A Ship on the Sea

Hello from Rhodes!

The pub crawl last night was Ok. We got really cool T-shirts to keep as souvenirs, at least. We also met a pair of really cool Canadian girls who are in Rhodes as part of their two-month tour of Europe. The crawl started at nine, though, and no one in Europe goes out until 12/1230 at the earliest so each place was empty except for our group. We also stayed at each bar too long; they were all really similar to each other so the novelty of being somewhere new wore off quickly. The free drinks you got from each bar were really weak also, and I didn’t want to pay any more. By 1200, we’d only been to four bars and I was tired of it, so went back early. They had little events at each bar that a few people could compete in; Hailey, a girl on our program, won a tequila-drinking contest—first one to finish four shots of tequila wins. Her prize was a free tattoo. I thought the tattoo was a joke because they also gave her a thong for winning, but apparently after I left she actually got one, something on her ankle. I feel like getting a tattoo after four shots of tequila is not going to be the best decision anyone’s ever made. And what a story to tell your grandchildren and make them proud…

Greek class is going really well. I love my professor. He was saying something to me and the Rachel in the class before me about how we have to be careful when we’re out and look out for μπόμπας, bombas, or drinks that are much stronger than you think. “One of these, you will not mean to, but you will be, how you say….like a ship on a sea”.

We also somehow got on the topics of Greek weddings during class and he told me that there comes a part in the Orthodox wedding ceremony where they’re reading Christ’s words about marriages and they say something about how the woman should fear (respect) the man. At that point, there is always a little scuffle between the bride and the groom as the bride tries to stomp on the groom’s foot to show him she’s not afraid of him.

Weather is beautiful and perfect and sunny, like always. I went for a run today around 130, which was not the best time to do so. At first I thought it was easy because it was flat, but the sun is so strong! I struggled, but I got to jump in the water after!

Tomorrow Maria is taking the whole group on a trip around to see other parts of the island. It would take three hours to make a circuit of the entire island, someone was saying, but we are only going about halfway to the town of Lindos, and some other small places as well; it should be fun, and interesting to see the rest of the island!