so..for those wondering how my Greece and Italy trip went..it was, by far, THE MOST AWESOME TRIP EVER. it beats everything. it was seriously wonderful. i wish i could retire there. haha.
we flew into the Thessaloniki airport in Greece, all jet lagged (well everyone but me since 8hours time difference is nothing compared to 13hours), got to our kinda crappy hotel that smelled 24/7 like smoke and gasoline but otherwise was fine. omg Greek food? simply delicious. really! even for me. and i'm picky! we had bread and olive oil every meal as an appetizer..and most meals had some sort of pasta..and all i can say is, thank God we hiked and climbed and walked for hours everyday to burn off the carbs. we seriously walked EVERYWHERE. climbed steep slopes in archaeological sites too. i am so much fitter now. this should be a PE class too. the Greeks and Italians were pretty friendly..sometimes too friendly. we got invited to clubs and parties by random strangers alot. haha. they were really nice though. lots of cute European guys too. :)
so we went to churches, museums, sites filled with ruins in Thessaloniki, Berea, Philippi, Corinth, Athens, Rome, Florence and Vatican City. all i can say is, now when i read the New Testament, the words jump out at me. it's just so much more fascinating now that i've actually been to these places!!!! the Bible comes alive. i love it :) we followed mostly Paul's footsteps in Acts 17-19. so that was really cool. and i got re-baptized at the place where Paul baptized Lydia in Acts!!!! isn't that so cool??? for me it was a really timely rededication of my commitment to follow Christ. we had worship in several ancient churches..had communion at the ruins of Corinth, which was really intense and cool. also visited the church were Paul was beheaded and the place where he and Peter were imprisoned. all i can say is, he is truly a faithful man of God. through all this suffering and persecution he still stood strong and clung on to the Lord. was really encouraging to me.
most of the museums we went to had tons of statues..i think i've seen enough of naked statue guys to last me a lifetime. haha. but there was this one - Michelangelo's famous sculpture of David that we saw in Florence, Italy (as in David who killed Goliath) was SOOOO cool. u could see his veins and muscles and everything! and Vatican City was amazingly beautiful. the buildings and everything..and the Sistine Chapel was my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE.
seriously nothing can be more incredible and exquisite than that. there were paintings all over the huge chapel and we weren't allowed to talk/take pics inside. sad. but wow. Michelangelo painted it all in one try and in 7years! who the heck has the patience to do that! but wowee. i must say he had talents in truckloads. sooo beautiful. esp the huge one depicting the saints in heaven with God and other people being thrown into hell. i was just amazed. stood there for like 15 mins craning my neck trying to drink it all in. got a neck ache after that.
our tour guide was american, but his wife was Greek, which was sooo cool. she taught us some Greek. like 'es-ta-ka-loh' (oh my goodness!) haha. Berea was her hometown. amazing. she left Greece to study in college in the States, and she hardly knew any English! admire her. and she got over her homesickness when she met david, her present husband, a month after she got there. so cool huh. why can't i meet a guy like that too???? haha.
we went on a cruise ship (more like a rocky little ship) to visit 3 greek islands on our free day. wowwww. sooo beautiful and untouched by modern infrastructure. they dont even have roads! they travel by donkey! how quaint is that! and they taught us Greek dances on the ship. hahaha. fun. we went on another cruise ship to go from Greece to Italy. 14 hours on the boat to save money on airplane tix. bleh. could feel the ship moving when i was trying to sleep. at least they gave us rooms. :)
shopping was good too. got souvenirs for pple! but will only give them during the summer. haha. have to say i prefer Greece to Italy..Italy was just kinda crazy and the streets were pretty dirty..and 2 rooms in our hotel room in Rome got robbed. and there were annoying bangladesh pple pestering us to buy overpriced tourist things.. Greece was wonderful. we dressed up and went to different cafes along the harbor most nights..and i got to know other taylor people pretty well..so that was cool :) we got pretty crazy rooming together in our hotel rooms too. haha. ooh and we made a new friend in Athens - a big fat dog we named Butters! he followed us around and barked n bit pple who tried to get near us. felt safe with Butters around. haha.
so yeah..it was a pretty awesome trip. i can't believe i went to freakin' greece and italy!! aaahhhh!!! God is so so good! :)
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
pics from greece/italy
us at the trevi fountain
our new greek jerseys!!
on the cruise ship...seasick. blehh
us having dinner with our tour guides. they were awesome!
this guy was so hilarious. he was entertainment on our cruise ship to the greek islands
donkeys were everywhere at hydra! one of the greek islands
joce this is for u! me chasing pigeons. haha. this was the best i could do. haha.
kenzie n me..doesn't this tree look like the one from the lion king? haha
at the freakin coliseum in rome!!!
us girls at the greek islands.
at the coliseum again!
at the harbor in thessaloniki
on mar's hill in athens
at the parthenon in athens
we were forced to wear these skirts in the monastery in greece. i just wrapped my scarf around my jeans. haha
capri, natasha and me at the monastery in meteora
capri, me and alexander the great!
first west (girls from my wing) at the parthenon in athens, greece!
me at the marketplace in thessaloniki, greece
yummy greek food at delphi
Sunday, January 06, 2008
what an experience
12am. friday midnight. suddenly the fire alarm shrieks, almost giving me a heart attack. my roomie and i grab our coats, scarfs, shoes and rush out the door along with other annoyed and sleepy girls. we hurry across the road from olson, our dorm, and huddle together to keep from shivering and freezing to death. 15 mins later, we're still there, getting more annoyed at the 2 possible causes of our discomfort.
1 - it's the stupidest fire drill ever at midnight.
2- someone's attempt to cook went wrong and set off the fire alarm. ridiculous.
but then Dee, our hall director, comes along, and her eyes are glittering with tears. and our hearts just stop when she tells us to wait in english dorm because this might take a while. and the fire engine's arrived, and firemen are going into our dorm. so we're thinking, this CANNOT be good. at all.
so we hurry to english to fight off the numbness that has begun to seep into our bodies as a result of standing out in the cold for too long. we stay there for about half an hour, i don't know. i wasn't keeping track. i fell asleep. rumours started to fly, about how there was a room ON MY WING where flames were spewing out the window. i wasn't sure. everyone was just really jittery and panicky. i didn't wanna think about it.
after a long long time, Dee comes to english hall and gathers us around, and quietly tells us that a water pipe in our attic has burst, and the water has flowed down to the west side of our hall, WHICH IS WHERE MY ROOM IS!!!! so all the east side girls and center girls get to go back to their rooms safely, while the west side girls have to wait, and one by one, get called in to go get our stuff for the night and find somewhere else to sleep. of couse, our imaginations were running wild. how bad was this flood??? and who was affected the worst??
i had visions in my mind of my room flooded and my stuff swimming around in knee-deep water. so after waiting for an excruciatingly long time, my roomie n i finally got into our room, and it was COMPLETELY DRY. hallelujah. it was a miracle. thank God SO SO SO much, cuz it could have been much worse. seriously. some girls on my wing got their desks drenched, one girl got her com totally soaked in a puddle of water. girls on the third floor got hit the worst. some rooms were completely soaked, and they had to tear up the carpets to vacuum the water off, and girls were sobbing and all.. cuz i mean..what do u do?? when all ur stuff's drenched and wasted away and gone??
so anyway me n some girls on my wing spent the night at our friend's house, somewhere off campus. didn't get much sleep cuz by the time we got our stuff n arrived there it was like 4am. so the atmosphere today in olson is rather depressed. on one hand i thank God so much that my stuff's fine, but on the other i feel so so bad for those whose stuff didn't make it. don't know if we'll be able to sleep in our rooms again tonight. don't even wanna think about the cold freezing water in our showers. ugh. so glad i'm leaving for chicago tomorrow.
but on the whole, i am so grateful that we made it through. and thank God we're all fine. sort of.
1 - it's the stupidest fire drill ever at midnight.
2- someone's attempt to cook went wrong and set off the fire alarm. ridiculous.
but then Dee, our hall director, comes along, and her eyes are glittering with tears. and our hearts just stop when she tells us to wait in english dorm because this might take a while. and the fire engine's arrived, and firemen are going into our dorm. so we're thinking, this CANNOT be good. at all.
so we hurry to english to fight off the numbness that has begun to seep into our bodies as a result of standing out in the cold for too long. we stay there for about half an hour, i don't know. i wasn't keeping track. i fell asleep. rumours started to fly, about how there was a room ON MY WING where flames were spewing out the window. i wasn't sure. everyone was just really jittery and panicky. i didn't wanna think about it.
after a long long time, Dee comes to english hall and gathers us around, and quietly tells us that a water pipe in our attic has burst, and the water has flowed down to the west side of our hall, WHICH IS WHERE MY ROOM IS!!!! so all the east side girls and center girls get to go back to their rooms safely, while the west side girls have to wait, and one by one, get called in to go get our stuff for the night and find somewhere else to sleep. of couse, our imaginations were running wild. how bad was this flood??? and who was affected the worst??
i had visions in my mind of my room flooded and my stuff swimming around in knee-deep water. so after waiting for an excruciatingly long time, my roomie n i finally got into our room, and it was COMPLETELY DRY. hallelujah. it was a miracle. thank God SO SO SO much, cuz it could have been much worse. seriously. some girls on my wing got their desks drenched, one girl got her com totally soaked in a puddle of water. girls on the third floor got hit the worst. some rooms were completely soaked, and they had to tear up the carpets to vacuum the water off, and girls were sobbing and all.. cuz i mean..what do u do?? when all ur stuff's drenched and wasted away and gone??
so anyway me n some girls on my wing spent the night at our friend's house, somewhere off campus. didn't get much sleep cuz by the time we got our stuff n arrived there it was like 4am. so the atmosphere today in olson is rather depressed. on one hand i thank God so much that my stuff's fine, but on the other i feel so so bad for those whose stuff didn't make it. don't know if we'll be able to sleep in our rooms again tonight. don't even wanna think about the cold freezing water in our showers. ugh. so glad i'm leaving for chicago tomorrow.
but on the whole, i am so grateful that we made it through. and thank God we're all fine. sort of.
Friday, January 04, 2008
back at my second home
it's so funny how this little university in this tiny town of upland has become my second home. haha. anw, thank God for safe travelling! although it was quite an experience. seriously, every time i travel, i fall sick. not fun! but managed to sleep quite a lot during the plane ride, so that was unexpectedly good. arrived at the airport in frankfurt, germany to stopover before continuing on to JFK new york..and OMG. it was the most POK airport i've ever seen!! nothing, no shops around for at least a few miles. and the toilet was a total POK metal container. it was shiny and all. sooo bored there for a few hours. at least i had my com and movis to accompany me. :)
my flight from new york to cincinnati was delayed like almost 2hours!!!! which left me 15 whole mins to SPRINT LIKE MAD from one terminal to the other (and take bus also cuz the stupid terminal so far away) to catch my other flight to indianapolis. obviously the plane left without me. and it was a total wake up call cuz i was WIPED OUT after running for 5 mins. so unfit. didn't really panic cuz many other pple missed the plane like me. (note to self: NEVER take stupid delta airlines again! they made me miss my connecting flight TWICE already in my lifetime. no compensation either!)
so they put me on the next flight, which was hours later. so i tried desperately to call pple up to get my roomie's cell phone number cuz we were getting a ride back to taylor from the same person. finally got a hold of her, and everything worked out. we ended up going back to taylor with random pple from taylor we met at the airport who had space in their car for us. haha. thank GOD! :)
slept from midnight last night till 1pm today. still tired. but refuse to sleep till its bedtime. unpacked n all! yayy. settled in. feels kinda like i'm in a hotel cuz it's so FREAKING COLD in my room. it's jan. the peak of winter. and our heater is spoilt, what luck. so slept in thick long sleeves n long pants n thick blanket. and it doesn't help that my nose is still running. ughh. will stuff myself with organic pills in the hope i'll get better before leaving for greece.
my flight from new york to cincinnati was delayed like almost 2hours!!!! which left me 15 whole mins to SPRINT LIKE MAD from one terminal to the other (and take bus also cuz the stupid terminal so far away) to catch my other flight to indianapolis. obviously the plane left without me. and it was a total wake up call cuz i was WIPED OUT after running for 5 mins. so unfit. didn't really panic cuz many other pple missed the plane like me. (note to self: NEVER take stupid delta airlines again! they made me miss my connecting flight TWICE already in my lifetime. no compensation either!)
so they put me on the next flight, which was hours later. so i tried desperately to call pple up to get my roomie's cell phone number cuz we were getting a ride back to taylor from the same person. finally got a hold of her, and everything worked out. we ended up going back to taylor with random pple from taylor we met at the airport who had space in their car for us. haha. thank GOD! :)
slept from midnight last night till 1pm today. still tired. but refuse to sleep till its bedtime. unpacked n all! yayy. settled in. feels kinda like i'm in a hotel cuz it's so FREAKING COLD in my room. it's jan. the peak of winter. and our heater is spoilt, what luck. so slept in thick long sleeves n long pants n thick blanket. and it doesn't help that my nose is still running. ughh. will stuff myself with organic pills in the hope i'll get better before leaving for greece.
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