The final countdown...

Ten days until Jason comes to visit and I am so excited. This portion of the trip has been filled with exhausting days, but much adventure. We celebrated our first day here with Shelley's birthday and spent it at boring Gla. But the day picked up when we stopped at the beach in Mitrou after we visited the island excavation. It was a fun time of swimming and collecting shells on the sandy beach. Some of my classmates even swam around the small island! The next day the first thing we did in the morning was hike up this ridiculous mountain known as the acropolis at Orchomenos. It was intense, but once we got to the top I couldn't believe we had climbed so far! I placed a picture on the side that will make you nervous, Mom! :) The weather has been scorching hot and even though it was early in the morning, I sweated more than ever before in all my life. It ended up being a long day of several sites but one of the coolest places we went to was a little town known as Livadia. In the center of the city was a water mill and the water from the mill traversed different areas of the town. It was a nice stop and we used part of our lunch break to stand around in the cool stream. Josh gave his site report on the area and did a good job. We also traveled to a monastary and visited a war memorial. A long day, but capped off the evening with a delicious gyro dinner and a game night of taboo!

We visited the site of Delphi today, which is one of my all time favorites. The sanctuary is so amazingly beautiful that it is no wonder that the ancients considered this a sacred place. In the morning as we were walking around the site, there was an eerie sound of the wind blowing through the trees which was extremely neat. Our first stop at the sanctuary was the stadium where we were supposed to hold our final athletic race, but the area was sadly roped off and without access. The guards closed off the area in case there was an earthquake and falling rocks. It was extremely disappointing. :( We stopped at several buildings along the way and some of my classmates, including Chris, gave their site reports. One of the exciting parts of this site was when Chris found this opening near the base of the temple and we crawled in and walked under the foundations of the Temple of Apollo. It was super neat! I have it all on video!

All in all it's been a great trip up North so far and this evening a few of us are going to hike up a hill to a cave sanctuary. It should be fun! We will have a nice dinner at the next town over and tomorrow we'll make a short stop at Thermopylae (so all you 300 fans, get excited!).

Having a great time, but missing you all. I love you, family! See you soon, Jason! <3