Ok so the rest of the story about Greece. I finally wound up getting certified after 3 days of diving. The final exam was extremely easy. I aced it with a 94%. My last day on Santorini was spent with a dive around the reef at Caldera and then a ride to Nahos. This was a lovely Island the largest of the Cyladese with over 2,000 Islands in Greece they organize them by chains. Nahos is very well populated for an island. That is what I like about the Greek Islands is they feel safe and clean much safer then Athens. Nahos was fun I stayed in Thira near the port and took a bus to Mount Zues and took an extremely long walk-like maybe 10-20 kilometers to the top of the white Marble path but in the end I wound up stopping well below the summit b/c I knew that going off the trail up a marble rock face was a great way to never be found.



So I walked back and sat at road side cafe and waited for an hour and a half for the bus. I just did my reading and ignored the men who kept bugging me. I put my ear plugs in.



Then after a nice bus ride back I sat in an outdoor cafe and ate white chocolate fondu and watched the sunset. It was paradise. I even bought a used paperback from the bookstore.

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Also visited the former Temple of Apollo which now is just the Arch of Apollo.












The next day I went to Mikanos which was lovely. It was overrated though after Santorini and Nahos the island did not seem quite so lovely. I rented an ATV and tore it up on the torn up and muddy roads on my way to the various beaches. It was an absolute blast. I got hit on a lot "you are so beautiful you have such lovely eyes. I can not concetrate." Who falls for that crap? I bought a pair of jeans, 3 pairs of shoes and ate mussels for dinner. While the sunset over the wild ocean and the windmills stood against the pink sky. After that it was chaotic I had the wrong flight home, my ferry was cancelled I had to take a different one and then take the bus into town. That is actually a very good story. I was on the bus and I was asking the conductor who took my two euro to get from Athena port into the inner city which took like an hour and the conductor said in very broken English "I get off at the same stop you do so don't worry be happy." I have noticed that a lot of people who don't speak with English as their first language love that phrase. "Don't worry be happy." I think they just assume it all goes together. Anyway he got off when I did rolled my suitcase into the metro, helped me a buy a ticket, insisted I sit in the only available seat when he stood, he was 61, and proceeded to try and explain how to use the metro. I did not bother telling him I had used the metro in much more complicated places then the three lines used in Greece. That I successfully navigate the tube with over 13 lines daily. That I rode the metro in DC, NY, Paris, France, Barcelona, Spain, Munich, Germany, and Rome, Italy. Or that I had spent the first day in Greece using the metro to get to the same Hostel I was staying at, and had traveled to the Acropolis and Pireas by myself. I was amazed that the man who worked on a night bus who got dozens of lost tourist asking him questions was so willing to help a lost American girl. I know that it sounds odd but people in Europe have been and are incredibly helpful. For a girl who does not speak their langauge and is a visitor in their land-they go out of their way to answer questions, give directions. I flew home from Greece, and rushed home ran into the shower dashed into a dress and almost ran to church. Turns out that this week it was Stake Conference and I had missed church. LAME!!
Then there were classes....Boring
Then I went on a long walk in Hyde Park at Sunset it was lovely. The leaves were crunchy. Since California has no seasons. I missed Fall. I walked past the Princess Di fountain and I though about death. I have always loved cemetaries. In Logan there was one in btwn the dorms and school. I walked amongst the leaves and it was so quiet. I made a point to walk through it on my way to school. To feel the quiet bfr the busy day at school. So peaceful. It always makes me wonder about how we honor our dead. We make quiet plots of land and we leave them in "peace." But death for all its inevitability is a mystery. Our faith we take with us and it shields us from the uncertaintity but it amazes me how rarely people consider that possibility.