Swimming Again!

I really should not be blogging right now, seeing as it's almost 4 am here in Greece. However, I had such a wonderful day, I wanted to share my fun with you.

This morning, I slept in. By sleeping in, I mean waking up for real at 1:30 pm. 'Twas refreshing.

After Maggie and I finally woke up (the others had woken up way earlier and had already gone hiking by this point), we went to look for goggles (for her) and sandals (for me). We ended up not finding cheap enough goggles for her, but we did find a pair of aqua socks for me. They look gooooood. :)

We ate lunch at a Gyro place right on the harbor and actually ran into some of the others. After we bought some food to go, we headed for a beach close by. It was very private, just like most of the beaches here and definitely relaxing.

We spent about four hours on the beach there, and I definitely got a bit darker today. Again, I definitely used sunscreen. Maggie borrowed snorkeling gear from a nice Brazilian couple from Australia sitting close to us and went exploring in the water.

I spent most of my time on the beach, but this time, I even went swimming again for the first time in a long time. I've mentioned going swimming before, but this time I actually swam instead of just wading in the shallow part of the water.

In fact, I actually jumped off the rocks!

I even tried diving, but since I stopped my swimming lessons when I was young just as we were getting to diving, I had no idea how except for what I've seen on TV during the Olympics. Some guys tried teaching me, and even Maggie (the former lifeguard, she is) tried showing me too, but I just ended up belly-flopping and getting a few (painful) bruises on my stomach.

After a few hours of fun in the sun, we headed back and then had another group dinner. This time at a restaurant just off the water. As we walked, we saw the sun set just beyond the distant mountains on the Peloponnesus. It was quite extraordinary.

Dinner was delicious, and then we had our second group seminar. Interesting discussion about individualism and conformity. We spent the rest of the evening walking along the waterfront with Taso. I always enjoy hanging out with our professor, since he's such a great guy and genuinely cares about his students.

The night was still young though (European time, that is), so Maggie and I headed to a little restaurant with a balcony overlooking the waterfront. Pretty sweet spot, and honestly, more affordable drinks than I had expected.

After that, we ended up moving down to another waterfront bar, where we met some British girls, Olivia and Charlotte, and a French guy, Angel, who was a quarter Vietnamese. We chatted with them, and I even talked politics with Angel in a mix of French and English. Intriguing to say the least.

When they left, we talked randomly with a few young Greek girls. We had been guessing their ages, and I'm glad to say I was right on. They were 16 and were hanging out on the island for a few weeks. So we chatted with them and ended up dancing a bit to some American music I had never heard before in the bar.

All in all, it was one of the most perfect days I could've asked for during my time in Greece. As much as I love to work, it's wonderfully relaxing to have a day to just chill and sit in the sun. Sadly, we leave tomorrow at 3 pm for Athens again, so Maggie and I are planning to spend most of our late morning and early afternoon at the first beach we went to yesterday. Thank God I have aqua socks now...that rocky beach was painful.

It's now 4:15 am, so I really do need to go off to bed. If you ever come to Greece, you absolutely must come to Hydra. It's freaking fantastic.

Talk to you again when I return to Athens,

Sam