No Regrets

“You do not know what you have until it is gone.”  

We take so many things for granted and it is hard to understand this until your comfort is taken away.  Some of you are probably wondering where I’m going with this… two words, grocery shopping.  We were fortunate enough that the college stocked our fridge with enough food to make it through the first couple of days in Athens.  Let me back track by saying that the dorms we are in are really nice.  They were built for the Olympians to stay in as they were competing in the 2004 Olympic games.  I have four of the best roommates I could have ever asked for, Brianna Sigman, Corey Burke, Maddie Miles and Hannah Davis.  The rooms come equipped with various pots and pans, a stove and oven, microwave, Panini maker, sink, dishes, silverware, beds, sheets, shower, toilet, Wi-Fi, a beautiful marble balcony and a view that I could get lost in for hours.  Anyways, to get back on track, the five of us girls (and Chase), went to explore the local markets that surrounded our dorms.  We decided on going to the “ The Discount Bazaar” due to the fact that it was located conveniently across the street from an ATM.  Once inside, it looked like your average grocery store with the fresh fruit and veggies on the right hand side and a couple small aisles stocked with random foods. 

My Groceries

It was not until we actually started to shop that we realized we were way out of comfort zone.  The simplest task such as picking out laundry detergent became harder than solving chemical equations.   Luckily after staring at the wall of product for what seemed like ten minutes, we came across the familiar brand Tide, and decided that would be our best option.  I picked up a couple of other familiar looking items such as pasta, apples, powdered sauce (which would later prove to be a disaster as I could not understand the directions on how to mix the spaghetti powder with the correct amount of water), olive oil for the dorm to share, a coke, some jelly, and what I thought were cookies but ended up being a less salty version of a saltine cracker.  I failed to find items, other than the pasta, that I could truly make a meal out of and will hopefully get the opportunity to buy more things tonight when we go out. 

I had experienced a mentally straining time so naturally it was time for a physically straining one, right?  Late last night we received an email from Mr. Dr. Kaplan asking if any of us wanted to watch the sunrise from a mountaintop near by.  He mentioned that the group last year had attempted to get to the top and challenged us to make it all the way up this year.  Many of us agreed to join him despite the report time of 5:30 am, not knowing what we were about to get ourselves into.  At first it started off easy, a pretty steep climb up a winding road.  After about a mile or so of a calves-burning hike, things took an adventurous route to say the least.  We went off-roading, scrambling over loose rocks at an even steeper incline.  The whole group started breathing heavier, a result from both the work out of the whole excursion and the thinning air of the atmosphere.  

Our victory shot

We would get excited thinking that we had reached the summit of the mountain only to be challenged by yet another peak, even higher than the previous.  I began wondering if we were ever going to reach the top. Then after two and a half hours of continuously straining and the steepest incline I had ever experienced, we finally had reached the top!  It was so rewarding and liberating knowing we had accomplished something so massive.  We could see the entire city of Athens from the summit it was unbelievable.  After yet another photo-shoot (seems to be a reoccurring theme), we had to face the treacherous down hill journey.  I wont bore you with more details about the rocks and a battle scars, but my toes are still sore (12 hours later).  We found ourselves back at the dorm and showered before 9:30.  

The Group

So just to recap, that a solid 5.5 miles, 14430 steps, mountain top view of Athens, summer solstice, photo-shoot, and hot shower all before 9:30.  If you know anything about me, you’d know that I am the farthest thing from a morning person as one can be so saying that we accomplished that much so early is rare, but awesome.

After a quick nap and the unfortunate occurrence of our power being shut off, I got bored of sitting around the dorm with no Wi-Fi.  So, as if the morning did not consist of enough walking, three of us decided to take a walk around the city to see what there was around our dorm in terms of entertainment, food, and bakery type items.  Little did we know that the streets surrounding us were fashioned into a sort of New York style neighborhoods, with huge apartment buildings and hardly anything else.  However, we decided to keep walking, and walking, and walking, until we finally found ourselves in what seemed to be down town Athens and completely and utterly lost.  Again, if you know me you’d know that I have no sense of direction or distance and neither did the other two girls I was with. 

Us after we got back
Maddie, Lauren, Me

So basically, the three of us walked around in an unknown area, wondering aimlessly to wherever our hearts desired; it was a recipe for disaster.  It was just a matter of time before we would realize that we had no idea where we were.  We decided it would be in our best interest to walk back in towards the neighborhood, as that is where we had originally started.  We attempted to ask random people walking on the streets to point us in some kind of direction to the college but had no luck because of the language barrier between the locals and us.  I don’t know if it was pure luck or a miracle by the big man Himself, but we found our way back to the gate! It was so so wonderful and the three of us took a sigh of relief and this victory picture.

It’s hard to tell where the day will take me but as of now, I have no regrets.  As frustrating, tiring, straining and all around miserable something may seem in that exact moment, I would not trade the memory for the world because it is in those moments that we learn what we are capable of and can surprise ourselves with our unknown and untouched abilities.