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. :)

Emily and I at the Météors

The Météors.

The stadium at Delphi.

The ruins of Apollo's Temple at Delphi.

Jour 2.

It's 2 am here, so it's really Day 3 for me en Belgique, but I'm writing about my second day, so ca va. :)

Every Sunday, my host family has lunch with their extended family at my host dad's step mother's house. Today was my first experience, and it was a lot of fun, but after an hour, I thought my head would explode. There were a lot of children and lots of noise, and SO MUCH FRENCH. Obviously, that's to be expected, but after a while, my mind just couldn't take it. I didn't say much at the meal because I was so overwhelmed, but I managed to catch a lot of what they were saying. As of right now, I can understand quite a bit. If I just sit and listen to what people are saying, I can usually get the gist of the conversation very quickly. But when I'm in a conversation with more than... 2 people, it becomes difficult for me to communicate. I think it's just because I become shy, but also because I'm afraid of making mistakes. I told myself I wouldn't have that fear, but I've realized that it's natural. It's okay if I'm afraid of making mistakes, but I shouldn't let it deter me from speaking. Kind of like when there's a spider in the shower. I might be afraid of the spider, but that doesn't meant that I'll never shower again.

My host mom and I left the lunch before the rest of the family so I could nap (the jet lag finally kicked in). I took a shower after she taught me how to get hot water (WOO!) and then went to sleep for about four hours. I have yet to get a clock, but hopefully I will soon.

Rewind for a bit. Before lunch, Anne-Michele, Amaury and I went to a supermarket in Waremme, a village close to where we live. There were definitely some differences between the Belgian supermarket and the ones in the US. For one, this store was smaller than the ones in the US. It was smaller than Albertsons and King Soopers. The alcohol is just boom, right there in an aisle, you don't have to go to a liquor store to buy it. You can also buy clothes, school supplies, and other things like that at this store. It was like a Walgreens, kinda, but without the medicine and with more food.

There are European cars, but also Fords and Toyotas here, which I think is kind of interesting. I love seeing Citroens and Peugeots driving along the streets. It just makes me happy. My host family laughed at me when I saw my first Citroen. I smiled really big and said "Oh, j'adore les Citroens!" (Oh, I adore Citroens!). The police officers here drive VWs.

Something about driving: while my host dad seems to stick to the speed limit for the most part, it always feels like we're thiiiiiis close to careening off the road. The streets here are very curvy, and it rains a lot, so the roads are slippery.

People in the US complain when there aren't signs labeling the various streets, right? Well, here, the signs are about... 4 inches long and 3 inches tall and the print is REALLY tiny. The signs are on the sides of buildings, which would cause an uproar in the US, I'm sure. Honestly, the signs are so small that 99% of the time, I have no idea what street we're on.

All of the cars here are manual. The old Citroen that Anne-Michele calls Etienne's "toy" has a strange shift... It's in the dashboard and you pull it out, you don't move it up and down.

The roads: Some of them are cobblestone, some of them are paved, all of them are curvy and twisty and terrifying. The roads are also very narrow to begin with, but are made narrower by the fact that people park on both sides. And when you park, it's not necessary to park facing a certain direction, oh no. I've seen cars nose to nose, bumper to bumper, and one truck-like thing that backed up into a parking space with the front of it sticking out into the road. Anyway, I thought Colorado had a ton of roundabouts, but we've got nothing on Belgium. In Waremme, there seems to be at least three roundabouts no matter where in the city you're going. They're impossible to avoid. Also, whoever designed the roads here has a very sick sense of humor. Tonight, I went with Etienne, Amaury, and some cousins to Etienne's friend's house, and we had to turn 330 degrees to get to the road to Jean-Luc's house. It was crazy. And of course, no car has that turning radius, so we had to stop in the middle of the road, back up a little, then continue the turn. It was a little scary. Speaking of backing up, after my family picked me up from the airport, we were trying to find the train station. We were in the middle of Bruxelles, and Etienne missed a turn, so he just stopped the car and backed up about 10 feet so he could turn. IN THE MIDDLE OF A MAIN ROAD IN BRUXELLES. I thought my mom was a crazy driver. Oh, and whoever invented the stop sign neglected to introduce it to Belgium.

It's kind of fun to ride in the car though. :)

Language: I understand a lot more than I thought I would so soon. I can follow a conversation pretty well, and when people talk to me (albeit slowly), I can usually understand what they're saying and formulate a decent response. My problem right now lies in speaking. I can usually do fairly well with Anne-Michele and I'm getting better with Etienne, but I'm still struggling with my host brothers. Arnaud is very nice about speaking English to me and Amaury talks really slowly and quite loud using small words, which is nice, but I have NO clue what Adrien is saying. Ever. I've tried just listening to him, but I still have no idea what's going on. I just need to practice listening to people. And do more of the exercises in my French workbook.

The more I listen to people speak, the more I think in French. I think in it until I reach a point where I don't know the word I'm looking for. So, I throw in the English version and continue to think in French. It's easier if I imagine I'm talking to one of my host family members, because I'm going to have to speak to them in French.

As I said before, I went to Jean-Luc's house with Etienne, Amaury and some cousins. I had a lot of fun. August 15th is a celebration in Belgium (I haven't quite gathered why) and we watched the fireworks over La Meuse (a river) from Jean-Luc's backyard in between exclamations about my mental health because I love rain. Someone, I think Jean-Luc, said "Only in Belgium would it be pouring rain, and yet we still have fireworks." And it was completely true! It was pouring, but we all stood outside and watched. I couldn't stop smiling the whole time. As I watched the fireworks, it kind of hit me. I'm in Europe. I still can't believe it. My favorite parts of the evening were:

1. Trying orange juice. There isn't pulp (WOOHOO!) and it's really a blend of fruit juices: orange, mango, pineapple, banana, and some others. The box (yes, it comes in a box) has some English on the front. If I remember correctly, it says "fruity and exotic." I thought it was hilarious. :)

2. All of a sudden, during the fireworks, the adults started to sing "We Are the Champions." Just the one line: "We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions." It was so cute!

3. Jean-Luc. It was raining a lot, and for some reason, he didn't go inside and get an umbrella. Instead, he tied a plastic bag onto his head in what I can only describe as a Pippi Longstocking-'do rag. I couldn't stop laughing, and I wish I had taken my camera so I could have a picture.

4. The music on the way home. When we got in the car, the Eurythmics were playing, followed by Colbie Caillat, then Bob Marley. After Bob was a French song, then The Cardigans. I thought it was kind of funny. I also heard Lady Gaga on the radio today before we left for Jean-Luc's. It was nice to have that little piece of home.

Well, it's past 3 now, and I'm getting tired. I'll say goodnight. :)

Bon nuit!

Mikayla