Back in Athens

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Well we are back in Athens. We got here yesterday around dinner time and ate at our hotel. It was so nice to be back here. I really wish we could stay longer than two nights in Athens. It really feels like home because we were here for three weeks at the beginning and this was really where we got acquainted with Greece. We went out to the place, Brettos, that we went to a lot when we were here before, and it was great. I can't believe that it has already been almost three months since we arrived in Greece. And it's done tomorrow. Well the group part is, but Emily and my adventure is just beginning. It started with an adventure this morning... Trying to ship our unneeded luggage home. We got up super early so we would beat the rush on the metro because we were hauling a huge suitcase and a huge cardboard box. So we went to the post office in omonia (a few metro stops away) and they said that we can't ship anything bigger than 2 kilos. Needless to say our suitcase was way more than 2 kilos. Our travel agent said that we could ship 30 kilos, so I'm not sure why they said we couldn't. But they wouldn't let us, so we got on the metro and went to another post office. That one failed as well. So by this time we were incredibly frustrated and upset that we had spent our whole morning trying to figure this out. So we went back to the hotel to try and talk to our travel agent. We ran into David first, which was great. He said that he would take on an extra suitcase so that we wouldn't have to worry about it since we had already tried to ship it and it failed. So that was very generous of him. And then we found someone else from the trip that said they would do the same. So it all worked out in the end. I'll just have to make a trip up to Fargo/Moorhead when I get home to get my stuff from David's house. But that's a ton better than luggage a suitcase all across Europe. But anyways, our last couple days in Istanbul were pretty good. On Thursday we went to the Suleymaniye mosque, well we couldn't go inside because it was closed for renovation, but we saw the outside the the tomb of Suleymaniye. That was pretty cool, but the one of Rumi was a lot nicer. We also went on a cruise on the Bosphorus, which was awesome. We had the whole boat to ourselves and our tour guide, Achmet, was the guide on the boat, and he's great. He knows so much and doesn't share unneeded information about the different things that we are seeing. He is definitely my favorite guide of all of the guides I have had on school trips. We also went to the Spice Bazaar that day too. That was cool. There were so many spices everywhere! Each shop sold so many and there were so many shops. And it wasn't just spices like I thought it would be. There were still many shops that had scarves, tea sets, jewelry, and other things, just like the Grand Bazaar. And yesterday we went to the Grand Bazaar one more time in the morning and then we had to go to the airport in the afternoon. Now we are back in Athens and I'm just trying to get everything ready for Emily and my travels starting tomorrow 😊 I can't believe that the semester is over. It has gone by so fast, but yet so slow because it seems so long ago that I arrived here and was hanging out in Athens. Our travel agent is throwing us a going away party tonight, so that will be nice to have one last hurrah, especially because a lot of people leave at different times tomorrow for their next destination (about half the people are going home and about half are traveling elsewhere). Emily and I get on a train tomorrow and will hopefully be in Rome on Monday 😊

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