This year is going to be different.

2016 was quite a year. I'm glad to see it go. So, in thinking about resolutions for 2017, I had a few thoughts. 

I'm a planner. I have been planning what I wanted for my life as long as I can remember, carefully setting dates and deadlines for myself and my happiness, always carefully thought out and well-researched. 

 It's crap. Life doesn't work that way. Proverbs 19:21 says, "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." 

 So, today, I'm done over-planning, making myself sick with worry and stress, and trying to force life into the false timeline I've created. 

 I surrender to God's perfect timing and his beautiful plan (Ecc 3:11). I'm throwing out my imperfect, broken plans because they keep hurting me and making things worse. I want to be present in the gorgeous things God is doing here and now. He has provided an amazing family, a wonderful church where I am fed and convicted to change, Godly, supportive friends, an amazing work family, sweet students, a wonderful home I can open for guests and Bible studies, and a really great dog. I truly love my life, just as it is. 

 God is so good. He has provided so much already, even as I held on to my fractured plans with a death grip. He still lead me, kicking and screaming, through some hard things to this amazing place. I can pinpoint exactly how he opened doors and lead me to every job I've had, place I've lived, and most of the friends I've made. I know He is good. I know he provides the best life can offer. So, today, I surrender. He knows my heart. He knows his plans for me. He delights in me (Ps 18:19) and will give me the best life (Ps 37:4), far beyond my small, narrowly focused dreams. I look forward to finding joy in the present and not worrying about tomorrow, because He has it planned beautifully. 

Jehovah Jireh. The Lord Provides. 

I'm putting this out there so that I have witnesses. Next time you see me with a long term plan brewing in my head, bemoaning my current life situation because it would just be so much better if... smack me. Tell me to quit. Remind me that I surrendered worry because God's plans are always better than mine. Give me a hug, then maybe some pizza. I'll calm back down shortly, I promise.

I've been crafty lately.

I found a great website, pinterest.com, that has recently changed my life. The need to craft abounds. I can't quit. So, tonight I found this fabulous planner page, followed the link to this gorgeous website,

Life's a Journal,

and the nice lady pointed me to picnik.com, and I went nuts. I used her spectacular template:



to make my own:

For my roommate Stacy.
This one is mine.
For my roommate Brittany,
and roomie Amy!



Hope you like them!

Time is Relative

There are so many applicable clichés about time that really fit our time here in Greece. Time flies when you’re having fun. For some of us, this trip came in the nick of time. At this point in the semester we all feel like time is running out. We have time on our hands to explore the beautiful and complicated country around us. An expression that I think encapsulates them all and best suits both our time here and the Greek concept of time is time is relative. Some days it seems like we could have arrived only yesterday and that the semester has flown by, while others seem like we’ve been here forever, and we’re ready to go back to our family and friends. The Greek way of life has its own set of rules and concepts of time that I as an American may never fully grasp. They live a slower life than we do and do things on their own schedule, no one else’s. In some ways this may be a better system than our constantly going society, but in others I believe it is a determent to theirs.
It seems that every Greek has a balcony or patio. In the big cities, the apartment buildings all have shaded balconies with comfortable furniture and some sort if laundry flapping in the wind. In the more rural areas, they are more like what my Southern mind thinks of as porches or decks, complete with patio furniture and again the ever-present laundry. These balconies always strike me as a great way to characterize Greek time. Life moves at a much slower pace in Greece. The people have time to sit out on their balcony and drink their Greek coffee, which takes time to make properly and has to be watched unlike our percolate and forget it coffee, maybe read the paper, and just watch the world go by. Vicki has taught us coffee is a ritual in Greece. They must take their time, do everything slowly, and savor their coffee, which seems to be a theme in life for them. This was the first thing to show me how important taking time to one’s self is to Greeks. I imagine they share this time with their families, maybe their neighbors if they’re close. This morning ritual inspires me to take time for myself in the morning, to slow down and rush less. Instead of making my coffee as fast as possible, throwing it into a mug and running out the door, maybe I should get up a little earlier, sit and sip my coffee slowly, enjoy a little breakfast and conversation with my roommate. This time could also used as devotional time with God. Making myself slow down and be grateful for the day and all the blessings to come would be a wonderful, Greek inspired way to start my day.
Their concept of time is not always so peaceful or inspiring. Occasionally it makes me want to rip my hair out. It has become a joke here that any time anything is late, slow, or overcomplicated we just shrug and say, ‘It’s Greek.’ People seem to run on their own schedule and some come across as very inconsiderate of others’ time. This happens in every culture because it’s simply human nature. Occasionally, this attitude gets out of hand and becomes a great source of frustration. I have already discussed my extreme dislike for the public transportation system, but it is the worst culprit for running on ‘Greek time.’ Theoretically, the buses run on schedule, coming every hour, half hour, or quarter of the hour. Logically, one should be able to catch a bus from Porto Rafti to Markouplo, then from that stop to the metro in Koropi with minimal waiting in between. One would be wrong. The buses never run on a tight schedule. They may have to stop to help someone find their way or argue with a passenger. Maybe the driver got off late because of his coffee break, putting the whole day behind schedule. Maybe there was traffic. All of these factors can come together to cause huge delays and very long wait times for the buses. If one bus is late, the connection will be lost, and the traveler will be stuck in between the two uncertain of what to do next. I have sat at the Markopoulo bus stop for over two hours before finally giving up and finding another way into town. My American respect for a schedule and rigorously following it dies a little every time I think about trying to catch the bus. Greeks seem not to mind and have just accepted it. You can always tell when the bus is really going to come when, after sitting at the stop for thirty minutes, ten to be sure not to miss it and twenty waiting after its scheduled arrival, the locals start to join you at the stop. They always seem to know how to catch it at just the right time. I wish I could gain that skill!
Time is also relative when it comes to shops and restaurants. Hours are as follows: 9am-1:30 or 2pm, then a lunch break or nap time, only to reopen around 5:30 or 6pm. This totally confounds me. The morning hours are logical enough, but the break seems counter productive. I understand wanting the break; of course it would be lovely to be able to rest in the middle of the day, but that it prime shopping time in my mind. All businesses close during these hours, making getting anything done almost impossible. As a student, that’s really the only time I can go out to the store or into town, so I miss things I would like to see far too often. The reopening is also a matter of choice for the shop owners. If they don’t feel like coming back in, the shop will stay closed. Again, my American mind says that this is a waste of precious business hours. If you promise to be open, you should be open. It explains the economic distress in the nation. On the other hand I realize it is a cultural thing, and if everyone else is at home napping or visiting with family, no one will come to your shop anyway. Different cultures have different customs, and learning to meld to the two together is an interesting and sometimes complicated process.
Last night at the concert, we hit an excellent example of the idea of Greek time. They asked us to be there at eight, but the show actually started around ten. While that was not all the fault of the Greek choir, it was a little frustrating. They expected us to be there early as a safeguard, and yet Greeks seems to always run late. Maybe it is just a coping mechanism for Greek time. Time is a difficult thing to understand, organize, and plan for. I have learned that I am much more scheduled and less spontaneous than I thought. Maybe it is because I am at the mercy of others’ plans and schedules, or because I am in a very foreign place to my mind and a schedule is something simple and manageable. I have loved my time here and would not trade my experiences for anything. I hope that I have learned to be patient with others and more accommodating to their needs. I know that I will still get frustrated and want things to go smoothly, but maybe I’ll think back to waiting on the bus or not being able to find an open place to eat and be thankful for my time here and the lessons learned.

Public Transit. My fave.

My experience in Greece has been a wild ride, full of both ups and downs. I have so many great highlights from my time here already that stick out in my mind, and conversely a few low spots as well. My experiences on the public transportation system of Greece follow the same pattern. I have had some days that went smoothly, not a hitch or hiccup, and other days that made me want to pack up and go home immediately. The system sounds simple on paper, three main metro lines and a bus system that runs every thirty minutes. No big deal, right? Wrong. I have never been into Athens the same way twice, much less made it back the same way I came. I think I’ve been into town at least seven times, and each has an experience behind it.
One of the more frustrating excursions was a simple run to the mall with two of the other girls here, Jessica and Becca. We had an afternoon free of homework and responsibility after returning from Egypt and Israel, so we wanted to go into to town and go shopping where prices are fixed, no one would try to sell us for camels, or profess their undying love for us as a selling point. We just wanted a normal day at the mall for three normal American teens. We left the Artemis right after lunch and headed for the bus stop. We waited for a good hour, because when buses say they run on the half hour every hour, they mean whenever they want. We finally hopped on the first connection to Markopoulo and got off at the stop to wait for the bus to the Metro station at Koropi. That bus never came. We’re still not sure what happened, but in any case, we waited for another hour or so to no avail. We checked every bus that came by, none were going to our destination or even the correct line. We tried asking for help, and for the first time in the three countries we had visited at this point hit the language barrier hard. No one could speak English well enough to help us, and at this point we barely even knew our own names in Greek. One lady offered to split a taxi to the station, but that was a little out of our comfort zone and price range, so we stayed and waited. Finally, we were so fed up with waiting, that we hopped on the next bus to Athens and asked for Koropi. No problem, right? Wrong again. The bus stopped in the center of Koropi and because it looked nothing like what we knew, we stayed on the bus. The ticket lady came back and kurtly asked why we had missed our stop. We were so confused at this point we had no answer for her. Finally she said she’d make us a deal and gave us new tickets to some other stop. We passed the stop with a Metro station everyone on the bus was gesturing us to take, got up to get off, stood by the doors and waited, but they never opened. The bus drove away with us still on it, lost and confused as ever. At this point I just need a metro stop, any metro stop, so the next stop we see, I fly off the bus. Everyone on the bus was yelling at us about something, but I didn’t care. I knew I could walk to the station and get to the mall somehow from there.
We made it to the station that I had never heard of and can’t find on a map now and asked for directions to the mall. We finally made it around five in the afternoon. We shopped and had a good time at the mall but lost track of time as we shopped. We thought we could make it back for the last bus if we left around seven, so we hopped back on the metro. Unfortunately, we hopped on the wrong metro and started heading downtown on the green line. We figured this out about a stop later, got off and ran across to the other side of the platform and tried again. We knew we needed the yellow line, but couldn’t find it. This is the day that made the metro make sense finally. The signs are color coded. How we hadn’t noticed, I’m not sure, but we finally did that night. We got on the right line and finally made it back to Koropi. We thought we would be back in time for the last bus, but because of our last few wrong turns on the metro, we were too late. We stood around and hoped something would show up, but it was just too cold to be unsure of the bus, so we called a cab. The first company we called simply yelled ‘Strike!’ and hung up on me. That was encouraging. The second company said they’d be there in fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes later, I called again. Five more minutes, he said. Ten later we gave up and got into a very overpriced cab, just happy to be on the way home. It was quite the experience.
I have now used four major cities’ subway or metro systems: New York, Washington DC, Athens, and London. When compared, New York is the scariest and dirtiest, Washington and London are the most helpful and self-explanatory, and Athens is just better than the bus. Anything is better than the bus system here. I strongly dislike the fact that I am never certain of the Metro or bus times here. In London, travelers are never far from a tube stop and the trains run mere minutes apart. One can always catch something to somewhere. I can’t say that of Athens. It seems as though there are only a certain number of ways to get from point A to point B, and if you get it wrong, you’re out of luck. Having more stops and more ways to get from stop to stop easily like London might make me feel more confident about my ability to get around.
I see the great advantages of the Metro in Athens. It cuts traffic congestion and pollution in half. It saves families a great deal of money getting around town or back and forth to work everyday. It helps tourists save money and time on transportation like buses or cabs. It provides jobs for the engineers, ticket booth workers, and maintenance workers. I appreciate the discounted rate for students and the freedom it allows us to come and go whenever and wherever we please, but I am occasionally discouraged by my lack of understanding of the system. I dislike that I can’t ever predict how long it will take me to get where I’m going, making me unreliable to those counting in me. Maybe if I lived here permanently, I would eventually master it, but for now, it’s tough. It has really made me appreciate my car and my freedom to get in it and go anywhere in the States. But I have enjoyed learning the system with my friends here and seeing where we end upon our adventures. Overall, I’ll miss other things about Greece a lot more than I will miss the public transit system, but I do think it is a helpful system for Greece.

Greek Dancing

For two Thursdays this February, our group was transported back to a more simple time in Greek history. We were able to learn several traditional Greek dances from a very talented local instructor. We started with some simple steps, and as our confidence and gaiety grew, she moved on to more complicated dances. As we danced, she explained each dance, the region of Greece where it originated, the name in Greek and what they meant, and the occasions where the dances would be appropriate. Learning the history behind each dance made the experience so much more meaningful for a history buff like me! We learned a mountain dance that was more choppy, harsh, and solid. She compared it to the mountain people who life harder lives and reflect this in their dances. We also learned an island dance that was breezy, simple, and light, much like the majority outside opinion of Greece. They were both so much fun, and seeing the contrast between peoples within this small but varied nation was so interesting. We also learned a more contemporary line dance, which was more challenging, but definitely fun as well!
I really enjoyed getting to do this with the group and see how much everyone enjoyed themselves. I have always participated in dance in one form or another, either dance classes or musicals with my high school theater group, so learning steps and counts are completely normal to me and in those situations, those around me. In this instance, not everyone had experiences with dancing and had to learn a whole new skill set. It was so great seeing people step outside their comfort zones, really try their hardest, and truly enjoy themselves! Seeing everyone smiling and laughing while doing something so foreign to most was wonderful! I personally enjoyed the more traditional dances more than the last line dance because they seemed more group oriented than the line dance. The group dances reminded me again of the emphasis on family and village here in Greece. They included everyone and drew us all together as part of the HUG family!

I'm a terrible blogger.

Life happened, and blogging did not. But over the course of the semester I had to write several papers about my experiences, so they might be the best way to express what I've seen. I'm genuinely write things out later, and talk about the things that mean the most to me in later non copy and paste posts, but here's a few different entries.


1-29-10
Egypt’s first capital was established in 3800 called Menefer. The name originated from to words, men meaning city and nefer meaning beautiful. This word later became what we know today, Memphis. This began the history of one of the world’s greatest civilizations. This is considered the beginning of their civilization because they established a law code, writing system, religion, and culture. Egyptian history can be divided into three periods, the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom. During the Old Kingdom, the two divided kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt were united under one king, Pharaoh Narmer. Ra, the sun god, was the principle god, and pharaoh was worshipped as a god as well. Because the pharaoh was a god, he needed a monumental resting place to help him ascend to the heavens. The pyramids were built for this purpose during this period to honor these pharaohs. They are the most ancient and recognizable icons in Egypt today. Dreams do come true, and I loved getting to see these things I have loved all my life.

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The pyramids are as colossal and magnificent as I had always pictured. I learned so many new facts about them from Osman that I had never heard before! Each pyramid took twenty-five years to complete. Contrary to popular belief, they were not constructed by slave labor, day in and day out. Farmers built them in the off season between sowing and reaping. I’ve heard it said they worked as a labor of love for their king, but that might be a stretch. Osman also mentioned each work crew was made up of only 100-125 workers, so each farmer would not have worked every summer. The largest pyramid was constructed with 2.3 million stones, and the two smaller average 1.8 each. Each block weighs an average of three tons. Each pyramid would have been covered completely with a smooth, white limestone casing. This stone can be seen in the Valley of the Kings in all of its blinding glory. The first view of the pyramids in their height would have been amazing.

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The Sphinx was such a treat to see. A funerary temple sits at its feet, used only once for the preparation and embalming of one pharaoh. The temple contained three different types of local limestone that gave us good examples of all the building materials in the area; red, black, and white limestone. The pharaoh would have been embalmed inside the temple for 70 days, using henna, salt, linen and a secret, ancient process modern science has been unable to fully replicate, then taken up a sacred ramp past his protector, the Sphinx, to his final resting place, his pyramid. The Sphinx itself is gorgeous. The original detail and some of the color is still visible on his headdress. The nose is long gone, probably lost to an ill aimed French missile, but we can never be sure. His beard was whisked away by those pesky Brits and is now on display in the British Museum. After this last weekend, I’ve now seen it. It’s gorgeous too!

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Inside the Cairo Museum, Osman gave us several pertinent facts about Egypt’s names. Kemet, or black soil, is what the classical world would have thought of as Egypt. This black soil lines the Nile River on both banks and gives life to the whole nation. It is incredibly fertile and replenished by the annual floods bring silt from other areas down the Nile and depositing it on the banks. Desret, or red land, is the desert surrounding this black soil. This is what most think of when they think of Egypt. It is barren and desolate, impossible to live in. The Pyramids and the Valley of the Kings are both located in this red land. While cruising down the Nile, it was amazing to see the stark contrast between the two and just how close they really are. It didn’t seem to be a gradual change, but a harsh, abrupt one. The Nile itself derives its name from our hero Alexander the Great. He saw the Nile and called it Nilos, one of the Greek gods, because he thought it was so magnificent.

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Howard Carter was working on a dig and found an odd piece of parchment. A new name he had never come across before was written on the scroll, Tutankhamen. In 1914, he was granted a five year work permit to dig in the area that he found the scroll, but World War I erupted and delayed his work. Finally after the war, he was able to being his work but found very little over the course of his time there. His patron grew weary of such little progress and cut off funding. On one of the last few days, one of his Egyptian workers found a single step. This step was part of a sixteen step long staircase to a passage into the earth. It led to a mud brick wall. Howard and his men broke through the wall and were met with their first glimpse of the greatest archeological find of their time. The intact tomb of King Tutankhamen was filled with the greatest cash of untouched funerary splendor ever found. Tut’s treasures show us the grandeur they showered upon the least of their pharaohs; we can’t even imagine what someone like Ramses II would have been buried with.

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Akhenaten, called the heretic pharaoh, changed the face of Egypt during his reign. He decided to move the capital from the traditional location, Thebes, to the middle of nowhere. He built a new city called Amarna today and moved the whole of Egyptian society to his new city. He abandoned the centuries of worshipping the traditional 888 gods and adopted monotheism centered around a previously minor god, Aten. He also reestablished pharaoh worship and made himself a deity. I’ve always been fascinated by this man and what drove him to change the life of his nation completely. I have always loved the depiction of him and his wife Neferiti with their children. They are pictured in very comfortable and lifelike poses, loving on their kids. The art changed in his time to depict more realistic views of people and their interactions. His statues had a little belly and unique facial expressions that set him apart from all the other nameless, identical statues.

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In the Cairo Museum, they have assembled the most famous mummies into one room. It required a little bit of money to get in but was completely worth it for me. All the big names were there; Ramses II, Seti I, and all the Thumoses’. I could still see their eyelashes, Ramses II’s silver hair, he died an old, bald, but lucky old man, and all the details of each face. Seti I was the mostly true to form. I could really picture what he would have looked like in life. My favorite pharaoh, Queen Hatshepsut, was given a bad wrap. They called her an obese old woman with bad teeth, but I thought she still looked beautiful and was lucky to have made it to old age as a powerful female pharaoh. There is an extraordinary story behind the finding and reestablishing this particular mummy as the queen herself , and it was amazing to see her restored to her former glory with the heart box that held the tooth, the missing piece of the puzzle that identified the mummy, right there in the case with her. Fascinating!

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After leaving the museum, we drove across Cairo back to Giza and the Pyramids. Along the way, we saw slums, busy, dirty streets, every kind of vehicle from nice, single family sedans, to fifteen passenger packed taxi-vans, to a family of four on a moped. Laundry hung out on lines of an apartment fifteen stories up. The streets were dirty, the buildings dingy, but I loved it. Every sign was in Arabic, every conversation. I loved being a foreigner in a truly foreign land for the first time in my life. Several girls were complaining about how dirty, dangerous, and scary the city was. They complained that the museum was dirty and boring, that none of this mattered to them. I finally had to blast my music to tune them out. I loved Egypt as a whole, the old and the new, the dirty and the grime. It was a total experience for me.

1-30-10
The drive to Abu Simbel was totally different from anything I’d ever seen before. We drove three hours into the barren desert, completely devoid of civilization or vegetation. I’m from Tennessee, surrounded by the gorgeous green forests and Smokey Mountains. I’m used to cities, and if I’m not in the city I’m going through farmland and agriculture of Arkansas. Driving through this utterly desolate wasteland was a total shock for me. Abu Simbel was gorgeous. The temples were built as remembrance temples to Ramses II and his beloved wife Nefertari. They are completely intact, and were originally carved into a sheer cliff side. Ramses was a bit of a megalomaniac, and it shows in this temple. He is seated in a position representing life and power four times outside, on every column inside, and twice in the inner sanctum. The famous depiction of Ramses in his chariot is on the wall here. We got there at sunset, and it could not have been more beautiful. This temple was saved from being flooded after the dams were constructed by taking it apart piece by piece and rebuilding it on the spot it now rests. Such a modern miracle!

1-31-10
Edfu Temple was amazing! It is the only complete standing monument from the ancient world. It was completely covered with sand for centuries until the French restored it. It took twenty-five years to construct but 165 years to decorate. Every inch of this massive temple was covered in beautiful artwork or amazingly intricate hieroglyphs. The ceiling still stands, all the interior walls are complete, and the holy of holies is intact. I literally felt like I had stepped back in time and was seeing this great culture I love alive for the first time. I have never been so amazed by anything in my life. It was a Ptolemaic temple, meaning it had some outside and later influences, but it gave us an amazing view of what could have been. All the storerooms and stairways to what would have been a second floor were decorated, and a replica of the Arc of Horus stood in the holy of holies. I think I’ve now seen the original in the British Museum, which is so cool! We were able to really explore this amazing temple and have an amazing Indiana Jones moment. Very cool.

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At the Temple of Luxor, I made a startling realization. There are several theories about the Pharaoh of the Exodus, and while none are conclusive, all are interesting. One theory says that Thutmoses II could be the Pharaoh of the Persecution and Thutmoses III the Pharaoh of the Exodus. If this is true, that means that Hatshepsut, my favorite pharaoh, would have been the pharaoh’s daughter that found baby Moses and saved him from the Nile and sure death. He would have lived alongside her, studied and worshipped in the Temple of Luxor, and been apart of all the drama surrounding her life and reign. Moses could have sat on the column I rested on while listening to this story. Moses. This was a beautiful site, with architectural elements from all the greats, Ramses II, Hatshetsut, Neko, and Thutmoses III, and a gorgeous obelisk, but the fact that Moses was probably there and maybe with of on my favorite women in history just made the site that much more special.

2-2-10
The temple at Dendara to Hathor was mindblowing. It houses a building used by fifth century Christians as a church because no one would look for them there. It gives us great examples of early Christian symbolism like the ankh as an early cross, the disk of Ra symbolizing the light of God, and the first symbolic crosses in progression. What was most amazing was the Temple itself. Inside, the original sky blue paint still remains completely intact. I have never seen anything like it. All the hieroglyphs, murals, columns, and ceiling were covered in paint. It was so enlightening to see it shown this way, instead of the carved, colorless walls we see everywhere else. It was like seeing ancient Greek statues and temples with their original paint, priceless. They are currently restoring the paint that was covered by soot from the early Christians’ fires inside the temple. It was so amazing to see the work being done.

2-8-10
The Temple Mount was such a moving experience. We saw the Wailing Wall from a distance and could watch all the worshippers. That was fascinating. The Temple was built by Solomon, and then destroyed by the Assyrians in 586BC. Then Herod the Great restored it past its previous glory by 65AD. It was then completely destroyed by the Romans in 70AD. It laid in ruin for many years because the Byzantines cared nothing for it, but the Muslims eventually took control because Muhammad ascended to heaven here. They have constructed two mosques on the Temple Mount itself, the most famous being the Dome of the Rock. In comparison, the Dome is so much smaller than Herod’s Temple. The area is hotly debated over today, and probably will be until the end of time. Seeing this amazing place that has meant so much to so many generations of people from so many different faiths and is the center of our faith was truly amazing.

2-9-10
The Garden Tomb was one of the most touching places in Jerusalem for me. All of the ‘traditional’ sites are so built up, crowded, and gaudy it was impossible to get a feel for what the places would have looked like, or even feel anything at all. We went to the Garden Tomb on a warm afternoon. Our guide was a young guy, but his passion was so evident and his knowledge so through that it made the whole experience very special. It is located outside the old city wall on a major highway into town. There is a large outcropping of rock that looks like a skull. There is a tomb with a track for a stone to be rolled in. There was a cistern, proving it was a prominent man’s property. It was just so beautiful and peaceful that it was easy to picture the most important moment of our faith happening there. That meant so much more to me than the churches and icons. The phrase ‘All that glitters is not gold’ comes to mind. It may not be the place, but it gave me a wonderful visual for the wonderful story.

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The Garden of Gethsemane was the most meaningful part of my trip. We were able to look out over the city, see the location of the Temple and all the surrounding important sites, and also a vast Jewish graveyard. They place stones on top of the raised graves instead of flowers. That was so interesting to see. We went down the hill into an ancient olive grove and saw 3,000 year old trees. They were knarred and knotted, twisted and bent, but absolutely beautiful. We then went into the Church of Nations and listened to a few moments of a Spanish service. That was very beautiful. We were given the opportunity to take some time to ourselves for the first time in many days and be still before God in the place where Jesus prayed for us. What a sobering a moment that was. I loved feeling that near to the Lord’s heart.

This is so surreal.

Well, I'm here. I have had so many new experiences in the last 48 hours I'm not even sure how to describe them yet. I haven't really slept since what I think was yesterday morning, so I'm a little delirious and kind of still feel like I'm flying. It is not the good kind of flying either.

It's gorgeous here, the views are amazing, the history deep and actually meaningful, and the people are really sweet. I still miss home though. I miss my cat, my bed, my boyfriend, parents, and friends. Luckily I have a very sweet roommate here and a two bedroom suite, so I can kind of deal with this on my own. Saying goodbye was a lot harder than I thought it would be. It's really hard to be excited for something even this amazing if you feel really alone.

The first flight was fine, the Detroit airport was very clean and impressive(step it up Nashville, if Detroit can do it, you can do it), but the flight to Amsterdam was pretty rough. I sat next to a very large and intimidating Kenyan on his way home. He was sitting in my seat which would have put me in his in the middle of the center aisle for 8 hours, so I asked if we could switch in the nicest voice I think I've ever used. He said he'd do it all grumpily, but as the flight went on he realized we were a student group, softened up and started asking questions about our trip. He later had four beers and reeked all flight long, so all the good graces he had accumulated started to slip away. I watched (500) Days of Summer because it was free and there. TERRIBLE decision. Tom is JD. His mannerisms, his adorable nerdiness, his wardrobe, all modeled after JD Peery. This was a mistake because I then had to silently snuffle for the rest of the flight and deal with the missing him thing on a whole new adorableness level. Great movie though; we will be watching it when we're both back home. After this self-afflicted fiasco, I decided it was Scrubs and Lunesta time. I got fifteen minutes of great sleep, until I guess I started to slump over to Kenyan's side of the seat, and he elbowed me away. Those graces previously mentioned, gone. I was then wide awake, never going back to sleep with sleeping pill sloughing through my veins. Cruel. The last flight from Amsterdam to Athens was fine, noisy, bumpy, and a baby screamed the whole way, but fine.

We got here, I had made a few friends by this point, and we came through Markopoulo to Porto Rafti, seeing the sights and getting little tour along the way by one of the full time teachers here. We got our rooms, got a little settled, them headed out for a little walking tour of the city. I think I took at least fifty pictures in this hour and a half alone. It's so... Grecian. All the things you see in movies, but slightly more hilarious with real life elements thrown in. Pictures will follow soon.

We're going into Athens tomorrow and learning how to get around without dying. It will be amazing!

My heart will catch up with my brain soon enough. Unfortunately, I think it's currently still stuck in security in Nashville. This is an amazing blessing, I know it is. So, fake readers I'm talking to, don't hate me for being selfish, just bear with me. I'll get my excited act together, right after I get my heart in line. It just feels better to get it out.