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.