Saturday, July 15, 2006

Currently Listening Stars Are Blind By Paris Hilton gotta love MAD see related

"What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-bye... I don't care if it's a sad good-bye or a bad good-bye, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it.  If you don't, you feel even worse." ~Catcher in the Rye

Its my last day in Athens.

I'm feeling oddly calm right now, but I know that won't last long.  Once Maren leaves, the sadness will set in.

We got up at 5 this morning to take John, Ryan, Laura, and Amber to the airport.  Maren and I decided to ride the metro with them out to Doukisis Plakentias-the last stop before they switch trains to go out to the air port on the suburban railway.  It was sad, but also odd because it felt like we were the ones leaving instead of them.  Maren and I had to go back across to the other side of the tracks to take the metro back to Athens, so we actually left first and waved goodbye to them from the train as they stood on the platform. 

Athens feels like home to me now; so familiar and comfortable, I really feel like I live here.  I know technically we did 'live' here this summer but now I feel like I have lived here in a deeper sense of the word.  I really have left a piece of my heart here, and it's not the part I thought I had lost last year and came looking to find.  I came back here hoping to get over the whole boy situation, and realized that Athens has hold of a completely different part of me. 

Its hard to believe another 5 weeks of my life are over, it has been so amazing-it is hard to even put into words how much this experience has meant to me.  Even though it really sucks right now, I'm glad I have the opportunity this year to take some time to say goodbye to the city.  Last year I was literally rushed out of here and didn't really get a chance to make peace with everything that had happened, which is why I felt such an urgency to come back this year.  The quote from Catcher in the Rye says it perfectly...I need to say goodbye.

Last night was wonderful.  The four of us took a long walk around Athens-we literally made a giant circle.  We started out on Mitropoleous, walked down to Monastiraki and picked up the beginning of Adrianou and walked down along the walls of the Agora, past the Stoa of Attolus and Hephaestion and then turned at Thissiou to walk back around towards the Acropolis.  We went up to the Areopagus (or Areos Pagos as the Greeks call it) and sat for about an hour, taking in the view and making peace with the city-its important to take moments like that, to just sit in silence and absorb all that is and has been.  After we left the Areopagus, we walked back up the Dionysou Areopagitou-the paved pedestrian walkway leading to and around the Acropolis-and finished our giant circle by walking up Amalias past Hadrian's Arch, Olympian Zeus, and the National Gardens to Syntagma Square.  It was the perfect way to end our stay in Athens, we went up to the Areopagus our first weekend so it seems only fitting that we spent our last night there.

Now its time for me to end my stay in Athens.  My plan so far for today:

*Walk Maren to Syntagma and say goodbye before she meets her relatives.

*Come back to the apartment and get some sleep (we only got about 3 hours last night).

*Go up to Syntagma and work on uploading pictures to Snapfish so I can order my prints.

*Hang out with Mike for a bit since he is stuck here too.

*Bazaar to stock up on Amita, Pita Bakes, and Apple Orbit.  And get a yoghurt and Milko for tomorrow's breakfast.

*Starbucks to read, journal, and reflect...and get a Mango frappuccino and piece of cheesecake.

*Watching Under the Tuscan Sun on my laptop before bed.

I have to be up around 5:30 tomorrow morning to catch a taxi in Syntagma at 6:30 to get to the airport by 7:15 to check in for my 9:00 flight.  Then I have a connection in Amsterdam before flying to Cincinatti and connecting to Indy.  Its going to be a long day.  But then I'll be home, and this will be over.

~RLM

The biggest adventure you can take

is to live the life of your dreams.

(and the cool thing is...I am)

GotD: oneiro - dream