It's All Greek to Me! 2016: The Journey Begins.... With Meaghan and Lizzy

June 25th, 4:30am. We said our goodbyes and were on our way. Everything went smoothly on our first flight, which was 4 hours as we flew from Victoria to Toronto. The second flight however, was 9 hours and it was particularly boring because we didn't have TVs but for most of the flight, we slept...if we were lucky. We do feel bad for Matias as his 6'4 body did not fit on the sleeps well enough to sleep. When we arrived in Athens, it was 9 o'clock in the morning, even though we were tired, we actually saw a celebrity which cheered us up a bit. We picked up 3 vans and drove for 4 hours to Kyparissia, stopping on the way to get a bite to eat. When we got to Kyparissia we looked around the hotel and explored the town.

The town was very different than Victoria and we really saw the difference in the culture and the architecture. It was Sunday the first day and that is Family Day in Greece every week, which meant we had the town to ourselves. The weather is also quite different and we ended up being scorching hot after a few hours so the group decided to go take a dip in the beautiful Ionian Sea. For dinner that night we had typical greek food which tasted amazing. The best part is, they kept delivering plates after plates of food! After dining, we went for a walk along the pier and played a game called Electricity. We tried to stay awake to get over jet lag but that didn't really work, I know that we woke up at midnight thinking it was 7:00 am.

The next morning, we woke up and Mr. Doland decided we should do morning callisthenics which not many of us were pleased about doing, yet we made it through. After a good breakfast, we went to a beach just outside of the town were the Loggerhead turtles nest. Kim and Jessica, two of the volunteers at the beach, had a discussion with us about the turtles and their risk of life. We learned that they live for 80-90 years and the beach that we were on (agiannakis), has the most dense population of Loggerhead turtles in the Mediterranean. We also helped out and cleaned the beach, as a reward we had lunch. We drove the van back and played a game of 20 Questions with Mr. Doland. When we arrived at our hotel, we changed into beach clothes and had a great swim and a competitive game of beach volleyball, of course Mr. Doland trumped all of us. I did get a little burnt, not badly though so don't worry Mom!! Right now, we are about to go back to the Loggerheads and have a beach sleepover, dinner and hopefully experience a turtle laying eggs.

So far the trip is going very smoothly and I would say that we are all having a great time.

Cheers,

Meaghan & Lizzy