It's All Greek to Me

Hello my lovelies! It is good to finally be back in my nice Leipzig apartment. We spent this entire last week in Greece, and the near 80 degree weather was killing me. It makes me fear the 100 degree weather that we will be returning to in less than three weeks time. Less than three weeks. Anyway, get on the magic school bus, and let's get right into this week's story.

Greece is a unique place. It is a place where mountains and ocean are thrown together in a unique combination that I have never seen before. It smells like Colorado mountains, and looks like New Mexican mountains. The Ocean is blue, without a single hint of the Galveston brown. It is a littered with flowers, and families. Nearly half of the population lives in Athens, a fact that can be told by the traffic. On top of that, more than double the population of Greece vacations there every year. The people are loud, talk with their hands, and are beyond friendly with kids. It also seems that every one of them speaks English. Quite convenient.

While our trip was supposed to begin on Thursday, we were delayed a day due to the 24-hour Nation wide air traffic control strike by Greek. After the large number of revisions this trip had gone through due to safety and logistical concerns, we couldn't help but laugh at the continued conditions determined to keep us from going East. We flew in late on Friday night, arriving in our stellar hotels in hours that more closely resembled morning than night. We were met by our tour guide, Dino, who is a Greek-American who studied in America at ACU for college, which was a big surprise to me. (Side Note: I am looking out our window at Leipzig currently, wondering where all the green has come from. It is starting to look almost nice.)

We took a bus, as we would for the rest of this trip, from Athens to Corinth to have our Corinth day tour. It was quite a shock to be standing on the ground of a multi-thousand year old city where Paul had worked for 18 months. The ruins gave us a place to put to the name, and on top of that the flowers in ancient Corinth were gorgeous. It is a feeling that I struggle now to put in words, though it felt like a more academic form of Deja Vu.

Isthmus Canal

In the Corinth Museum

Statue of an important man I can't remember 

Statue of a barbarian wearing pants

Pieces given in honor for healing

Corinth Temple

Currently being excavated

A wreath of Corinthian flowers

AcroCorinth

The path up to AcroCorinth's gate

Following Corinth, we spent Sunday as our tour day in Athens. Today was the name of 'big-hitters', so be prepared for plenty of location name drops. Early in the day, we climbed to the Acropolis of Athens with our tour guide, seeing magnificent ruins like theaters on the incline. At the top we saw the temple of Nike, and the world-famous Parthenon. For the record, the Parthenon is much bigger in real life than I would have guessed. We continued the day, and was able to see Mars hill where Paul spoke with the Philosophers, and went further down to see the Agora of Athens which was the main teaching point for ancient philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. We saw the only complete remaining Spartan shield, and the Acropolis museum's plethora of archaic statues. It was a packed day that we rounded off by attending the Athens Let's Start Talking church, and witnessing a baptism in Farsi.

Athens Theatre

The Parthenon

The Grecian flag that flies proudly atop the Acropolis

Still the Parthenon

Did I mention that I saw THE PARTHENON

Looks safe enough

Ancient stairs up to Mars Hill

Mars Hill

Art at its finest

Temple of Hephaestus

The Acropolis from the Agora

The only complete remaining Spartan shield

Statue of Someone

Statue of something

Statue of someone else

I'm not to brushed up on my statues of people

The next two days we were in Delphi. We spent the first in the ruins of Delphi. We saw statues of the Ancient Greek Sphinx, pottery from a time passed, and a slab of archaic stone with the a song on it that was played in the first modern Olympic games, just one year after their discovery. We saw an ancient treasury, theater, and stadium. The following day we went to a beach down the mountain from Delphi, and split up to hike around the mountains nearby. Nevan and I went to a hill nearby where I found a baby turtle.

Beach down from Delphi

Odd rock wall in the back-woods near Delphi

Baby Turtle!

Nevan!

Tad!

View of the sea from Delphi

Nevan in a tree

Delphi Sphinx

Tall Twins

Apollo Apollo

Our professor really liked this statue, but I just liked his hair

The ancient music

Right: Temple of Apollo holding ancient Oracle of Delphi

Greek Stadium

Delphi Theater

Following Delphi, we hit the road again to head for the town of Olympia that is home to the original Olympic games. We toured the museum looking at statues of former Olympic medal winners, one of which, was the philosopher Plato. The trees were a gorgeous shade of magenta, and the air breathed of something ancient. We saw the temple of Zeus (same one from Hercules), and after the normal ruins made our way down to the original Olympic stadium. Our whole group lined up at the starting line for the Olympic footrace, and took off. Of our group, Reuben took a clean first place, though he was beaten by some random German dude. I will gladly say I did not take last place and leave it at that. 

Statue of Hermes with Dionysus

Around the temple of Zeus

Olympia

Does it count as stealing if I uproot this tree to take back to Dallas?

One pillar on the temple of Zeus. Roof was even higher on top.

Tanner for comparison with pillar.

Where the Olympic torch is lit every year

Entrance to Olympic Stadium

200 meter distance

Ready at the starting line

The field ahead

Our final location was centered around the town of Napflio on the coast of Greece. Our tour in Epidavros was quite similar to the other tours, but had a different climactic point. At the end of our tour, we saw the best preserved ancient theater in all of Greece, and you could truly feel the difference. We spread out across the massive theater and let Cole stand in the middle to recite various texts. His voice resonated across the long distances clearly and crisply, to where if you were listening, you wouldn't miss a single word. I cannot explain how it worked, or why, but it is seriously one of the coolest locations I've ever seen.

What employee in their right mind thought that this would fit a human being?

Stadium

The Great Theater

The next day in Napflio was spent as a beach day. We put on our shorts and flip-flops, and walked a 45 minute trail along the coast to get to the beach. This coastline walk was one of the most beautiful parts of the trip, mind you. The water was a rich blue that crashed directly into the mountain-side we walked along. The sun shined bright, and olive trees lined  our path to the beach. The beach was sandy, and I built a monster of a sand-castle (disclaimer: sand-castle may have not been that big). We said goodbye Dr. Shewmaker and Dr. Hutson who joined us with Ice Cream, and went on our merry ways.

Beginning of path to beach.

Nevan and Cole!

A friendly Sea-turtle carcass that waved at us.

Path back from beach.

Ocean meets mountain 

Pink flowered tree 

Sea

That's the trip everybody! We now have 17 days left in Europe, and the time has been going incredibly fast. I am really excited to get to see all of you again, but I will use every last minute I have here to fully experience this continent.

Swirly chocolate cinnamon pastry things

Howdy ho Ranger Joes! Glad to be typing to you all on this wonderful 21 degree Celsius day in Leipzig. The people of the city are out in force today, like a hoard of children when they hear the ice cream truck.  The parks and roads are filled, causing me to wonder where on Earth they all came from. Either way, we spent this past weekend in the beautiful city of Prague, Czech Republic, and I am excited to tell you all about it.

First, a side story. Earlier in the year, Tanner and I were told about an interesting quirk of Leipzig that happens in the Spring time. There is a plant called the Bear leek that appears in late February, taking the ground space by storm. This specific plant tastes like a combination of garlic and onion, and the people of the city will grab handfuls of it from the park for their own meal. After returning from Spring Break, I first encountered this plant on Easter without meaning to. Before entering the forest, a smell of garlic and onion hit me like a ICE train shooting down the track laid before it. The entire area was covered in a new green plant, and I really mean everywhere. A few days later, we returned, and grabbed the leek, for future meals. Update: just had some with eggs. Fabulous.

They are EVERYWHERE

Our whole Study Abroad group left for Prague early Thursday morning, and by train, the city is roughly four hours away. The people in Prague speak Czech and use the Korona instead of the Euro, which is roughly 24 Korona to 1 Dollar. After climbing over a tall pile of gravel, we found our lovely accommodations, and went on our way for our own group tours. On this trip, teams of two or three had researched specified areas to teach us about while we visited it. It was pretending to do school when we are really just on vacation. The first day we visited Wenceslas square, the Old town square, and Charles bridge. My personal favorite was the Charles bridge, due to the high level of activity going on across the water. Standing on the bridge, overlooking the setting sun shining down upon the water with weather to rival that of a Spring day in Texas set me in a great mood for the rest of our time there. The sun set, and we wound down after the day was up by playing cards in our rooms.

Wenceslas Square

Old Town Square

12 Apostles Cuckoo Clock

Our Marvelous Lodging

Charles Bridge

The next day we went to the remaining locations on our tour: the Jewish Cemetery, Prague Castle, and St. Vitus Cathedral. The Jewish Cemetery was built in a way that is unlike the average cemetery. While normal cemeteries are wide with space between gravestones, this cemetery was built with bodies being buried on top of other bodies. The gravestones are close together, laying on mounds of dirt in the home of the remnants of the original Jewish golem. St. Vitus Cathedral was built starting in 930, and was finished in 1929. This ancient history has given way to a triple tiered gothic monster that has stained glass that looks like it belongs at a Christian Woodstock concert. The bland walls were colored inside by the stained glass that was too massive for me to begin to grasp what was happening within.

Jewish Cemetery

Bit of  a tight squeeze

St. Vitus Cathedral

Woodstock-Christian stained glass

Interior of St. Vitus

St. Vitus Cathedral

My new bff

In order to explain to you what the title is in reference to, I feel that I need a full paragraph to describe the pastry that I never saw a name for. This pastry is like a cinnamon roll that is long with a hole punched through the middle. The exterior is cooked brown while the interior is left doughy. In one particular location, we were able to get them filled with ice cream and Nutella. For those of you that know me, you know my particular love for anything desert like, and I am unashamed to say I had no less than three of these on the trip (likely more). Below is a picture to jump start your salivary glands, should they be in need of a test.

*drooling over keyboard too much to type anything meaningful*

Finally, I want to give you a taste of the church I have been attending semi-regularly while here. I have been going to the Leipzig Let's Start Talking missionary church with a handful of the study abroad folks. Depending on the week, there will be 7 or 25 of us, but we begin church by sitting together around a big table enjoying coffee and cake together (it is as effective at getting me to church as classes that offer doughnuts). We then have song and sermon in either English or German depending on the week, It is a home church environment, and I appreciate the missionaries working to give us a place to call home while we are away from ours. 

LST church

That's all I have for this week. We leave for Greece on Thursday, so there may or may not be a blog on next Sunday. Till then, hug someone you care about, eat a piece of chocolate, work hard, and above all, don't forget to put on your pants before your shoes. 

-Tad Kile