Today was wonderful! The small community in Greece (about thirty people) holds all of their community events at the lending library, a one room building with benches outside at the bottom of the mountain. We were invited to an Easter lunch/auction which was only about a three minute walk from our hostel because the town is so small. We walked down a dirt path and through some forest to get there. Everyone that lives there is either retired or over 50 years old so we were the youngest people there but they welcomed us graciously and the offered us food for free from the buffet and bar. There was a raffle to win all sorts of prizes that every family brought in, mostly wine and liquor (unfortunately I didn’t win anything). All of the money that the library makes goes to feeding the stray cats around the town. It’s such a sweet, genuine community who live in a simple, more primitive way of life without electricity or unnecessary desirables. Afterall, why would you need television if you live by a river in the mountains ten minutes away from the beach? After the lunch, we started our hike to the waterfall. It was unbelievable beautiful and and I walked for a couple hours barefoot through the river and up huge, heavy boulders that led straight up to the top of the mountain. We got to many clear, fresh springs and swam in them although it was icy cold. After about three hours, we arrived at the top of the mountain and admired the awesome view of the entire city and ocean. We took a dirt trail back down to the hostel and I got back, completely worn out and starving.
After planning our travel arrangements for the last couple of days, we walked to the beach arguing about where we wanted to go for dinner. I realized that the hungrier a person gets, the more stubborn they get as well so as we walked down the road quarrelling about our dinner plans for about forty five minutes, then everyone eventually gave into their bellies and we ended up at the same restaurant as the night before. I ordered the vegetarian plate and of course, our table got saganaki followed by free Raqi shots at the end of the meal. The drinks were nauseating but it’s rude to decline so I drank it anyway. When we got back to the hostel, all the people I met at the hostel sat around and we played cards and drank together long into the night. I had a great time and ended up meeting a girl from San Fransisco that’s going to the same music festival as me this summer called Outside Lands! One of the boys I met is 20 and from Boston and went to Ohio State for college, and another girl is 26 years old and just got back from Tanzania where she taught English for a year. I would love to do something like that after colloge and I talked to her for a long time about her experience and I also told her about my journey in Rwanda.
I love meeting interesting , curious people that have a drive for knowledge and a passion for growing and learning more and more about the world. I’m excited to meet these types of people at Madison next year! Traveling makes me so open to new cultures and exposes me to so many different types of people. Frenchy moved homes every couple of months when he was young and now travels alone all over the world selling his jewelry. I was wondering to myself, is it a bad thing that he’s so used to meeting friends and people and then leaving and most likely never seeing any of them again? I know it’s life to move on and start anew, but there’s something very nice and comforting about having a specific community and home to call yours. His home changes every couple of months! One reason I love being Jewish is because the Jewish community surpasses any types of borders so that wherever I am in the world, I will find that community that makes me feel at home and closer to my family.
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