I have had a longstanding rule about my blog - I don't talk about politics or relationships.
I'm currently watching the presidential debate, and I don't like either candidate. I think Jim Lehrer is winning so far. Oh and in an totally unrelated note, Nancy Pelosi really really really really really bugs me.
I'm getting married in less than 100 days and words cannot express how I feel about Torrie. I am convinced that she is the best woman that I have ever met and with the most important decision that I will ever make...I am making the correct one.
Some of you (meaning the five of you that read my blog..thanks Dad!) may have noticed a remarked change in my online policy, and I quote: 'I just want to make everyone here a promise. ... When I get engaged (which I don't see happening for awhile...but we must be prepared) I will NOT put it on facebook. Nope. Never. ... If my fiancee` tries to make it official on facebook, I will decline her. If she has a problem with that, then we're not getting married. That's right. I am putting my foot down! BAM.' Logan Schultz, Friday, August 17, 2007" I had no idea at the time how great getting engaged would actually be or how much I wouldn't care if everyone knew that I was getting married. In fact, it's been quite the opposite, I want to share it with everyone! I'm sure some of the people that saw it couldn't care less, and that's fine. I am very grateful that Torrie and I have been able to share a little bit of the happiness we've experienced with our friends, and I have been touched by the many different people that have sent us messages wishing us good luck and showing excitement for us. So thanks.
Okay, onto a story about Greece:
The more I think about it (which actually becomes less, with time, unfortunately. I guess that is the way that time works in this mortal existence) the more I think how cool and unique our backpacking trip to Europe was. We travelled across the continent of Europe for five whole weeks. We saw amazing sights, encountered interesting cultures, and learned a lot about ourselves in the process. Greece was no different.
I already talked about our arrival in Athens. We decided that we had the evening, so let's go explore. We left our hostel and walked down to dafdafsdfad, the market area of the city. We were soon lost in a sea of small little shops filled with greek eyes, leather sandals, and clay pots. It was fun to look around and browse the different shops.
However, we didn't have time to lollygag. Our goal was to get to the Parthenon before it closed, because the light would be better for taking pictures. The sunset was pretty as we wandered through small streets in a residential district just below the Acropolis. The streets were narrow with lots of stairs, and all of the houses were whitewashed. The sidewalks were whitewashed as well, with random royal blue stones every once in awhile. We did finally make it up to the Acropolis, but we didn't make it in front of the Parthenon in time. We tried to see a couple of other things, including the Temple of Olympian Zeus, but it was closed as well. All closed. We were tired, so we took the subway home.
Back at the hostel, we watched the Turkey Germany Euro semifinal soccer game. Germany won, 3 - 2, in a pretty exciting game. The place where we were staying was definitely a youth hostel - lots of backpackers and people getting drunk. One of them decided to pounce on Torrie. "Torrie...you are a piece of work." ha. You should ask her about that sometime.
We made it up to our room and tried to go to sleep after eating our disappointing chocolate pear cookies. It was pretty hot all night, which reminded me, like Greece always did - of my first days is Napoli. Not really understanding the language, crazy chaos everywhere, so hot, so humid. It was fun and invigorating to be in a land that chaotic where I didn't understand what was going on. That made me excited for future trips to places like India, China, Egypt....
After a night of wishing I had a fan, we woke up and metroed down to the Acropolis. We ran ahead of the first big tour group and had the Acropolis pretty much to ourselves. The first building we saw was the Temple of Athena Nike. This was especially cool cause we came up a hill to go through it so it looked much more impressive. It was cool to think that archeologists had taken apart and rebuilt the entire impressive sculpture. Wow.
After our walk through that, we walked under the classic sight of the Parthenon. I had goosebumps as I looked under one of the most famous sights of the world. We walked around it, trying to take in its perfection. The builders had taken human deficiencies and made up for them - for example, they made the middle of the columns bigger and rounded the bottom slightly, things like that. It was awesome to see. I also think its crazy how it has survived - everything around it is basically rubble, you walk on pebbles of marble...yet the temple somehow continues to stand. Pretty cool.
From on top of the Acropolis we could see all of Athens. We could see a few parks and mountains that had Greek temples on them, whjich was cool. The city was mostly white, which is different then any other city I've been to.
We next came down and walked to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Only a few columns remained, but you could see how huge it once was. Our favorite part of this temple was their drinking fountain. It was chilled...an amazing. We then went to the stadium which held the original modern Olympic Games. That was pretty cool.
On our way back to the market we stopped and had a sesame seed ring and a doughnut. They were pretty good, as most things bought on the street are. The market was fun. I've decided that the Greek pattern of white and blue is fun, and there a lot of possibilties for Greek souvenirs with Greek pottery, statues, etc.
We wanted to make sure that we got back to the train station in time, so we left a little bit earlier than originally planned. Once we arrived in the train station, we found out that the train left earlier than we had expected. Oh good. I managed to jump on the train pretty quickly, which was good because I was able to save Torrie and I seats on a pretty crowded train. We rode in comfort, with me winning a yahtzee championship, and playing a great game of "A guy comes up to you on the street and asks....". What a fun game.
At Kialto the next train was already waiting on the track, so we got on it. About halfway there, all of a sudden the train stopped. We were unfazed - this happens every once in awhile and us veteran travellers didn't even notice such minor details. Big deal. However, after 15 minutes of sitting, we began to get a little worried. The fact that it was SO SO SO hot and the nice cool sea water was tempting us from the windows, we decided to see what's up.
Well, they were building a road just above the hill from us. As they were building this road, some rocks fell down in a little avalanche on the train tracks, pushing an iron rebar fence in our way. Well, out comes a backhoe, and they pull back the fence/dirt enough to let us through> here's a video of us getting through....hear the fence scratching against the train?
Well a few minutes later we stopped again. Another avalance had happened....including a big rock. (Petra! They said. I understood! Thanks Peter...) So they pulled it up with a rope attached to the same backhoe. A few minutes later, we all cheered as the train continued on its way to Patras.
