sad day

So last night my computer died. So it looks like I will not be able to update as much as I would like to :(

But I will do my best to post as often as I can!

Besides that I am now in ROME!!!
It is amazing, I love it, and I am here for 3 weeks!

Good Bye Athens

Today we left Athens, Greece and moved on to Olympia! On the way to Olympia we made a stop to see the ancient city of Corinth. I had the chance to stand in front of the ancient bema where the apostle Paul stood trial in Acts! What an amazing feeling.

We then were on a bus for 4 hours to get to Olympia. We are staying in this amazing four star hotel... but only for one night. I could get used to this place however. It is so beautiful!

Tomorrow night we get on a boat and sail to Italy. From there we travel almost every night until we reach Rome on the 7th. I am very excited to reach Rome.

Something I have discovered about myself since I have been here in Greece, is that I am fascinated with Greek mythology! I am looking forward to studying it more once I return to Atlanta.

This weekend a group of us went to the beaches again and that was a lot of fun. Already everyone is bonding so well on this trip and I am enjoying the new people I have met so much!

I was very homesick when I first arrived here, but things are much better now that I am getting acclimated to the area and the people.

Ok peace out-- heading to bed :)
b

ONE WEEK

Katy, Me, Sarah, Christina, and Jackie at a restaurant watching a soccer game :)

I have officially been in Athens, Greece for a week! We have been having class for 9 hours a day, and it is all outside, hiking up mountains and seeing ancient ruins. For 9 hours a day. It is amazing, yet very exhausting. I have gotten TONS of sun... maybe a little too much. My feet are soooo sunburned from today.

So far we have visited the Parthenon, Acropolis, Mycenae, the Agora, and dozens of other sights. It has been an incredible experience to see the ancient ruins of Greece.

I was wrong, we did not go to Corinth the other day, but we are going the beginning of next week!

Today was such a full day and I took a MILLION pictures, but here are a few to show what I have been up to!


Hadrian's Gate


This is a picture of the Temple of Hephaestus

Fake out!!!

Today we met up with our whole Study Abroad group and we checked into our new hotel and it is soooo much better then our hostel that we were staying in!!!

We told our Prof where we were staying and he about had a heart attack and said that we were lucky that nothing happened to us. He asked what the worst part of Atlanta was and said that we basically stayed there in Athens.

So we are very lucky to be alive and unharmed :)

I am still trying to figure out the luggage situation, yet I have made it so far!

I am getting skinny and ripped from not eating more than once a day and from lugging that huge bag around. And it has only been 4 days haha....

Ummmm.... Oh! Today we went with the class up to the top of a mountain and we could see ALL of Greece from there! It was absolutely amazing and breathtaking.

Tomorrow class begins!
We are going to Mycenae which is about a 2 hour bus ride, and on the way we are stopping in Corinth which I am really excited about. It is so amazing to me that I am walking around the cities that are written about in the Bible. So cool.

Well I think that I am out for the night!
Peace

beaches!

We finally made it to the beaches! It took about 3 hours and a lot of walking, taking the bus to the metro then the metro to the tram then some more walking to get there.... but we eventually made it! At first we went to these "beaches" that were made up of trash rather then sand and we were told that we could not fins sandy beaches. But they were wrong! The beach felt so great! Here are some pictures from our adventures!

toothpaste

on the airplane for 10 hours was torture.... and i had to use the bathroom on an airplane for the first time ever. while in the bathroom, i wanted to brush my teeth. so i have my travel toothbush and toothpaste and right as i open the toothpaste, it starts shooting out everywhere uncontrollably. and it would not stop!!! so i am frantically trying to stop the toothpaste, clean it up from where it has gone alllll over the counter and sink, and i am trying to brush my teeth at the same time.... as someone is trying to break into the bathroom. it was in interesting experience. i finally stopped the toothpaste, cleaned it up, and managed to brush my teeth. :)

we are in athens and we have had dinner and napped and walked around and now we are playing games in the hostel. we are planning on going to the beach in the morning and staying out all day.

ok i am sooooo tired so i am off to bed :)

peace to all
b

HERE!!!

we are here in Athens, Greece!
we are about to eat so I won't say much....
super tired, already homesick, and the hostel is.... interesting.
haha.... much love to all!

pictures!!!

first stop: NEWARK

May 21, 2009

11:52 am

Well here we are in Newark, NJ! I am flying with three of my girl friends: Katy, Sarah, and Jacki. We are all seniors at Georgia Tech and the three of them are all in the same sorority. We are already having a great time together.

So far this has been an interesting trip. And I have not even left the country yet! My whole family was so supportive and came with me to the airport to send me off. I have a such an amazing family. They had to wake up around 5 am so that we could arrive at the airport at 6:30 am to meet up with my travel buddies. My flight left Atlanta around 8:30 am.

When we arrived at the check-in counter, there was a problem. The weight limit was 70 pounds and my bag was 75! So I was frantically pulling out items and stuffing them into another bag so that I could have my luggage checked. Even still, my poor parents had to pay an exorbitant amount of money because the bag was over 50 pounds. Struggling to figure out the packing situation made my day start off on a little bit of an anxious and stressed out note. I weigh 100 pounds…. All my bags combined most likely weigh more then I do! That is concerning considering the fact that I have carry them all around Greece and Italy for 7 weeks.

Once the oversized and over-packed bag was out of my hands I tried not to think about it too much. We girls had some time to kill and a craving for Chick-Fil-A. Figuring that we would not have it for two months, we were determined to find one for breakfast. We went to terminal C, then back to A, then back to D in order to get CFA then arrive at our gate. It was such a great chicken biscuit.

A precious little girl and her family were sitting next to us waiting for the plane. Her name was Ava, and she was 14 months old she kept running around and exploring the sitting area of the terminal gate. She reminded me of the little boy, Cole, I watch every week when I am in Atlanta. I am going to miss him! Cute little families make me happy J

Once we stepped onto the plane, the four of us girls all looked to each other in shock. It was by far the smallest plane we had ever been on! There were only three seats across and thankfully we all had A seats, which were individual seats by the window. Before take off, I was asleep. The first 45 minutes I was sleeping, and then all of a sudden there was a scream that woke me up. There was a little boy sitting a few rows back from me that continually screamed and made exclamations and sound effects to the video games that he was playing.

To add to this, there were three men sitting in front of me. the one directly in front of me apparently had his laptop out, and the man sitting a person and a row over from him decided that it was his duty to tell the man with the laptop that he needed to move it. The laptop man would not. This escalated to the irate man dictating orders screaming across an innocent passenger and an aisle. He went on and on about how it was a danger to the other passengers and how in an accident it would act as a flying projectile and could injure someone. He quoted the rules on laptops having to be stored in a secure bag or an overhead compartment, stating that it was Federal Airline Law that has been in place since 1975, etc… He made a huge scene and finally the calm laptop user acquiesced and stored the computer in the overhead compartment. Who does that?!? He was not a flight attendant or anything he was just a regular passenger. So strange… did they even have laptops in 1975?

After that adventure we arrived at a small airport in Newark and are currently sitting in a circle, shoes off and computers out. We are huddled in a corner on the ground at some random gate because it was the only area we could find with outlets.

I am tired and not completely mentally prepared for this trip, and I still have so much school work to do to get ready for the presentations that we have to do once in Italy!

Soooo…. Enough procrastination and on to school work!

sketchy skype

as creepy as it is to have a web cam haha....
i now have skype!
so let me know if you do too and we can TALK this summer!

tomorrow!!!

I cannot believe that tomorrow is the day that I leave! I am flying out around 8:30 am and will arrive in Athens, Greece Friday morning around 11 am. That is a full day of flying!

I am so excited and nervous at the same time....

my adventure.....

I am studying abroad this summer in Europe! We will be traveling throughout Greece and Italy. I will be gone May 21st through July 14th!