So a LOT has happened since I last posted here.
Last weekend I left Greece for the first time to fly to Munich for Oktoberfest. It was INCREDIBLE. I think a family trip there one year might be necessary. Alex, Rosie and I had a 6:45am flight on Friday morning which meant we had to leave for the airport at around 3am. Of course, instead of going to bed early and getting some sleep like a sane person would, we went out to our favorite taverna with probably 30 kids from our program (there are two more tables of CYA kids not shown):
We party-bused to the airport with our friend Sam who was also going to Oktoberfest although she was on a slightly later flight.We made it through security with only slight issues (Alex forgot to separate her liquids) and Rosie promptly passed out at our gate. I tried desperately to stay awake until I knew for sure we were on the right plane.
Around mid-flight and I woke up somewhat sprawled across the laps of the couple seated next to me but thankfully feeling a bit more sober. We landed and clearly the gods were happy with us for making it there because the Starbucks in the airport was giving away free coffee. We made a bit of a mess on the bus into the center of Munich but thankfully our bus driver was friendly and just laughed at us as we spilled our free coffee all over his bus and our fellow passengers. We eventually found our way to Theresienwiese (Munich is absolutely beautiful, by the way) and found:
We were supposed to meet another Penn girl at the entrance so we waited in a little beer garden for her to get there and had our first beers of Oktoberfest (they were REALLY good):
One of the last times we saw Alex's bag (also, I think the only time in my life I actually packed an appropriate amount of stuff -->mine's the least full longchamp):
Everyone in Munich wears funny hats apparently. And lederhosen/dirndls.
Anyway, eventually Alex found us and the four of us headed to the actual tents. We went to HB (NO idea what the actual name is) where we found basically every Penn kid spending the semester abroad and some who flew out from Philadelphia for the weekend.
Basically half that room is Penn. Go Quakers.
Of course we almost immediately lost Alex and then Rosie and I got split up as well. I ended up wandering around with some of my other friends from Penn who were studying abroad in Paris and went on some terrible ride that spun so quickly you ended up halfway up the wall with your feet several feet off the floor. It was me and a bunch of German 13 year olds and the fact that I did not vomit on them may be one of my proudest accomplishments. I ended up crashing with my friends from Paris that night in a suburb of Munich where all the streets were named after composers. I think the hotel was on the corner of Beethoven and Wagner sts? The next morning we headed back to the festival and I finally met up with Alex again. After about two hours of wandering around and trying to get into the impossibly crowded tents, she found me and pulled me inside the backdoor of HB.
We saw even more Penn kids and afterwards we stuck together (I wasn't about to lose her again) and spent the rest of the afternoon riding the incredibly overpriced rides and playing carnival games. As a quick side note, Oktoberfest is a carnival mixed with Spring Fling mixed with Heaven. The food is AMAZING. I think I must have eaten around 5 roast chickens over the course of two and a half days. There were pretzels, steak sandwiches (yeah, I started eating meat again), and basically every type of sausage you could ever imagine. There are also rides and games and souvenir stands so basically I never wanted to leave. Some pictures to give you an idea:
whoever let me shoot a gun (even if it was only a BB one) is an absolute idiot
bumper cars with Cristina (and our new hats!)
I went on that spinny thing too
the first (and only) loopy roller coaster I've ever ridden!
One of the numerous chickens consumed over the course of the weekend.
That night, Alex and I stayed with some of our friends from Penn at their hostel (we couldn't find Rosie but we knew she was with some of our other friends). I was also proposed to by a nice Irishman (and soon to be grandfather) and planned a lovely wedding for the next day in Rome while waiting outside of the hostel for our friends.
The next day, Alex and I got an early start (most of the Penn kids were on early morning flights back to their respective study abroad cities) and headed to the beer tents to wait for Rosie. We got a call from her (from a payphone) and met her at HB in our usual spot. This time, we were the only Penn kids in sight, but at last, for the first time since we arrived, we were together again.
Also, if Oktoberfest were to be summed up in two pictures:
After one last fun day, it was sadly time to say:
We headed to the airport and this time both Rosie and I fell asleep as soon as we sat down. Alex thankfully gave the driver our fares. We got to the airport and to our delight found an Asian fusion restaurant! Sushi is so incredibly expensive (and mediocre) in Athens that it makes me want to cry. We got soba and curry and sushi and it was delicious. This time, I was the one who had issues going through security and got patted down by a very mean female security agent while the male security guy just laughed at us and asked if it'd been a long weekend. Clearly, it had been.
The week flew by unfortunately as I had two papers and a midterm due that Friday. Of course I had gotten sick over the weekend and was barely functioning (the fact that the only cold medicine I have is nyquil wasn't helping either). On Tuesday, my Art and Archaeology class went to the National Archaeological Museum to look at Mycenean grave goods. Some of the stuff we saw:
DEATH MASK OF AGAMEMNON
Gold foil "armor" from a child's burial
The best thing I saw at the museum? The archaeologist who took my UChicago group around Greece when I was 17. He was/is AWESOME.
Greer and I posing with Michali at our farewell dinner.
The rest of my week was pretty much devoted to writing my essays and trying to study for my Development of Athenian Democracy midterm. Midterms are supposed to be all next week but as of Friday I think (knock on wood) that mine are over?
Saturday, a bunch of us took a bus out to Corinth to the canal and went bungee jumping. I was so scared I thought I was going to die (I'm TERRIFIED of heights) but it was one of the most amazing experiences and so much fun.
An inspiring message left by some CYA-ers last year:
The Corinth Canal:
Yeah, that's me...
Oh hai.
Of course, we left our mark too:
Also, since I just figured out I can put up videos here:
Today (Sunday), a bunch of us went to go volunteer at a charity event for kids with cancer. It was called "Dance for a Cause" and sounded like a lot of fun but we really weren't able to help with anything because of the language barrier. We made friends with a few girls who go to Athens University though and they promised to take us out with them and their friends some night so that'll be fun. Even though today was sorta terrible, overall it was an excellent weekend (and my last weekend in Athens -->Ironically, I spent part of it in Corinth and part of it in Piraeus).
Next weekend I'll be hiking up Mount Olympus, the home of the gods.
The week after I'll be exploring the Peloponnese.
Then it's time for fall break and I'll be off to Madrid and Barcelona.
The first weekend in November I'm going to Prague.
Then my parents are coming and hopefully we'll go to Budapest for the weekend!
Then I'm going to Northern Greece (including Thermopylae!!!) and Macedonia.
Then off to Turkey for Thanksgiving (and hopefully Troy?).
Then the first weekend of December, AMSTERDAM.
Then its finals, and then its home!
This semester is going by SO quickly.
Last weekend I left Greece for the first time to fly to Munich for Oktoberfest. It was INCREDIBLE. I think a family trip there one year might be necessary. Alex, Rosie and I had a 6:45am flight on Friday morning which meant we had to leave for the airport at around 3am. Of course, instead of going to bed early and getting some sleep like a sane person would, we went out to our favorite taverna with probably 30 kids from our program (there are two more tables of CYA kids not shown):
We party-bused to the airport with our friend Sam who was also going to Oktoberfest although she was on a slightly later flight.We made it through security with only slight issues (Alex forgot to separate her liquids) and Rosie promptly passed out at our gate. I tried desperately to stay awake until I knew for sure we were on the right plane.
Around mid-flight and I woke up somewhat sprawled across the laps of the couple seated next to me but thankfully feeling a bit more sober. We landed and clearly the gods were happy with us for making it there because the Starbucks in the airport was giving away free coffee. We made a bit of a mess on the bus into the center of Munich but thankfully our bus driver was friendly and just laughed at us as we spilled our free coffee all over his bus and our fellow passengers. We eventually found our way to Theresienwiese (Munich is absolutely beautiful, by the way) and found:
Everyone in Munich wears funny hats apparently. And lederhosen/dirndls.
Anyway, eventually Alex found us and the four of us headed to the actual tents. We went to HB (NO idea what the actual name is) where we found basically every Penn kid spending the semester abroad and some who flew out from Philadelphia for the weekend.
Of course we almost immediately lost Alex and then Rosie and I got split up as well. I ended up wandering around with some of my other friends from Penn who were studying abroad in Paris and went on some terrible ride that spun so quickly you ended up halfway up the wall with your feet several feet off the floor. It was me and a bunch of German 13 year olds and the fact that I did not vomit on them may be one of my proudest accomplishments. I ended up crashing with my friends from Paris that night in a suburb of Munich where all the streets were named after composers. I think the hotel was on the corner of Beethoven and Wagner sts? The next morning we headed back to the festival and I finally met up with Alex again. After about two hours of wandering around and trying to get into the impossibly crowded tents, she found me and pulled me inside the backdoor of HB.
We saw even more Penn kids and afterwards we stuck together (I wasn't about to lose her again) and spent the rest of the afternoon riding the incredibly overpriced rides and playing carnival games. As a quick side note, Oktoberfest is a carnival mixed with Spring Fling mixed with Heaven. The food is AMAZING. I think I must have eaten around 5 roast chickens over the course of two and a half days. There were pretzels, steak sandwiches (yeah, I started eating meat again), and basically every type of sausage you could ever imagine. There are also rides and games and souvenir stands so basically I never wanted to leave. Some pictures to give you an idea:
That night, Alex and I stayed with some of our friends from Penn at their hostel (we couldn't find Rosie but we knew she was with some of our other friends). I was also proposed to by a nice Irishman (and soon to be grandfather) and planned a lovely wedding for the next day in Rome while waiting outside of the hostel for our friends.
The next day, Alex and I got an early start (most of the Penn kids were on early morning flights back to their respective study abroad cities) and headed to the beer tents to wait for Rosie. We got a call from her (from a payphone) and met her at HB in our usual spot. This time, we were the only Penn kids in sight, but at last, for the first time since we arrived, we were together again.
We headed to the airport and this time both Rosie and I fell asleep as soon as we sat down. Alex thankfully gave the driver our fares. We got to the airport and to our delight found an Asian fusion restaurant! Sushi is so incredibly expensive (and mediocre) in Athens that it makes me want to cry. We got soba and curry and sushi and it was delicious. This time, I was the one who had issues going through security and got patted down by a very mean female security agent while the male security guy just laughed at us and asked if it'd been a long weekend. Clearly, it had been.
The week flew by unfortunately as I had two papers and a midterm due that Friday. Of course I had gotten sick over the weekend and was barely functioning (the fact that the only cold medicine I have is nyquil wasn't helping either). On Tuesday, my Art and Archaeology class went to the National Archaeological Museum to look at Mycenean grave goods. Some of the stuff we saw:
The best thing I saw at the museum? The archaeologist who took my UChicago group around Greece when I was 17. He was/is AWESOME.
Sadly I didn't get a chance to talk to him but seeing him was probably the highlight of my trip up until then. I also went to my first protest/riot in Syntagma but we had to leave before it got really intense because the tear gas was getting to us and Rosie had to get to class.
Demonstrators throwing rocks at the police lined up in front of Parliament.
The rest of my week was pretty much devoted to writing my essays and trying to study for my Development of Athenian Democracy midterm. Midterms are supposed to be all next week but as of Friday I think (knock on wood) that mine are over?
Saturday, a bunch of us took a bus out to Corinth to the canal and went bungee jumping. I was so scared I thought I was going to die (I'm TERRIFIED of heights) but it was one of the most amazing experiences and so much fun.
An inspiring message left by some CYA-ers last year:
Of course, we left our mark too:
Today (Sunday), a bunch of us went to go volunteer at a charity event for kids with cancer. It was called "Dance for a Cause" and sounded like a lot of fun but we really weren't able to help with anything because of the language barrier. We made friends with a few girls who go to Athens University though and they promised to take us out with them and their friends some night so that'll be fun. Even though today was sorta terrible, overall it was an excellent weekend (and my last weekend in Athens -->Ironically, I spent part of it in Corinth and part of it in Piraeus).
Next weekend I'll be hiking up Mount Olympus, the home of the gods.
The week after I'll be exploring the Peloponnese.
Then it's time for fall break and I'll be off to Madrid and Barcelona.
The first weekend in November I'm going to Prague.
Then my parents are coming and hopefully we'll go to Budapest for the weekend!
Then I'm going to Northern Greece (including Thermopylae!!!) and Macedonia.
Then off to Turkey for Thanksgiving (and hopefully Troy?).
Then the first weekend of December, AMSTERDAM.
Then its finals, and then its home!
This semester is going by SO quickly.
Please don't ever go bungee jumping again!!! Love, Mom
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