i still can't believe i did this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzv5bvXTgBA

i wasn't the good kind of nervous until we actually got to the corinth canal. the people at zulu bungy were completely amazing... it's clear they've been doing this for a long time. they knew exactly how to talk to us and what to say. in the video you can see me chatting with one of the women about studying in greece but the camera cuts away before i ask her "so... do people get hurt a lot doing this?" girlfriend was mad anxious. in any case, i'm so glad i did it. i knew i would, it was just a matter of whether it would be the last thing i did or not. 

and no, i wasn't supposed to touch the water. 

love,

kg

spring break, the abridged version

the task of blerging about the last ten days right now seems almost as exhausting as my spring break was. so we're about to break out the bulleted list format to squeeze it all in. ready, go:

- left apartment in athens for plane to rome at 4:30 am, friday the 10th

- ran around the city for the rest of the day, meeting up with other katie's friends from unh to see the trevi fountain, (the outside of) the coliseum, and later, the spanish steps; all sites were madhouses given the holiday

- pub crawl round 1; saw the pope pre-crawl; did our part to improve morale among the troops when we met and clowned with a group of army guys stationed in germany

- sightseeing throughout the next day; dinner at a completely out of the way vegetarian restaurant... cab fare was almost as much as our meals. hilarious, roma

- early morning train to florence, stumbled upon the scoppio del carro (literal translation: explosion of the cart) which involved a seemingly endless parade of people in medieval attire leading two huge white oxen pulling an enormous, elaborately decorated "cart"... more like tank, armed to the teeth with fireworks; square outside of the church was packed with people, waiting for a dove rocket to set the cart off at the moment of resurrection... see facebook for pictures

- wandered around florence; rode a carousel... subsequently relived my childhood; walked along the old bridge, window shopped and haggled; waited in line to see michelangelo's david... fell in love a little bit? pub crawl round two, this time with air force dudes... we are nothing if not patriotic.

- after maybe 24 hours in flo, train to venice the next morning; wandered the streets/canals, walked through the piazza san marco, took an ill-advised nap at 7:30pm, rallied for tea and wine along the grand canal

- mini boat trip to murano with other katie to see the glass-blowing furnaces; demonstration, narrated in italian, was fascinating nonetheless; after much deliberation, group decision to spring for a gondola ride; loved life.

- loitered in pub for as long as possible before moseying to the train station at 11pm; snuggled on floor; snuggled on a different part of floor when we discovered we had attracted the attention/affections of a v. creepy italian gentleman; kicked out of train station at 1am; group decision to spring for a hotel; discovered i was broke; naptime before jumping on 5am train to cinque terre

- 4 hour train ride to riomaggiore; lunch then began beautiful trek to corniglia, the middle town; minor clowning then dinner and wine to prepare ourselves for the nighttime walk back to our hostel; next day, walked down to the beach in riomaggiore before almost missing our (again, 4 hour) train back to rome; 9pm flight to athens; stayed up all night, packed and unpacked, showered and hopped on 7am ferry to santorini with 10 friends

- cozy (read: packed with pushy, loud greeks), semi-sleepless 8 hour ferry ride to santorini; upon arrival, remembered why i chose to study in greece. 

- briefly attended megalo friday church service in perissa beach; left upon realizing how out of place and inappropriate we were; relocated to del mare bar and restaurant, the greatest establishment on the planet

- next morning, rented atvs for 15 euro a pop; rode to fira to goof with tourists and donkeys; climbed down to the port for picnic lunch; rode said donkeys back up; atvs to oia on the other tip of the island to watch the sunset; rode to pyrgos for candle lighting service; midnight, priest says "christos anesti" to declare that christ has officially risen and greeks lose their minds; feared for our lives as fireworks were shot off around us/at us... very cold ride back to perissa beach

- easter morning, walked along the beach, saw too many lambs roasting on spits -- heads, eyeballs and all... felt ok about being vegan.

- monday morning, drove to lighthouse on tip of the island; walked along the beach one last time, ate at del mare one last time, bid santorini a proper farewell; 8 hour ferry ride back to athens, arrived back in apartment at 12:30am this morning.

decidedly the greatest spring break i have ever had.

love,

kg

hot damn, i'm cultured.

two museums, two days, AND out of my own free will. new record for kg. i demand the proper recognition.

the suitemates took a trip to thessaloniki this weekend... i politely declined because i was mad stressed with intern business last week (consider me employed. or unpaid-interned. www.pgfusa.org. count it!) and riding a midnight bus on friday night, returning 5am monday morning sounded like the opposite of good. instead, i have spent my time doing an inexcusable amount of yoga in the middle of the empty apartment and paying my cultural dues by visiting the national archeological museum yesterday and the benaki museum today with my dude rob, an art history major and therefore handy as hell. besides a stalking incident (i was the stalkee, not the stalker... just to clear things up) on saturday in omonia aka trifesville junkietown, it was a pretty nice weekend of educational excursions. i actually enjoyed myself. is this what maturity feels like? it's cold and weird. 

there are these horrifying posters up all over town of a pale naked woman with her head thrown back and blood pouring from various orifices. just to up the graphic description ante, it is literally like being raped in the eye everyday on your walk to school... truly goddawful. and it's to promote some nerdy 15-member orchestra band, like the michael jenkins band or some other westernized name along those lines. people have tried to cover them up with flyers and graffiti tags (well, those are probably unrelated and not altogether altruistic) but the image is burned into our minds, and now probably yours too. enjoy sharing our pain. 

there was a general strike last week, temporarily shutting down all public transportation among other things. striking is different in greece; they tend to do it in scheduled 2 hour intervals on a previously announced date when it's something that affects everyone so as to avoid sheer chaos... they also don't keep it up until changes are made. they just make their statement and head home. how this actually works to change anything continues to baffle me. i don't understand why greek government pays attention to these tame demonstrations, or how the demonstrators themselves don't see that full-blown apocalyptic chaos would be way more badass and legendary. but i'm probably just mad because i'm pretty sure it's affected the mail system, and girlfriend wants her expected package.

i just sent in my thesis proposal form to skr, advisor extrarodinaire. ask me how psyched i am to start planning the most hellish project i will ever undertake in life, 5 months in advance, while still living in greece where it is beautiful and tight like erraday. 

so psyched.

love, 

kg