Real big rocks, etc.

Guys,

Guys,

Meteora was freaking awesome. If you haven’t googled it or something, the Meteora are these gargantuan rock formations that look like giant pillars. Some of them have monasteries built on the top (From the sixteenth century!) and we got to tour four of them, wearing ugly skirts because women aren’t allowed inside without a long skirt on. They were so cool though! They had paintings and stuff from the 1500s that still looked awesome, and really old icons and one had relics from a saint and that kinda thing. I also got distracted by the stray cats that were wandering around everywhere (up on top of giant cliffs, what?) because they were super cute.

The rocks themselves were breathtaking, just massive and beautiful and I must have taken a billion pictures, I’ll have to weed out the non-exciting ones before I upload. It was amazing climbing around on them, a real spiritual, beautiful experience. Plus we got to stay in a fancy hotel with a pool on the roof!

Our tour guide for the Meteora trip was an insane old Greek woman named Stella who referred to herself in the third person and referred to all of us as her “beloved ones.” She also called other tourist groups “the enemy,” as in “My darlings, my poor darlings, the enemy is at the top of the stairs. You will have to stay here with Stella and wait.”

She sounded like a weird cross between Yzma and Mrs. Doubtfire. Only Greeker. She also would interrupt her speech every time she used a big word and explain how it was actually a Greek word. She also grabbed the microphone to point out things like corn and Japanese tourists while we were driving.

Actually the drive was pretty cool, even though it was five hours long. We saw gorgeous mountains and the ocean with islands in the distance, and even a Gypsy settlement with tin sheet lean-tos and laundry lines and such, which I didn’t even know still existed. Plus there was Stella’s commentary. (“You see these? They are how do say it, tomahto fields. You say tomahto or tomato? Tomato? Okay. So there tomahtos- tomatoes! Oh, I am sorry. Anyway, we use these small tomatoes to make tomahto juice.”)

Today, we tried to take a trip to a lake that Afroditi sort of told us about, and after spending a million years on the really sketchy bus someone asked a Greek guy where we were and he told us we had already passed it. We got off, not knowing where we were, and waited for a bus in the opposite direction but it took so long that we gave up and walked to a little restaurant and had pizza. The plus side was that we got “stranded” literally right along this beautiful beach, so we all hung around there instead of at our original planned beach and it was still nice.

Now I’m in the apartment by myself being a lazy bum because everyone else went clubbing with Deo and I didn’t feel like it. But I’m not sleepy because I went to a café with internet for a while and had a super delicious but quite strong cappuccino. I was watching the Emmys belatedly but now it’s some weird Greek soap opera called Karma (Κάρμα!) that features a cruise ship wreck or something.

Tomorrow are the Greek general elections so we’ll probably do nothing, since everything will be closed. Monday we’re visiting the ruins of the famous oracle at Delphi. Hellz yeah.

I miss all of you as much as I miss peanut butter! <3