After an adventurous and exhausting 10 hour flight we finally made it to Athens. Unlike all of the Greeks who were anxiously awaiting a cigarette, I was thankful to get off of the plane to be able to walk around and stretch out my legs. Immediately after our landing we grabbed our baggage and hopped on a bus to our first destination-Titania hotel. Once we became familiar with our rooms and completed a nice 2 hour nap, the group met in the dining room of the hotel for a delicious buffet dinner. From the famous Greek salad all the way to unique cheese pie, eating was a bit overwhelming with the variety of choices, but of course we all tried a sample of everything. Once finished with our meal we hit the town to wonder the streets before heading to bed.

A 7:30 am wake up call was not exactly the way we wished to start our next day in Athens, but we had a lot to do and see. Still exhausted from the flight and experiencing a bit of jet lag, we ate a gourmet breakfast before meeting our tour guide, Marisa. Our first stop Marisa took us too was the 2004 Olympic Games Complex. Holding 71,000 spectators, a field made of natural grass, and taking only 10 minutes to evacuate, the stadium gives you goose bumps the minute you walk through its doors. To this day, Greece is the smallest country to host the Olympic Games. After the taking hundreds of pictures in the soccer complex we continued our day through the viewing of the basketball, tennis, and swimming complexes. Getting the opportunity to visit such an awesome place makes me want to be able to be a spectator at the games some day. Later in the night we went to a play 39 Steps. To our surprise, the entire performance was in Greek. Despite not being able to understand a single word of Greek, the actors and actresses were funny and entertaining.

Since our arrival in Athens we have visited the Olympic Complex, watched the changing of the guards, saw 39 Steps, walked through 2 National Archaeological Museums, toured the Acropolis and Parthenon, eaten an abundance of Gyros, watched a Greek Mens soccer match, and attempted to shop through the chaotic streets.

Today we departed from Athens and traveled through the city of Thebes to arrive in Delphi. Both the Men and Women’s soccer teams have our first matches tomorrow, send us some luck! I wish I could share more about our experience and the opportunities we’ve been having, but unfortunately my time at the internet cafe is up. I don’t know when I will be able to update you next but I will try and keep you posted and inform you more about my thoughts and first impressions on the Greek culture.

Of course there is more to J-Term than just class. In my case, it has been diving, as our season winds down toward the Conference meet in four weeks. Only four more weeks of collegiate athletics. That’s a bit unnerving.

It has been a great end to the semester, I must say.  I LOVE this time of year, mainly all of the fun Holiday Celebrations and that everyone is in such a jolly mood.  And that will only continue when I go home next week!!  There is a bittersweet feeling though, as my friends and I were discussing last night at Midnight Express, in that this is our last winter/Christmas at Gustavus.  We did talk about sneaking back for next year’s Midnight Express though since we’re not quite sure we’ve ate our tuition’s worth in free nachos yet.

Well, I should get back to studying and/or typing the 25 combined pages that are due in three short days. Good luck on finals everyone but, more importantly, have a fantastic Holiday!

I had good cause for my travels; Hailey Harren, one of my teammates and a fellow senior, was running in cross-country nationals in Cincinnati and a group of fellow runners banded together for the journey to support her quest. The quest was long and arduous–the route through Illinois and Indiana rivals South Dakota for dullness. There was peril–getting somehow disconnected from the interstate and ending up 20 miles off our route in Freeport, Illinois (home of the Fighting Pretzels) was rather unexpected. But mostly, there was fun (especially hanging out en masse in Kentucky the night before the race and later at the race itself). One quick note on the race: it was a cross-country event that I wish I could have run. Mud was everywhere and I emerged covered nearly from head to toe in the stuff. And though Hailey did not win her race, it was a journey that will never be forgotten (and one that left me behind in my classes and sleep-deprived…but it’s all good).

I’ll be heading home for break, and also will be spending a couple days up north at the grandparent’s house.  I love Thanksgiving, not because of the delicious meal though that is a bonus, but because after Thanksgiving comes Friday.  That’s right, the busiest and best shopping day of the year.  Some may call me crazy, but I shall have a great time as always along with the other two million shoppers.  And of course that means that I can start playing Christmas carols incessantly and decorating my house!  I hope everyone has a great Turkey Day and gets to spend oodles of time with their family and partaking in whatever activity that you are all looking forward to.  Talk to you in December!

So if only in the name of familial peace, I’d rather see Gustavus do well. But it goes beyond that. The St. Olaf swimming and diving team is essentially the same as ours–except they don’t really have fun. Or at least don’t act like it. We wear our hearts on our sleeve and honestly, we are goofballs to some extent. A story to illustrate this. When I was a freshman, our team trooped off to faraway Steven’s Point, WI for a rather important two day invitational. Now that’s a lot of time and well, the men’s squad cooked up a bit of fun for the second day. Before the final session began, en masse we participated in a little synchronized swimming routine that we cooked up the previous night. The crowd loved it. Well, most of the crowd. There was one group that disagreed: the St. Olaf men’s team, who had the temerity to boo.

That’s just not cool. So off I go, leaving y;all with a nifty little acronym that I won’t deign to explain out of concern for the sensibilities of some reading this: BAFO.

Anyway…nothing too exciting is happening in my life besides all that. Oh, and I have a job interview this week — for a “real” job. So that should be interesting if nothing else, wish me luck! Well, as always, I must get back to work. Enjoy the Indian Summer we’re having everyone (70 degrees tomorrow!) and I’ll see you all down at the polls.

As for me, I feel like I’m in a Sisyphian cycle. Whenever I accomplish one thing, another looms in front of me. I took the GRE last Monday and did well enough on it…but now I have to buckle down on the applications for graduate school (which might be worse!). Cross-country’s Conference race was Saturday and, well, I blew up like I always do on that course. I still have one race left in my collegiate career on Friday…but then that’s over for good and THAT really bums me out. This team is like a family to me and once I’m done with it, life will change in a drastic way. But then the spectre of diving will loom large. Technically practice has been going since the beginning of October but it’s been secondary to running. Not for long, I guess.

It’s just a continuous cycle, always going. And going. And going. It’s hard not to feel a sense of ennui.

2.  The completion of my last midterm and the fact that none of them were too disastrous.

3.  Taking the GRE yesterday and doing decently well even though I was a complete wreck the entire four hours.

4.  A beautiful day/Fall in general!

5.  The upcoming Halloween weekend and the last home football game.

6.  A brief lull in my workload.

7.  Life at Gustavus!