Day 8: Earth's Bellybutton

May 28th-

We spent a majority of the day at the ruins in Delphi. It was a very quiet and picturesque town. It has some neat stores; I bought an awesome sweater that I could easily wear and herd llama in. I really got my exercise hiking up and down the streets last night though, the silly place is built on the side of a cliff.

Pat, Rachel, Seth and 1/8th of Paula in the Hotel

The street outside our hotel

Hiking today was not so good. It was wicked hot and we were trekking up these slippery stairs to see some shadeless ruins. Seth and I walked all the way up to the ancient stadium that's still intact. It might have been a 10 minute walk in cooler weather, but it really should have been a 20-30 minute walk to avoid heat stroke. Of course, the two of us are hardcore and we jogged the whole thing in 7 minutes. I was on fire.

Temple ruins

Why do I look so sketched out?
I'm creeping around a tunnel that winds underneath an ancient temple.
Spiders. Darkness. Death.
No big deal.

Stoked to see the light of day!

Mom


The ruins

The stadium...

wasn't really worth the heat stroke.



Post stadium hike

some-of-the-group shot

After we visited the ruins, Mom, The Wydmans and me all rushed through the museum to get a picture of the charioteer, then hopped onto our bus around 12-30 and headed to Athens.

In the ancient days, Delphi was believed to be the center (or navel) of the universe. This rock represents the navel. [I guess it's an outie] Julie and the belly button sculpture.


The Charioteer

And his original eyes


A weird old man baby

Driving around these small mountain villages is horrifying. The roads are so narrow, death lurks around every corner, our lives are in jeopardy with each turn of the wheels. Actually, it's not all that bad. I like to "oooh and ahhh" over our driver's maneuverings though, the driving seems to
be pretty sketchy. I bet the color of our bus (a shrieking shade of purple) alert all others on the road to our presence though. It's less a design flaw, more a safety measure.

Is this color legit?


This crazy little town we had to drive through

We reached Athens in time to unpack and eat dinner. After that we went to the beach, which was right down the road from our hotel. Crossing the street is really, really scary. Jason told us to, "Wait for the little green man to say go," before we attempted a crossing. I clung to his words religiously after being nearly run over by a motorcycle. (Paula saved my life) Everyone else though I was silly. Once, I ended up being left behind as when they booked it across the street during an empty stretch of road. Maybe I held them up, but I didn't want to be sent home in a garbage bag after they scraped me off the pavement. Imagine the stench on the plane!

Athens: A bus shot.

Grafitti

After watching the sun set at the beach, everyone headed back to the hotel to rinse off, then go out again to find some ice cream.

Elevator shot!

In the hotel

Everyone piled down the stairs and we headed out the door. A couple blocks down the street, Julie pointed out that there was a dog following us. For some reason, in Athens there are a ton of stray dogs that the entire city basically takes care of. This one animal, rather obese, with weird bulging eyes, was most definitely following us. When we stopped, it stopped. When we walked, it walked. When we got to the ice cream shop, it waited for us outside the entire time, (about 20 minutes). It followed us all the way back to the hotel .

After I'd bought my ice cream, I looked to see if the dog was still there. Sure enough, it was. I made eye contact with it and it got up and tried to walk into the store. I started waving my arms, saying "No! Go sit back down!". The animal nodded its head, and laid back down. I'm convinced it was a human trapped in canine flesh.

Llama Sweater; soggy Molly; obese dog

I don't think I've mentioned how delicious the food has been! A vast improvement since we've left Italy. The variety of flavors here are awesome, except for the olives, which taste like the smell of fresh paint, but they have these stuffed grapes that slaughter the ones I eat at home. They don't put rice in them, it's something else weird and good. And there are these spinach pie things that are delicious as well. The Greek salad is a big favorite too.

I'm glad we're spending more time in Athens, Delphi already seems like such a long time ago.

-E