Hi everyone,

I just got back from Crete this morning. It was a lot of fun… we went to the palace of Knossos and then on to Xania, or Chania, or Hania, however you want to spell it, for a few days. Knossos was cool, the history of it is a little fuzzy at this early hour (8:00am isn't that early but we took a night ferry) so I'll explain that to you at a later time if you'd like. Hania was pretty; the Venetians had control of the area for a long time so the port there looks similar to Venice. We went hiking on Saturday to some nearby towns on the coast and ran into one village filled with expensive vacation homes. It was gorgeous! Roundtrip we hiked about 10-12 miles so it was a pretty exhausting day. On Sundays everything (pretty much everything) is closed so we didn't get to do much shopping/browsing as we would have liked. I still found a few presents despite the fact that the most amazing Christmas store I've ever seen decided to trick us by leaving its doors open and then promptly kicking us out once we had seen how wonderful everything was.

I know I'm supposed to tell you how awesome of a time I had and while I did have fun, Crete did not live up to my expectations. First of all, our director decided to book us this expensive hotel (30 euro a night per person - for 2 nights) that was not worth the price. Oh and then after we hand in our 150 euro to him for ferry and hotel, he decides to tell us that we're going to need to pay an extra 20 euro per person for transportation once we actually get to Crete. Secondly, the main thing to do/see in Crete is the gorge. Well, the gorge closed the day we got there. A few of us improvised by doing some random hiking of our own but it did not come close to comparing to the pictures I've seen of the gorge. The rest of the time we just kind of bummed around Hania. The beach wasn't very nice or so I heard because I never actually made it there. Santorini was a ton less expensive, it was prettier, and I did a ton more there. For 170 euro, Crete was a real letdown. I'm not trying to complain because it was a decent trip, but I just thought you should know that not everything we do here is absolutely amazing.

At this point in time I am going to write in bullet form because the whole paragraph structure is kind of failing me right now (I'm really tired).

úI start classes again today which seems really weird because we are completely starting over.

úOddly enough, even though Greece is part of the European Union and pretty well developed, you can't flush toilet paper here. Nope, it goes in a tiny garbage can that sits by the toilet.

úA cleaning lady comes once a week to clean our apartment J

úGyros (I think that's how you spell it) are good, but I like pasta more and have eaten it every chance I've had since being in Greece.

úIt stayed between 70 and 80 degrees during the daytime the entire time we were in Crete.

úThe nights in Athens are quite cold.

úOur school is right next to (and I mean right night to) the 1890 something Olympic stadium. It's pretty cool.

úOur art professor gave a tour of Athens to Hilary and Chelsea Clinton when they came here a few years ago.

úGreek language is hard. The Greek alphabet is non-phonetic, meaning it's a bunch of symbols that you can't sound out. So not only do you have to translate the words into English, you have to translate the letters too. Anyways, here's what I know so far (note that none of this will be spelled correctly)

oVen Catilaveno: I don't understand - Catilaveno is I understand

oFaylo - I want

oKali mera - good morning/day

oKali spera - good afternoon

oYassou - kind of like Hawaii's aloha; it means everything you want it to mean

oScero - I know this one but I can't remember right now

oEferristo - thank you

oParakolo - you're welcome?

oNay - yes (kind of opposite what you might think)

oOh he (that's how it's pronounced) - no

oTria - 3 (haha yes, for some reason that's the only number I know)

oAnd that's it…pretty pathetic I know but I've only been here for a week.

úWe are going to Delphi on Friday and Saturday as a group.

ú40 days until I come home

úPictures will be coming soon - most are on facebook by now so if you have that… look there. Otherwise, be patient.

That's all the news I can think of. I hope you enjoyed my very tired reflection on the past few days!

Yassou,

Kristi