It's been quite a while since my last update, and while there are still a lot of stories I have to share, I think I'm going to skip over the last month or so to update with some more recent adventures. I spent April 19-20th on the island of Aegina, which is just an hour ferry ride from Athens. Earlier in the semester, there was a contest sponsored by Arcadia and a Greek organization known as Smile of a Child among the program participants. We raced to assemble sections of the world's largest puzzle (each was 6,000 pieces, for a total of 24,000) and the finished product was donated to Smile of a Child to be placed in one of the homes they have for needy children. It was quite an intense battle, as the prize for the first place team was a free trip to a nearby island, and in the end, my team lost by a margin of about 30 pieces. Because the finish was so close, it was decided that both the first and second place teams would win the prize, so about 20 of us headed off to Aegina.
We left pretty early in the morning to make the most of the one day we had there and enjoyed a sunny, but extremely windy ride on the roof of the ferry. Note to self: it's WINDY on the open water, especially when the boat is moving -- always wear pants and bring a sweatshirt! The view was beautiful, and if you could get past the cold, you could tell it was shaping up to be a warm late spring day, complete with blinding Greek sun. We were psyched for a day of exploring the island, seeing the ruins of an ancient temple, and hitting one of the many beaches. A brief while later, we disembarked from the ferry and I rejoiced at the fact that the wind seemed to have kept any motion sickness away. Our hotel was almost a kilometer outside of town and we had wanted to rent ATVs (aka four-wheelers) to explore the island anyway, so we decided to do that first so we could drive them to the hotel. Now, I was a bit skeptical about the whole ATV thing -- it seemed way too close to a motorcycle for my liking but after seeing them in person and realizing that traffic on the island really wasn't bad at all, I decided to listen to the part of me that was saying, "You're only going to be here as a student once -- have fun!" After a little bit of wandering and a few inquires at places that looked like they might rent them, we tracked down 4 ATVs. Aubrey and I advocated adamantly for helmets -- despite the voice telling me to stop worrying so much, there was absolutely no way I was getting on one without a helmet securely on my head, and I chose the most padded helmet I could find -- and all of us walked outside for the tutorial on how to drive, oh so fashionable helmets in hand or on head. We strapped our bags onto the racks using bungee cords, listened to the man's directions, and headed off in the direction he said would take us to our hotel and a gas station.Next up: Do we make it to the hotel?
