’t covered by our pass. Hostels are two to three times more expensive than we had budgeted. We can’t find a way to ship our suitcases back home for less than 100 euro per person. All of the above scenarios, and a few others, were causing me angst and frustration. I let this bother me all through dinner and other students on the trip offered me comfort the best they could, but their best efforts weren’t making a difference. I tried to talk myself into a better mood and it wasn’t helping.

That night we were remembering Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. During the service I could feel God pulling on my heart and telling me that he was there to help; all I needed to do was ask for it. Some eerie things happened during the service, such as the part where a passage is read and a candle blown out several times in a row, and the first half of the candles all blew themselves out at the correct time. When David Wintersteen was reading, the wind seemed to correspond with his words; when the scene was calm there was no wind, but when Jesus was being crucified the wind picked up and was howling. At one point, the passage ended and a bell rang in the same rhythm in which the passage had resounded. Eerie events like that that made me think about the omniscience and omnipotence of God.

At the end of the service, we were encouraged to leave the place of worship in silence. We were also encouraged to stay in the place for as long as we felt necessary. I spent a solid amount of time thinking things over and offering my worries to God to handle. I prayed that our post-semester excursion will work out fine and that we can find a way to not go completely broke during the trip.

The next day things began to look up. I got an email Christopher in England (who we were going to stay with for a few days) and he told me not to worry about anything there. He said he has already requested leave for the full five days we were visiting and will show us around London, Stonehenge, Cambridge, and other areas we are interested in. He said that he booked a room for us at a great rate. The problem with hostels is also working itself out through talking with various people Lissie and I know who have traveled in Europe before and getting recommendations from them. The suitcase thing is also in progress of working itself out and I am confident it will be OK.

So what has this taught me? I have learned that I need to find times and places to take personal time for myself and time to simply hang out with God. I need to remember that although God is great to come to with problems, he is also a good guy to credit when things go right. I wish that I could go to church every Sunday and attend chapel a few times during the week and I wish I had a strong Christian support system around me on this trip to make things easier, but in turn I am learning a lot about myself and my personal worship habits, which is sequentially making me stronger. I have learned that I don’t have to feel overwhelmed by people and events, and I know that will help me furthermore enjoy the rest of my trip.


And more pictures!!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000638&l=bbde4&id=1273320032
These are from Katalagari, Rethymnon, Orthodox Academy, Chania, and Vamos.
Enjoy!!

Icon Sunday

I woke up today with a bit of a negative attitude… not really sure why. I’m sure it had something to do with the fact that it is Palm Sunday and I am in a country that does not celebrate Easter in the same way that I have celebrated for the last 19 years of my life. We have been at the Orthodox Academy of Crete for the last few days, which is exactly as it sounds… a campus filled with lecture halls and the like but also with a significant Orthodox Church influence. Anyhow, the plan was to go to the monastery for their service this morning. Since the Eastern Orthodox community doesn’t celebrate Palm Sunday, I wasn’t really looking forward to the service.

I was pleasantly surprised when we got there. The monastery itself looked exactly like any of the other 15+ monasteries we have visited, but the main church was packed and people were hanging out on the front lawn listening to the service over speakers. We spread out and found places to listen and observe as the service continued.

In Eastern Orthodox churches, today is the first Sunday of Lent. My last blog was about a Carnival parade that happened the day before Lent started. Last Monday was called “Clean Monday” because it is the time when everyone cleans up their act from the day before and begins Lenten celebrations. Well the first Sunday of Lent is called Icon Sunday, and the church service ended with a procession of the icons. This means that the important monks and bishops of the church process around the church carrying some icons from inside the sanctuary, but also anybody who cares to participate can bring an icon from their home and process as well. It is a very important tradition in Eastern Orthodox churches and I could tell by peoples’ expressions as they processed that this was very meaningful to them.

During Lent, Orthodox calls for a fast on Sundays until after church, so after the service we all ate a Greek favorite that tastes like cold malt-o-meal that they eat for dessert, and apparently breakfast, too. About two hours later we ate a lunch with the 150+ people who were on the grounds, as well. That was really fun because our group didn’t all sit together—rather we sat in groups of three or four—and were able to converse with some of the Greek people who were there. This was tough because a lot of them didn’t speak English very well, but it was kind of fun to play charades and try to figure out what each other was saying.

So I didn’t get my Palm Sunday service like I really wanted, but I did get a very unique experience to celebrate Icon Sunday at the Orthodox Academy of Crete. My mood quickly lightened and it turned out to be a really good day.

The Academy itself is a really interesting place. It is right on the shore of the Mediterranean about half an hour out of a city called Chania. As I am writing this, I am sitting outside looking over the water and the shoreline reminds me a lot of Duluth from Leif Erickson Park or the malt shoppe. I can see where Spirit Mountain’s lights would be off in the distance and know exactly where the Aerial Bridge should be. In a way it makes me miss home, but it is also a great comfort to think that I am sitting on the boardwalk and am only minutes away from my family and friends.

Enough of the sappy stuff… we have had a wonderful past few days. The weather has been great and I have had a few opportunities to bask in the sun, once being on a beach! Our last night in Katalagari was quite a cultural experience as well. The ladies who run the Country Suites that we stayed at organized an evening of live Cretan music, dancing, and homemade Raki for us to partake in. It was quite an evening! Tomorrow we will go to Chania for a few days and then off to Vamos for about a week before traveling through the Greek Islands.

More pictures! Follow this link for the next installation of my trip, most of which correspond with the last two or three posts instead of the one you are reading right now… I apologize that I am behind in my photo uploading.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000627&l=81043&id=1273320032

Also don’t forget to leave a comment! Put your name in the "Name" box of the “Name/URL” option, or select “Anonymous” and sign your comment at the end, please! If it doesn’t work for some reason, and a few people have told me it doesn’t, don’t hesitate to email me your feedback or comments at emilymeyer13@gmail.com! Have a lovely week everybody and I hope to hear from you all soon!

Carnival!

OK so it has been a week since I updated again. Good news is that my computer was fixed (yay!) so I have all of my pictures back. I also had a bit of computer troubles these last few days when I could not hook up to Ethernet cables, but my wonderful friend Matt Kokotovich is a computer genius and was able to guide me through both of my computer problems these past few weeks. What a lifesaver!

So back to the trip. The most interesting thing that has happened to us over the past few days is participating in the Carnival festivities. Carnival is a celebrated every year before the Easter season. It is like a cross between Halloween and Marti Gras back home. All of the children (and some of the adults!) dress up in costumes. They have parades and play music and dance and drink. We are in Katalagari, Crete right now and went to a nearby town to watch a parade. They had free pastries, cheese, wine, and raki for the parade attendees. They played music until the parade started and our group was dancing.

The parade itself was really interesting. It wasn’t like any parade we have back home. Instead, all of the floats were dedicated to scandals. There was a float about a corrupt hospital, a float about a drug bust, and a group of teenage girls with the word “emo” written on their backs.

All of this happened last Sunday. Yesterday, Monday, was called “Clean Monday,” meaning the beginning of Orthodox lent. Clean Monday is celebrated by a special homemade bread with sesame seeds on it (it was delicious) and a pink caviar type of bread spread called taramosalata. It is also customary to fly kites on this day, so we bought a few kites and went to the top of a mountain to fly them. That was really fun because I haven’t flown a kite for years!

It has been really fun to integrate ourselves into the Greek culture in this way. It was clear that we stick out like sore thumbs everywhere we go, but it is a unique opportunity to have these experiences while we are here.

As a side note, our week in Heraklion was quite interesting. We spent a lot of time climbing castle and ancient city ruins. Here in Katalagari we are focusing more on modern Greek cultures and customs. We had a Cretan cooking class a few days ago and now our Carnival celebration.

We have also walked over 165 recorded miles since the semester started. A girl on the trip has a pedometer and she is a little over 165 miles… but she has forgotten to put it on a few times, so we have gone farther than that. Hooray!

More pictures, too… this isn’t nearly up-to-date, but more will come later!

(Last half are new) http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000614&l=3cc59&id=1273320032

(All are new) http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000619&l=c8f96&id=1273320032

Catch-up...

Hey friends! Sorry is has been a week since my last post... I found myself in a bit of a jam. The day after Delphi we went to Olympia, and ever since then my computer has been broken. It is still not fixed, but I am borrowing someone else's to send a few important emails and update this. So the computer problem... it worked fine in the morning at Olympia. I sent emails and everything was normal. Then I tried to turn it on during the bus ride to do some homework, but instead of booting up, it gave me "the blue screen of death." It said one of the Windows system files was corrupt or missing and could not load. So my dad has sent the original discs to me here in Crete and I am awaiting their arrivial with the hope that I will be able to repair the file without having to reinstall Windows thus lose all of my files.
Keep your fingers crossed for me!!

But that's not why you are reading this blog, so I will instead inform you more about my adventures in the Mediterranean. First stop after Delphi was Olympia where the ancient Olympic games were held. It was really cool for me to see this site because I wrote a speech on the ancient Olympics for school last year. We saw a few cool temple ruins and had a race in the ancient stadium.

The next day we stopped for lunch at a restaurant that overlooked the Mediterranean Sea. After eating, our group walked down to the water and played in it for about an hour. It was a bit cold (but not compared to Lake Superior!!) but fun to play in. We skipped rocks and basked in the sun, and one of the girls in our group found an octopus! It was a small octopus hanging out near the shore. She actually almost stepped on it (but luckily didn't), and so we watched that for a while, too.

That night, we stayed in Areopoli. The hotel here was amazing... it was caled Castle Mani and looked excactly like a castle. Our room was huge and the walls were made of stone and such. It was really cool.

That day, we started out by taking gondola-type boats into caves. I felt like I was Christine in Phantom of the Opera as Erik is taking her to his lair... there were stalagmites and stalactites all over and was really cool. Pictures will come once my computer is fixed and I can get them off my camera.

The plan for the afternoon was to hike to a castle that was built on a thin strip of land that jutted out into the sea and have a picnic lunch. Well we started our hike with a knowledge of the general direction of the castle, but didn't know for sure because we couldn't read the signs (there are over 25 of us by the way). We ended up taking a wrong turn and cutting our own path (do you sense a pattern?) through the bushes and shrubs in the Mani region of the Peleponese. After we reached a cliff and realized that it was not the right way to go, we began to backtrack and find the real path. Once we were on the real path, it took us about 45 minutes to hike to this castle. It was amazing... down a large mountain, across a little land, and back up the sides of this ridge to get to the ruins. There wasn't too much to look at, but it was really neat to think back about how this fortress might have looked when the buildings were all in one piece and people actually lived there. A group of us yelled "Soli Deo Gloria" (the motto of Concordia) from the cliff with the hope that we would get extra credit in Religion... but our professor sadly nixed that idea.

The next day we went to another castle ruin called Mystras. It was built into the side of a mountain (again) and we were given time to walk around and explore. At the top of this mountain inside the fortress was the "keep" (where the royalty would go in case of attack because it is the hardest place for enemy to get to without getting killed), and a group of us decided to hike to the top. There was a great view from the mountaintop and the hike wasn't nearly as rough as the one the day before (and the one from Delphi a few days before that) so it was fun.

The next day we performed our second set of scenes for theater class. They were all from Agamemnon and we performed them in the theater of Epidaurus (in the area of Greece that Agamemnon lived and ruled). That was really fun and cool, but not quite as much of an honor as the first time because the theater was open to anybody and we had to stop between nearly every scene for tour groups to come in and look around and leave. Then we saw Mycene which is an ancient civilization possibly dating back to 3,000 BC. It is where scholars and historians believe Agamemnon lived and was also buried.
That night we built sand castles because our hotel was right on the beach. Our castle was amazing... it resembled the ones that we had seen for the past few days. There were double-gates and keeps and watchtowers and everything. Again, picture to come when my computer gets fixed.

The next day we went to Corinth. This was a cool site because if you have read Acts 18 or the books 1 & 2 Corinthians, you can pick out the places in the ancient part of the city that Paul actually stayed and preached and such. We also hiked up to the acrocorinth (highest point in the city... another castle-type fortress) and walked around and explored for a few hours. I'm telling you... if my legs aren't in shape by the time I get home, there's no hope for me! Haha. But this was a cool site to see and explore.

That brings us to today. Last night we took an overnight ferry from Athens to Crete, but the boat itself was more like a cruise ship. You couldn't feel the swaying or anything, and it was a fine night. The trip was about 9 hours so we loaded at 8:30 last night and landed at 5:30 this morning. Once we got off the boat we had breakfast in the hotel we will be in for a few days and then took a bus to Knossos which is a reconstructed city on the edge of Heraklion. One man, Sir Arthur, worked with this excavation and hired a Scottish friend of his and about 500 slaves to dig the city up and help him reconstruct it. There were some pretty neat things and also a good museum.

I am sorry this entry was so long, but since we have been traveling every day for the past week and a half, we see new exciting things all of the time and they are all worth writing about. Thanks for reading all the way to the end, and I apologize that no pictures are here with the text but I promise that I am more frustrated with it than you are! I hope all of you are doing well back home... it is about 70 degrees here now, so try to stay warm back home!!

The Power of Education

One thing that I have to keep reminding myself about while I am here is that I'm here for school, not for vacation. Although at times it feels like a vacation because I often feel like a tourist, there are also times that I feel bogged down with schoolwork and paper writing and the like.

Today was definitely NOT one of those days. We are in Delphi, Greece, which is about 3 hours northwest of Athens. It is pretty close to the Gulf of Corinth (which will eventually lead to the Aegean Sea) and is one of the most beautiful places I have seen in my life. It is a city embedded into mountains and rocks and surrounded by olive groves. Part of our group climbed up a mountain today actually, and we could see really far off into the distance. It was a great experience though... I have not been feeling very good over the past few days... I have a cold and my lungs feel like they are covered in mucus (yum, right?)... and I didn't think that I could handle walking up the mountain. I decided to go as far as I could handle, so another girl and I went at a slower pace. We ended up losing the group, but caught up with one of the leaders and his daughter about halfway up the hill. We soon took a wrong turn, ended up on the back side of the mountain (where you couldn't see the water), made up our own path to get back to the correct side of the mountain, saw a pig farm, and eventually found ourselves at the top... at least 3/4 mile higher than the shelter that we were aiming to walk to. We saw our group at the shelter but it was too far away and they couldn't hear us. We somehow cut our own paths (again) to get to the shelter, and then cut our own path (once more) to get back to the original path we started on. It was a wonderful adventure and it was really fun! It took us about 3 1/2 hours from start to finish, and I would say we walked at least 8 or 9 miles up the mountain. What a workout!

Anyways, that wasn't the original point of my blog. Today was the day we visited the Sanctuary of Apollo and the Sanctuary of Athena, which was the topic of my site report. The point I am trying to make is how much more people are able to get out of a site if they know a lot about it beforehand. Everyone on this trip had to write a 10-page paper before we left on a certain aspect of Greek culture or a site that we were going to visit. Then at some point during the trip, each student has to give a presentation before or during the corresponding site. My paper was on Delphi, so today was my site report.

The presentation went well, thanks for asking =) But it was so much more interesting for me to be at a site that I have researched and know the historical background for before going. It was phenomenal for me to see the actual Temple of Apollo and the theater and stadium and Tholos in the Sanctuary of Athena.

Moral of the story: Do research on a place before you visit it. The site will mean that much more to you when you arrive.
But I climbed a mountain today and am trying to get over a cold, so I am exhausted and am going to leave you all now and get a good night's sleep before we travel again in the morning!


On a final note, more pictures from facebook! Follow these links to see them!

http://cord.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000607&l=26cd8&id=1273320032
http://cord.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000614&l=407fb&id=1273320032

Theatrical experiences....

We had an amazing experience on Friday. It was our first performance day for our Theater class, and somehow our professor managed to get us permission to perform in the Odeon of Herodion Atticus-- an ancient theater built out of marble and stone in the side of the hill that the Acropolis is on. They are in the process of restoring it, and I think he talked to the man in charge of the construction who said he would let us in for an hour.

The acoustics in this theater were AMAZING. Someone stood in the very top row at the back of the theater and our professor said something in a tone quieter than even normal speaking, and the guy in the back was able to hear him. All 20 of us performed, and one person on our trip brought a flute and played between performances. At the end, she let me play a little bit which was AMAZING because the acoustics were so good that it made me sound even better!

This was probably the opportunity of a lifetime... I can't imagine how many theater scholars or performers would kill to have that opportunity. Standing in the middle of the stage (called the orchestra) made me think of how many performances had happened in those exact places and how many years people had been performing there. It was really neat.

Later that day, we climbed up Lycabettus Hill-- the highest point in Athens. The hike up the hill was rather treacherous-- it took about an hour from our hotel-- but the view from the top was worth it! It was a beautiful day, too, so once we had cooled down from our hike to the top, we basked in the sunlight for a little while.


The rest of this post is for those faithful followers who might be under the illusion that everything we do is wonderful. Yesterday (Saturday) we had a five hour theater workshop with a man named George who is an actor/director concerning ancient Greek theater. We were told we were going to learn about how to be a chorus member in the play Ajax. Well, I went not knowing what to expect, thinking that there's no way I could get let down. I want to say right off the bat that it was really weird and a bit "etchy-sketchy."

We first learned how to speak like the ancient Greek people did by pronouncing vowels and consonants in a unique way. We then participated in a meditative-like chant where we sang the five vowel sounds while we went around a circle and took turns screaming. We then learned how to laugh like the chorus in Ajax would using these vowel sounds. Then he choreographed the laughter to us hopping around like barbarian animals.

Around this time, we put on makeup. The point of the makeup was so we could look more like we were wearing masks without actually wearing the masks. It was really interesting to distort our faces and see how that made our look change.

George showed us how the chorus would enter for this play. The picture really explains it all... We were in a squatting position with our right hand extended towards the sky. In order to move, we wouldn't change position but rather begin to hop. Hopping required the jumping of your feet/legs, but for your upper body to stay still. It was a workout for the legs!

We learned a short routine acting as Sufi whirling dervishes. This included the squatting position again in addition to a smooth twirling action like the whirling dervishes.

The session ended with a recitation of the ancient Greek text of Ajax. George had been saying things in ancient Greek all day and they sounded like something from a pow wow or a cult-like meditation. It sounded kind of like barking. Real weird.

Overall, I guess it was a fun experience. How many people who come to Athens can have a five hour workshop with a man who is specialized in ancient tragedies and will give you face paint and teach you how to grunt and hop in unison? I guess when I write it that way it has a bad connotation, and although that is basically what we did, it wasn't really as bad as it sounds. But every time I look at the picture of us in the squatting position, I laugh at how ridiculous the afternoon really did seem.

Someone from George's "production team" was videotaping most of the workshop, and some of the people in our group were talking about it at dinner that night. We decided that in a few days the whole thing will be on YouTube and George and his people will advertise it like "Look at the Americans making fools of themselves!" Haha... what a unique experience.




P.S. New rule about leaving comments.... please tell me who you are!! Just write your name in the "nickname" box =)

The Universal Language

I've always been told that music is the universal language. I've always believed that statement, and I've often repeated it to make a point. But I never really understood the statement until yesterday.

Last night, we went to a concert. It was a Greek musician named George Dalaras (center), and he plays a type of bluegrass music. Our group was unsure of what to expect going into the concert, but tickets weren't too expensive-- 10 Euro a piece-- so we went.



I was absolutely floored (in a good way) by this concert, and I have no idea why. I don't even particularly like bluegrass music. It was all in Greek, so I couldn't understand the lyrics, and there was a series of little vignettes between some of the songs that was completely Greek as well. I must admit, however, that this was definitely what gave the concert its beauty.

Since I couldn't understand the lyrics, I was forced to listen intently to the music. When I go to concerts in English, I don't often get anything out of the lyrics anyways (unless I know them prior to coming to the concert), and this time they weren't even there for me to comprehend. George Dalaras played the guitar and sang and there were four backup vocalists as well. There was a 12-piece orchestra to accompany the songs, and behind the orchestra was an elevated stage for the vignettes. At times they would have a dancer come out and interpret the songs with a dance.

The most moving part of the concert, however, was when he had the audience sing along. Now this man isn't necessarily a popular artist; they weren't singing his songs. But the second half of the concert was almost completely a sing-along. The absolute greatest part of this was that these people were excited! They weren't singing shamefully or quietly; they were belting the words loud and proud. It got me thinking; do we have any cultural songs that would do these two things? Songs that 1) Everybody knows the words to, and 2) will sing at the top of their lungs to show their national pride. I, and through discussions with others from my group, couldn't think of any.

So that's my current thoughts. I really like it here because I am able to go to something like this and enjoy it just as much as locals Dmitri and Niki who are sitting behind me.

Quick overview of other things we've been doing (in the order I remember, not the order we visited =] ): National Archaeological Museum, Cycladic Art Museum, Greek dancing lessons, Greek language lessons, Jewish Museum of Athens, reading at the Theatre of Dionysus, Acropolis Museum, and an Archaeological cemetery on an ancient pottery site.
Things I am looking forward to: Theatrical performance at the Odeon of Herodion Atticus, Virtual Reality center, and possibly a visit to the 2004 Olympic Stadium.


Oh, and one more thing.... I've been taking pictures! If you want to see them, follow these links:

http://cord.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000597&l=be42b&id=1273320032
http://cord.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000601&l=f7d2e&id=1273320032
http://cord.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000602&l=7dfce&id=1273320032

There are about 150 (60 in the first and second and 30 in the third) so don't feel the need to look at them ALL... but if you want to comment about any of them, feel free to post comments on here! (In order to comment right on the picture, you need to have a Facebook site... but you don't need a Facebook just to look at them).

Take care everyone, I love and miss you all!
Emily