Greece 101

So I was delayed in posting! I know you all have been anxiously checking the blog but there were some technical difficulties, but I worked through them and alas!

So I am in Greece! It was quite the journey getting here, my favorite part being how some of our feet swelled up so much on the plane our sandals literally no longer fit! I already have cankles

So this just made them that much worse! Hahah anyways we spent our first three days in Nepflion which is just a small sea side town! From there we visited ancient Corinth, Sparta, and an old Byzantine community, or what remained of the ruins! I have really enjoyed seeing all the correlations between the ottoman empire from the Greek point of view and what I learned about the Turkish point of view while I was in turkey! Two completely different stories by the way!

We have a crazy tour guide! When we drive on the bus she never stops talking! Haha today we all sang Disney songs so she wouldn't talk, but she eventually won and told us her life story on a four hour bus ride, totally a loss for us!

I've learned that the Greeks are very proud people! It can be a little unfortunate because they do not want to mention any fault in their society. Exhibit a: there are strikes still happening and we even saw a protest but our tour guide doesn't want to talk about it, nor does she want to talk about the huge economic crisis of Greece last year and it would be interesting to ask a Greek how it affected everyone! But our bartender last night was really friendly and talked with us about life in Greece and that was really cool!

Also the Greeks are not very hospitable. Not that im complaining or expecting them to serve me hand and foot it's just surprising because any other country I have visited has been surprisingly hospitable. Over lunch today a group of us decided this must be because since this economy thrives off of tourism it it always swamped with tourists then there is really no need for hospitality because people will continue to visit just for the country's beauty? Maybe? Plus the people here are probably sick of tourists, I would be! I also had an interesting conversation with a Greek about how the Americans are not proud people because we have no history in comparison to the world, and the he asked me who is truly American? It was an intriguing conversation indeed!

Of course there is a lot of mythology everywhere we go! Which I enjoy a lot! We visited one place, Agamemnon's palace, which was super neat because we read about him in the Iliad my freshman year! I also tried to explain "Greek life" to a Greek. Now that was hilarious! He had seen shows like "Greek" on abc family and was super curious as to why americans would make a community called greek life. It was fun trying to explain it to him, which was difficult with all the secrets and such. So he just laughed and said we were dumb! Sounds like my brother..

Well we just got to Delphi so I might go exploring soon, but there is really nothing here it's just a pit stop on our way to Athens! I hope everyone is doing well!!