During spring break I stayed on the island and explored many things. It started last weekend when Jon, Graham, and I walked along the beach looking for a museum. We walked for hours along the beach taking pictures, cracking jokes, and posing in holes. When we finally came to what we thought was the museum we were looking for, we found small, closed buildings that was arguably a museum because of what was inside. It was all locked up so we just continued down the coast until we got tired of walking.
The next day, Jon, Melyssa, Graham, and I wanted to go to the site beach for our architecture project and get our tan on. While trying to find a place to layout, we saw rocks that wrapped around this archaeological site. So we continued on around the rocks until we were basically hopping from boulder to boulder in the water. There were times were we had to get wet to continue around. We did this because we thought there was an area of benches and stuff, but that was false. It got to a point were Jon and I decided to head back and walk around to a beach we knew had some space while Melyssa and Graham continued around. We met them around the other side and tanned for a good thirty minutes. That night we went to an upstairs bar we were told was nice and a little cheaper. It was really nice but when we got there, there were tons and tons of what looked like middle school kids celebrating a birthday and dressing up. We asked the owner of the place how old he kids were and he said about 14 to 15. This was shocking considering they were all walking up to the bar with slips of paper and going back into the crowd with just about any drink they could have wanted. Apparently there is a deal with their school and the bar to split the profits, but what was crazy was how young they all were.
Perhaps the biggest adventure we went on was the hike to the top of Mt. Oros, the tallest mountain with the highest point on the island. Melyssa, Graham, and I started our hike to the top at 9:30 in the morning. We knew where the mountain was and a rough way to get there. After walking over an hour along the coast nearly to another city, we cut off the road and onto paths we believed led to the base. Ever since we left, I could see the mountain in the distance and thought to myself, "This is going to take a looooong time." And of course it did. After taking a path off the main road and following it for almost another hour, we came to its end. We could see the mountain but had to road or path to follow, so we just headed straight for the base. There were other hills and valleys before the mountain so we had to somehow make it through all of these without a road. One could argue that we were lost but we were in fact not lost, because being lost means that we did not know where we were. We knew exactly were we were just not how to get to our destination even though we could see it. This was probably the worst a part of our journey because there was no road, we were trekking through huge boulders and an abundance of thistles and thorns, and we all only wore shorts because we were told it was a one to two hour hike to the top. After 3 hours in the thorns, rocks, and climbing from boulder to boulder, we saw a sign, a sign that was on a road. We were so relieved and knew that we could get to the top from here. Five hours from the time we left in the morning, we made it to the top. The view was so amazing because you could literally see everything on the island except for a few things. We could even see Athens in the distance and were at time above clouds. When we decided to leave we simply followed the road back down that led to another road that went right back into town. Not only did we feel really dumb but it took less time. We argued that the way we took was much better at this point because besides all the scrapes we got, we had a great story to tell. Looking back on it, I am glad we made our own path to the top because it was more adventurous. After that agonizing eight hour walk and hike though every terrain, we treated ourselves to a massive pizza from "Pizza Venus" that was delicious.
After our long day of hiking we had to take an entire day of rest to recover from the day before. But on Friday the three of us and Zach went to find ancient olive trees. We were told they were just off the main road down he coast. While walking down the road and seeing Mt. Oros in the distance, we were constantly reminded of our previous experience This experience was different of course although we did take the same path off the main road as we did before. After taking the path and remembering that the olive trees were just a few minutes on this path, we decided that we did not know where the trees were. So Graham, Zach, and I cut off the path and started mountain climbing up the hill/mountain beside us in hopes of finding the ancient olive trees. Before we made it off the main road, we found a little chihuahua that began to follow us. He followed us up the path and even followed the three of us up the steep rocks to the top of the hill. Melyssa stayed down and watched us go up, although we soon could not see her. Once again I wore shorts thinking that we would only be on roads and we would easily find the olive trees, but of course we did not and instead found ourselves climbing on boulders and swimming through thorns once again. I actually got more scarped up on the hill than I did all day hiking up the mountain. We did eventually make it to the top of this hill and found no olive trees. It was too far to turn back the way we came, so we headed to the road to make our way down. When we got to where the road met the hill, there was a ninety degree drop off a cliff, so we had to turn around and find another way down. At this point, it was beginning to get dark and we had to hurry down so we were not stuck on this hill after dark. We managed to make our way down and found Melyssa. She told us that had we continued on the path off the road, then we would have found the olive trees because she saw them. We were too tired to go back and look and it was almost dark, so we headed home. The walk home seemed so long because there was easily 30 to 40 mile per hour winds blowing in on us the whole way. The wind was crazy. We made it back to town and were once again exhausted after hours of walking.
That was my spring break, a lot of walking and sight-seeing with some homework and sleeping sprinkled in. I took a billion pictures and most of it was very exciting, even some of the dangerous things we did. Next week will be a long one, we will be in Istanbul walking around all week, so I am resting up for that. Even though I stayed on the island, it was a spring break that I will never forget.
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| There's Mt. Oros |
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| after tanning |
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| from Mt. Oros |
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| epic thorns |
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| from Mt. Oros |
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| from the hill/mountain while looking for olive trees |
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| the chihuahua that followed us everywhere |
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