Yep..this one is long!

Alright, so clearly I have not been keeping up on this blogging business like I should... so here is an in-brief recap of the last two weeks or so.

All of last week was in Athens taking class. We went on one-day trip to Amphiareion on Thursday -- which really couldn't have been more boring. Our teacher had no idea what anything on any of the sites was, so he just read to us out of his guidebook and I was so frustrated. He also has been just extending our classes over the time allotted without giving us any notice or warning when we should expect it. Basically, I just don't like this teacher.

This past weekend was great. We went out a TON. On Friday night I had a girls night out in our neighborhood with Mieka and Liz. We started out at this cool place called Kasbah Ethnic Club. It had a great lounge atmosphere and an awesome DJ. When the place finally starting filling up though (we went out early so that we could chill and chat with fewer crowds) we realized that it was a MUCH older crowd that frequented this bar, and we couldn't have been more out of place. Haha. So we decided to move on to a different bar/restaurant in our neighborhood that has a very Greek name that I can never remember. We hung out there and danced for a few hours before heading home for the night.

On Saturday a large group of us went to Psirri, which is the clubbing district in Athens. We started out at a very nice lounge called Liquid. Not a dancing kind of place, but a great place to sit and talk while listening to good music. After Liquid we decided we wanted to dance, so we all went to a club called nora.nora. It was Lebanese and has a very harem-like interior. It was PACKED with people and had the loudest music I have ever heard. They had a male and a female belly dancer, as well as hookah at the VIP tables. The place was fun, but the strange Greek music was really hard to dance to after a while, we just couldn't figure out the beat! The music finally became WAY too loud for us (I'm pretty sure I permanently damaged my hearing! haha) so we decided to go in search of a new place to hang out. I wasn't in the mood for more dancing, I just wanted to sit and hang out and meet people, so we ended up at this really popular hookah cafe that stays open until 6am on the weekend. It was full of Greek 20somethings all being really friendly and flirtatious; it was fun to watch. We got a table and hung out there for hours, talking to our waitress in broken Greek/English about the good nightlife spots and what its like to be 22 in Athens... It was just generally a great night.

Sunday was a relaxing day. I only did my laundry, my homework and just hung around the apartment. I did go out to lunch for some really great pizza though – we have found an amazing little place that makes your pizza right when you order it in a wood-burning oven! I thought about going out again, since we didn’t have class on Monday, but two nights a week is really more than I can take. I like my sleep!

Monday I went out shopping and exploring around the city on my own again. I wandered all over the place as always. Every time I get a chance to just go out ad walk around I fall in love with Athens even more. Sometimes I wish I could just stay here for good.

Then on Tuesday we left on our group trip to Delphi. The drive there was 4 hours long, and we were stuck in traffic for at least an hour. Luckily, I slept most of the way, so it didn’t really bother me! We first stopped at the Osios Loukas monastery. It is a famous example of some artist something, but once again, because my teacher is an idiot, I’m not exactly sure why it is famous. It did have some really amazing Byzantine mosaics though. It is still an operational monastery. It is not named after St. Luke the Apostle as you expect actually, but it after a Greek Saint Loukas who was an ascetic. The ultimate test that he passed was lying in bed with a woman without being tempted…hmmmm…. But, when he died the wealthy people in Thrace built the monastery in his honor.

After that we drove to Delphi and checked out the Archaeological Museum and the Gymnasium, neither of which are at the actual site of Delphi and both of which are pretty boring. Then we checked into our hotel. It was a totally gross and depressing hotel with the smallest shower in history, so I was VERY grateful we only stayed there one night. That night we had a group dinner at a big touristy restaurant (not that there is anything u-touristy in all of Delphi) that was quite good. After that I was so exhausted I just fell asleep.

The next morning we woke up and visited the actual site of Delphi. It wasn’t nearly as cool as I expected. It is swarmed with tourists, very little is left of it and what is left of it isn’t the cool parts. My high hopes ended up being for nothing. We did get to spend 2 hours exploring the site on our own, which was great. I tried meditating to channel Apollo and be my own oracle, but no such luck.

After that we had lunch in Delphi town (another tourist trap, but this time not a good one) and then drove the 4 hours to Olympia. When we finally got to Olympia we checked into our hotel. This one managed to be even worse than the last. The beds were made out of two sofa cushions pushed together, there were cockroaches and the place was just generally horrific. I was positive we were going to be murdered in our sleep. (If you ever go to Olympia, avoid the Hotel New Olympia like the plague!) We then went to the museum. The museum was REALLY GREAT. Worth every minute we spent there, if only for the pediment sculptures from the Temple of Zeus at Olympus and the Nike sculpture.

After that, around 7pm, we went to have class outside the museum. We sat in a park to discuss Medea, as our teacher has been unable to stay on schedule. While we were sitting there a homeless man, who was clearly mentally ill, came up and started talking to us. He was having a conversation with our teacher about drinking with Jesus when suddenly he pulled out a knife. Luckily he only pointed it towards himself, but after that we had to get up and leave. We continued our class in the hotel lobby until 8:15pm. After that, we all went to dinner at an AMAZING restaurant. Then pretty much the whole group went out to an Internet café/club to go dancing. But, since we had to be up at 8am again, we were all home by midnight safely in our beds.

The next morning I was so happy to get out of that gross hotel, I cannot even tell you. We started out the morning at the site of Olympia. Olympia was by far the best site we have been at in Greece. Its natural beauty combined with the relatively large number of ruins there made it just a great place to visit. I saw Nero’s house, the Temple of Zeus, a Byzantine Church, Roman and Greek Baths as well as the workshop where the GIANT sculpture of Zeus was created. (Justinian destroyed it during his sack of Constantinople because he was a Christian) There is also an amazing stadium there for the Olympic games. I also saw the altar outside of the Heriaon where they light the modern day Olympic Torch to take it around the world. I would go back to Olympia in a heartbeat – it was worth every minute it took to drive there.

After we left the site I had lunch at the Olympia Palace Hotel, which was delicious and cheap! It is also a beautiful hotel. Then some gelato before we had to hop on the bus for the 6 hour ride back to Athens!

When we finally got back I ran off the bus to get back to my apartment to relax and go to bed! I was exhausted.

This morning I woke up at 9am, put in a load of wash, finally took a shower and read my book for a while, after putting in a load of laundry. Then I went out in search of food, I found some cute clothes along the way, and then had a yummy lunch near Monasteraki. After that I came back here and started on this endless blog entry…. Now I am off to an hour of class and then I have to start packing for Istanbul tomorrow!!!!!