Où est Mikayla?: Greece II.

Day 4.

April 13, 2011.

On the 13th, we all hauled ourselves out of bed at a rather early hour (I believe it was somewhere around 7 am). Emily, Gabby, Aditi and I all packed up the rest of our stuff and headed down to breakfast, which, if I remember correctly, consisted of bread with various toppings. After we finished eating, we loaded the suitcases into the bus, and returned to the lobby for a rather stern lecture. You see, the night before, most (if not all) of the students on the trip had decided to celebrate our first night in Greece in a rather... less than sober fashion. Rotary took about 15 minutes that morning and explained that we were, from then on, forbidden to have alcohol in our rooms, could not have any empty bottles, and would have very restricted free time from then on out. After that bit, we piled back in the bus and began the picturesque drive up the mountains to see the Météors.

What are the Météors?

They're a group of old monasteries built into the mountains near Kalambaka. During various wars and revolutions in Greece, people would come and hide out in the monasteries to avoid danger. At one point, there were 24 buildings, but now there are only 6. Monks and nuns still live there, and can be seen walking around the pathways. There are some that have not left their home for years and years, and do not even see the visitors that come by; they are always behind high, locked doors. It's a very holy place, and the churches are beautiful. The paintings are truly mind-blowing. You can see the features that most of the churches have in common: Jesus in the center of the ceiling, at the highest point, different scenes from the Bible, etc. It's quite extraordinary.

After our lovely visit with a very awesome tour guide named Georgia (she speaks 5 languages: Greek, her native language, Spanish, English, French, and German) who gave all of the tours in French (we had 2 tour groups, one French, one English. Emily, Christian and I were with the Frenchies), we hopped back in the bus to drive to Delphi! We did squeeze in a teensy bit of souvenir shopping before we got on the bus, and Em and I found some super cute pins to put on our blazers to represent GREECE. I still can't believe I was actually there!

The rest of the day consisted of driving, for the most part. Google Maps says that from Kalambaka to Delphi, it takes almost 4 and a half hours if you drive. I feel like it took longer, but hey, I could be wrong. Most of my memories of the bus blend together at this point.

Fast forward to the end of the bus ride. At this point, we arrived in Delphi, which was very cute and had those lovely little European streets that a greyhound dog can barely fit through, much less a greyhound bus. We received more than one disgruntled look from local Greeks when we had to park in the middle of the road to unload our suitcases.

After everything was out of the bus, Emilio (the bus driver, who became a sort of celebrity in the eyes of the exchange students) parked it, and the exchangers were assigned our rooms. I roomed with Emily, Gabby and Aditi again. We got our key and climbed a few flights of stairs and arrived at our door. After having stayed in a GORGEOUS hotel with a beautiful balcony, 2 queen beds and a large, functioning bathroom, we were quite excited to see what new extravagances waited for us on the other side of the door. Needless to say, we were extremely disappointed when we opened the door to find a queen bed and 2 tiny, flimsy cots that took up 86.3% of the room, a non-working tv, a balcony that had a sign on the door saying we weren't allowed to go outside (though there were some pizza boxes and soda bottles strewn around out there) and a chunk missing from the bathroom door. Why, you ask? Well, it seems that the sink was installed before the door in this bathroom, because the door wouldn't have been able to shut if the missing bit was still there. It had been modified so that the sink didn't prevent it from closing. Classy.

That night, we had chicken and fries for dinner, LIKE EVERY OTHER NIGHT ON THIS TRIP. We had some sort of Greek desert, which was oily and tasteless, and I didn't really enjoy. After that, we hung out downstairs. Jordan, Emily and I played Pitch, a card game that involves two teams of 2 people and some mind-reading. I love it. It was our go-to game the whole time we were stuck in the bus. While we played cards, Aditi wrote sentences about each of us in Hindi and we marked where we live on a US map. It was a lovely night. During the conversation, it came up that our room was not, in fact, the most ghetto fabulous room in the hotel. In Christian's, apparently, there was blood on a towel. At first, we all thought it was his blood (he had cut himself when the guys in his room decided to move the rusty cot to a different location, don't ask me why), but then he realized that he had used a different towel. Needless to say, after that, we were no longer fans of this hotel. No siree, not at all.

Day 5

April 14, 2011

The next morning, we were awake at another very early hour. We repacked the bus, etc. and got inside, waiting for the day's adventures to commence. We started driving down the mountain we'd spent the night on, and at the bottom of one of the scary switchback turns, we felt a very odd, jarring motion. We were asked to quietly and calmly leave the bus and go take some pictures of the mountainside and the views, which were beautiful, by the way. Why were we asked to get out? Well, it seems we had popped a tire on the way down the hairpin turn. Of course. I'm not kidding when I say that this bus was a monster. So, instead of rolling down down down the mountain with a flat tire, we were informed that we would have the good fortune to walk the rest of the way to the ruins in Delphi. Cool! So we all started trekkin' and actually made it there in good time, despite stopping to take pictures of the scenery.

I cannot express the way I felt when I saw the ruins at Delphi for the first time. I'm a Greek mythology buff, and after reading about the Oracle at Delphi, I couldn't wait to see it. Granted, the temples are in ruins now, and it's not exactly easy to imagine them as they once were, it's still magnificent. The precision and style are evident in every pillar, statue, stairway and wall. I don't know that I can do justice to the wonders that I saw. The Temple of Apollo is there, and is still quite inspiring. It's amazing how LARGE the temples are! We also saw a theater that was used for plays and such during the time of the Ancient Greeks. The acoustics of the theaters are stupendous. If you stand down on the stage and only raise your voice a little bit, you can be heard EVERYWHERE in the theater, even at the very top. That's saying something, believe me. We also had the time to climb up many, many stairs to see an a stadium, which was used for the Pythian Games, precursors to our modern-day Olympic Games.

One interesting thing about Delphi: It was believed (by the Greeks) to be the center of the world. There is a funny little cone-shaped stone near one of the temples, and it is called the "omphalos," which means navel, of the earth.

I have many pictures of Delphi and the awesomeness I saw there, and a few of them can be seen below. :)