Hey everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of summer at home! It is getting very warm in Thessaloniki now! Luckily, we do not have air conditioning so we can get the full experience of living in a Greek apartment! Oh well, I only have about two more weeks in Thess. I have very mixed feeling about this! I can not wait to come home, but I know I will miss everyone here, and I will miss Greece like crazy! In the meantime, I will enjoy the last weeks that I have to the fullest! I have been busy since I last logged on. You have a lot to hear!!
The weekend after my friend Mitch left was our ACT sport tournament. Schools came from all over to participate in our tournament. I would have to say that Athens was a better host than we were. They had food for all of the athletes and water at every event. ACT had no food for the athletes unless they paid, and they sometimes had water at our games. Besides that, the tournament went well. Of course my volleyball team did not win one match. Not one game. Not anything! We decided to keep the streak of losing going into the last games! We still got a medal though! That bronze medal will go nicely with all of my outfits at home! I did have somewhat better luck on the beach volleyball team I played on. We at least one a part of one game. In the end we lost to another ACT team to take fourth in the entire competition. We did not care though, we had a great time!
After I recovered from the weekend, I had to get ready to do some actual school work. I know what you are thinking, "You mean they actually make you work at this school?" Yes, they unfortunately make us do some work. I had two seven page papers due on the 18th. It was a stressful week, especially since I could not find the motivation to finish them! I worked hard on Wednesday and Thursday, and turned them in on Friday afternoon. I emailed them to my instructor just in time to take part in the study abroad beach volleyball tournament!
My partner was going to be Paula, my roommate. But she had to leave the campus early, and I was stuck without a partner. Someone else was actually in the same situation, so we decided to partner up. Being that her name was Ashley as well, we cleverly called our team "Team Ashley." The name must have been lucky because we actually won the tournament! We played against six teams and somehow came out on top! It was satisfying to actually win some kind of sporting event while at ACT since I had a pretty impressive losing record. There was not much time to celebrate though, we were off to Mount Olympus the next morning.
We woke up early and caught the bus at 10am. We drove only about an hour or so to a small village and picked up lunch before our adventure. The bus dropped us off at the base of the mountain where we met up with our guides. We had to hike up to the refuge we would be staying the night at, so we had to get going. I was excited for the hike, since everyone we had asked said it was easy. I must tell you, they were wrong! Everyone was out of breath within the first five minutes! I was very surprised by the difficulty of the walk up the mountain! I stayed strong in the middle group. We would stop about every half an hour and rest for about 3 minutes. Then we would have to continue to make it to the refuge by nightfall. My group finally arrived and we were shown our room at the refuge.
Our room consisted of 15 beds shoved next to each other. It looked like one huge mattress. I was alright with the beds since we had no heat. We had a fireplace, but of course, it was not going. The rest of our night was spent in the lodge playing games and drinking tea. It was a nice relaxing evening before we tried to hike to the summit. We all went to bed early considering they turned out all the lights at 10:30. I am not sure if I can even remember the last time I went to bed at 10:30. As I predicted, I could not sleep. It was so cold and I only had one blanket. After I piled on many layers of clothes, I actually fell asleep. Before I knew it, the lights had turned on. It was 6am and time to get up to start the day. It was surprisingly not difficult to wake up that early. Maybe it was the mountain air that got us all moving.
We went into the lodge to eat breakfast, and to our dismay, it started pouring! The guides could not decide if we should climb up or not, but to make a long story short, I bought a huge poncho and tall socks and we started heading up the mountain! It was not an easy walk at all. The clouds were so thick, it was hard to see the rest of the group. We thought the rain was bad, and then when we got high enough into the clouds, it started to hail. It was so heavy that I could not hear anyone over the sound of the hail falling on my poncho. It was hitting our faces and making it hard to walk because it was slippery! Finally, the guides decided it was too dangerous to continue and we turned back. On the way down, I lost my footing for one second and literally almost fell off Mount Olympus. Let's just say after that, I watched my footing very carefully!
When we got to the lodge, we were all soaked. The bus was not expecting us at the base until 3:30 so we had to sit around in the lodge for a few hours. Many of us used this time to try dry out our clothes. It did not work. Most everyone had wet clothes for the remainder of the trip. We finally started walking down the hill that took us two hours and forty-five minutes to climb. It was alot easier on the way down. It did cause my knees to hurt, but I decided that was better than hail in my face.
Overall, I loved the whole weekend. I never once regretted going on the trip! Even when the hail was hitting my face, I was soaked, and almost fell off the mountain, I was having a great time! It was an experience I will never forget! Much like this whole trip to Greece! On the bus ride home, in a bus that did not have working breaks by the way and we had to go down the mountain as the driver went about 5 miles and hour through the twisty roads, I made a decision. My newest life goal is to return to Greece and climb Mount Olympus. I did not get the chance this trip, but the next one, Zeus better watch out because I am making it to the top!
I am back at home now and getting ready to start saying good-bye. My roommate Paula is leaving this Friday and others start leaving in a little over a week. I am getting nervous to start saying farewell to these people that have become some of my best friends! It will be hard to leave them! It will be made easier knowing that I am coming home to wonderful people that I could not live without either! I can not wait to see everyone!
I leave tomorrow for the island of Santorini and I am very excited!! It has been a dream of mine to visit this island for years and I am actually going to see it in less than 48 hours! I am a very lucky young woman! I think that everyday as I live in Greece and experience this life! To make matter even better, it is only two weeks now until I see my mom and grandma! I can not describe how excited I am to see them! It will be wonderful! Not only for me to see them, but them to see Thessaloniki and see how I have been living for the past 4 months!
I will leave you with this story. Yesterday I was walking to the bus, and a pigeon decided to use my hair as a bathroom. Yea, you read it right. Apparently it is good luck to have a pigeon confuse you with the W.C., but as of now, I still have not seen that good luck! Maybe tomorrow!
I miss you all and it is not long now until I see you!! Have a great day!!
P.S. The spring break pictures are up finally, and I will try to add some more when I get home from Santorini. I can not make any promises though. You might have to wait until I get home to see the rest, but maybe I can find the time!! We'll see!! Bye!!!
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