Temple of Hera

On our first day trip we started by going to the ruins of the Temple of Hera, the biggest Greek temple ever built.

Next we went to a monastery up in the hills. On the way we saw a town tucked away strategically hiding it from the view of passing pirates.

At the monastery we selected and sketched gestures and stances from the frescoes to be used later in class.

After the monastery, we went to Karlovassi where we ate and went on a hike.

At one point we came to a narrow where we had to work our way up the river to a waterfall.

Just a couple of us saw the rope and decided to climb to the top of the falls. Looking down from the top we could see the others shivering as they tried to build up the courage to climb up as well.

Back in Karlovassi we ate at a restaurant called "Hippies" and some of us did some body surfing.

Finally we all boarded the bus and headed back to Pythagoreio.

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Samos!

08/31/2009

After a 13 hour ferry ride to Karlovassi on the island of Samos we got off the boat and took a taxi the rest of the way to Pythagoreio.

We barely made it to Pythagorio before the ferry (which would have been free) but were glad to finally settle into our rooms. Soon Derric arrived - turns out he went to the Hotel Galini in another town and ended up staying there for the night. We went down to the harbor to eat and then continued exploring.

We headed down the harbor a ways before finally arriving at a small marina with lots of cool boats.

At 6p we went for our first meeting with Louis and Carissa down by the Pythagorio statue. After a trip up to their apartment we had our first group dinner and a lecture from a Greek scholar named Vemos.

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09/01/2009

Today was the first day of class. We hiked up the mountain until we reached our classroom - an ancient Greek theater. We began our first yoga session at 8:30a then went to the beach by the castle and had a creative session.

After finishing at the castle we went on exploring Pythagoreio along the harbor searching for a beach.

We found lots a couple nice beaches as well as lots of cats - they're actually a bit of a pest here.

That night we all met up again and ended the evening with a Greek feast at a place owned by one of the local contacts of the university.

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Athens

Today my friend Mandy and I boarded the plane to Athens and ran into our classmate Derric. After we landed in Athens Derric got on a plane to Samos while Mandy and I took a bus to the docks to catch a ferry.

After arriving we walked into a place for food at which point I stopped in my tracks realizing that I only had the one bag... my bag with all my clothing was still on the bus. We walked out and started going down the road. Now you would think that one would get a bit upset in this situation but for some reason I knew it would fine. Sure enough, as a result of dumb luck, the bus driver showed up on his scooter. He led me around the corner to the bus depot and I got my bag back. After searching a bit we found the docks and sat down at a restaurant to eat. There we waited, had a couple drinks and played cards with a guy from Amsterdam until 8 hours later when our ferry finally arrived.

We boarded our boat and a while later we sailed off into the sunset for what would be a long, cold night...

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