Although I think the videos mostly speak for themselves, I promised the full story so here it is (sorry for the length, brevity is not a gift that I have):
Tara and I left Texas on Monday, May 17th. As we got closer and closer to our departure date, it started looking less and less likely that we would actually make it to Greece when we were supposed to. Our original plan was to arrive in Athens about 3 hours apart on Tuesday afternoon (Tara first, then me), stay for 2 days in Athens, and then take a train to Katerini on Thursday. About a week before, my parents heard about a 24-hour public and private sector strike coming up. On Thursday. Awesome.
So, with all of Greece more or less shutting down on Thursday, my parents went to the train station and bought tickets for us for the last train out on Wednesday night. That way we still get a day and a half in Athens and make it home before the strike. Crisis averted.
If you remember back to April, the volcano with the ridiculous name that erupted in Iceland caused all kinds of trouble for air travel in Europe, particularly in London. I knew that I had a layover at Heathrow, but that was a full month before, so I assumed it wouldn't be a problem. But then it erupted again. The reports coming in that weekend said that many airports in the UK were already closed and the London airports would likely be closing....oh, on Monday or Tuesday. My flight arrived Tuesday morning. Awesome.
Then I went to church on Sunday. I was telling some of my friends after the service about the strikes in Greece and the volcano and how I was concerned I may not make it. Then it came up that I was flying on British Airways. One of my friends tells me "Oh, I know someone else that is flying British Airways through London, but their flight is canceled because of the strike on Tuesday." Another strike. Fantastic.
So I get online and find out that there is, in fact, a British Airways strike beginning the day of my flight, but they only canceled half of the flights and my flight was not one of them. Ok, crisis #2 averted. As long as the ash cloud holds off and Greece doesn't randomly strike on Tuesday I'll be good to go.
So I get on my flight and turns out that the London airport was closed for a few hours but it wasn't too major and everything was up and running again by the time I got there. I made it to Athens right on time (actually about 10 minutes ahead of schedule, surprisingly enough). So I walk out of the baggage claims/customs area and see my mom, but Tara wasn't with her like we planned. Turns out there was some mechanical problem with Tara's flight out of Newark and she was delayed. For 12 hours.
Here we were all worried that I wouldn't make it for the multitude of reasons mentioned above and it was actually Tara that didn't make it. Irony. Love it.
So Tara's delay actually put her at the airport around 2:30am, but the Metro that we needed to take to get to the airport closes at midnight. After figuring out all our options, we decide to take the Metro from our hotel to Syntagma (the parliament building area) before midnight, and then there was a bus to the airport that takes about 70 min. and runs late at night. So we do that, pick up Tara, take the bus back to Syntagma, and then we had to take a taxi back to the hotel (and my mom got to use her new-found hardcore negotiating skills to force the driver to knock 5 euros off his price. it was awesome).
Ok, so we made it back to our hotel at like 4am, and woke up a few hours later so we could spend the day in Athens before our train leaves at 8:30pm. We went to the Acropolis, the Plaka, Monastiraki, all the normal Athens places, and it was great, but we were super tired and very ready for our train ride home. So we get to the train station with all our bags about a half-hour before our train and my mom went inside to find out which platform to wait on since the signs didn't say anything.
Surprise! They decided to move up the strike. Wow. No trains out the rest of the night. For some unknown reason, even though the strike was still happening on Thursday, they decided to have one train to Thessaloniki. Thankfully, we got on it. We had to find a hotel for the night, which was more craziness, but we ended up back at the same hotel we had been at the night before, right across from the train station.
So after lots of ridiculousness, we finally made it back to Katerini on Thursday afternoon. And just to add a little more random into the mix, my dad (who can strike up a conversation with a brick wall) had made friends with some Greek tobacco farmers earlier in the week and wanted to take us out to meet them. We drove out near their village and found then working in the field so we stopped and "helped" them for awhile and then they invited us back to their house for coffee.
It was a great little re-introduction to Greek life and actually helped me remember the few Greek words that I had picked up from my previous trips.
Tara and I are leaving tomorrow evening and taking a bus to Istanbul (we wanted to take the train, but that's a whole other story that involves flooding and a frog plague. Don't worry about it). I will try to blog about that as soon as we get back. But I'm hoping that this trip won't be quite as "eventful".
Until then, you should check out my dad's blog at tracyandmary.wordpress.com. I promise his posts are much shorter than mine. And he has pictures. And some of them are of me ;-)
Monday, May 31, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Episode 3!
I totally forgot to put up Episode 3! I put it on Facebook but forgot to throw it up here, so here you go!
Sunday, May 23, 2010
I'm back!!
I know it's been a full year since I've posted on this blog, but since I am currently back in Greece, I thought I would start back up again for a little while. I know hardly anyone read this blog to start with, but if you added it to your Google Reader (which I highly recommend, by the way) or whatever you use and forgot about it, hopefully you'll enjoy seeing a few posts from me this summer.
This year I am staying for about 6 weeks before I have to go back to College Station to take one session (6 hours) of summer school. My friend, future roommate, and fellow accounting/MIS student, Tara, came with me this year (although she took a different flight) and will leave about a week and a half before I do. I'll post the full story and some more videos later, but here is the first video describing some of the problems we encountered in trying to get to Greece.
This year I am staying for about 6 weeks before I have to go back to College Station to take one session (6 hours) of summer school. My friend, future roommate, and fellow accounting/MIS student, Tara, came with me this year (although she took a different flight) and will leave about a week and a half before I do. I'll post the full story and some more videos later, but here is the first video describing some of the problems we encountered in trying to get to Greece.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Finals Time
Well it's almost the end of the semester and I'm in full-fledged final-studying mode. Or, at least I have lots of time devoted to studying...I'm sure how productive I'm being. Exhibit A: I'm sitting with my tax book in front of me but instead of working problems about the taxation of partnerships, I'm typing this blog entry.
Dead week/finals week can be both my favorite and least favorite time of the semester. Usually during dead week I don't study much. So basically, it's just college without the class. It doesn't get much better than that. This semester, though, my grades going in to my finals aren't quite what I'd like them to be so I've been more proactive with my study schedule. Don't get me wrong, my grades aren't bad. But I'm definitely not going to be getting a 4.0 this semester. I don't always achieve it, but an A is always my goal in each class and I'm always a little disappointed when I don't get it.
I took a Management final yesterday and in order to get an A in the class I needed to get a 97 on the final. Yeah, that didn't happen. I have a final in Accounting Information Systems (sounds fun, doesn't it?) on Monday that shouldn't be too bad but then on Tuesday I have a final in Tax (not TAKS, although 99% of the time that's what people think I'm saying when I talk about my tax class). I really am hoping to get an A in tax because that grade will go into my accounting GPA, which in some ways I care more about than my overall GPA. Without a curve, I need to get a 107 on my final. Yes, that's out of 100 points. I'm just hoping that if I study really hard I can get a high A and he will curve it enough to bump me up. I know it's not likely, but I just can't bring myself to give up and settle for a B.
After finals are over on Tuesday I have 2 and a half weeks to kill before summer school starts up again. I will mostly be going back and forth between College Station and Dallas with maybe a visit to Austin or somewhere else in there. I have 3 office visits in Dallas but have things to do in CS between them so unfortunately I can't just stay up there. I'm looking forward to the break and being able to relax a little bit before going straight back into full-time school. I've never done summer school before (besides an online ACC class in'07 and my "study abroad" last year that mostly consisted of me hanging out with my parents) so this will definitely be a new experience for me. I'm looking forward to it. I think I will be equally as busy but just in a different way. School will be faster paced so I'll need to work to keep up but I also won't have nearly as many evening activities as I do during the school year so I will have plenty of time to just hang out with people and have fun in addition to my school work.
Well I've procrastinated enough and it's time to get back to my date with my tax book...
Dead week/finals week can be both my favorite and least favorite time of the semester. Usually during dead week I don't study much. So basically, it's just college without the class. It doesn't get much better than that. This semester, though, my grades going in to my finals aren't quite what I'd like them to be so I've been more proactive with my study schedule. Don't get me wrong, my grades aren't bad. But I'm definitely not going to be getting a 4.0 this semester. I don't always achieve it, but an A is always my goal in each class and I'm always a little disappointed when I don't get it.
I took a Management final yesterday and in order to get an A in the class I needed to get a 97 on the final. Yeah, that didn't happen. I have a final in Accounting Information Systems (sounds fun, doesn't it?) on Monday that shouldn't be too bad but then on Tuesday I have a final in Tax (not TAKS, although 99% of the time that's what people think I'm saying when I talk about my tax class). I really am hoping to get an A in tax because that grade will go into my accounting GPA, which in some ways I care more about than my overall GPA. Without a curve, I need to get a 107 on my final. Yes, that's out of 100 points. I'm just hoping that if I study really hard I can get a high A and he will curve it enough to bump me up. I know it's not likely, but I just can't bring myself to give up and settle for a B.
After finals are over on Tuesday I have 2 and a half weeks to kill before summer school starts up again. I will mostly be going back and forth between College Station and Dallas with maybe a visit to Austin or somewhere else in there. I have 3 office visits in Dallas but have things to do in CS between them so unfortunately I can't just stay up there. I'm looking forward to the break and being able to relax a little bit before going straight back into full-time school. I've never done summer school before (besides an online ACC class in'07 and my "study abroad" last year that mostly consisted of me hanging out with my parents) so this will definitely be a new experience for me. I'm looking forward to it. I think I will be equally as busy but just in a different way. School will be faster paced so I'll need to work to keep up but I also won't have nearly as many evening activities as I do during the school year so I will have plenty of time to just hang out with people and have fun in addition to my school work.
Well I've procrastinated enough and it's time to get back to my date with my tax book...
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Recruiting
I just finished an incredibly exhausting week but I had a ton of fun.
In my last post I mentioned that I interviewed with 5 different accounting firms for internships this coming fall. I interviewed with the “Big 4” (Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, and KPMG) and a smaller firm called Protiviti. I found out the following week that 3 of these firms (Deloitte, KPMG, and PwC) liked me and wanted to continue recruiting with me.
The PPA program regulates what these firms can and cannot do when they recruit us. This past week was “open week” where all of the firms brought people down and could have as many events as they wanted. Basically the entire week I went from one event to another - all day, everyday. The events were lots of fun but doing all that stuff plus talking to lots of people and trying to impress them and getting to know as many different people as I can and getting to know the personalities of each firm was pretty tiring.
This was my schedule this week:
On Monday, I went to work for a couple hours, had breakfast with Deloitte, played golf with PwC, went to 2 classes, had dinner and played Bingo with KPMG, went to dessert with PwC, and then went to Impact prayer meeting.
On Tuesday, I went to breakfast with PwC, went to 2 classes (w/ quizzes in both), had lunch with KPMG, went bowling with Deloitte and then we had the night off to go to Aggie Muster, which I went to with a couple of my friends.
On Wednesday, I worked for a couple of hours, went to lunch at a restaurant on the lake with Deloitte, went skeet shooting with PwC, went to a baseball tailgate with Deloitte and had dinner at Excell Steakhouse (i.e. one of the nicest restaurants in CS) with a partner from KPMG.
On Thursday, I went to 1 class, went to lunch with PwC, hung out at Research Park with Deloitte, went to another class, went bowling with KPMG, went to a crawfish boil with Deloitte, and then went to another dinner at The Republic (also one of the nicest restaurants in CS) with PwC.
On Friday, I went to breakfast with PwC, lunch with Deloitte, hung out at the Rec with KPMG, then helped set up for Impact retreat and when we found out we didn’t have to stay for the actual retreat, a couple of the Crew girls and I went to a Dave Barnes concert in downtown Bryan.
This coming week is “restricted week” and each firm has 24 hours to do whatever they want, so I just have 2 events with each firm and I won’t have to choose between events.
I have a pretty good idea right now who I want to go with, assuming I get an offer. In May I’ll get to do an office visit with each of the firms and meet more people that I would potentially be working with. If all goes well, I will be doing my internship in the fall and then will get to be back in College Station for 3 more semesters before I graduate.
I can’t even believe that this is really happening. I have friends that are graduating in May and don’t know what they’re going to do because it’s hard to find jobs right now and here I am, not even close to graduating and I have 3 firms wining and dining me – it’s crazy.
As much as I try to ignore it, I really am growing up and it won’t be very long before I have a real job and will be pretty much on my own. Even though I love college, I’m excited to see what this next stage of my life will be like.
In my last post I mentioned that I interviewed with 5 different accounting firms for internships this coming fall. I interviewed with the “Big 4” (Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, and KPMG) and a smaller firm called Protiviti. I found out the following week that 3 of these firms (Deloitte, KPMG, and PwC) liked me and wanted to continue recruiting with me.
The PPA program regulates what these firms can and cannot do when they recruit us. This past week was “open week” where all of the firms brought people down and could have as many events as they wanted. Basically the entire week I went from one event to another - all day, everyday. The events were lots of fun but doing all that stuff plus talking to lots of people and trying to impress them and getting to know as many different people as I can and getting to know the personalities of each firm was pretty tiring.
This was my schedule this week:
On Monday, I went to work for a couple hours, had breakfast with Deloitte, played golf with PwC, went to 2 classes, had dinner and played Bingo with KPMG, went to dessert with PwC, and then went to Impact prayer meeting.
On Tuesday, I went to breakfast with PwC, went to 2 classes (w/ quizzes in both), had lunch with KPMG, went bowling with Deloitte and then we had the night off to go to Aggie Muster, which I went to with a couple of my friends.
On Wednesday, I worked for a couple of hours, went to lunch at a restaurant on the lake with Deloitte, went skeet shooting with PwC, went to a baseball tailgate with Deloitte and had dinner at Excell Steakhouse (i.e. one of the nicest restaurants in CS) with a partner from KPMG.
On Thursday, I went to 1 class, went to lunch with PwC, hung out at Research Park with Deloitte, went to another class, went bowling with KPMG, went to a crawfish boil with Deloitte, and then went to another dinner at The Republic (also one of the nicest restaurants in CS) with PwC.
On Friday, I went to breakfast with PwC, lunch with Deloitte, hung out at the Rec with KPMG, then helped set up for Impact retreat and when we found out we didn’t have to stay for the actual retreat, a couple of the Crew girls and I went to a Dave Barnes concert in downtown Bryan.
This coming week is “restricted week” and each firm has 24 hours to do whatever they want, so I just have 2 events with each firm and I won’t have to choose between events.
I have a pretty good idea right now who I want to go with, assuming I get an offer. In May I’ll get to do an office visit with each of the firms and meet more people that I would potentially be working with. If all goes well, I will be doing my internship in the fall and then will get to be back in College Station for 3 more semesters before I graduate.
I can’t even believe that this is really happening. I have friends that are graduating in May and don’t know what they’re going to do because it’s hard to find jobs right now and here I am, not even close to graduating and I have 3 firms wining and dining me – it’s crazy.
As much as I try to ignore it, I really am growing up and it won’t be very long before I have a real job and will be pretty much on my own. Even though I love college, I’m excited to see what this next stage of my life will be like.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
6 months later...
Well it's been 6 months since I last posted on this blog. This hiatus was somewhat intentional, but nonetheless I thought I'd give a quick update.
Last time I wrote I had just gone to an informational for the PPA program, the 5-year professional accounting program at A&M. Well, turns out I applied for the program, got accepted and am in the middle of the recruiting process for internships now. I had 1 interview this past week with Protiviti (a risk and business consulting firm) and have 4 interviews coming up this week with all of the "Big 4" public accounting firms. If these firms like me, I'll go through a process of recruiting where they will host lots of events and I'll get to meet their people and get a feel for the culture of each company and hopefully end up with an office visit in May. After office visits they will extend job offers. If all goes according to plan I should be spending the fall semester in Dallas working at one of these firms.
What's cool about having an internship this fall is that I will get a small taste of the real world. I'll have a real job working on real clients doing real accounting work (scary but true) but then I will get to go back and be in college again for another year and a half. I love college and am not in a hurry to get out anytime soon so I'm really glad I don't graduate for another 2 years!
Another cool thing is that I'm in Austin right now hanging out with my parents. They are here just for a week, doing a conference over the weekend, so they will be flying back to Greece on Monday. They actually will be coming back semi-permanently (meaning they don't currently have any plans to go back overseas but things are still up in the air) on June 1 so I'm excited about that! They will be temporarily living in Brenham, TX which is only about a 45 minute drive from College Station. It will definitely be an adjustment to go from being 6000 miles away from them to being 50 miles away but I'm still happy that they'll be close by.
If anyone reads this and wants to keep up with me I wouldn't necessarily suggest relying on this blog since I clearly don't update very often. I recently decided to try out Twitter and although I don't really know if I'll stick with it, I can pretty much guarantee that it will get updated more than this. The twitter updates are short and sweet but it should give you a feel for what's going on in my life. To check out my twitter go to http://www.twitter.com/amylmarks
Last time I wrote I had just gone to an informational for the PPA program, the 5-year professional accounting program at A&M. Well, turns out I applied for the program, got accepted and am in the middle of the recruiting process for internships now. I had 1 interview this past week with Protiviti (a risk and business consulting firm) and have 4 interviews coming up this week with all of the "Big 4" public accounting firms. If these firms like me, I'll go through a process of recruiting where they will host lots of events and I'll get to meet their people and get a feel for the culture of each company and hopefully end up with an office visit in May. After office visits they will extend job offers. If all goes according to plan I should be spending the fall semester in Dallas working at one of these firms.
What's cool about having an internship this fall is that I will get a small taste of the real world. I'll have a real job working on real clients doing real accounting work (scary but true) but then I will get to go back and be in college again for another year and a half. I love college and am not in a hurry to get out anytime soon so I'm really glad I don't graduate for another 2 years!
Another cool thing is that I'm in Austin right now hanging out with my parents. They are here just for a week, doing a conference over the weekend, so they will be flying back to Greece on Monday. They actually will be coming back semi-permanently (meaning they don't currently have any plans to go back overseas but things are still up in the air) on June 1 so I'm excited about that! They will be temporarily living in Brenham, TX which is only about a 45 minute drive from College Station. It will definitely be an adjustment to go from being 6000 miles away from them to being 50 miles away but I'm still happy that they'll be close by.
If anyone reads this and wants to keep up with me I wouldn't necessarily suggest relying on this blog since I clearly don't update very often. I recently decided to try out Twitter and although I don't really know if I'll stick with it, I can pretty much guarantee that it will get updated more than this. The twitter updates are short and sweet but it should give you a feel for what's going on in my life. To check out my twitter go to http://www.twitter.com/amylmarks
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