Mt.  Olympus
(Nope, Zeus wasn't there!)
6-7-2000

Before we started our hike up Mt. Olympus

Yes, Ok, I was quite proud of myself for being on Mt. Olympus!  I'm not supposed to be climbing mountains.  I'm very, very glad I took the chance and did it!  And lived to tell about it.
After we hiked a good 90 minutes or so, (with out stopping!) and Australian road worker told us that we should go to "The Church and the River"....it was a hike DOWN...maybe 2 or 3 miles away.  We all voted and decided to go for it, since the trail was getting boring.  A hike down meant a major hike back up after we're all tired, but it was a chance we took.
We walked and walked...and walked, and walked!  I remember thinking how steep it was on the way down, which meant the way up was going to be awful!  We hiked for maybe another 90 minutes or so...and found the Church.

The Church was very old, and not in the greatest condition.  We stayed there for a short while, took some pictures and caught our breath.
After the Church, we heard a faint sound, of running water.  It sounded not too far away.  So we hiked a little more.  We came across some rocks, and I'm NO rock climber, but I must admit, it was fun and a tad dangerous!  No one fell thank Zeus, because that would have been messy!  Finally, after climbing down rocks, we got to the waterfall and river.

It was quite a site and one that these pictures just can't capture!  The water was crystal clear, sky blue, and the waterfall was magnificent to see!  It all looked so refreshing, we all just had to dip our feet into it!
Turns out the water was melted snow from the top of Mt. Olympus, so after about 5 seconds, my toes were numb!  Couldn't hack it, I'm a wimp!  I did notice, however, that half of our group decided to brave the ice-water and walk into the river, where there was a large, smooth rock formation in the center.  Well, if they can do it, I can do it.
The water appeared to be knee-deep...however, after several steps, it became waist-deep!  And oh so cold!  I wanted to walk fast to get to my destination, but the rocks I was walking on were very slippery and had I or anyone else fallen, it would have been a disaster....all the way down the mountain.  So we had to walk very, very slow...which is hard with numb feet!
Finally, we made it to the rock.  But that wasn't good enough!  Some of the brave ones, decided to swim in the freezing water.  We were all dunked, I mean totally submerged, into the water by Mike, who held us so we wouldn't slip.  What a great feeling that was, so cold, so refreshing....I highly recommend it! 

Here we all stand, wet and cold, after being dunked!

Walking back, triumphantly, with my numb legs.

After we dried off, we started our hike back.....UP the mountain.  I do believe that every single flying bug in the Mediterranean attacked us that afternoon...I mean we were swarmed by thousands of them.  In our ears, in our noses, in our wounds that some people obtained on the hike....the hike back, was awful!  Between the bugs, the sweat and the steep hike UP the mountain, no one was overly happy.  One thought kept entering my mind the entire way back....'I'm NEVER doing this again'.....well, we did make it back, and Bobbi's was waiting for us with the air-conditioned bus, and some of our group that chickened out earlier.  We were exhausted, starving, yet excited about what we had done.  We were happy to tell the details to Kirk and Tatiana when we got back, and almost everyone went to sleep very early that night.  And I can tell you this, I WOULD do it again.  Definitely, but next time, I'm hiking with people that can let me do it at my own pace...may take longer, but it's worth it!  It was the highlight of the trip.

Thessaloniki is the second largest city in Greece.  It's located in the north of Greece, right on the sea.  I liked it because I just prefer larger cities.  There were many shops and cafes....bars.  We didn't even spend 24  hours there, but the time we did spend was memorable.

A bunch of us went to a bar that night, Murph, me, Sara and Chris.  It was a tiny bar, and we pretty much just took over.
Now, to buy liquor in a store is cheap, to buy liquor in a bar, that's something else.  Most were the same price as American bars...about $6 a drink, (or 2,000 drachma).
That being the case, I couldn't afford many drinks...so, I made my way to the bar, and became friendly with the bartender.

Tassos and Tassos....yeah, those were their names.  Tassos on left was the DJ, and Tassos on the right was the bartender.
I somehow managed to get 13 free shot's from Tassos......

They liked me so much, they let me hop behind the bar and get a picture with them.
Thanks for the drinks!

Now, believe it or not, I did not get drunk that night...but this poor fellow did.  He would enjoy doing the "Infamous Shirt Dance" every bar we went to.

     As we departed Thessaloniki, we had to pose with our diver.  That gray haired fellow was Bobbis...our bus driver.  He was a great bus driver.  He spoke NO English, but that didn't matter.  Every morning he'd load all our luggage onto his bus, and every afternoon, he'd unload.  We'd see him in the towns quite a bit, and we would sometimes buy him a drink.

After ten days of travel, we made it to Pefkohori in Halkidiki.  It's a peninsula, near Mt. Athos, (A Monastery) in the north of Greece.  Our hotel was...ok, but the weather was great, and the water was crystal clear, and very blue.

Yeah that's one of us, just a tad inebriated, face down in the Aegean...don't worry, he lived.

The view from my hotel room...those waves were the result of what they call a storm out there....

Yeah, ok....I don't get to the beach much....most Miami natives don't...so I'm just a tad white.  I actually had to shop for a bathing suit, since I hadn't been to a beach in years.

And just to prove to everyone that I did swim, I have a picture of me all wet from the Aegean Sea....
The seas were dead calm, like a swimming pool.  The waters were cool too, and not too salty.  So I didn't mind swimming in it.

OK, YES, I'm showing off the bod....I dieted for a year to look like this!

My poor roommate was buried.  I felt bad and didn't want him to burn, so I made sure to rub some sun screen on him.

At night, we'd almost always go out to eat around 9 PM....eating is a two hour process there.  The food is dirt cheap, and kind of all looked a like...over cooked meat, sauce....pasta, squid...that's about it.  Afterwards, we'd walk on the beach, or drink on the pier or go to the Bar Formally Known as Action!!!  (Aktion), which is now the Kavo Bar.

Kavo  Bar...someone in this picture was celebrating a birthday!
I also got from free shots here, from the bouncer whose name I just can't remember...I do remember him blowing into my ear most of the night, so I left early.

Our last supper in Greece.

On our last Friday in Greece, we went for a little boat ride....a three hour tour if you will....which ironically ended with a storm.  YES, we had to get off the boat further down the peninsula and take a bus back to our hotel.

 
Our boat, as seen from our Hotel....it was about 8 am as it was coming to the pier.

We set sail to calm seas that morning....we were heading to the other peninsula, where we were to jump off the top of the boat, into the sea...a scary thought, but something we just had to do!

Yeap, there I go!  From the top of the boat, maybe 20 feet for so, not as far as a high-dive, but a pretty intense jump at that.
What made it so hard was, you couldn't jump straight down, or you'd hit the second deck, so you had to jump out a ways...that splash was harsh, and half the Aegean went up my nose!

But as you can see, I survived!

After lunch, we encountered a "storm"....didn't seem like one to me, but our Greek Captain wasn't happy, and our Pier had closed, so we were dropped off here, and took a bus back to our Hotel.
Later on, the waves on the beach were enormous, and that was fun to watch!

THIS IS NOT HOW!

Now see, that's just wrong...
 
 
 
 
 
 

THIS IS ALSO WRONG!

Close, but no cigar there Murph!!!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

NOW, THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE!

Damn right!

After a 27 hour flight, 6 airports and 5 planes, we arrived back in Birmingham....late!  We almost didn't make it home that night and one member of our group was left behind in Atlanta.