Old

I’m growing up. And that’s scary.

I went to an informational tonight for the Professional Program for Accounting (PPA) here at Mays Business School. The PPA program is a 5-year program where I will get my BBA in Accounting and an MS in some other business degree at the end of my 5th year. Assuming I get into the program I’ll start being recruited for internships this spring. It’s a pretty cool deal. The program has developed a little bit of a prestigious reputation among accounting firms so the “big 4” accounting firms as well as some middle market and industry firms come in and basically pamper you and try to get you to come do an internship at their firm.

I found out a couple things tonight that I didn’t know (or had heard but didn’t know for sure). For one, if I do the track of PPA that I’m currently most interested in (Management Information Systems) I’ll be doing my internship next fall. Yeah, that’s right. Less than a year from now I’ll be employed. At a real job. With real accountants. Doing real accounting stuff. That blows my mind. I feel like I just started college. I’m still a kid. I can’t have a real job yet. Crazy. Also, if I don’t do that track, I’ll be starting graduate classes next fall. If I really want to, I could possibly start them next semester or this summer if I end up taking summer school. What? I shouldn’t even be close to taking grad classes yet! I just started college remember? Dang, I’m old. How did that happen?

As of now my first choice will be to do an internship in Dallas either next fall or next spring (depending on which program track I end up choosing.) Even though it totally blows my mind that I’m even having to think seriously about this right now, I’m really excited about this program and everything that I’ll be doing for the next 2 and a half years. It’s a really cool opportunity and I’m really glad that A&M offers it. But now I’m off to write my resume. Because I hear those are important.

See you Soon

Anyone that knows me knows that the biggest commitment for the last 9 months of my life has been Impact. Last week, 9 months of preparation came together at a 4 day retreat for incoming freshmen at Texas A&M. I have been on Impact staff for the last 2 years and have experienced a lot of ups and downs in the positions I have been in. Both years, however, I have realized coming away from the retreat that everything that we did to prepare whether I thought it was necessary or totally stupid, all of it was worth it when I saw and spent time with my freshmen. I consider both retreats to be some of the best times of my life. Probably my favorite part about Impact, though, is the fact that the relationships don’t stop at the retreat. The entire next semester (more or less) will be spent pouring into the freshmen in our camp and doing everything we can to make sure that they have an incredible beginning to their experience in college.

I spent the evening Thursday night hanging out with my camp and we had a really great time. ALL of my counselors/prayer teamers came (which is incredible considering their collective attendance record in the spring ☺) and a lot of the freshmen made it out too. Although this was our first and currently only official hangout, I’ve been hanging out with my partner and various other Impact people every night this week and have been having the time of my life with them. (On a side note, school starts next week but the week before school in the fall is one of the best weeks of the year because everyone is in town but no one has school so its always lot of fun.) We were all friends and spent some time together in the spring but spending 4 days together doing what we did at Impact really made us feel like family.

Something that I have been able to say a lot this week, which I really love is to tell people is “I’ll see you soon” and know that it’s true. I’ve had to say a lot of “goodbyes” in the last couple of years but I love being back in College Station with everyone and knowing that I can (and usually will) see them again any time. I love knowing that these people that I’ve grown to love will still be there for me when I need them and they’re just a phone call, text, or facebook message away. I really have come to love living in College Station and spending time with the amazing people here and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what this next semester will bring.

Our entire camp just before we got our freshmen on the 1st day of Impact.

Home

For the past 16 months, home has been a very relative term for me. Although I moved around quite a bit when I was little, I would say that I “grew up” in Austin. From the summer before I was in 4th grade until I graduated from high school I lived in Austin and continued going “home” to Austin during my freshmen year of college. When my parents moved away last April after living there for 10 years, I felt like Austin would still always be my home. After spending last summer doing an internship there, I realized that although there are a lot of people in Austin that still care about me, it’s just not quite the same anymore.

My friends there have changed, and more than anything, I’ve changed. The truth is, I’m just not the same person I was when I graduated from high school. I still love the people that I lived my life with for so many years, but that’s just not where I’m at anymore. I’ve moved on and made new friends, found a new church and really developed a new “family.”


It’s always interesting when right around finals time, or before Thanksgiving or Spring Break, people ask me the question “So when are you going home?”

I’m never quite sure how to answer that question. I usually say something along the lines of “Well…I’m not exactly going ‘home,’ but I’m leaving College Station on the 12th.”

All of my A&M friends live in College Station just like me – except if you ask them where home is, they tell you the place where they went to high school, where their parents live, and where they go during the breaks from school. Unfortunately for me, those are three different places.

The truth is, I don’t really know what to call home anymore. I was thinking about this today since I’m leaving tomorrow to go back to America. It’s so strange to be leaving the country where my parents are, to go back “home.” Austin was my home for so long, but its not really anymore. Greece is where my parents live, and where I’ve spent the last 10 weeks, but it certainly doesn’t feel like home. College Station is where I live, where my friends are and where I spend the majority of my time – but can I really call it my home?

Luckily, by the grace of God, I live 9 months out of the year in a place that I love – where I have friends that care for me, ministries that I’m involved in, an incredible church family, and where I go to the best school in the world. I will be flying into Dallas late on Tuesday night, staying the night with my aunt and then driving back to College Station on Wednesday. Even though Tuesday will be extremely sad saying goodbye to my parents, knowing that I won’t see them for at least 5 more months if not longer; I am so excited to get back to the place that I feel like is truly my home – at least for now.

Paris

Last night my mom and I returned from our 4-day trip to Paris. It was a lot of fun but we were both exhausted. We walked all over the place and by the time we got to our hotel at the end of each day, neither of us wanted to even stand longer than the time it took to brush our teeth and get into bed.

On Wednesday morning (actually a better description would Tuesday night – it was that early) we left Thessaloniki for our connecting flight to Prague. Our flight left at 5:00, which meant that we had to leave the apartment at 3:00. My mom got a couple hours sleep, but I was taking care of some stuff back in Texas and was on the phone so I ended up not sleeping at all – bad choice. When we got to Paris, we checked into our hotel and then met my cousin Mark who is studying for the summer in the law school at the Sorbonne University there. Mark took us up to the Sacré-Cœur, which is at the highest point in the city and took in the view. After eating lunch, we headed down to Notre Dame and then walked around near the Pantheon. My mom and I were exhausted so we headed back to the hotel for a nap before exploring the area in search of dinner. We looked at several French restaurants but couldn’t understand a single thing on the menu – so we settled on pizza.

(The Sacré-Cœur)

On Thursday we set out on our on to all the classic tourist spots. We started out on the Champs-Élysées and headed towards the Arc de Triomphe, which is massive and has some very intricate designs. I found during this trip that I am far more impressed with size than actual artistic design. I was more impressed with the artwork in the Louvre that took up the entire wall and had incredible detail in every little part than I was with say, the Mona Lisa.

(my mom at Starbucks on the Champs-Élysées)

(the Arc de Triomphe)

From there we walked to the Eiffel Tower. Once again I was incredibly impressed with it’s size. I guess I knew it was big but for some reason, I didn’t know it was that big. We spent a good amount of time looking around but didn’t go up into the tower.

(the Eiffel Tower...obviously)

After soaking in all that we wanted of the Eiffel Tower, we headed over to the Louvre. To be honest, we seriously contemplated just looking around and not actually going in, because neither one of us really cares much for or appreciates fine art. We eventually decided to go inside to look around and like the previous two sites we had been to, I was shocked at how big it was. We spent an hour or two in the museum and only went in one of the three major wings. The most famous artworks that we saw were the Venus de Milo, and of course, the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa looks pretty much exactly like it does in the pictures. It’s not a huge painting and you can only get within about 10 feet of it. Maybe if you looked really closely it would be more impressive, I don’t know.

(Venus de Milo)

(the Mona Lisa)

(the pyramid in front of the Louvre)

We made a quick trip back to our hotel before setting out again to see the Eiffel Tower when they turn the lights on at night. I have a good friend that strongly suggested it so we decided to check it out. Every hour on the hour starting at 10 pm that turn on the 20,000 flashing lights for about 10 minutes and the whole tower sparkles. It was a very cool sight. After leaving that area, we took an hour-long boat tour on the Seine to see some of the areas we hadn’t seen yet.

On Friday we headed off to none other than Disneyland. They have two parks in Paris: the main Disneyland Park, and Disney Studios. We got a pass for both and had a lot of fun. Disney Studios was very small but had some good rides including the Tower of Terror and Aerosmith’s Rockin’ Roller Coaster (both of which I have ridden at Disneyworld in Florida). We also saw a short High School Musical show which was cute but, well, very Disneyland.

(the main entrance to Disneyland Studios)

(the High School Musical show)

The main park was quite a bit bigger but is nothing compared to Disneyworld. This park also had some familiar rides and was set up similar to the Magic Kingdom, except with Sleeping Beauty’s castle as the centerpiece instead of Cinderella’s castle. We had a lot of fun but once again, we were completely exhausted by the end of the day.

(the main entrance to Disneyland Park)

(Sleeping Beauty's castle)

On Saturday, we only had until 5 pm before we had to head to the airport so instead of wearing ourselves out again, we decided to take a bus tour. It was really nice to see some of the same places we had already seen plus a few more, without having to walk anywhere! It was also very nice to have some commentary about each site, because up until this point we had only seen the places and didn’t really know much about them.

We had a lot of fun in Paris, but I know I was ready to come back to Greece. I only have one more day here before I have to head back to Texas. I am excited about going back but I know it will be very difficult to say goodbye to my parents again. I will definitely make one more post tomorrow before I leave.

Volunteers

Over the past week we've had a few friends from America come to do some volunteer work around the city. And by a few I mean 120 of them. They were from several different churches but almost half of them were from Nashville, Tennessee. They weren't Texans, but it was nice to see some people from the South. Almost my entire study abroad group is from the Midwest and I've been realizing how many cultural differences there are, even within our own country!

The group was split up into teams and they each did a job in the morning, had some free time in the afternoon, and did another job in the evening. I wasn't able to help out in the mornings because I had class, although on Wednesday I was out early so I met my mom in the park where she was helping with the kids from the refugee center. My mom took this picture of me and a sweet little boy named Adi. He has 2 brothers and a sister and they are all adorable.



Also, on Fridays I don't have class so I went out to the Roma Gypsy camp with my dad. The gypsys (gypsies?) in this particular camp live in a very run-down "neighborhood"-type area. In some of the other camps they are just squatters that live on the land until they get kicked out and have only makeshift shacks, if anything at all. Most of them have at least some money but they choose to live in this very different culture. The children are very dirty and don't usually have very many clothes. To put it bluntly, they are very wild. The boys are especially mean to the little girls. It is a great experience to show unconditional love to a group of kids that probably aren't shown a great deal of love on a day to day basis -- at least not the way the we generally show it.

Here are a few pictures of the Americans with the gypsy kids and also a picture of one of the homes near the "field" that we were playing on.







In other news, my mom and I just booked a trip for next week and we're going to PARIS. We are leaving really early on the 23rd (which also happens to be my birthday) and coming back here on the 26th. After that I will only be here for a few more days and my plane leaves on the 29th to come back to Texas. I can't believe my time here is almost over!

New Friend

I've been home alone this entire week while my parents were at a conference outside of Athens. I would have been able to go with them, but I started school on Monday (more on that later). Another couple that was with them just moved here from Russia and doesn't know anyone else so they asked me to dog-sit for the week. She stayed in the apartment with me and I let her out to do her business a couple times a day and made sure she had food and water. Not too tough of a gig, and it was nice to have some company.

The dog is a Shiba Inu named Katya but I think a better name for her would be Zoolander. Why? She doesn't turn left. She's not an ambi-turner. She runs in circles all the time, but only turns right. It's like a NASCAR race, but backwards. It's pretty amusing really, and I watched her for a long time to see if she would turn left. Mostly if she needed to go left so would turn to the right and turn all the way around until she was facing the direction she needed. When we went outside she would run in circles on the end of her leash. But only turning right.

How Old Am I???

I have recently discovered that I do not look my age. I started noticing it last summer when I was visiting Greece for two weeks in July. We would be in a conversation with someone (although I use the word conversation loosely because many didn't speak English) and they would ask how old I was. I would answer 18, or 19 since I had my birthday while I was there, and the person would look shocked and somehow communicate that they thought I was 15 or 16. I didn't think too much of it because many of these conversations were with gypsies and in their culture, as a 19 year-old I should already be married and have a toddler running around.

Ever since I left College Station about 5 weeks ago, I've heard a lot of people guess (in one way or another) that I am younger than I am. When I was in Dallas a couple days before I flew out, I had 3 people in one day ask me if I was in high school. Actually, I'm a junior in college thank you very much! Now that I'm in Greece I've made a game out of having people guess my age. Whenever we are having a conversation with someone I have never met before, I usually ask them to try to guess my age. I've gotten anywhere from 14 to 18. And when someone guesses 18, I want to kiss them.

My mom constantly reminds me that looking young in a good thing. After all, she has had the same "problem" her entire life. Actually, on my parents' honeymoon someone asked my dad if she was his daughter -- now that's bad! I know that when I'm older I will be ecstatic if people think I'm 5 years younger than my age but as a 19-year-0ld (that will be 20 next month), someone thinking that I'm 14 is not the greatest compliment I've ever received.

What boggles my mind is that during the other 9 months of the year I NEVER get that. I'm thinking that a lot of it has to do with the fact that I live in College Station where literally half the population of the city is in college, so if someone if going to guess my age, their best guess would be that I'm in college. But that's just a theory.

Edit: I had orientation for my study abroad program this weekend. In order to warn the guys to be careful who they hit on, one of the presenters commented that Greek women look much older than they really are. So maybe I really do look like I'm 20, but Greek women look like they are 20 when they are 14. That's the story I'm sticking with...

Cruisin'

On Monday night, my mom and I returned from a 3-day cruise. The cruises here are not nearly as luxurious as the American cruises but we still had a nice time. We had 5 different stops on our cruise including 4 Greek islands and one stop in Turkey, only staying at each location for about 4-5 hours. We took (or I should say I took) lots of pictures so I'll try to narrow it down to just a few. Here is a picture of my mom and my aunt looking very stylish in their life jackets.


Our first stop was on the island of Mykonos. This island was probably the most similar to what nearly everyone thinks of when they think of Greece. It had the white buildings with the blue roofs and even some old windmills and was a very touristy area. I'd like to note that very little of Greece actually looks like this, but it was nice to visit. We mostly just walked around, looked in a few shops and headed back to the boat.



After our first stop we sailed through the night and first thing in the morning (way too early) we got off the boat in Kuşadası, Turkey. The cruise ship offered excursions at each stop but this is the only one that we took. We took a small bus out to the ruins of ancient Ephesus. For those that appreciate ancient ruins (like my aunt) it was extremely fascinating. I thought it was pretty cool that I was walking on the same streets that Paul and so many others walked on, and some of the buildings were pretty cool looking (like the Library of Celsus) but beyond that I'm not quite as impressed at archaeological sites.

We also walked around and went into several shops in Kuşadası, including a Turkish carpet store/jewelry store where we learned all about the different types of Turkish carpets and the jeweler hit on my mom, hoping she would buy something. We didn't give in and make a purchase, but we did notice that the Turkish men are very charming. One guy even came up to us and said (in his Turkish accent) "Hello Ladies! Were you looking for me? It is me, the Turkish Delight man!" We heard this and other such sales tactics our entire stay in Turkey.



Our third stop was on the island of Patmos, which is the island that John was exiled to and the location where he wrote the book of Revelation. The main attraction on Patmos is the Monastery of St. John which sits on the top of a hill/mountain above the town and the Cave of the Apocalypse about halfway up. All in all, this stop was fairly boring, but it was pretty cool to be able to say that I've been in the cave where John was living when he wrote Revelation. Technically you weren't supposed to take pictures in the cave but I bent the rules slightly.



Our fourth stop was on the island of Crete. Once again, this was a pretty boring stop. There wasn't too much to see, although we tried to go to an aquarium but it was too far away and we didn't think we would have enough time. Instead, we walked to the center of Iraklion and explored a little bit. It was a Sunday morning so nearly all the shops were closed and there were not very many people out. Here is a picture of my mom and my aunt and also one of me gettin' friendly with some old dudes.



Our fifth and final stop was on the island of Santorini. Like Mykonos, Santorini is what you might call "postcard" Greece. It is what everyone thinks of when they think of beautiful Greece with the great views and blue and white houses. Like the other stops, our time here was short so we mostly walked around the town of Fira, checked out some of the shops and just hung out. One of my favorite parts was the very first thing that we did. Santorini was formed when a volcano erupted and a lot of the island sunk so the edge of the island where the boats come in is 260 meters down a cliff below the actual town. Your choices to get up to the town include walking up a winding, cobbled street, taking a cable car (like a gondola), or riding DONKEYS. That is probably the best 5 euros I spent the whole trip. The donkeys were a lot of fun and let me just say that they are not very modest about relieving themselves.







Our ship arrived back to the Port in Piraeus (Athens) early on Monday morning. My aunt was planning to stay in Athens for several days to see everything in that area of Greece. We took a taxi to her hotel and got her checked in and then walked over to the Acropolis, which was only about a 5 minute walk away. I had been up to Mars Hill (Areopagus), which is right next to the Acropolis, twice but I had never been to the top. After looking around on top of the Acropolis, my mom and I took the Metro (Athens' subway system) to the train station and took a train back to Thessaloniki.




I have one more week before I start my class so I hope to be able to do some more fun things before I get to start my actually work (although I'm hoping it won't be too much work.) There are several nice beaches around that are anywhere from 20 min. to 1 hour+ away. I've been able to spend a couple days at the beach with my parents already and we will probably go one more time this week. The water here is very clear so even when it gets deep you can easily see clear to the bottom. Also, it is very salty so you float very easily. Sometimes I'll swim as hard as I can straight down and I only get a few feet before I start floating back up. Here is a picture of my parents in Halkidiki earlier this week.

Headin' Out

I've had a pretty relaxing week this week hanging out with my parents and my aunt. We even made it out to the beach one day. It was a very windy day and my dad and I got to fly a couple kites that he bought from Ebay. My mom, my aunt (my mom's sister), and I are leaving in about 5 minutes to take an all night train to Athens and we leave from Athens tomorrow morning for a 3-day cruise around some of the Greek islands. I'm really excited and will have to write all about it when I get back as well as post some pictures.

I'll leave you with this picture of a game of Scrabble that my mom and I recently played at my parents' favorite Starbucks. OK, so we didn't actually play but we had fun writing Greek words (yes, those are real Greek words). Also, the top word is my Greek name and the word in the top right corner is my mom's Greek name.

Update

Well compared to my last post I don't think anything can match the excitement that we had last week but we have had a lot going on. The car wreck put a bit of a damper on our plans and we were all still pretty sore so we decided to take it easy once we got back to Thessaloniki. On our three days that we had left with my Dad's sister, we took a quick trip out to the beach at Chalkidiki, spent a day at Mt. Olympus (and in a beautiful village nearby), and went down to the city center to show my aunt and my cousin around a little bit. Tuesday night we had the English class that my parents facilitate for the refugees in the city. That class is quickly becoming my favorite part about my time here and I know it is one of my parents' favorite things as well. The guys are very sweet and very eager to learn.

On Wednesday afternoon at almost exactly the same time, my Dad's sister and her daughter left by train and my Mom's sister arrived at the airport. She will be staying for about a month so I am looking forward to spending some time with her and may even get to take a few side trips with her (we're thinking a Greek island cruise or a trip to Santorini next week!) We haven't done anything big with her yet but since she is staying for a longer time we are able to take it easy and relax a little bit.

Tonight, a young woman from the English class name Kamela, her 18-month old son Ali, and a young man name Ali that helps us translate into Farsi came over for dinner. Kamela cooked us a delicious Afghani meal that included beef, chicken, a salad, and rice with carrots and raisins, although I have no idea what the dishes were called. My dad took a few pictures that I will try to post as soon as I get them from him.

As you can probably tell, I'm rather proud of my black eye. If I had other injuries from the wreck I probably would not be nearly as happy about it but since I have practically no pain associated with it, I see it more as an interesting conversation starter. I've decided that I could make up some pretty interesting stories about it if I wanted to, especially since my mom has now developed a black eye of her own.

I'm posting a picture of my new, improved black eye, although the pictures never quite seem to do it justice. I can tell it's healing because it now has that pretty (and by pretty I mean disgusting) yellowish tint around the outside of it. If nothing else, my eye is certainly colorful!

If you prefer a prettier picture, here is a picture of my mom and I on our visit to Delphi (pre-wreck) near the temple to Apollo with a beautiful view behind us.

More excitement than we bargained for

On Thursday morning we took a 4 ½ hour train ride to Athens and arrived around noon. After getting settled and grabbing something to eat, we took the Metro (subway) down to the refugee center to see how they run things in Athens. I sat in on the Greek language class that they had and it was interesting, but most of it was way over my head. My mom pointed out that it’s hard to learn past tense verb conjugation when you haven’t learned present tense yet. My observation is that it’s hard to learn Greek in a class taught in Farsi. Late Thursday night my dad went to pick up my aunt and my cousin when their ferry came in from Santorini.

On Friday morning my mom, aunt, cousin and I all took a taxi tour out to Delphi for the day. We were picked up in a fancy Mercedes taxi and had a nice driver name Fotis that took us out there. We saw the archeological site and museum of the temple to Apollo, ate lunch at a taverna in Delphi and saw the temple to Athena and some other ruins. After we left around 5:00 we stopped for some ice cream and then again at a pretty village called Lavadia to take some pictures.

Not long after we left Lavadia we were driving down a small highway going, by my approximation, about 50 mph when a car coming in from a side road pulled out in front of us and we slammed into them. We ended up in a wheat field on the left side of the road and the other car was about 50 yards past us. The front end and right side of our car was really messed up and the other car was worse. It took 20 minutes or so to get the people out of the other car. We just sat on the side of the road waiting for an ambulance for at least 30 minutes and one never came. Finally, a family member of the other car drove up and all four of us got into his backseat (because my aunt and my mom each refused to leave their daughters’ sides) and he drove really fast and almost recklessly (even though we asked him to slow down) back to Lavadia. We went to a public hospital in the village and my cousin, who was hurt the worst started to get checked out. They were very rude and the hospital was small and didn’t seem very clean. I wouldn’t even drink out of the water fountain in that hospital. In addition, the people in the other car, who were hurt worse than us, were brought in so we were mostly ignored. We told them we wanted to leave to go to a private hospital in Athens but first we had to go to the police station to give our statements. They were even worse at the police station and the cops were yelling things in Greek and slamming folders on the desk and generally not caring about us. Finally around 9:00 (3 hours later) we were able to get into a taxi to go back to Athens, which was a 2 hour drive away. We finally got to the hospital in Athens and had a much better experience there. We were all checked out fairly quickly and my mom and I were just looked at by 2 doctors and they didn’t do any tests so they didn’t even charge us.

I ended up with a good sized bump on my head, which has now developed into a black eye and some minor scrapes and my mom had a bump on the side of her head that was bleeding at first and a huge bump on her left leg just below her knee. My aunt had some glass in her back and hurt both of her knees, although she was in the front seat with the airbag so she was the only one that didn’t have a head injury. My cousin was hurt the worst and has injuries all over the right side of her body. She has several scrapes/burns on the right side of her face, has pain in her jaw and has cuts, scrapes and bruises on her right arm and leg. The car hit more on the right side, which is where my aunt and cousin were sitting and both of their windows shattered. My mom was sitting in the middle back and I was sitting on the left, behind the driver. Our driver didn’t seem to be hurt at the time but from talking to him since the accident it sounds like he may have broken his finger. All of us woke up yesterday pretty much sore all over but we were able to walk around and see Athens a little bit and took a train back to Thessaloniki last night.

I was able to take a quick picture of the car, although I didn’t want to get too close since the people in the other car were hurt pretty badly. In this picture you can see our taxi on the side of the car that wasn’t hit, the other car with people working to get them out of it, and the massive traffic jam that we caused.


Also, here is a picture of my black eye! It's been consistently getting worse so we'll see if it looks even worse in the morning.

First Days in the City

I arrived in Thessaloniki on Sunday afternoon and even though I had some long layovers, they were all planned and all of my planes were on time (actually I landed about 30 minutes early both in New York and in Athens). Just as soon as I got to my parents’ apartment, we left to go down to the city center for a soccer (football) match between an American volunteer team that is currently working in Thessaloniki and a group of mostly Afghani refugees that my parents teach English to every week. I got to meet a lot of people all at once and it was a nice change from the previous 18 hours that I had spent where I didn’t speak more than 3 words to anybody (basically since I had left New York).

The next three days were spent at the American homeschool in the morning and helping the volunteer team in the evening. On Wednesday evening I got the opportunity to meet with 2 different girls that the volunteers had met while doing cultural surveys the previous nights. The volunteer girls brought me along because even though they were leaving in just a few days, I will be here all summer to potentially follow up with them. Both meetings were great conversations with the first one (with a girl named Electra) being about an hour and a half and the second (with a girl named Ava) being almost two and a half hours. It was an interesting switch from what I’m used to. Usually I go on trips and where I meet people, share the gospel with them, and then leave and go back to my normal life, just hoping that someone will come along that can follow up with them. In church lingo we usually call this “planting a seed.” This time, I got to actually say, “Hey can I get your cell phone number? I’d like to call you and maybe we can get some coffee or you can come to church with me sometime.” I now have the opportunity and even the responsibility to follow up with both of these girls and I will probably have the chance to continue to invest in and minister to them. It’s amazing how I’ve only been here about 3 days and God is already doing some cool things here.

Here are two pictures that I have taken of Thessaloniki so far

Down by the water near the White Tower:
and a view of some of the buildings in Navarinou square:

More to come soon!

The Start of Something New (to quote HSM)

I’ve been thinking about starting a blog for awhile now. I read other people’s blogs and think “that’s so cool, I should do that sometime.” But then again, my life doesn’t exactly scream excitement on a day-to-day basis. This summer I am spending 10 weeks in Greece taking a business class, spending time with my parents, and learning more about the culture here. I don’t know what all is in store for me yet, but I will be having plenty of adventures so I figured that if I’m going to start, there may not be a better time.

I’ve noticed that everyone either starts their blog with a strong commitment to write on a regular basis (usually followed with 3 or 4 posts and a long period of nothingness) or they start by saying that they probably won’t write very consistently, but they’ll try. I will start by saying that I really don’t know what this blog will turn into. I may write all summer and use it to communicate with my friends at home and to look back and remember this trip once I’m back in the states, or I may be too caught up in this awesome adventure that I have in front of me. Either of those options sound like a good plan to me.