"Can you haggle in department stores?"

GREECE, ladies and gentlemen, GREECE.  Land of old piles of rocks, and men that aren't all that cute and kind of smell bad. And by kind of smell bad, I mean no one in that country has any concept of deodorant.  Thank goodness we were visiting in March and not in the warmer months.  Anyway, so two fridays ago we boarded a boat and headed across the Ionian sea.  I don't remember all that much, because I was hopped up on dramamine.  And yes, I was quite literally hopped up because I apparently was saying stupid stuff. 

For example, after stealing two bananas and five oranges from dinner and putting them in my enormous purse, I apparently said something along the lines of "i can shake my bag and make a smoothie", which is evidently not something socially acceptable to say because I'm still getting laughed at about it.  I'm just saying, with that much fruit, I probably COULD have a made a smoothie by shaking my bag.  SO thanks for making fun of me Elise and Renee, my genius ideas are no longer going to get shared with you.

So the first stop in Greece was Olympia.  It was pretty sweet.  We got to visit the archeological site where the first Olympics were held in 776 BC.  And we had a friendly little competition racing the 200 or so meters that the old olympians did.  This was definitely the highlight of Olympia. I was in the top 10 of the girls, and our relay team (consisting of me, Elise, Baby Sean, and Michael Tann) was 4th.  Not bad at all!  After that, we climbed to the top of a hill and made daisy chains.  Bringing back the elementary school days in style.

After Olympia we headed to Delphi.  Delphi is absolutely GORGEOUS.  Its mountainous and overlooks the sea.  There were ruins there from the Oracle and temples to Athena and Apollo or something.  I'm not really interested in piles of old rocks, but I did my best to enjoy the atmosphere.  We had a lot of free time in Delphi, so I got caught up on some homework and we all went out to a bar one night where they were playing American music.  Always fun!

After Delphi was Athens.  We saw: the pnyx, the agora, the areopagus, the acropolis (including the parthenon, erechtieon, and temple of dionysus), and lots of really old pieces of art.  And about a million stray dogs.  Which come in very handy.  STORY TIME.  Okay, so if you're a girl traveling alone in Athens, find  an aggressive looking stray dog and start petting it.  Said stray dog will then follow you around the city and try and bite any sketchy person that tries to approach you.  If the dog you picked is a little psychotic, it will also attempt and bite the tires of passing cars. Also in Athens: lots of shopping!  I spent a lot of money, but I got some cute new clothes and a new backpack for ten-day.  And a pretty legit new purse!  It was a lot of fun; you could haggle with the people selling things at the flea market and save more money.  Which leads me to explain the quote in the title, compliments of Amanda Bilko (my former roommate), who thought it was okay to haggle at department stores.

After Athens was Nafplion, a little seaside town by Epidauros and Mycenae.  A lot of fools went swimming in the Mediterranean, but Claire did not, because she is not stupid enough to get into freezing cold water when its 50 degrees and rainy outside.  I've also picked up an annoying habit of referring to myself in third person. I'm hoping to break this before I return to America.  And now I'm back in Rome, and I really need to start my homework. These next two weeks are going to be the toughest of the semester apparently, but then it will calm back down.

This weekend I'm going on a Women's Retreat, and then the next weekend is 10 day!  Time flies when you're having fun and sketchy adventures in Europe!

Renee, Me, Paige, and Ellie in Olympia.  I'm wearing my daisy chain crown.  HELLO inner flower child.