Bitter Sweet

The last three weeks of studying abroad have been one of the most fragile times for me. The bitter sweet feeling has been sauntering in my head. While I have fallen in love with my life abroad and someone along the way, I can’t help but to long for my new life that is waiting for me at home. I say that I have been fragile lately because all it takes is not being able to find a shoe to make me want to go home. Perhaps my fragility has something to do with the fact that this is also the happiest I have been since I have been abroad. With my time here coming to an end it hasn’t taken any effort to enjoy all aspects of the time that I have left here. I want to make the most of my last few days, I want to leave a positive impression on those that I came with and the one I have met along the way. At the same time, I have so much in store for me when I get home that it’s hard not to want to jump start my summer in America. Talking so frequently to my family and friends at home has not made my wildly racing thoughts any more at ease but I’m glad that I have something to look forward to. It’s hard so want two things so much at the same time.

The Butter's

Meeting new people is one of the best parts of traveling. While the ecstatic feelings of the nomadic life will fade, new friendships have the potential to last forever.

Sitting on the top deck of our cruise ship I heard the faint whispers of the table over from us speaking in English. After gawking at the family’s bloody mary’s for five minutes I decided to make the first move and ask where they were from. They were the Butter’s, a family of four with a 16-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old son. After hours of getting to know each other on what seamed to be a cruise ship driving through a tsunami the four of us girls fell in love with “the fam”. By the end of our three-island cruise, we weren’t bonded with any specific member of the fam, rather the entire family as a whole. The way they spoke to one another and the stories they told made it easy for all four of us to relate to with our families at home and inevitably fall in love with them. After the cruise the fam was our number one topic of conversation. They were all just so nice. Two days later while we were eating a meal they ran into us and invited us to their rooftop pool. Naturally, we went as soon as we were done eating. There we enjoyed banana strawberry daiquiris and margaritas. After some time all of you tummies were rumbling so the Butter’s asked us if we wanted to join them for an all American dinner at the Hard Rock Café. Once again naturally we accepted the invitation. After stuffing our faces so much that we could barley move we went back to the roof top pool at the Marriot where we watched the 12am Easter fireworks go off all over Athens. It was simply beautiful.

No, but seriously, who let the dogs out?

Dead stray dogs live ALL OVER Athens, it’s insane. On our way to the cruise shuttle at six in the morning, the four of us girls went to a pastry store and got stuffed bagels. Once we reached the corner of the main street a stray was high tailing us as we were in a rush to make the shuttle in time. When we came to a coffee shop he must have alerted his fellow dog friend of the plan to follow us all morning because by this time there were two dogs following us close behind. If you can image, six minutes into our walk, we’re headed down a vacant main street with nine dogs following closely behind. At first we were under the impression that they wanted our delectable treats. Shockingly our dog comrades didn’t try any crazy tricks; it was made clear when we saw our first stranger that all the dogs were under the same mission, to protect us. As a man approached us in the opposite direction all of the dogs ran over to him and began barking belligerently at him where the man began whimpering and covering his head like they were going to attack him, which of course wouldn’t have been a surprise. This act of them following us and barking at strangers went on for the entire fifteen minute walk, all the while losing and acquiring new dogs to the pact. By time we got to our destination all of the dogs had names. When we got to our meeting spot at a hotel we went inside where our dogs hung out outside the door, still waiting for us god forbid we needed some protection. When the woman who lead our cruise group arrived we headed out to follow her, this is when the dogs began following us once again. Two stops into the bus ride Tori looks out the window where she sees our dog pals still following us. These were our first friends made in Greece. 

FIRE ON THE HOME FRONT

Waking up out of a perfectly blissful REM cycle, I could have sworn I heard the elevator shaft in my building collapsing with huge metal “bangs”. When the noises continued my feeling of being annoyed quickly turned to utter fear after I began to smell burnt plastic. I whispered “Paigeeee!! PAIGEEE, wake up”! She rolled over, “what’s that smell?” she said. I was in complete shock of Paige’s rock like sleep; how could she not wake up to all the noise? All of a sudden the hallway light flicked on and Miguel came out of his room dressed in daytime clothes. He shut the door. “WHAT THE F*** IS GOING ON!” I honestly thought Miguel was trying to kill us or something, lock us in the room for dead. As the smell was becoming more and more potent by the minute so was my worrying instinct. Paige and I crept out of the door into the hall way were saw Pepita sitting at the edge of her bed trying to wake herself up. “Vamose?” I asked as I wondered why everyone was being so relaxed about the burning smell and the loud noises. Paige and I went back into the room where I told her “Put some clothes on! We’re getting out of here.” By the time we re-entered the hallway thick black smoke FILLED the apartment and we were flabbergasted to see Pepita bent over in the hallway outside of the bathroom hocking up a lung with her PJ pants around her ankles and her booty in the air. It wasn’t long before the burnt plastic smoke infested our lungs. Paige and I tried to hurry Pepita out of the house. Miguel was nowhere to be found. He left us to die. I ran to the door and peeped through the peephole, I didn’t see any smoke so I felt the door with the back of my hand. The coast was clear. As Paige and I ran out of the house the phone rang and Pepita answered it in the midst of us all having temporary lung failure. Paige and I decided to save our selves so we jetted. Out side there was an Asian man passed out on the curb in front of the market below our apartment. Posted up on a curb down the road, Paige and I heard sirens roaring down the street and that is when desert arrived. In Spain there must be some sort of requirement that if you want to be a cop you must be a former model because they are all SO attractive. In Spanish the word for “fireman” is “bombero”, therefore, when the firemen began flooding the street I thought it was the bomb squad. I quickly learned this was not the case. After about two hours of watching smoke barrel into our apartment and the bombero’s trying to put the fire out Pepita and Miguel brought us to their daughter Marise’s house which was conveniently across the street.  Needless to say our clothes wreaked like burnt plastic for weeks, our house had to be professionally cleaned and repainted. This experience brought Paige and I so much closer to our host parents in the last four weeks of our home stay. While it was a chaotic experience in the end it made for a much more happy family.