This is a blog of yesterday's events (5/28) which I was unable to do last night because of the wifi in the hotel not working and our travel day today. Anyway...
As the title suggests, today was quite the interesting day; or at least the most spontaneous we have had so far on the trip. The day started off with a nice 7:00 AM wake up call and breakfast a half hour later. Our first scheduled activity was the visit to the Olympic Park in Olympia where the Ancient Olympic Games were played. Although much of this Olympic Park is destroyed from weathering, there are still many things standing, and it is a truly amazing experience. We walked through everything from the Temple of Hera to the Stade, where the running event(s) were held. We also got an in depth description from every point of the Park from our guide and leader: Nike (pronounced Nikki) which is Greek for victory.
After around two hours at the Ancient Olympic Park we grabbed a quick lunch on the streets of Olympia before heading back to the hotel for some fun around the pool. The weather was terrific, and although the pool was a little chilly, and freezing according to Charma, I think it's safe to say we all had a lot of fun outside. The highlight of the day was when Professor Ryan came out to jump in, and let's just say he had a bit of a mishap with the diving board. He is fine, and I will let him touch up on the details if he chooses to, but we all had a riot of a time with that.
After our time at the pool we got washed up and headed back to the Olympic Park for Jon P, to hold up his end of the bet he made back in Paris. He was supposed to run across the Stade but it was closed to everyone's major disappointment. With this, we went inside the Olympic Museum that is located at the Park and checked out all of the statues and artifacts that they had to offer. I, personally, am still amazed at the quality of the statues and structures. I can't even fathom creating something like that and having it be preserved over two centuries. Nike also helped us understand what all of the statues were and gave us a lot of Greek history as well, which we all were very thankful for.
Once our time at the museum was up, due to them closing, we spent a lot of time shopping around at the markets scattered around the streets of Olympia. They have a lot of cheap discounts around, and some of us were able to haggle down their prices to more reasonable numbers. After spending quite a long time shopping around it was time for our group dinner in Olympia; we went to a unique restaurant where the food was served in a "marathon type" of way. Each course was intended for four of us to share, and the food just kept coming. A lot of us, myself included, ate so much food we could barely move afterwards; the food consisted of lamb, beef, chicken with bacon, french fries and everything in between.
Back at the hotel most of us were hanging out in various different areas for the night, when Tyler ran into a bit of an accident. Unfortunately he didn't see the glass slider door that led to the roof due to darkness and literally walked right into it, shattering the door and gashing his leg. He ended up having to go get stitches, but he is fine now and I give him much credit as he dealt with everything very calmly. It is a story worth mentioning just to add to the interesting aspect of the day, which turned out to be scary at times, but still a great overall day.
-DS
As the title suggests, today was quite the interesting day; or at least the most spontaneous we have had so far on the trip. The day started off with a nice 7:00 AM wake up call and breakfast a half hour later. Our first scheduled activity was the visit to the Olympic Park in Olympia where the Ancient Olympic Games were played. Although much of this Olympic Park is destroyed from weathering, there are still many things standing, and it is a truly amazing experience. We walked through everything from the Temple of Hera to the Stade, where the running event(s) were held. We also got an in depth description from every point of the Park from our guide and leader: Nike (pronounced Nikki) which is Greek for victory.
After around two hours at the Ancient Olympic Park we grabbed a quick lunch on the streets of Olympia before heading back to the hotel for some fun around the pool. The weather was terrific, and although the pool was a little chilly, and freezing according to Charma, I think it's safe to say we all had a lot of fun outside. The highlight of the day was when Professor Ryan came out to jump in, and let's just say he had a bit of a mishap with the diving board. He is fine, and I will let him touch up on the details if he chooses to, but we all had a riot of a time with that.
After our time at the pool we got washed up and headed back to the Olympic Park for Jon P, to hold up his end of the bet he made back in Paris. He was supposed to run across the Stade but it was closed to everyone's major disappointment. With this, we went inside the Olympic Museum that is located at the Park and checked out all of the statues and artifacts that they had to offer. I, personally, am still amazed at the quality of the statues and structures. I can't even fathom creating something like that and having it be preserved over two centuries. Nike also helped us understand what all of the statues were and gave us a lot of Greek history as well, which we all were very thankful for.
Once our time at the museum was up, due to them closing, we spent a lot of time shopping around at the markets scattered around the streets of Olympia. They have a lot of cheap discounts around, and some of us were able to haggle down their prices to more reasonable numbers. After spending quite a long time shopping around it was time for our group dinner in Olympia; we went to a unique restaurant where the food was served in a "marathon type" of way. Each course was intended for four of us to share, and the food just kept coming. A lot of us, myself included, ate so much food we could barely move afterwards; the food consisted of lamb, beef, chicken with bacon, french fries and everything in between.
Back at the hotel most of us were hanging out in various different areas for the night, when Tyler ran into a bit of an accident. Unfortunately he didn't see the glass slider door that led to the roof due to darkness and literally walked right into it, shattering the door and gashing his leg. He ended up having to go get stitches, but he is fine now and I give him much credit as he dealt with everything very calmly. It is a story worth mentioning just to add to the interesting aspect of the day, which turned out to be scary at times, but still a great overall day.
-DS
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