A Random Update, becase I feel like i should blog more...

Things happen in the neighborhood ... Wondering why there is a photo of cops in riot grear, yet? On Saturday, we were coming home from an unsuccessful shopping day when we saw a giant crowding in the road, and along the side walks. We stopped to find out what was going on ... we see riot police dragging men from an apartment into an unidentified van. We found out that they were anarchists who had rioted through Pagrati early that day. (This photo taken from our balcony.)

There is a little history to this photo ... In Meteora, we took a picture of me and my roommates in our bathrobes, in bed eating sandwhiches. There was a comment on the photo, asking if we were orphans. So we took our orphan shots, we will put them in adoption files.

Friday night, we dressed up and hit the town. we went to Kolonaki, which is the most posh area of Athens. We found cafe and had dessert. Maria and I had crepes ... her was choco-banana and mine was choco-biscuit (which really means cookies).

A Pre-outing photo. Check out the new boots!!!!

I bought my boots and within 2 hours, i had been hit one a couple times and and received a number. I am telling you, boots make all the difference!

Other exciting mentionable events...

- booked my tickets for spring breaks - Island Hopping for 7 days!

- began running again... gotta get ready for the Spring Break bod... ;)

On March 5th it will be my 6 month anniversary of leaving MN and March 6th my 6 month anniversay of being in Greece! Also, Monday marks 80 days until I come home!

More Meteora Pics

Just call us bag ladies. :D

More Meteora Pics

Acro-Corinth

Acrocorinth is the acropolis near ancient Corinth. It is thougt to have been inhabited since the Mycenean times. Most of it today is remanents of walls and rubble. It is 600meters above sea level and on clear days you can see the sea and Salamis.

We went on Satuday the 20th, and African dust had been blowing in all day. We decided that we wanted the experience of climbing from the bottom to the top. It took a total 4 hours round trip, and we were exhausted by the time we finished. The view were great regaurdless of the dust and we saw very interesting aspects of the country life ... cute goatherders and goats having sex.

Afterwards, we decided to eat at a taverna.... but out food took forever. We were joking that they probably had to go and kill the chicken ... they did no joke. I got my chicken slouvaki and the meat was terrible and there were feathery things on it still. Needless to say, I did not eat my chicken.

Meteora Pics

Meteora, a heaven on earth. The breathe taking views and awe-inspiring heights, it is a perfect place to build great monasteries dedicated to God.

On Saturday, we took a taxi for 3 hours and went to 3 monasteries and took a few road side picture opts. The monasteries are located off the roads, on top of the cliffs. It started out as a beautiful brisk morning, then began to sprinkle, rain ... the rain turned into sleet, then snow ... then back to ran and by 3 in the afternoon it was bright and sunny out again.

At the third monastery, we went into the gift shop, and the nun took a liking to us. She told is (in Greek) to wait a half minute and she would be right back. When she returned she had a bag with candies and juice boxes for us to share. She also gave us 12 postcards and 4 book marks to share.

Most of our time in Meteora was actualy spent in out hotel or eating. :) After arriving in on Friday morning at 6am, we crashed for a couple of hours. Then we got up, and ready and went out ready for an adventure. But on our way to the monasteries, we saw a Taverna and stopped in. Luckily, we did because it started down pouring. We ended up going back to the hotel, because we were not sure if we were up for climbing mountains in the rain. Saturday, we went to the monasteries, and spent a good part of the afternoon in town at a cafe and a Taverna.

The Midnight Train (from Hell) to Meteora

I went on Wednesday to go buy our (Maria, Emily, Suzy and my) tickets to Meteora. We had anticipated on catching the earliest train on Friday morning, but when I arrived to the ticket booth, it was sold out. The only tickets left were for the Midnight train on Thurday. So we took it, not thinking about what it might be like and who might be on it...

We arrive at the station at 11:30ish, and immediately notice that nearly everyone else at the platform is creepy, sketchy and male. This should have been an indictator... but I at least did not connect anything.

We got on a train, found our seat and sat down completely hyped for our trip. About halfway through, Maria get up to go to the bathroom... she comes back less than 5 minutes later and looks at Suzy and I and says "do not go to the bathroom." We asked why... and she said "beacuse there are poeple snorting and shooting up in the hallways, not to mentions having sex everywhere and some guy asked me for sex for money." We were like oh... But Suzy had to go to the bathroom really bad so she tried the other half of the train, hoping it would be better. NOPE, she ran into the same thing. She came back, but still had to go really badly so I went with her to find a toilet that was unoccupied and at least a little santiary (as in the toilet bowl was over flowing with an unknown liquid and cigerette butts). I could not believe my eyes, what Maria had said was true... I just walked really fast and found one.

Finally we arrived at our connecting station. We got off and followed the crowd to the sitting area in the station. We were sitting near a wall in a circle just talking, trying to keep calm. I decided that I needed to go to the bathroom since our train was later that we had originally thought. I walked in to the womens bath room and saw mens boots sticing out of one of the stalls, it looked like the guy was lying face down in the stall (YUCK!). I went into the other stall but noticed that there was no toilet paper, so I went back to the others and grabed my bag of kleenx. When I got back to the bathroom he looks like he was sitting on the stall, I went to the bathroom and booked out! Then about 10 or 15 minutes later the same guy approaches us from behind me. He asks us in Greek where we are from, but I didnt know that he was behind me so I jumped about a foot in the air, they said that I was completely airborn and exclaimed "Oh Jesus!". Well that cause a scene, but thankfully the Greeks told him to stop bugging us. We went and bugged some Greek guys.

Finally, out train arrives. While we were sitting in the station we didnt really think about the fact that everyone we were waiting with would be on the same train with us... but got on and went and sat in a corned booth together and avoided all eye contact. But this man sat across from us and he had a bloody nose (we can only guess that he snorted too much), and he kept dabbing his nose with a wash cloth... OH IT WAS SO GROSS!

So FINALLY, we arrive to the station, we call a cab and arrive at the hotel about 6:30am on Friday morning. The hotel was seriously a beacon of light after our night! It was a really nice hotel.

More about the trip later... I thought I would blog the part that I didnt have pictures from.