Meteora, Greece
Meteora is SPECTACULAR! Called the Monasteries in the sky, there are six active monasteries up in the snow-covered mountains of Greece. The drive up the winding roads was breathtaking- literally. And the climb up the stairs to the monastery was especially precarious- iced over without railings some of the way; had we toppled over, bye us! We got a tour where the girls had to put on apron-like skirts and then played in the snow for awhile. Snowball fights were the chosen activity, and even Taso participated. Great fun! Our group has such amazing times together; it’s going to be miserable leaving them!
We wandered around the mountains for some time, taking pictures and breathing in the crisp air, and then time to have dinner! Family style is our preferred choice so we can try lots of new foods- everyone’s so comfortable (besides Meera) with sharing their food and eating off each other’s plates if anyone were to watch they would definitely say it was unsanitary. Then, of course, we all went out to a place called The Old Bar and had a good time playing games and chilling together. Movie at the gorgeous hotel and off to bed!
Arnold and I woke up early to go rock-climbing and eat breakfast, the first didn’t happen though. So we waited for others and decided to go exploring. We had just planned on wandering around the tiny town and hanging out but somehow Jordan, Emily, Caroline, Kristy, Arnold, and I decided climbing a mountain would be more fun. Seeing a cliff front in the distance we thought it would be a great place to take pictures and fun to climb.
First stop was an abandoned building that we climbed the rickety stairs to its roof- Arnold got a rusty nail through his foot and Caroline got one through her shoe: not good! They were both ended up being fine though so we continued our trek up the mountain. We found some goat trails and followed them around; scurrying quickly past a rusty old shack. At a huge rock that was a little precarious we lost Caroline and Emily. I can understand that since our hands were starting to get all scraped up and the ascent was getting steeper.
Finally we met our match. An almost 90 degree angle cliff loomed in front of us. I tried first and for fifteen minutes kept telling myself that I could shimmy up a loose pipe to make it to the next rock: not true. So Jordan was up next and he monkey-climbed it all the way to the top much to our amazement. Kristy tried too but we just couldn’t make it, so we decided to meet him at the bottom. We were pretty bummed because we knew he was going to have better stories than us- climbing up a mountainside and almost dying several times definitely beats not making it to the top. But lucky for us, the leader of the pack down the mountain, me, decided to take a wrong turn and ended up taking a ‘trail’ through nothing but bramble and trees where we were crawling the entire time. When, forty-five minutes later, we made it into a clearing we were all so happy! Being on all fours and getting scrapes all over your body gets super tiring!
By stopping to take pictures next to a cliff, we found ourselves close to that old rusty shack again. This time there were goats roaming around and a woman there as well. We wanted to take pictures of the goats but were a little shy about asking so we just stood around talking about it, going over our Greek. She eventually approached us and we used the little Greek we’d picked up in class to communicate with her. She seemed to understand that of course, as tourists, we’d want to take pictures so we pantomimed this and she agreed. While we were taking pictures of the goats she went inside the shack and brought out a baby goat- we were so excited! Then she brought another, and another! It was so nice to nuzzle with a fuzzy animal and they were so sweet. Best part of the trip and my day by far. Plus, it easily topped Jordan’s story for sure J Our excursions always end up turning out amazingly, or maybe it’s just the people I’m with that make it that way…
The girl next door,
Susie
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| Arnold got stuck on the shambles!! |
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