Gythieo day + Gerolimenas night

So today we met up at 9:30 after breakfast to head to the area called Mani. The breakfast at the hotel had these little cookies sandwhiched together by this weird tasting jelly - those things were so good that I ate like 5 of them. So after that we packed our stuff up and piled onto the bus and left Gythieo to head to Mani. We probably drove for like 1 hour and 30min or 2 hours til we stopped at this little cafe and had class. First some off some people ordered milkshakes or coffee or water. Then Alice gave us an introduction on the people of Mani. She told us that Mani was basically known for its architecture and laments. The people of Mani (Maniots) have a very interesting history. During the Ottoman Empire, the Turks could never conquer this land because the Maniots were very strategic people, so the land was basically up for grabs among the clans and families that occupied the area. Therefore vendettas occurred between the clans/families for control over certain areas of the land. They fought for wealth and power toward a family. Heather then did her presentation which was really interesting - it made me really want to read her reading. After Heather's presentation and our small group discussion, Julie presented her reading on the reign of the Ottoman Empire. The main thing from her reading was again emphasizing this concept of developing the Greek Identity and how in the past three centuries, Greeks have been drifting back and forth between classical/hellenic Greece and the Byzantine Empire.

After the presentation we all just hung out for a while in front of the Aegean Sea. Then we all hopped onto the bus and headed to two Mani villages up in the mountains to notice the architecture of the buildings. It was really cool! Then we started to head toward our hotel in Gerolimenas. Oh my gosh, the bus ride was a nail biter. We felt so close to death because the turns were so sharp and our bus was so freakin huge. But eventually we made it. The town we stayed in seriously had a population of about 30. In fact our group made up 1/3 of the population alone. We were all laughing at this. It was definitely really isolated there. So when we got off the bus we were all starving. We broke into our rooms and put our bathing suits on and headed to the closest taverna/cafe that served food. Sarah, Alex, and I roomed together. So after changing we saw the rest of the class at a cafe where we sat to have lunch/dinner. Right when we sat down, three dogs came running over. In fact no matter where we were in Greece, everytime we went to a cafe there was some animal right below our feet begging us for food. But there was one dog at this restaurant that had a hole in its leg and was hobbling around. This one dog made us all feel sad and sick to our stomachs. Here in Greece there are so many stray animals that there's pretty much no such thing as a veterinary here. No one smiled at all during lunch. Toward the end, we fed them with our left-over food. Everyone was talking about how much they disliked this place. I personally didn't mind it that much. I mean I wouldn't want to stay there fore more than 1 night but I liked how we got to see what it was like there. I just kept telling myself that we're here for the experience. So after lunch some of us went to try to lay out on the "beach." Alex, Sarah and I found a spot along the concrete where we layed out for a while. We actually ended up reading for like 30min to an hour until Lauren came over and we all started talking. We had a really good discussion for a long time. Cassie came and joined us eventually and we talked about how Americans are basically stupid and how we don't deserve all this attention as the powerful nation in the world. Of course mixed with the seriousness there was laughter. We talked for like 2 hours until Sarah, Alex and I went to get ice-cream. After that we basically walked back to the room and I took a shower. Then the three of us stayed up and watched Under the Tuscan Sun in the room - it was pretty good! We were all laughing! Then around 12:00am we all went to bed in our log cabin hotel room. Oh by the way there was a loft in the room and I jumped on that bed like "wo!"