More from the Odyssey: Oxi. Why? It's snowing.

Feb. 11, 2008

Yasas everybody--

First of all, a big shout out to my lil' bro for his birthday today! Not so lil' anymore!

And now for an update on the Greek odyssey that is currently my life:

This past week we started classes. There have been some changes to my schedule for anyone who's interested. First off, they caught on that I am not QUITE as "Advanced" as they had previously thought, so they have created a Beginner's 2 type of class for me and my friend Andrea who has taken a year of Ancient Greek. The class is about 75% in Greek (about 30% of which I understand) and the pace is nice and quick so I am feeling rather good about it, but not nearly as lost as the first day of "Advanced."

I'm also taking a Nature Conservation class instead of the (apparently) painfully boring Revolution and Catastrophe history class I was originally in. I have to say, you have to work pretty hard to make a revolution boring, but that teacher was superbly skilled at it. In Nature Conservation we're going to be looking at sustainable architecture and working a bit with logger head sea turtles rescue efforts. Some parts will be slightly more relevant than others, but I'm pretty excited for it none-the-less.

This weekend the group took a trip to Delphi and I had the most ridiculous adventure there. On Saturday my friends Andrea and Gabe and I decided to go snowboarding at the near by Mt. Parnassus. We got up really early and caught the first bus to Arahova (the next town over from Delphi). We went around to a bunch of shops purchasing expensive, but necessary items like gloves, goggles and snow shells. Once we had finally found everything we needed we headed over to a taxi to take us to the ski center. When we told him where we wanted to go he said, "Oxi." (No). We asked why and he said, "Ski Center closed." We were confused. I started to get a little indignant because I thought he might just be saying that so that he didn't have to drive there. After a little more back and forth of broken communication he pointed us to the information center. We walked in and I asked what was going on with the ski center. The lady behind the desk answered nonchalantly, "It's closed." I said, Why? She said, "Because it's snowing." (Pause) Me: "Isn't that a good thing??" She sort of shrugged. I asked, "Do you know when it will be open?" She said, "Maybe tomorrow, maybe."

Now, here's the thing. If it had been snowing outside, like, even a little, or, at the very least, if she had been a little more dramatic about it "snowing," I may have thought this could be a good reason to close an entire ski center. On top of that, everyone on the street was in snow gear! And a number of people were carrying skis and snowboards around!! So, when we went out side I ran up to a group of boys with skis and asked where they were skiing. The boys didn't really speak English at all, except on 11 year old looking boy. He said, "Ski center closed." I asked if there was anywhere else to ski. He said, "No...maybe tomorrow." I couldn't believe it! I actually sat down in the middle of the street and pouted after that. My friends and I couldn't stop laughing at the absurdity off it. We had just spent so much money on gear, and not one the the shop owners we talked to, not the hotel or the Delphi information center that we had asked for for directions to the ski center had even mentioned that SNOW might be a issue.

So, we sat in the street for a while and Gabe decided to tell us all about the sick snowboarding adventure we would tell everyone we had. The gist of it was that it was a real religious experience, doing 360s off of ruins and really connecting with the gods. We took a video of it. I can't quite do it justice myself. After that we decided we were just meant to snowboard the Greek way...and get coffee. I wore my goggles all day though in protest. (PS. Cole, they totally rival yours. We might have to have a goggle-off when I get back).

On Sunday we saw the site at Delphi and the new museum. The site was spectacular as usual (I seen it before) but the weather actually did turn pretty bad (my goggles did come in handy after all!) and the museum is really really well done. I completely recommend seeing it if you ever go there.

And today we're back to the grind. I did have a mini adventure going downtown though where I found a health food store and almost died of happiness. I found dairy free nutella, rice milk AND tofu!! After meat and bread for 2 weeks straight (is that it?? it feels like I've been here a year) I can't even tell you how excited I am! It's pretty much all from France, so all I can say is way to go globalization!

I hope you all are well! Much love to everyone, and please, please keep in touch!

Yours truly, A.