Berry Soltani, World Traveler

It kind of makes me sad that the blog posts of my Greek adventures are coming to an end. I kind of got to avoid this feeling when I was in Greece because my trip would continue onto Spain, Italy, and England. But now I really feel like this is the end of this chapter in my life. I just want to say that I'm really am grateful for every moment I spent with the family I like to call the people I went with on this trip (well, maybe every moment except for the one where I broke my camera lol).

From the first moment we landed in the beautiful country called Hellas, to the last moments before leaving for Spain, I couldn't help but keep reminding myself, "I'M IN FRICKING GREECE!" There were several moments captured by my camera that I wasn't able to include in a logical manner into my other posts, so I'm going to take this opportunity to post them (in a completely random fashion lol):

Katie celebrated her 21st birthday on our trip,
so we celebrated the right way!!!

Belting the lyrics to "Don't Stop Believin"
at a karaoke bar for Katie's birthday :)

Some the girls and I striking a pose at the archaeological site at Eleusis

Overnight ferry roomies! In our TINY room
*note the mixed emotions lol*

I'm running... to Marathon... lol get it?!

Reenacting the Battle of Marathon:
Danielle, who is 100% Greek
vs.

Me, 100% Persian

... And just as history tells it, the Greeks won.
LAME. lol jk!

Catherine with Yanis, the bus driver
who we all will remember for greeting us by saying
KALIMARI!
every morning instead of "Kali Mera" (Good Morning in Greek)

Snorkeling in Santorini :)

THE UNHOLY TRINITY
In the name of saving ourselves from the horrible Arkansasians,
we shall forever be known as
#3 (me), #1 (Dan), and #2 (Danielle)

Aww, just one of many examples of Maurice
being completely smashed :) created so many hilarious memories!
GROCERY BAGGGGG

mmmmmFANTAAA
this tastes SO much better than Fanta in the States!

After one of Joe's pep talks on our overnight ferries :)
EVERYBODY PUT YOUR HANDS IN!

Joe reading from Herodotus at a playground on the beach
(and kristine and I taking advantage of that)
We had quite the array of "classroom" settings :) :) :)

The UHPSS execs at an Olympic site
Diana, VP;   Myself, President;   Kelly, Treasurer

"pointless vandalism"
my favorite graffiti of the trip (and there was A LOT to choose from)

Various reactions to Loretta almost missing the ferry to Santorini

Kristine being attacked by little Greek boys with water guns in Arahova

Sam, Kristine, Robyn, Kimi, and Alexis
showing their game faces before a Greece World Cup match!
I love you Greece, but your soccer team SUCKS.

Kimi and I have a random, awkward connection...
Her boyfriend used to date my old roommate.
Being the awesomely awkward people we are, we decided to
reenact one of their old pictures and tag them in it on Facebook.
They did not appreciate it. lol.

The picture we were reenacting hahaha

CUTEST KITTIES EVER
In pottery at our hotel in Nafplion

Sunset in Glyfada
Arguably the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen
It's only rival is the sunset at Stonehenge in Salisbury, England

Group picture with Roula Skoula with Arahova in the background

There are tons more pictures from Greece, and plenty more from Spain, Italy, and England, but these are some of my favorites, and the ones I'd want to see most if I ever forgot my Facebook password lol. I'd like to thank all those on those on this trip who helped make these three weeks so memorable for me. I love our dysfunctional family! xoxoxo

Efkharisto (Thank you!) for following me along for my random stories of this amazing journey! There's a chance I might write about the rest of my trip, but for now, I say...

ADIO FILOS!

(goodbye friends!)

Showing off our acting chops

Several times throughout the trip, we took time to put on little performances on the sites of famous settings of ancient Greek plays. Besides being very fun and hilarious to watch, it was a very creative way to teach us about the relationship between the ancient tragedies of the Greeks and their land. I found the plays to be so interesting, that it inspired me to write about the past and present of Greek theatre for my research paper (because, although we forgot about this sometimes, we were technically in Greece to study... but we preferred to call it a vacation where we just happened to learn a lot... until we noticed the deadline for the paper coming closer and closer lol).

The first play we put on was after we hiked atop Mt. Lykavittos. We all sat next to the Chapel of St. George and let Joe tell us the famous story of St. George. This play definitely sparked an interest among the whole group in this particular form of learning, and the pictures give a good hint as to why this was the case:

Sara as a scary dragon. RAWRRR!!!
And Kelsey as a horse. lol.

St. George (Courtney) killing the Dragon (Sara)
... I think Joe mentioned something about this being done with
the power of Christ alone, but maybe Courtney decided the
invisible sword had a better effect lol

Kelsey the horse giving a ride to St. George (Courtney) and company

The next site for our awesome plays was a deem little theatre in ancient Thorikos. Here, several members of our group put on their version of a Hymn to Demeter (with a lot of help from Joe, as was the case with all these plays). This was just as entertaining as the last play, but now was put on with the addition of props!

Kyle, Robyn, Courtney, Kimi, Molly, and Spencer acting out a scene
with the help of Joe.
*Please note how gently Metaneira, played by Spencer,
cradles her child Demaphoon, played by Joe's fanny pack.
HOW SWEET!!!

Metaneira (Spencer) giving Demeter (Courtney) her child,
Demaphoon (Joe's fanny pack), to nurse,
promising her great treasures in turn for doing so

Catherine, Liz, Dan, Andrew, Diana, and Courtney
showing off their acting chops

The final play of the trip was put on at the Temple of Brauronian Artemis. This play was definitely the most epic, as it came in the form of a trilogy! By this time, our tour guide Roula Skoula became as excited as we did about these plays. She really appreciated our interest in her people's history :)

Act I. Iphigeneia at Aulis
(Pictured: Andrew and Courtney)

Act II. Agememnon
(Pictured: Kelsey, Kyle, and Liz)

Act III: Iphigeneia at Tauris
(Picture: Kelsey, Molly, Spencer, and Joe)

 That was the last play that we all put on as a group, but I'd like to briefly mention another situation that relates to these...

DANIELLE'S MONOLOGUE AT THE THEATRE OF EPIDAURUS:

The Theatre of Epidaurus is the most well-preserved ancient theatre in Greece. But it's also known for another thing: it's AMAZING acoustics. To this day, you can stand at the very top of the cavea, or audience seating area, and perfectly hear anyone who projects their voice while in the acting area, without needing any amplification. Not only that, but somehow, the limestone that makes up the theatre also filters out low-frequency sounds, like the shifting and murmuring of those in the crowd.

The view from the top of the Theatre of Epidaurus

Learning about this theatre was really cool, but getting to witness our very own Danielle Lazarakis (Theatre major, extraordinaire) perform Phaedra’s monologue from the play Hippolytus by Euripides to give us a first-hand experience at the theatre's amazing acoustics was one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Danielle, mid-performance, in the Theatre of Epidaurus
"Accursed woman! Traitress to thy friends! How hast thou ruined me! May Zeus, my ancestor, smite thee with his fiery bolt and uproot thee from thy place. Did I not foresee thy purpose, did I not bid thee keep silence on the very matter which is now my shame? But thou wouldst not be still; wherefore my fair name will not go with me to the tomb. But now I must another scheme devise. Yon youth, in the keenness of his fury, will tell his father of my sin, and the aged Pittheus of my state and fill the world with stories to my shame. Perdition seize thee and every meddling fool who by dishonest means would serve unwilling friends!"

These plays really were the icing on top of the delicious cake that was my trip to Greece. It was the perfect combination of of history, entertainment, and bonding!

Now, we just have to wait for Danielle to become a famous actress so we can say we got to see the deeply entrancing moment which was her Greek acting debut :)

παραλίες

What would Greece be without it's beautiful beaches, or παραλίες? I couldn't tell you the answer to that, because we got to see plenty of them! :P

The beaches in Greece are SOOOO amazing. And, because there aren't really rough waves there, there were several times during the trip where we all went to the beach, swam out as far as we could, and just hung out!

The first beach we visited was in Aegina, and the water there was so salty that if you went limp in the water your whole body floated to the top! It felt kind of weird, but it was really cool! At one point, Joe and a couple others decided to swim out to some rocks, and me, Katie, Sara, Kelly, and Kimiko followed suit. Some of us only made it out to the first set of rocks lol, but it was still awesome!

Katie and I in the Mediterranean Sea :)

most of the girls at the beach in Aegina

Another awesome part of Aegina, besides the beaches, was their pistachios, which are nicknamed the "peanuts of the sea." These really hit the spot after a long day at the beach!

Sam graciously offering me some pistachios on the ferry back from Aegina

We also went to a beach in the amazingly beautiful island of Santorini. I was very excited for this day-trip, since I have learned about the geological features of this island before. Although I didn't see as many white houses with blue roofs as I had hoped, the black-sand beach more than made up for it:

Me, at our beach-side restaurant in Santorini, before heading into the water

Black sand in Santorini, one of the many results of volcanoes in this region

We also visited the beaches in Crete, which was also pretty awesome! The beach pictured below was slightly different from the others we went to, in that it had changing areas, a shower to rinse off in, and pretty wooden planks to help your feet stay out of the hot sand (all of which was much appreciated!).

Sam and I relaxing in the water

Patriotic planks in Crete

Every single one of the beaches we visited in Greece were amazingly beautiful, and made for some memorable moments within the group. So, you could imagine my excitement when I found out "a fake Greek beach" was being brought into Central London while I was there:

Me, my cousin Shadi, and her friend Anne at the "beach" in London

This "beach" was definitely one of the funnier things I saw in England. The people there went all out, bringing picnic baskets, and laying out in their bikinis. I don't blame them for wanting to take advantage of the heat wave that was going on at the time, but this was still a rather unusual situation lol. But it reminded me of all the amazing times I had at the beaches in Greece with everyone on the trip, so it was well worth it to go relax in the extremely fake sand for a bit :)

Mt. Lykavittos, and the 999 steps that were not

Among the super awesome things we got the chance to do on this trip was go on hikes in Athens and Nafplion. The first one we did was relatively early in our trip, up Mt. Lykavittos to see the church of St. George. The view from the top was really amazing:

Me on top of Mt. Lykavittos :)

Yay! We made it to the top!
(and half the girls wore flip flops... now that's skill!)

Once everyone made it to the top, we went inside the church for a moment, hung out for a bit, and then listened to Joe tell the story of St. George. One of our doggy friends, Glykas, took the hike up with us, and listened to Joe too as he rested his paws:

Such a good doggy :) Oddly, in this country, stray dogs seem
to be a lot nicer and smarter than leashed dogs. Weird.

The time spent atop Mt. Lykavittos would be the beginning of a string of plays the students in our group performed while in Greece. It was very entertaining watching Joe tell each story, and have some of us take on roles and act out each scene. I'll go more into detail about the educational significance of this in another post, but just thought I'd post one of the funny pictures here as a teaser:

Believe it or not, this has relevance to the story of St. George

The next hike we went on was in Nafplion, up the 999 steps of the Fortress of Palamidi. Upon beginning our hike, Brandon decided that he wanted to know if it really was 999 steps, so several people in our group took turns counting all the way up to the top. Interestingly enough, Brandon's curiosity led us to find out that it, in fact, is not 999 steps! Rather, it was 1050:

me climbing the 1050 steps

... But, since "999" sounds like a cooler number, I GUESS I'll keep saying that. Anyways, we were all very excited to make it to the top of the fortress! It took a while for the whole group to make it all the way up, so we took the opportunity to take pictures!

Joe and his snazzy hiking outfit!

These hikes were yet another thing that I believe helped bring our group together. Motivating each other to make it to the top, and cheering everyone on brought us all closer (not to mention, we all got a pretty nice workout too!). I can't explain how great it feels to have people believing in you when you think you don't have any strength to move on.

So for these precious moments with all those on this trip, I am truly grateful :)