Photoshoot

On nights we don't feel like drinking we go crazy and do this...
More pictures to come, the night is still young.

Thunderstorms

It's 6am and I just woke up. Thunderstorms here are the worst. One, beacause they feel more intense being close to the mountains and two, because I have to walk a mile to school in them. It also doesn't help that I'm incredibly scared of thunderstorms, especially when I'm alone like this. It makes me miss home a bit. Although, on the upside I don't think they get tornados here, at least I hope not!

More Easter Photos!

EASTER!!!!! Christos Anesti

Okay, so I wish I could post the video that I took of Easter Saturday but my camera won't download. :( So, I'm going to post some similar videos from youtube of what my Easter was like. :)
First everybody goes to the church as midnight and we all stand outside to where the priest eventually walks out. While we're waiting there are big firecrackers/fireworks going of right next to us. Once the ceremony starts people start lighting candles, so we all have one. The priest comes to a podium outside and talks for about 10 minutes and then they light a huge flame on top of the church and EVERYONE freaks out! They started throwing fireworks in the middle of the circle (of course no one was standing there), it was like a war was going on. It was so insanely awesome!!!!!! It was by far the best Easter mass I had ever been to! The fireworks continued through the whole night!
After mass, we all headed to the bar where my friends and I met this band. They're parents owned a resort on the island and we all went there for a beach party! It was such a gorgeous place. The beach went on for miles and and the sky was so clear, the stars were beautiful and it was so great how the moon reflected off the sea. Such a great night!!!!

Enjoy the Videos :)

Hierapolis of Phrygia

In Turkey we visited an ancient Necropolis "City of Death." It was known as a place of medicine, people would go here to die or to get better. The streets are basically lined with tombs and mausoleums, pretty morbid. At the end there was a small city with an amphitheater and town gathering space "Agora." There were also natural hot springs. Some of the springs close to the town they made somewhat of a water park out of them. Literally it was a pool on top of ancient fallen buildings that people could swim in. If you walked a little further there was a mountain full of warm springs with a small stream flowing through it. It looks all white because of the calcium build up. It was a really awesome site to see and relaxing to sit on the edge of the hot stream and dip my feet in.

Ephesus Museum

Across the street from our hotel in Turkey was the Ephesus museum. At first, I thought it would be kind of lame because I'm not a big fan of museums but it was really cool. There were giant full statues of all the different gods. I was obsessed with the Dionysus statue, he was beautiful! haha I mostly liked his hair! Dionysus was the god of ecstasy and wine/grape harvesting. It was said that he was born from Zeus's thigh.
I'm also posting a head sculpture of Zeus, a picture of a Tritonlar that I thought was really neat, and a battle scene sculpture.

St. John the Baptist Church

In the town of Sirince at the top of the hill sat St. John the Baptist Church. I can't remember the details of how old it was but I think you'll get the gist with the pictures.

Painting

This is my first attempt at painting in art class. Pretty scary.

Caves/ Turkish Pancakes

Down the road from where we were staying in Selcuk were some "caves." They were called "The Seven Sleeping Caves." They were more like man made caves for tombs. It was pretty cool but we couldn't really go in to check them out because they were gated.
After looking at the caves we went to a restaurant that was right next them. It was so cute and traditional. There were for older woman sitting on table when we walked in making the food and the tables we ate at were practically pillows on the floor around a wooden slab next to a fireplace. Turkey is known for their pancakes (essentially crepes), so that's what everyone got for lunch. They were delicious and filled with minced meat, feta, chedder, spinach, and tomato.

Selcuk/Sirince/Bazaar

During our visit in Turkey we stayed in the city of Selcuk. It was a decent size but the shops and restaurants were all within walking distance from our hotel. To start, the food there was to die for. Plus, the shopping was addicting. We found a small jewelry store and I think I was in there everyday buying something. The silver there was so cheap, everything was cheap!
Also, 99.8% of the population in Turkey is Muslim so at least five times a day they would have prayer over a sound system. It was so great to be apart of the culture like that, besides the 5am wake up calls with prayer.

Ephesus

Ephesus was one of the first places we visited when we got to Greece. It's one of the most intact ancient cities in the country, maybe of all ancient Greek ruins, I can't really remember. It was such an amazing and breathtaking place. It was gorgeous in all of it's entirety. The streets were paved with marble (one part was a full mosaic). The buildings and carvings were so intricate, it was incredible. The library was insanely intact and there were full sculptures in it that barely had any wear to them. The whole city was huge, I can't even start to describe it with words or through my pictures. It was probably one of the coolest places I've been. It really put you in such a crazy perspective walking down the marble road and through the buildings and structures, you really felt apart of the city.

A description of the foundation of the city said that it goes back to the Neolithic Ages (6000 B.C.). Researchers in the recent years revealed settlements from Bronze Age and Hitite period on tumuli (prehistoric hilltop settlements) around Ephesus where a castle is located. The city was founded around 300 B.C by Lysimakhos who was one of the generals of Alexander the Great. The city lived during the Hellenistic and Roman period, and had a population of 200,000 as the capital and largest port city of Roman Province of Asia.

Samos/ Potami (waterfalls), Karlovassi

This is what happens when we find a secluded beach to layout at. bahahah

Vikings take Victory/ White Trash Party

Sometimes we unfortunately do get really bored in Greece.... and have themed parties in our kitchen. One night we decided to dress like white trash and act ridiculous (we even included fake tramp stamps... haha and the next night we all dressed like our favorite NFL team and had beer Olympics. I wanted to be the Bears but my friend Chloe insisted we were the Vikings. It worked out pretty well, because we pretty much dominated in the Olympics. haha I'll use my discretion when posting these pics...

Temple of Demeter/ Day 2 Naxos

The second day of staying in Naxos we took a bus tour to a temple that was made for the god Demeter. The site was beautiful. Here lied these ancient ruins of a temple in between these green mountains and surrounded by wildflowers. At first, we were all engrossed in taking photos and being silly but then our professor asked for us to humor him and put our cameras down and to reflect on where we were really standing. It's insane to really try and put it into perspective! The temple that we were standing in the middle of once was a scared place where people would come to worship the God of Harvest. Naturally, there would be people praying, making sacrifices, and burning natural herbs for the Gods. It's so crazy to think how real it once was.

After visiting the temple we visited some old quarries where there were unfinished sculptures of marble. We then explored a small village in the mountains for a bit. The village was so quaint and cute. We ran into an old woman and my friend wanted to take a picture of her... she waived for us to get in it with her and she had the biggest smile on her face. The people here LOVE having their photos taken! We also saw a man hauling some grains on his donkey through the village. It was so precious because a baby donkey tagged behind.

Temple of Apollo/ Naxos Arrival

For my historical sites class we visited a island in the Cyclades called Naxos for a weekend. I LOVED the island. It was very touristy, so they had a TON of different restaurants and shops. We ate at one of the only Mexican restaurants I've seen since I've been here. It was pretty decent. Aside from the restaurants, when we first arrived you could see what remains from the temple of Apollo. It was quite the site. Only the door and a few ruins remain but it's placed on the hilltop overlooking the sea and it's surrounded by wildflowers of all sorts of colors. It was beautiful!!!!
We also visited a small museum in the town. It had some pretty cool things like ancient spear heads, war masks, different sculptures, and a bunch of vases.

Turkish Bath

Today my friends and I went to one of the traditional Turkish bath houses. It was probably one of the best experiences I've ever had! You start off by going into this big concrete dome and in the middle of the room is a hot slab of marble. The room is basically like a sauna, and you lie on the marble in your bathing suit for about 30 minutes. Once you're soked in your own sweat, a man comes in to scrub you. It's quite disgusting because he exfoliates all your dead skin off and makes you feel it, and then he rinses you. You then go on to another guy who actually washes you with soap, I'm not sure what they use to put the soap on but it's some sort of bag, anyway it's so soft and then once they have you soaped up they give you a full body massage. After this, you rinse off and they wrap you in towels and a turbin and serve you hot apple tea (so delicious!). You then go upstairs to yet another guy who gives you a full body oil massage. It was intense! I thought he was going to break me because he was so rough. He cracks practically every bone that he can... Fingers, toes, back, neck, knees, hips. He then massages out the knots (it killed, I was nearly in tears), and then he massages your face and your head. In the end, the pain was definitely worth, I felt so relaxed after. It was such an amazing experience! I love Turkey!

New posts to come!

Sorry I haven't posted anything on here for a bit. The internet at my apartment hasn't been working. I'm in Turkey for the next 10 days, as well, so I won't have anything posted again until next week, hopefully. I have a ton of pictures and cool things that I'm stoked to post on here!

Birthday-- Day 2!!!!

I don't even know where to start on explaining how much fun I had this weekend! I'm so thankful for the friends that I have here in Greece, they truly made me feel at home! I must say I did miss my friends from home and my family and would have loved to have had them here to celebrate with me!
Oh man, so where to start! Last night my friends all got together and made me an amazing and DELICIOUS Mexican dinner! It was a true fiesta. We had tacos and margaritas! We then went out to the bar again and of course had some drinks to celebrate at midnight! Then around 1am my bodyguard, Peter, gave me a half striptease on the bar! Haha it was so great, I could not stop laughing! He also bought me some flowers, along with the dance! We then walked home and I stopped at my favorite sandwich shop here on the island and had George, a kid that works there, make me the usual (which I don't really know what the usual is, because he never tells me he just makes it) and he gave it to me for FREE! I couldn't have asked for a better 21st birthday!