Olympia

We headed to the site of Ancient Olympia, where the Ancient Olympic games were held, and Kaitlyn was almost shaking with excitement! (She proudly sported her Messiah track and field t-shirt.) Stella led us through the museum, which included the Nike of Paeonios and the statue of Hermes of Praxiteles, the latter of which in particular is in excellent condition. Obviously there were many beautiful pieces, but those were probably the two highlights. Stella then took us down to the actual site of the ancient Olympic games, and we saw the remains of the large guest house, the temples to both Zeus and Hera, as well as the reservoir built by Herodes Atticus. Just in front of the reservoir, there is a small rock alter which was for Hera originally, but is now the place where the torch for the modern Olympic games is lit, and where the journey starts from. There is a special ceremony, and the first runner is given the torch, once it is lit on the alter, and they run to Athens. (which is a long way, ps). We then went to find the original Olympic stadium! Kaitlyn ran first, the 200m to the end, and the 200m back. Then Amy, Lauren and I all ran down and back, which was awesome. Kaitlyn, Rich and Courtney all had a BCA race, Rich taking the "gold", Kaitlyn "silver" and Courtney "bronze". We had made a laurel wreath for Rich, and had a mock ceremony :) We enjoyed then walking back through the ruins... we unfortunately enjoyed walking so much that we just missed seeing the new prime minister who was very recently elected. Some of the kids from BCA saw him and shook his hand, but we were nerds, and read plaques and missed him :( Oh well.

Then we drove all the way back to Athens... which took a few hours, but I enjoyed listening to my iPod... I had listened to Mahler's 9th symphony the day before, and chose to shuffle the iPod on the way back to Athens. Napping was also a must on the way back :)

Missing you all! I'll give you a brief update about the start of classes soon!