Happy Thanksgiving from Athens, Greece!

Well, I finally arrived here in Athens last night at about 6:30. After being on a train from 10:30-4:30 am, having a 4 hour delayed flight (...the Athens airport was on strike ...) and wandering a bit around Athens to meet Ashley, I was stoked to get settled in. As usual, it has already been a blast to be with one of my closest friends. Upon arriving, I walked down a huge street in Athens, and found the stadium from the 1896 Olympics. Seeing this was AMAZING for numerous reasons. A year ago I took an ancient/modern Olympics course from a classics professor at Iowa. This stadium is the first stadium of the modern Olympics, when Coubertin was the IOC president. Yeah, freaking AMAZING to see this part of sporting history. The stadium was originally built in 4th century B.C. Obviously, it has been through restoration throughout time, (including massive reconstruction previous to the 1896 games) but it is still pretty sweet to see it. It is the only stadium to be made out of 100% white marble. During the 2004 Athens summer Olympics, it was where the archery competition was held, and where the Marathon finished. Sweetness.

This morning, I woke up early to go with Ashley and her roommates to class at the Agora. Walking through the museum there was really neat, as well as seeing the actual remains of the site. I was standing on and near things that were built in the B.C. era. Crazy. Agora is an ancient site that to my understanding, was a pretty important part of ancient Athens. It was a marketplace, in addition to a social and political gathering spot. Additionally, numerous roads intersected at the Agora. 87 B.C., the Romans destroyed it (shocking...the Romans destroy something?!) and it was rebuilt again in the 3rd or 4th century A.D. (I think those dates are right...). It is in a really neat location. When you walk in, you look up and see the Acroplis perched upon the huge hill, and to the right is the temple of Hephaistos, which was AWESOME to see as well.

Tonight, we are cooking a huge Turkey and having a feast here, after doing more exploring. I am pretty fortunate to have a friend here who is a classics major because she knows all the history of everything we see, plus knows the fun spots. Tomorrow, we are going to a huge mall and the 2004 Olympic Football stadium. Sweetness. Saturday and Sunday are going to be the extreme tourist days, going to museums, the Acropolis , going up and around the stadium, down to the beach (its not super warm here but its sunny and a lot warmer than the UK) and going out for some dinners. In addition to pretty outstanding Greek remains, there are also numerous Roman remains here. Looking forward to the adventures ahead!

As usual, I miss you all a ton and have an amazing Thanksgiving :)

Paris

Well, I am back safe from Paris. We drove in a coach bus about 3 or 4 hours to Dover, where we ferried over to France. Then we drove for another few hours to Paris on Thursday night/Friday morning. We arrived at our hotel around 10am on Friday...early enough to get a full day's worth of adventuring done. We were located about a mile south-east of Basilique Du Sacre Coeur. In fact, I could see the incredible structure from my hotel window. Sweet! Then we took the metro down to see the Eiffel Tower...Incredible. We didn't even see it sparkle the first night and it was still outstanding. It is a structure you truly have to go see in person to realize how incredibly large it is. We then went on an hour long tour down the Seine River. It pointed out all of the main buildings and monuments, and also described the history of the numerous bridges crossing the Seine. We wandered around the city a bit, and ate dinner. We saw the Eiffel Tower lit up, but not sparkle. It was lit up blue with the stars on the front of it, like the EU flag. We thought this might be specifically for Christmas, but we weren't sure about that. Comment if you know why it was lit up blue! We crashed in our beds at 845 because we were so tired from being up all night.

The next day we woke up early and got to the Louvre right when it opened. I couldn't believe I saw the paintings I have only seen in text books. I don't care what anyone else says, the Mona Lisa in person is NOT overrated. It wasn't as small as I had expected it to be. It had an entire wall to itself, and you couldn't stand within 10 feet of it. But it was still insane to be in the presence of DaVinci's masterpiece, and yes, her eyes DO follow you wherever you go. Creepy. The Last Supper, unfortunately, isn't in the Louvre. If I thought the Mona Lisa was amazing, I can't imagine what I would have thought about the Last Supper.

After the Louvre, we walked down the street and across the river about a mile to Notre Dame. Fabulous. We'll leave it at that.

We then braved the cold weather, and waited in line for 45 minutes to go to the 3rd level (the very tip top) of the Eiffel Tower. The view from up at the top was nothing anyone can describe, but one you have to experience before you die. Crazy. I had no idea Paris was so HUGE. On all sides of the tower, the city continued as far as I could see. It was crazy windy and FREEZING up at the top, so we walked to get some hot chocolate.

We then walked back to the Eiffel Tower, and saw it light up and sparkle for 5 minutes. At 5 to every hour, it literally sparkles. You know at the World Series how there are constant bulb flashes from cameras? It was like that times a million. The background was lit up blue, and there were 12 stars on it, so we think it was for the EU. The sparkling Eiffel Tower was possibly my favorite part of the entire trip.

After the Eiffel Tower, we went to see the Arc de Triomphe. So cool. This is located in the center of the buisiest round-a-bout in Europe, on the Champs-Elysees-fun shopping area. 5 story Louis Vitton, Cartier, etc.

Here are a few highlight photos, more later

Wanting time to stop...

The world needs to simply just stop turning , on account of I don't want to go back home. Simple as that. Not much is new here. Bronchitis/chest infections are going around my flat. I am on day two of my antibiotics and am starting to come back to life! At least I showered and put on clean clothes today...that's a step up from the last two days! Other than that I am just writing lots of papers and hanging around Swansea.

Since I still have almost a month here, I have some great travels planned:
November 20-23: Paris, France with University
November 26-December 1: Athens, Greece, where I will be staying with one of my best friends, Ashley
December 4-5: London, England: I am going to my friend Sian's (pronounced Shawn) home, located right out side of London. She invited me and my other friend to stay the night at her house and then go do all of the touristy things, and see London decorated for Christmas. Fun! Abbey Road (gotta get a picture walking across....) London Eye, Harrod's, and Big Ben....here I come!
December 12: As of 11:55 pm, I am back in MN.

Blah to being back, but yay to seeing my whole family and my good friends again. And consuming Trans-fats and high fructose corn syrup at Applebees. Yum. Actually, one of the really nice things about being here is not having to worry so much about high fructose corn syrup in EVERYTHING. They don't have it here. It is so nice not having to compare peanut butter and yogurt cartons trying to find the one with the least amount of chemicals. I've noticed organic food here isn't much more expensive than non-organic either.

I'm trying to think what the first thing I will want to do when I get home is (besides give my family a hug and sleep). Believe it or not people, I think I may have kicked my Diet Soda habit. I still drink it, but not nearly the massive quantity that I did in the states. And Diet Mountain Dew is illegal here... So drinking a soda isn't going to be the first thing. It will probably be to go out for appetizers at Applebees. Lame, I know. I will definitely be getting sushi when I get back. There is a place here somewhere, but I can't seem to find it. I really do have a lot to look forward to when I get back though. Good friends, my dog, great family, new roommates (I'm living with two boys who seem really nice), snow, and blue skies. Sure they're not blue all the time at home, but they are certainly more blue than here! I haven't yet decided when I am moving back to Iowa, we will see how that all plays out. Well, time to take antibiotic number FOUR of the day (yeah...I'm on four a days. Ugh) and go to bed. Early class tomorrow! I hope all is well with you. Keep me posted on all your lives, as I miss you terribly :)

Viva Barcelona!

Hey hey. So I returned safely from Barcelona, Spain on Monday night. It was definitely my favorite trip so far. It was just me, and my two friends who went. It was a pretty chilled out trip. Not nearly as intense as Dublin was, as we had three full days there. We stayed right in las Ramblas, kind of the center of town. We saw all of the big sights, including: Temple de La Sagrada Familia, jPort Olimpic, The Gothic Quarter with la Catedral de Barcelona, the church of Santa Maria del Mar (incredible!), the Picasso museum (I wandered for a good 2.5 hours. SO cool to see all of Picasso's originals, and non-cubism pieces that we didn't study in Spanish class), Parc de La Ciutadella, and my favorite thing: un Partido de Futbol!!!! ( A soccer game...). But ok, soccer here is NOT soccer in the states. It is outstanding to watch the footwork and talent these players have. Incedible!! So we bought tickets to go to the game, and bought jerseys of course. Way fun night! We unfortunately couldn't find an authentic Spanish resturaunt because the area we were in was so touristy, and lived off of sandwiches for 4 days. But there was chocolate....lots of chocolate, and chocolate shops. Unfortunately, most cool buildings we saw were under construction. Temple de La Sagrada Familia isn't complete yet. The construction started in 1882, and in 1926 the project director died. 8 out of the 12 towers are built. Right now they are focusing on the transepts and the apse. The entire temple has always been and remains entirely funded by private donations. All weekend long I spoke broken Spanish which was fun, usually I'd just get a response in English though....It was still fun to try! I still have Paris and Athens left on my trips before I leave. Thinking about going home makes me really sad. Studying over here, and living in Europe has given me a whole new outlook on a lot of aspects of life. If I were to do it again, I would definitely pick another country. The UK is very similar to the US, which is nice in some ways. When I went to Spain though, it was so different. EVERYTHING. Flamenco guitarists on the street. Enormous cathedrals, larger than I have seen or could have imagined. A live culture. Just SO different than anything I've seen before. I am really looking forward to experiencing the same sense of nostalgia in France and Greece.


Princess Street....of couse I'd take a pic of that one
Parliament

Santa Maria del Mar





Catedral de Barcelona


Partido de Futbol!


La Familia Sagrada