the rest of the story...

So I have been back in the States for nearly 2 months now…no more walks down the boardwalk or up to the old city walls. I feel like it’s pretty easy to fall back into the normal routine of life once returning from trips to far away places, and to have it seem as though it was a trip from long ago, not only a couple days or weeks or months. (The only little culture shock I remember was that when I went to the Des Moines Arts Festival the weekend after I got back, there were lots of people and I was surprised that everyone seemed so American. What do I mean by that? I’m not really sure, but I guess I just wasn’t used to seeing so many Americans all at once like that.) It’s also pretty easy to fall into the laziness and somewhat unproductiveness that is summertime. Lovely, but also somewhat disappointing. However, the last few weeks, I have been at least pretty good at keeping up a pretty good running schedule. I decided to run a marathon awhile ago, and finally actually started running again after discovering the Des Moines marathon that is in October. I'm actually kind of excited for it and have enjoyed running for the most part so far, even the 12+mile runs.
BUT, I never finished telling you about the rest of my trip! So a few more pictures to help sum up the end:
After my last post, Mom came to visit me in Thessaloniki! We mostly hung around Thessaloniki, and I got to show her some of my favorite things, but we also went to the nearby city of Kavala to check it out and get away from the city for a bit. It’s a cute little city on the water, just about 1.5 or 2 hours away from Thessaloniki. I'm glad Mom was able to visit!


The next weekend, our school had a trip planned to hike up Mt. Olympus, supposed home of the ancient gods.
The first day was super hot and sweaty and fairly intense. We spent a chilly night at the refuge, before heading for the summit the next morning.The second day was less distance, but steeper and more "dangerous" seeming, and more fun. We trekked through snow and loose rocks up the sides of the mountain, as vegetation began to disappear and the temperature dropped.After what seemed like forever up a long stretch straight up, we were almost there. A couple more scary snow crossings and we were at the top of Skala, one of the peaks!


Towards the end of classes, as most people were leaving very soon, everyone tried to make it out to the beaches as much as possible. Halkidiki is an area near Thessaloniki which has 3 peninsulas (or fingers, or legs, as they are referred) stretching out into the Aegean, which are known for the lovely beaches they offer. My favorite was when we went camping on the second finger, on a beach called Kalamitsi. It was great and included a lovely beach bonfire complete with Reese’s s'mores (if I have never told you about Reese's s'mores yet, ask me!). Loved it, and the beach was absolutely beautiful, and quite possibly my favorite of any I’ve ever been to! (pictures to come, they are still on my camera :( but there are some pretty sweet ones with STARS. i love that my camera can catch stars, it's one of my favorite things about it!)



Then lots of last goodbye nights commenced and lots of people left, yet a few of us still remained. I had made my flight for two weeks later than we were kicked out of the apartments, in hopes of finding other travel opportunities. Didn’t end up going to Italy or Spain, which was the tentative plan for a little while, but it was a good little extra time, crashing in Kate and Ali's room, with trips to Turkey and Bulgaria and a random beach trip with feta lady squeezed in there.

The lady I always bought feta cheese from at the big Saturday market, Liza, invited me to join her and a friend going to the beach one holiday weekend! So I met them there and it was a funny, fun little beach trip. :)


My friend Ashley (who I am now rooming with) was in Turkey in June, and I planned a trip to visit! She was in Bursa, Turkey, just south of Istanbul across the Marmara Sea (I believe the Marmara…). So I took an overnight train to Istanbul (accidentally, but enjoyably, a sleeper car), met up with different friend from my study abroad program who was in Istanbul with her dad, visiting after classes, from whom I received a mini tour of Istanbul.The next morning I took a ferry to Bursa and eventually met up with Ashley, stayed with her and her team for 4 days, and then headed back for Istanbul and Thessaloniki. So much fun! Bursa is known for its silk, and was originally part of the Silk Road, I believe, and so had a PLETHORA of beautiful silk scarves for Ashley and I to decide on while shopping at the silk market. (pictures to come...also still on my camera...running out of room on my computer!)



Right after Turkey, I headed for Bulgaria for the second time. This time to the closer city of Blagoevgrad, to meet up with a friend I hadn’t seen in 8 years! We had spent 2 months together in Africa the summer of 2001. Krista had been serving in the Peace Corps in Bulgaria for the past 2 years and randomly one day on facebook noticed I was in Greece. “Hey, are you in Greece? I’m in Bulgaria! Want to meet up?” So I spent the day at a water park and movie theater in Bulgaria, eating chili and cornbread with pouring rain by night, and we reminisced with our memories o f eight years past.



I was the last of my study abroad friends to leave, so when I got back from Bulgaria everyone had gone and I stayed with Alan and Whitney, whom I had met at church. I enjoyed their family, finished packing up, met up with Sofia for coffee, went to the mall for the first time, and then it was time to go.Some flight confusion greeted us at the airport, due to the snow in London in February, but Alan helped to resolve it with his fantastic Greek skills and I caught the next flight to Athens. Bought some halva (hall-VAH, a Greek sweet made from sesame seeds) at the airport with the last of my euro change (which ended up mystifying EVERY single one of the security check camera people), barely made the flight out of London due to delays, but was surprised to find that my seat was located in the FIRST CLASS section. I have no pictures, but seriously I had my own little booth with a seat that reclined completely flat so that I could sleep, got some awesome food, and it was just amazing. Wow. Welp, that's all! Goodbye Europe!



Oh, and I forgot to mention earlier, at the end of spring break, that I went bungee jumping in the Corinth Canal! Yep. I would rather skydive too, yes, but the opportunity was there, so yes, of course I went for it. I guess it is one of the top 10 or something best places to bungee jump, and 3rd highest location in the world. They did it on Amazing Race one time. It was pretty sweet!

HEY! Real quick, which picture of the two sets do you like better? i.e. choose one of each
Thanks!


Thessaloniki #1


Thessaloniki #2


Old woman #1


Old woman #2

Santorini/Thira

Whew, ok, I might have to finish this one later, but Santorini was, of course, gorgeous and just like people imagine...lots of white-washed buildings down the mountainside and lots of lovely views. We rented ATVs and explored the island and this was SO much FUN! Definitely a great way to see Santorini and its island loveliness. Just a couple pictures and then I am out for now. Mom comes to visit on Friday! :)

Crete

After London, I got to meet up with my friend Marta in Athens, and then had some time to recoup and relax and get some stuff done back in Thess for the rest of the week before meeting up with the group that had been in Egypt the previous week. We met up on the island of Crete, the biggest of the Greek islands (I think. Is Rhodes bigger?). We had a lot of fun going to the beach a lot and rock-jumping. The city of Chania was nice and picture-esque. Easter in Greece was a week later than other Easter's this year, so we stayed up for the midnight celebrations in the center...slightly dissappointed to hear afterwards that they weren't doing fireworks this year, so it was just the candlelight part after the whole ceremony they have. My friend Kostis also lives very close to where we were staying in Chania, so we went over to his house one night and he showed us all his chickens and pidgeon-eagles and orange trees and stuff. And he played guitar and sang songs for us. That was lovely.His mom showed us the Easter tradition of the red eggs and how you play a game where you try to crack the other person's without breaking yours. Oh, funny night.Oh, and there were lots of sheep and chickens near our hotel on the walk to the beach! heheOh, and the other city of Heraklion was cool too. Blue, blue water and big splashy waves. :)

On to the UK...

So I left Athens a little earlier than everyone else and headed to London to meet up with my dear friend Emily who I went to school with in California! We explored London a bit, ate some fish and chips, and then headed to the lovely Republic of Ireland. We stayed in Dublin and got to experience the Wicklow area a little further south where movies like P.S. I Love You and Braveheart were filmed. The tour guide fell in love with Emily and it was quite a lovely time

Then we headed up to the gloomy city of Belfast in Northern Ireland, not to be confused with the Republic of Ireland. It is actually a different country and part of the UK, but still part of the same land mass/island thing as the other Ireland. Maybe it was just because it is less touristy, but the people there seemed very Irish, more so than in Dublin. We saw lots of REALLY red-haired people and often we had a hard time understanding what they were saying, despite it being English. C.S. Lewis is from Belfast, and I don't know, I feel like I get some of his writing better now that I've been there. It's just so gloomy-ish, but that's not exactly the right word either...
From Belfast we arrived in Edinburgh (pronounced Ed-in-bur-ah...I didn't know either), Scotland, as our final destination. It is a really cool city. I didn't really know anything about it or Scotland before I went, but I like it. The buildings are all stony and old, which doesn't sound attractive when I say it like that, but actually it is pretty pretty. There's a big impressive castle towards the center of the city that we were too cheap to actually go all the way inside, but it was cool nonetheless. We also got to see some Scottish countryside...the tour guide wasn't quite as charming this time, but we saw the Scottish Highlands including some pretty sweet glens (a valley, with cool mountains) and the famous Loch Ness. We passed lots of lochs...I think it just means lake. We passed lots of lakes. We parted ways again in London, but it was so nice to catch up again and explore foreign lands together!

April travels...

The month of April I had class a total of 6 days. Yep, in Greece, they like their holidays. Easter merits a whole 2 weeks out of school, throw in a couple days excused for a study abroad trip to Athens, and the week before Easter break I took off early ( most of my classes ended up being canceled anyway!) to meet up with a friend in London. And then right when we get back, no classes on Friday because it's May Day!

So the beginning of my April travels took place in Athens with all the rest of the study abroad students at our school...around 80ish of us I believe. We got to see the Parthenon on the Acropolis and everything. Athens is big and spread out because no tall buildings are allowed to make sure that the Acropolis can always be seen. That's what I heard at least. I believe it. There really are no skyscrapers.
Wow, look at all those buildings in the background. Lots. All over.

Meteora Monasteries

OK, so this last weekend I went on one of the trips that our school organized for us. We went to see a place called Meteora, which has these INCREDIBLE rocks/mountains/formations which was amazing in itself, but there are a bunch of monasteries built right on top of them into the rock itself. It's amazing, really. I can't imagine how they built them way back when they did. I can't even imagine how someone would build them today, with more technology. So yeah, it was pretty sweet. The bus wouldn't start when we tried to leave after visiting one of the biggest monasteries still in use, so we were stuck there a good amount of time. At least 4 hours I think. So we got plenty of time to enjoy the view and climb around a little in the area we were in. And that was only a portion of it...the amazingness continued around every turn we took. So cool.