Yes, you read that correctly, it is snowing in Athens for the first time in years. I'm not sure how long it has been, some say five, some three years since it last snowed here, but nothing like this, it is staying! Slush is all over the marble sidewalks and it makes for some scary walking and driving... and there is snow piled on their cars! They don't know what to do! By looking at what is left on the cars, it looks like there have about 2 inches so far and it is still coming down thick! It is that light fluffy, big snow that I love...the only kind of snow I love 
I don't love it here though. I have a video I will try to upload...along with some others.
Lately we have been really busy with sight-seeing and homework. As it was our last weekend in Athens, we all went out on Friday to a dance club, they have a district with solid dance clubs so we just picked one and got in for free! It opened at midnight...crazy I know...and we danced the night away, it was a lot of fun! Earlier on Friday we climbed up Mount Likabetus, there is a cute little white church at the top, it was quite the hike. There were just sloping trails but we were all huffing by the top! The view was amazing, it was taller than the Acropolis and made it look really small, we could see everything from up there, including the Olympic Stadium from the 1920's.
We are leaving here early Tuesday and our next destination is Meteora, an old historical city that I've heard is very pretty. Somewhere along the way to one of our destinations we are stopping in Thermopole, the famous battle site of the Spartans! A member of our group, Brock, is really obsessed with them...so we hear a lot about them.
Today we went to a virtual reality presentation at an I-Max theater, it was pretty cool. They recreated Athens as it was in ancient times (5th century BC) and later eras. After that we were turned loose for the day. Almost every shop is closed today, partly because it is Sunday and lots of people observe it as a day of rest, and the other reason is that it is SNOWING! We had a snowball fight on the way to the I-Max...with our professors. We all ganged up on Roy, and it was awesome. I had clothes on the line outside last night and had to move the line inside because my clothes would have frozen otherwise!
The other night we went out and I met a guy who works for the Brazilian Embassy and is working in Athens right now. I was really excited because he speaks Portuguese, which is almost identical to Spanish. So I got to practice a little bit of Spanish...and found out I'm not very good at figuring out what people are saying, but he could understand me so I thought that was good enough. There was a strike for all the government workers on Thursday and it was really cool. We were advised to stay away from Syntagma Square, which is where the Greek Parliament is located. But the best donuts are over there...so naturally we walked over and maybe gawked a little bit. There were TONS of people marching with huge signs that I couldn't read, the busiest road in Athens was closed down for the day. I was more intimidated by the masses of armed forces standing around than the actual protestors. We were just standing on a corner watching and a ton of men in uniforms and gas masks marched by us toward the protest. We decided it was time to leave. Later we told our professors about it and they said it is normal for mildly dangerous gas bombs to be let off during protests...they would know...they lived through those years!
We had our last language lesson on Friday and our teacher got all choked up when it was time to say goodbye! She was so cute, her name was Yana and she was a tiny little thing...yes smaller than me...and she was a fireball of energy. You can tell she really loves her country and its culture and history. We really liked her, she always made good suggestions on food and gave us fun random phrases to say! We know how to say "cheers" now..."yamas!"
Tomorrow we are going to our last museum in Athens...thank goodness...and a few churches. Hopefully the weather will be nice for our last day here! We are really going to miss all the staff at the hotel, they are amazing, even the maids get excited when they see us and try to talk to us in the little english they know. The desk staff taught us how to say "the key please" and our room numbers. Today one of them ran outside when we were leaving and threw a snowball at us! We really became attached to them after seeing them every day for three weeks! No worries though, we get to come back at the end of our trip and see them all again. We have many more places to go and people to meet!
