From Guest Writer Amanda Gehrke, thanks to her.

-Here's me (Amanda) at the pottery store in Corinth. I was not in the least tempted to buy this mask..

Greetings from the other side of the world!

I am sitting in the dining room of the lovely Hotel Central in Athens while sleepy teenagers pretend to be awake eating. I have little time to write but here we go. Everyone is very tired, especially the track runners who did a hill workout early this morning. Yesterday we went to the ruined city of Mycenae, which was accompanied by a spellbinding view of the mountains and orchards and open skies. The drive was a little over an hour and it was wonderful to see The Bay of Salamis for a good portion of the drive. The skies were partly cloudy, but when the sun comes through it really penetrates and comes down in fountains of golden rays, illuminating select pieces of land and water. Orange trees. There are orange and lemon trees everywhere! It's awesome! Fruits actually grow here! Other things that grow here are dogs. There are dogs that follow us every where, begging for food or for a nice belly-scratch. I think most of the girls are more enamored of the puppies than of the "piles of rocks", as Mr Phillips likes to call them. A lot of us were brave enough to travel down into the depths of a tunnel at Mycenae. The tunnel was pitch dark except for the few of us who brought electronic devices and the steps were muddy and slippery. There was graffiti all over the walls and some of us were trying to see if some of was ancient. "Look, this is from 2009!"-Kegan "I'm pretty sure that's 2009 A.D Kegan"-Sabeek

Next we went to Nafplion, which is a small city compared to Greece, right on the Bay. There were lots of beautiful quaint restaurants and most importantly, A GELATO SHOP. Italian of course with lovely Italian people who say things like "Come in, I give you specialty taste of my homemade Gelato, please please". Of course most of us went in and had fresh whipped creme and great flavors like tiramisu and dark chocolate. Fabulous. I kept my spoon. Don't worry, it was plastic. Next we went to Corinth, but unfortunately the temple to Apollo was closed. Things randomly close at unexpected times; we poor Americanos don't know much, as they like too remind us. In Corinth was a large store full of handmade pottery and very convincing replica's of famous relics from all over Greece We spent a lot of time there and everyone purchased beautiful little "lucky" figurines. So there was our Corinth experience. When we finally returned we had a lovely dinner (most of it Gluten free :D :D) and we worked off our calories hiking up a very long, very steep hill called Lycebatus. At the top was the Church of St Mark and an amazing view; the city looked like it was dipped in gold. I thought the track people should have counted that as their hills workout; they agreed, but alas, Mr. Nikkila did not. Quote of the hike "Oh no, I think my stuff just flew off the edge!!" -Sabeek. Note from the wise: Don't place your belongings on the edge of mountains when the wind is 30+ mph. Sorry Sabeek. In our free time, many of us went to a flea market not far from the hotel. Lots of shops and merchants calling out to you to buy their hand crafted goods. T'was fun. I'm sure we all spent far too much money-well spent, no doubt. In a few minutes we go to The Acropolis and the National Archeological Museum. As I write this I am on the sidewalk with Anders who is holding the computer for me. It is quite a site. We are waiting for the bus which is very late, but the sun is shining and giving everyone joy. I hope all of you are having a good night of sleep as we go romping about Athens.

P.S. Per her request: Katherine is still alive. Others..not so much. ;)