Last week we went to Greece and it was a really awesome trip! We had the most wonderful weather and our whole group really bonded! Everyday the weather was about 85-90 degrees.
We flew into Athens on the 3rd and it was definitely not what I expected the city to be like. We got off the bus at our hotel and there were people doing drugs right outside the door. I know all of Athens isn't like that but it was just a real shocker to see that as our first thing in Athens. The street that we stayed at is apparently one of the worst in Athens but not once did I feel threatened or anything. It was just full of people trying to sell fake products like puWa clothes (instead of puma brand) and we would get stared at but never were we approached or felt scared. I was thinking weather I should tell everyone about this but I figure it was all part of the experience.
The first night we went into the really touristy part of Athens where all the shops are. It looks so fake, as if they had created this area just for tourists. I mean, in some ways they have but it was just really beautiful. I tried a gyro for the first time- it was very good but I’m sure extremely unhealthy.
Day 2 (Oct 4)
We went to the Acropolis and got to experience and walk around where people in the year 400 had been and may have walked where we walked. It was all very surreal to me and I’m not even sure now if I have completely grasped that. We stood on the Agora where Paul said his speech to the Athenians. To get up to the top we had to either climb the original stairs or metal ones built for the former Pope. Most of us chose to go up the original steps because Paul and so many others had actually used those very same stairs. We read Acts 17:16-34 on top of that place in both English and Swedish. It was really a strange and indescribable moment to think that we were in the same place where Paul had been.
That night we went out to pizza at a place right behind out hotel. It was really cute and the pizza was really good. After we had done eating out waiter kept saying “You have eaten all your food, you are free tonight, you are free tonight” We were so confused and thought that he meant that because we ate all our food our food was free. We started to get up and we had left him a rather large tip on the table anyway because of what we thought was generosity but he came back and was like “Aren’t you going to pay?” We felt so stupid and then we paid and did not return to that place the rest of the week.
That night most of the boys decided to get haircuts and some shaved their heads.
Day 3 (Oct 5)
This day we were on the bus going from place to place from 7:30 AM to 7:30 PM. We went to Corinth and Mycenae and saw the Peloponese. This was another place where Paul had been and we read again in Swedish and English from 1 Corinthians: 13.
That night almost all 32 of us were hanging out in one hotel room and we got way too loud and we got in trouble with the hotel. Whoops.
Day 4 (Oct 6)
Today was Ellen’s Birthday!
We went to the National Archaeological Museum, which was kind of boring to see pottery after pottery and statues and jewellery over and over again. It was so much of the same thing that it just became too much.
We finished with the museum around noon and went to the beach. It was so awesome to actually be in Greece and to be swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. The water was so nice and we stayed late to see the sunset over the ocean. It was beautiful. After we got back to our hotel we went out to get ice cream for Ellen’s birthday.
Day 5 (Oct 7)
We went to Delphi, which was about a 2-½ hour bus ride, but the scenery was beautiful. The roads went so high into the mountains and it was kind of scary sometimes to be on these winding roads in a huge bus. At Delphi we saw Rachel Dratch from Saturday Night Live. We all were more excited to see her than anything at Delphi. We drank from a spring that is said if you drink it you get the gift of poetry. It was really good water but I definitely wasn’t a rhyming machine after that sip. When we were leaving Delphi we were told that Bill Clinton had just arrived. We all were disappointed that we missed seeing him because that would have been awesome.
That night we went to the top of the Agora again and we had all bought dinner and we just ate and hung out on toe of there listening to music and had a really relaxing good time. On the way back the guys in our group were leading the group and they decided to take a short cut back to the hotel and led us by about 15-20 prostitutes. It was really sketchy.
Day 6 (Oct 8 )
We went to the Island of Aegina. We took a taxi to the other side of the island because we were told the best beaches were over there. The taxi driver drove a thousand miles an hour on these tiny 1-½ lane-winding roads. It was pretty scary but we survived. We all had a really wonderful day at the beach. Some of the guys rented a jeep and the other half of them rented mopeds. Our instructor Hans showered up on a moped and hung out with us all day at the beach too. The beach was so nice and the ocean floor was so sandy and it was a really perfect day.
Day 7 (Oct 9)
We went around shopping and Christine and I got henna tattoos. That night 5 of us went to this modern art exhibition. It was called “Destroy Athens”. It started out a little rocky but turned out to be really awesome. It was created in these old factories and they just built the exhibits in and around what was already there. It was really cool to actually see a different side of what normal tourists usually see. We got to experience something that was really about the people of Athens.
Day 8 (Oct 10)
We left Athens today and we were all ready to leave and get back to our own beds and to eat real cooked meals again. When we got to the hotel our plane was delayed because of a fuel leak and then when we finally arrived in Amsterdam we missed that flight because we were so late. We had to stay in the airport for 12 hours and sleep there. It was really frustrating because the Athens airport said we would be accommodated for but when we got to Amsterdam all they gave us was a pillow, blanked, small bag of toiletries, and an XXL t-shirt. Thanks Amsterdam. We slept on the floor and some found some chairs to sleep in. It was very cold but we are young and we managed. It was definitely an experience and it made getting back to SVF that much better.
Our whole group really bonded and we are so much closer now. My roommate and I are really good friends now and not just roommates. She is so wonderful and I am so blessed that she is my roommate. I am glad to be back in Sweden even though we are back 50 degree weather.
