Greece, Part I

At long last, I have made it to Greece, but not without one more slap in the face from Iberia airlines. It turned out that the connecting flight they gave me did not leave until seven or eight hours after I sent out my Quick Update letter to all of you; the flight I thought I was supposed to be boarding then was going to Malaga, not Athens. Fun. . . not. Cool airport, but not the world's most comfortable place to hang out in for seven or eight hours. Such is life! It felt good to get on the plane at last, practicing my Spanish on two teachers on vacation from Barcelona. When I saw my name on the card the woman from our travel agency was holding, I almost cried that I'd finally, finally made it.

My room mate, Damali, helped me get oriented--thankfully, I had arrived just in time for our first tour, a day which incidentally (and thankfully) had no class. I am so glad I made it to this one; this tour made all the bother with Iberia along the way worth it. I could not believe my luck, to see the Acropolis my first day in Greece.

Along the way, our tour guide gave us notes about the local culture and history, which runs deep into the past. I never realized how much the Olympics helped Athens clean up as a city. We saw the original 1893 Olympic stadium, all made of marble. Another thing she pointed out that I found fascinating was how when they began to dig for the subway there in Athens, they found artifacts from many different periods, and the subway construction project soon became an archaeological one as well.

It's amusing to see the way the Greeks park; they park anywhere. They double-park, park on the sidewalks, anywhere. They do get parking tickets, and have stacks of them at home, but if they did not park this way, they never would park. I can see now why public transportation is so popular here.

The Acropolis, in Greek, basically means "the highest point in the city." The first thing we saw there was an ancient amphitheater, which is still used for concerts to this day. For those concerts, they have started to forbid women to wear high-heeled shoes because of the damage they do to the very, very old stone. The rest of the Acropolis was in the process of being refurbished, as many of the old stones being used to complete the various structures, but with new marble to keep it more structurally sound. The Parthenon is actually more impressive to see in person than in photographs; it really does earn its place as one of the architectural wonders of the world. Their use of perspective is incredible.

The part of the Acropolis that impressed me the most, however, was not the Parthenon, but a rock. What's so exciting about a rock? Well, this particular rock happened to be both particularly large and also, incidentally, the rock where Paul stood when he came to Athens and, after seeing all these temples to the various gods and found one to an unknown God and said, "Now what you worship as something unknown, I am going to proclaim to you." (Acts 17:23). It's one thing to read this story in the Bible; it is quite another to be there, to see the place myself and to look out on what Paul saw. It just makes it so. . . real.

Damali took me into downtown Glyfada (which is the town where we're staying), so I could exchange money and we could purchase lunch. I've always liked Greek food, and actually eating it here only makes me love it more. Sure, I'll probably be sick of gyros and dolma by the time we get out of here, but for now, the mere mention of either makes my mouth water. I spent the afternoon studying on our balcony, looking at the pure blue Aegean Sea. The only stretch of ocean I've seen this color was in Hawaii, and even that was not quite so blue.

This morning I had my first class; all things considered, it doesn't seem like it will be too nasty a course to keep up with, even though it's Biblical Greek. The translations are longer than anything I ever did in one sitting at PUC, and we go into more detail with things, but otherwise, Greek seems to be Greek, whoever teaches it on whatever level. Heh. Anyways, enough time to talk about class and everyday stuff later; for now, I'd just like to thank all of you for praying, as those prayers are probably what finally got me here. I hope each of you has a wonderful weekend, and I wish you well.