HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Hello everyone and Happy New Year!! (and new decade…) I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable holiday! Mine was quite the event! I went to ATHENS to meet up with Juels (a teammate of mine from last year in Germany). As if this wasn’t enough of an event on its own we got to spend NYE together exploring all Athens had to offer.

So excited for the weekend!

Julia found the sickest hostel and honestly I recommend it to anyone who is ever spending either a night or a month in Athens. It was only 20 Euro a night and SUPER clean. It was also practically at the base of the Acropolis and seriously 20 meters from the metro station. It is called Athens Backpackers and run by the friendliest group of Aussies ever. Oh did I mention free breakfast, WiFi and tea/coffee all day long? Yeah, I know awesome. They even have a fully stocked kitchen so if you are on a budget this is the place for you! They also have group tours that they run, but unfortunately they didn’t work out with my flight schedule.

AB website

I got to town a few hours before Julia arrived so I checked us in, met our roomies (Gabriella from Australia and Alec from Brazil). I decided to go over to the Athens museum because the entry fee was only 1 Euro! It is amazing because it is the completely modern building directly over the ancient ruins (which you can see through the glass floor of the museum). I went to the little café that is outside the 2nd floor with an amazing view of the acropolis. Note: you can see these in my picture slideshow.

I also decided I didn’t want to do my hair for new years so I spent the rest of my time waiting for Jules by going to a salon to get my hair done. It was a much needed hair cut and when I lifted my head up…there was Julia in the chair across from me… I might have gotten up mid-blow-dry…in order to sprint over and give her a big hug. My hair dresser thought it was hilarious and as usual EVERYONE couldn’t believe how tall we where.

5 Euro a photo...yes its true

Julia and I walked around the base of the Acropolis and searched for a restaurant for dinner. We sat outside at a wonderful café and had dinner of course with feta cheese hahha. After we were done with dinner we went for gelato. Unfortunately we took a turn down restaurant row (every major touristy city has one). This is the street where the waiters outside attack you with menus and try to convince you to come eat at their over priced restaurant even if you say no like 100 times. However, once Julia said, “no thanks we already ate” they left us along. Good trick for anyone traveling.

After dinner we changed and went down to the Syntagma (city center) where there was a big new years party with live music, tons of people, and a street full of people selling food and all sorts of souvenirs from fake purses to sheep coats to these little toys that are a ball and when you throw them on the ground they go flat and then reshape to a ball. Once again we were constantly attacked with people trying to get us to buy stuff. What in anyone’s right mind makes sense that you jump out in front of someone yelling LADY LADY YOU WANT A LOOKIE…I don’t know about you but I have personal space issues, especially when it comes to people with personal hygiene issues. I am not sure if it was the sugar high from the gelato or just excited that it was NYE and I was with Julia but my hyperness turned into responding to all the people yelling to us to buy stuff…

Vendor: Lady lady you are so beautiful, beautiful purse for a beautiful lady??? 
Me: That purse is fake and cheap… these… these are real, I am nothing like that purse, thank you

Vendor: hey pretty girl where are you from
Me: I come from a land down under
Vendor: you speak English?
Me: No, sorry I don’t speak any English

Sheep Coat Vendors: BLAH BLAH BLAH (really loud) BLAH BLAH BLAH (jumps around on table)
Me: OH MY GOD! I DON’T KNOW WHAT WE ARE YELLING ABOUT… (sounding happy) AHHH YAY!!! (claps hands)



After our adventures down the crazy market street we stopped for a cup of coffee and a chat. A flower guy came up to us trying to get us to buy them when I responded “no thank you we already ate…“ Jules laughed and was like Jackie I don’t think it really works for that situation…I liked it though…As we were having our coffee, we noticed that 1. We were massively tall and 2. Seemed to be the center of everyone’s attention. This didn’t really start to feel more noticeable until nearing the midnight celebration when we stopped in the middle of the square to watch as a crowd gathered around a group of young guys dancing to the music.

NOTE: before we continue… the people I will be talking about here (as well as the vendors before) are NOT Greek and I do not wish to give the Greek people a bad name, these where foreign people…

Anyway,  as we were watching these guys dance Julia kept getting her bum pinched. I turned around and yelled at the group of guys behind us who were scared for a second and then after began to grab at me. Slowly we noticed that the circle around the dancers had shifted their attention to STARE AT US! (keep in mind we were just standing there) and SO the CREEPY NYE begins…It didn’t matter where we were or what we were doing guys continually either tried to talk to us or take pictures with us, and if they were not doing that they were STARING!

Creep 1: hello sexy do you speak English
Me: Was? Ich Sprechen Kien Inglesh (walks away)

Creep 2: You are so nice
Me: No I am not
Creep 2: You are not nice?
Me: Nope I am a mean mean person, you don’t know me don’t talk to me
Creep 2: You are so beautiful, where are you from?
Me: did you not get the fact that you are annoying and I don’t want to talk to you?
Creep 2: Where?
Me: (walks away)

Creep 3: Where are you from
Me: Guess
Creep 3: gjus? Gjuse?
Julia: What do you think?
Creep 3: OH GUESS… England?
Me: No
Creep 3: Germany
Me: nope
Creep 3: Ireland
Me: nope
Creep 3: They don’t speak English anywhere else….
Me: (laughing my ass off…walks away)

Creep 4: Do you speak English
Me: you are going to bother me either way
Creep 4: Where are you from beautiful
Me: China
Creep 4: CHINA? Noo
Me: okay okay you are right…. Japan
Creep 4: You are too tall
Me: I am the tallest Chinamen in the world, and a zebra
Creep:???? (awkward staring)
Me: (walks away)

And you can guess how the rest of the night was… Anytime someone asked to take a picture I asked them for 5 Euro first… but most would try to just stand near or next to us and their friend would take a picture. For these I took Julia’s camera and tried to take a picture of the person taking a picture, which usually resulted in them feeling dumb and running off.

After our eventful night in the square and our fireworks we walked and found a traditional Greek restaurant. Julia said I had to try the Musaka because this is one of their most traditional dishes. It is an interesting type of lasagna with the layers made up of… mushy potato, cheese, meat and sauce, eggplant, meat and sauce, cheese, and then thinly sliced boiled potato. Sounds weird, looks stranger, tastes AMAZING!

Julia had to leave the next morning so we walked around and spent time developing our own wolf pack! There are tons of stray dogs and they all seemed to follow us. It started with Budro (German shepard mix) and then Kurdro (lab, Dalmatian pit mix) then George (something mix) and then Butty (lab mix, called BUTTY caz he had a tag in his butt) the final dog of our pack was No Name (black lab) They followed us all around to the top of this hill to where I shot the 360 view of Athens in my pictures slide show.

After Julia left I spent the rest of the day by hoping on the metro and heading down to the port. It was new years day after all and everything was closed. However the Flying Dolphin was still running trips out to Aegina (click here)so I bought a ticket a went to the island for the day. It was awesome and I met a couple (he was from san diego and she was from Wiesbaden, where I played vb last year in Germany) what a small world. The island was awesome and I wish I would have had more time there but it was cool to go and lucky I found it.

Arriving in the port on the flying dolphin (talk about motion sickness)

My last day in Athens I spent riding the metro getting of at random spots to walk around and see the not as touristy sections. It was super fun and I even went and saw where the Olympics were. It was a great day listening to my ipod and taking photographs. Not to mention all the fabulous food I had. I ate SO much the entire weekend, but everything was so fresh and I honestly didn’t have one thing that was fried!

Outside where the vball matches were

Saw a local swim team practicing... jealous much?

Anyway I hope everyone had an awesome NYE whatever you did… 2010 is going to be great, I can already feel it! Hope you enjoy my pictures I have posted in the right hand link as well as the videos! Miss everyone!

"I Love It When We're Crusin' Together..."

Today was AWWWESOME!! I got up and cleaned our messy house (thanks to our wonderful puppies)...my roomies made crepes and we got ready to head out for an adventure. I just got my car yesterday, it is a Mitsubishi lancer and an AUTOMATIC! Thank goodness, considering driving on the left side is hard enough...

Anyway we jumped into the car turned on the laptop (because the radio doesn't work, LOL) and started to drive. We originally had planned to make the "long" 2 hour drive to the other side of the island near Pafos, which is said to be the birthplace of Aphrodite! We were about halfway when Sloan, my puppy, was getting kind of antsy... I exited the highway and drove down toward the water. We found a little street that lead right to a beach so we went for a walk and collected some seashells and stones. Sloan LOVED playing at the beach and ran around like crazy!

We decided that since it was such a nice day we would talk the long route and drive along the coast rather than the highway...well 2 kilometers down the road we found a temple to Aphrodite and a bunch of old ruins. We got out of the car and paid the 2 euro ticket to enter the park. It was amazing because we were allowed to just wander through it picking up old things and pretty much going were ever we wanted to.

The day was amazing and we stopped fr dinner on the way home at a small resurtante called George's or something. We got the George burger that was SOOOOO good and had a local cheese on it and "bacon" which was a piece of ham! haha

I would tell you all about our adventure today but pictures (which can't even really do the view any justice)... will have to suffice...

"These are are few of my favorite things..."

Yes it is true... I am still in love with Cyprus. I am so blessed to work a job doing something I love, get paid to stay in shape, have some of the best people in the world as my roommates, and two of the sweetest puppies ever in my home. The weather here is amazing (minus when the monsoon last night rolled through) the people are friendly as can be and treat you life family, and the language is beautiful!

There are many things that I love about living here...I LOVE...

That if your car can fit... you can park
If its rains, it is done within 5-10 mins
People drive mopeds
You can buy fruit from the "fruit truck" (drives around like our ice cream truck in the summer)
A "LONG" roadtrip is 2 hours
People treat you like family (My coaches friend is letting me borrow his 1st ever guitar)
Actually, you can get anything from a truck (teddy bears and liquor sold in one truck)
The language is amazing, even though... Δεν μιλω ελληνικα (I dont speak greek)
There is NO map for Cyrpus because you just drive and you will find it! (NO JOKE)
          Don't believe me? Mapquest or GoogleMap Cyrpus... good luck finding streets
They are so used to English speaking tourists that there are signs like... "CAUTION: drive on left side of the road"
The rain literally washes away the pavement... oh and now literally ever sentence because of my roomie and her Aussie BF...
The weather is consistently in the 70's and it is DECEMBER
A time frame for setting up the internet is 20 "WORKING" DAYS, but they show up on the 21st... I thought a maintenance window of 5 hours was annoying...
           Maybe this is because they do not have a MAP so they drive around the island for 20 working  days until they find it? hmmm
There are more soccer stadiums than there are towns here!!! oH and there are more sports betting shops than McDonalds!

Stay tuned for more amazing things about Cyrpus... and I will get photo evidence of some of these things!!  Also, our puppy PhotoShoot is now up on Shutterfly as well as pics from our 1st night hanging out as a team! (well the foreigners anyway...)

Despite the rain things here have been pretty awesome! First things first... we are now living with two wonderful, beautiful, smart... SHIT HEADS!! Yes I am talking about our puppies Izzy and Sloan! Izzy is a white fluffy Akita full of life and energy. She is so curious and runs all over the place and wants to explore. I think she should have been named Dora, for Dora the Explorer, because she is so curious about everything. Sloan (as in DR mc Steamy) is my lovable husky with ice blue eyes! Both are potty trained... for the most part. They love to play and run around the house. They both know "come" and "sit". Stay on the other hand and "no" they refuse to learn! hehe

Other good news... We moved from 7th to 4th in the league!! With only two matches before break we need to win these two to hold our place in the top half of the league. If we can do this, we have a shot to finish 1st! It is an up hill climb but very very possible!

Lets see what else... Oh in keeping tradition with my exploration of other countries, every time we stop at the grocery store I must try a new candy or tasty treat. This started last year in Germany when Erica and I would try all the delicious Berliners and pasta fruities! (PS Erica... I need yer addy in Finland, because I have to send you a present!) Anyway, I tried a few things that I LOVE but last night I got this chocolate bar that looked interesting... I thought at first that it was maybe macadamia nuts or something because of the packaging. I was sooo wrong because at first bite it tasted like chocolate covered grass!! It was AWFUL!! I looked up what it said on the back and it says.. Dark Chocolate with Chios Mastiha...

http://www.allbusiness.com/manufacturing/food-manufacturing/4510557-1.html

For you to read.. fun fact of what the heck we ate... the talk about it as it is some amazing thing.. WOOF... the lie...

Anyway... Pictures are being added from my 1st match playing with the team where I sprained my finger in WARM UPS because they ran a middle attack during shared hitting! For those of you that dont know vball a middle is run right about where the setter from the other team sets... THANKS A LOT JERKS... Good thing I have an "honorary athletic training degree" (Thanks Walker) So I just taped it up and got going.

Well thats all that is new... hope you are all enjoying the weather at home! Haha 1st snow day in UW history and 5,000 student snowball fight!

"All I wanna do is have some fun... I got a feeling I'm not the only one" Sheryl Crow

Last week we went to watch my friend Josh play volleyball. His team is actually the team that my coach Loizos used to set for! It was a really fun environment with a completely packed gym and drums playing! I brought my Nikon D60 to take some pictures. It was my first attempt at taking action shots, but by the 3rd game I was doing much better with it. I am proud of some of the pictures I got. Here are a few of the pictures from the game (Josh is #18). I also have a link to more of my pictures in the picture column on the right of the blog.

It was an interesting ride to the game considering it started to rain and my roomies car is so old and beat up that the windshield wiper flew off of its track and got stuck on the side mirror of the car…

I wasn’t sure if we were going to make it but we did, barley! The game was a ton of fun and the boys fought hard, but unfortunately lost in 4 sets. After the game we went to dinner with my roomies and Josh’s cousin who is visiting from Australia. She was an awesome girl who told us a bit about her journeys backpacking through Europe. We also talked a lot about the difference in how we say certain things and about what it is like to live in different parts of the world. The do NOT say “shrimp on the Barbie” they don’t even say shrimp! They are prawns….BUT they do call the grill a Barbie! They also eat kangaroo! Eww, but I kind of want to try it!

We moved into our apartment the next day which is on the other side of Larnaca and pretty close to the gym.  I would say we are about a 3 minute drive to the gym  which will be nice for practice and games. I still don’t have my car so I have been walking around to get acquainted with my new neighborhood. There is a soccer stadium right in our back yard. It will be interesting to see this quiet and peaceful neighborhood come to life on game day! Our apartment is probably the largest I have been in anywhere I have stayed in Europe/ It has a super nice kitchen and not only a living room but also a dinning room! My room is really nice with a lot of closet space. On the other side of the room there are these two double door that I assumed was another closet and when I opened them I found…. A bathroom!! I got the master suite!

Yesterday was a ton of fun also! I went with the basketball boys to my coach’s house for homemade chili, cornbread, cobbler, and brown Sundays! Kendra (coach’s wife) has to be one of the best cooks ever! I am so glad that we have been invited back again. Loizos took us out for a drive after dinner and we went to some amazing spots along the coast. We saw where we are going to learnt o scuba dive as a well as cliff jump! There were also these amazing caves up in the hills as well as down by the sea in the side of the cliffs! My favorite stop was to see where Loizos purposed to Kendra. It has to be one of the most beautiful parts of the island and he told us he was very confident in his pick for a proposal location because, “she couldn’t say no” hehe. We also drove down to this amazing part down on the water where there is this huge gated off area with giant antennas. It is for a “French radio station”, however that has to be some crazy cover up considering there has never been a French song or even word spoken on any of the radio stations… dun dun duuuuuuuuuuun! Anyway, the sights were absolutely gorgeous but it was getting dark so I didn’t take pictures..but the boys and I have already planned a full weekend trip down that way so I will get a ton then. For sure some videos of the cliff jumping!

After our excursion we came back for desert and some more ESPN! We hung out, talked, shared stories and of course had a tiara dress up party for Loizos’s daughter. She is such a little sweetheart and I was so happy to see her running around and playing since she was in the hospital only a few days ago not feeling well. It was hilarious though because we were watching TV and she was on the couch with me and the boys. She was trying to put a tiara with this little comb on Terrance (he is bald, so as you can immage that wasn‘t too comfortable)…anyway all of a sudden a big AHHH CHUUU… and she sneezes all over him. It was hilarious, but he was a good sport about it.

We got another history lesson about Cyprus…last time it was the forbidden city, this time MAFIA!!! We learned all about the local Mafia and their cover businesses! It was crazy hearing some of the stories! It is amazing because the more I learn about Cyprus (good and bad) the more I want to know. It has such a rich culture and history because it has been over taken by so many countries! Like the story of why there is a giant infestation of CATS! These things are EVERYWHERE… and like HUNDREDS of them! I guess when the queen of England came here back when the Britts had control of the island she brought with her cats. The people liked having them because the would kill of the snakes! So now a days people leave the cats be since they know that the cats will make sure there are no snakes…I mean it makes sense to me! I would rather have cats galore than snakes! EWWW

We started watching the discovery channel which was probably the funniest part of our day considering all of the comments being made.

“Look.. Look look.. That dude is riding a freakin rain dear!!”
“Uhh Ohh that doesn’t look like its going to be good… -Hey if Rodoulph gets it…we have to change the channel”
“ohh ohh yeah itchy booty”
“he can smell what?”
“eeewww what the heck is that thing”

…anyway you get the picture….

On our way home we entered the 1st round-about and GRRRGGGCLUNKCLUNK the car stops! Apparently the radiator hose blew and we were trapped! Not the best place to get stuck late at night in the middle of the roundabout! We figured out that the hose for the radiator blew, so there was not much we could do to fix it. We called Loizos who came to the rescue and helped the boys get the car down the out of the round about and into a safe place…oh and since it never rains here of course it had to start to down pour during all of this. The cops drove up and checked on us and then randomly got in their car and ditched out… thanks a lot guys! NOT… Thank goodness for Loizos and our club president who drove us home to Larnaca!

Today I am just hanging out with the roomies getting all settled in and making a list of stuff we want to get at IKEA to make our house a little less grandma-ish… Josh is convinced that an old woman died here…we named her Dotty, because all of this old stuff was left at the house including a bath robe, panties, and some nasty food in the freezer! However I am wondering what kinda Grannie it was since there is also a giant hooka and dirty magazines that we found in the house as well.. hmmmmm