Our Greek Life

Hello! Amy here, I guess its my turn to write one of these, this post is brought to you from a cute cafe in the village where Meg and I are enjoying a coffee and our day off.


We have been at the farm for two weeks now and I have acclimated to being either cold, dirty, wet or muddy and usually all of them at the same time; and since the Athens incident the only person or thing I have wanted to kill are some roosters, so I would say we are winning. We had a couple cold wet windy days so when we weren't mucking out and feeding we spent a lot of time in the castle (our room), but when it's nice enough we can be found oustide in front of the castle

We also have some grooming tools that we can take out into the fields and spend some time getting to know the ponies

Or we take walks, the beach is only about a 15 minute walk from the farm and there is a really nice walk up to a church on the top of a hill, we will do a post about those when we have more pictures. Sometime we take ponies on our walks

 Kleo and I on a walk

Do not take horse walking advice from me because apparently, according to proper horse etiquette, I should be in front of Kleo or at least right next to her to show her that I am in charge, but the ponies must think I am weak because they usually in charge on our walks, I'm working on that.

When Amanda has time she has been teaching us about how to work with the ponies. The other afternoon she started by having Meg and I role play as the trainer and the horse, unfortunately for you and lucky for us there is no picture evidence of this. It may or may not have involved us galloping while wearing lead ropes and harnesses, but you'll never know.We are learning how to do ground work and lunging with the ponies, lunging is when you have the horse on a lead rope and you have them walk, trot, and cantor in a circle using voice commands and body language. So Meg and I took turns being the horse so we could see what it felt like and what we thought was effective and to role play what to do in scenarios when the horse doesn't cooperate. It was pretty hilarious but we learned a lot and it was really nice to get comfortable with the commands using each other before having an actually pony on the rope. This is Amanda with Victor the stallion

Being warm is one of my top priorities and the only way to get heat in the castle is from the wood burning stove, so I have become the fire master and spend a lot time like this:

Attempting to start or keep the fire going. We've only smoked ourselves out of the house 2 times so far, so all in all I'd say I'm a pro.  Meg likes to pretend she is a lumberjack and chop the wood but I think she makes Stathis and Dimos nervous because one or both of them happen to appear shortly after she gets the axe in her hand and offer to do it for her. 

one of the 19 cats that also live on the farm

I think I'll close with an "adio" from Julietta, more to come on this girl, she is a joy to be around, always entertaining, and great Greek teacher. love and miss you all!!

Home away from Home.

Where to begin?!

So much to cover since our last post, so sorry if this gets a bit long and is not quite as entertaining. We have been trying to settle in and want to answer a lot of your questions about what life looks like for us here so this is kind of an information dump but  It is looking like we will be able to post about once a week, as we get to come into the village on our day off and that is the only place to get internet!
I'll start with last Thursday. We had been delayed a day due to bad weather, so we were planning on taking the morning and checking out a nearby archeological museum, packing up and moving on. However, after a leisurely morning of statues, coffee, and cheese pie,  we were told that the ferry would not be leaving for maybe two more days, without any real explanation. We called Amanda (the woman who runs the farm) to let her know that we most likely would not be there for a couple days. She then called the captain of the ferry, apparently they are friends, and she called back and told us that in fact the ferry was running today, and we would need to catch a bus to the island. This would be our first, but definitely not last encounter of Greek culture, where nobody really knows what is really going on...

We got a taxi to the bus station, and somehow managed to buy two tickets to Kymi, which is the town that the ferry runs out of. It is another miracle that we actually found what bus we needed when the tickets look like this..

 One 3.5 hour bus ride later, complete with some beautiful scenery, two sobbing greek ladies, and a chainsmoking bus driver, we pulled into Kymi and the ferry port..

The ferry ride was a little under 2 hours long, and we pulled into the port of Skyros island just after dark. Amanda met us at the dock and drove us "home", about 25 minutes away.

We met everyone on the farm, (Amanda and Stathis, who run the farm, and then Dimos and his nine year old daughter Julietta, who also live on the farm. ) ate a quick dinner with everyone and then headed to bed, we had an early morning of "mucking out" ahead of us!

We woke up around 7:30, pulled on our "wellies" and went out to meet Clio (who is from France) and Mathilde (who is from Denmark), they had been volunteering at the farm for about 3 months, and were leaving in a couple of days. They showed us around our morning chores, and then Mathilde spent some time showing us around the farm and some places around it.
Note to self: When somebody suggest going to look at "the cutest little churches that are in walking distance" Make sure you clarify what walking distance means. Literally almost died. Uphill the whole way, with winds that made it hard to put one foot in front of another! Going down the hill on the way back was a whole 'nother challenge, it almost blew you right down!

Our first day was very very windy, mix in some rain and cold temps and I thought Amy was gonna run for hills (with the wind of course because otherwise it would be impossible). I think we both had a moment of "what did we get ourselves into" that first day, but are starting to get settled in and really really loving our time here. The weather has been great since then, it is always windy, but when the sun is out it can be really nice!

Ok so let me backtrack, and tell you a little bit about how our days looks! We start around 7:30 or 8 each morning and begin by mucking out. Mucking out is when we go into each of the fields full of horses and basically pooper scoop all of their poop!

These are our mucking out tools, then we take the full buckets and use a wheelbarrow, or just our brute strength, and dump them into a pit in the back of the farm.

We fill their water, and feed as well. There are a total of 42 horses on the farm, and they are kept in 8 different fields. We go through the whole process three times a day and it takes between an hour or two hours each time. When we aren't scoopin up da poopa, we can either chill out and read, take a walk (or marathon depending on who takes you on the walk), when Amanda has time, she will be teaching us more about training/working with the horses.

We get one day off a week, which we are able to spend at a flat that Amanda and Stathis own in the village. It is kind of a communal flat, always people coming and going. The flat is rented by a guy named Kostas, he works in the military base on the island and is in the flat full time, Dimos and Julieta stay here during the week when she goes to school, and Amanda and Stathis stay here at times as well. The flat is great, it overlooks the beach, and is only about a 20 minute walk, uphill of course,(why do all of these hills always go up?!) into the "downtown" of the village.

When we are at the farm, Amy and I have a little house/room thingy that is attached to the barn. We think it is pretty cozy and it has been nicknamed "The Castle" by previous volunteers and we think it fits :)

We usually eat breakfast on our own, and then have lunch and dinner either on our own or with whoever else is at the farm that day. The food is really good..

Sorry for the total information overload but just wanted to give you a little idea of what everything is like, more adventures to come..!

Mathilde saying goodbye to some of the horses..

  Efestos and Normand saying hello to each other :)

Aunt Trina this picture is for you..We have a ton of chickens, and FOUR roosters who have NO sense of time and cock-a-doodle-doo every five minutes. no joke.

and this little horsey is named Astropi

This is Hara, it means Joy in Greek. Happiest dog on earth, I think it kinda looks like Dani, right mom?

Amanda and Stathis house

Pony Parade to the beach!

We miss everyone and hope you are all doing well! 

Livin' la Greeka Loca.

And so the journey begins..

Apologies for not getting some updates up sooner but things have been a little crazy the past couple days!

Amy and I met in Chicago on Sunday morning. Amy had flown into Chicago on Saturday night and met up with some friends and the plan was for me to take the train in Sunday morning and meet them for brunch. I decided that this time was as good as any to master the Chicago rail system (and by "good as any " I mean carrying 70 lbs of luggage, in 25 degree weather with no coat). I ended up getting a leeetle lost (which seems to be a recurring theme during this trip in my life) and spent an hour wandering about before finally finding the right line and meeting up with the girls. We had a great night with friends before catching our flight on Monday afternoon.

Our flights were great (I may or may not have clapped and yelled a little when we discovered that Pitch Perfect was our in-flight movie, I also took this as a sign from God that this trip was right where I needed to be.)  We had a seven hour flight from Chicago to Brussels, a short layover, and another 4 hours flight into Athens. We had no problems catching the train outside the airport that was to take us to our hostel, but as the ride went on, the train got pretty packed and Amy had some trouble getting off with all of her luggage. 

and by that I mean credit cards.

Amy was tag teamed by a pair of trendy asian girls wearing hipster glasses. Ironically Amy was apologizing to them for getting into their way as they stole her wallet. (Sorry dad, her good manners got in the way of your advice to not trust anyone.. we will be much more rude from now on).

We made our connecting train and arrived into downtown Athens just as the sun had set and it was dark. Perfect conditions for finding a small hostel in unfamiliar territory where nobody speaks your language and the street names look like this. 

After getting off the train, Amy went to make a very expensive phone call home to cancel her cards, while I went to ask a woman in a jewelry store about directions to our hostel.  She informed me in Greeklish (this is what language I refer to when who speak Greek tell you they know english, when in fact they do not.) that the street our hostel was on was just one street over.

Feeling relieved, we began our trek. Four blocks and several shop owners later, we were entirely lost. Things seemed like they couldn't get any worse.. until they did.

I accidentally deleted the email with the hostel information off my phone. Luckily I had emailed it to Amy earlier just in case something like this happened. Until she let me use her phone to ask someone for directions and I deleted that too. 

If I was at all scared about the situation before (ya know, wandering in the dark with all my possessions on my back, in a foreign place) it was nothing compared to having to tell Amy what I had done with our last hope of finding a place to sleep that night...

As we stood on the corner, desolate and alone, we were approached by several Riot police decked out with cans of tear gas and shields. While one was legitimately trying to help and enlisted several of his Riot police friends to find the hostel, the other told us we had pretty eyes and asked if we were brothers (obviously he was fluent in Greeklish). Although they weren't able to give us any directions, we were able to use their phones to look up the address to the hostel, and began our search again. We headed to a Western Union office that had a very helpful and english speaking Indian man (this was our second time in there that night) but now that we actually had an address he was a bit more helpful, and even called the hostel for us to try and get directions. We headed off in the right direction, but missed a crucial turn and ended up on another street of shops, but one really stood out.

The store was full of games, and not just any games. Nerd games. Like Dungeons and Dragons, medieval reinactment, Adult Pokemon kinda stuff. These kind of people generally know lots of things, so naturally they were our next choice for directions.  As I approached the counter, the man assured me he knew English (heard that before) and proceeded to try and help me decipher the map. As I began to take in my surroundings of trading cards, and action figures, I realized that a group of middle-aged greek men were playing the role-playing board games in the back. At this point, I didn't even care if he gave me directions, my night had been made.

Amy and I began to wander once again. After standing on the same corner for several minutes, staring at a map while Amy told me for the bajillionth time that if I didn't make a decision and find out where were were going soon she was gonna kill me (that girl was fading fast), I decided to head back to the train station and try to get our bearings. 

And then there it was. Right in front of our faces. I don't think I have ever been so relieved!

And wouldn't ya know it, the hostel ended up being not even a block away from the station. Right where the nice lady in the jewelry store told us it would be... about 2 hours earlier.

We checked in to our room, it is super basic, but seemed like heaven at the time! We both went to bed, knowing the next day was going to be just as hectic as we needed to catch a bus that would take us to our ferry, that would take us to the island, and we weren't exactly sure how that was going to work out yet.

We woke up to torrential downpour and high winds, both dreading having to have lug our luggage through the rain. We packed up and planned to leave after checking with the front desk guy at the hostel to double check our plans for the bus. He made some calls for us, and it turned out that the bus and ferry were both cancelled due to the weather, and we would not be able to leave until tomorrow.

We checked back into our room, watched a movie, and then decided to head back out into the streets since the rain had stopped. 

It was a blessing in disguise that our ferry had been cancelled, as we were able to see the city in the light and appreciate it a bit more. It was so much less scary in the daylight, and it was good to have another day to just adjust to the time change, and rest up from all of our traveling. We grabbed a coffee and explored for a couple hours, before sitting and having dinner outside at a small restaurant. I am pretty sure the wait staff thought we were crazy when we asked to sit outside, because everyone here is dressed for winter in large coats, hats, mittens and scarves, when it is a balmy 55 degrees!

We are back at the hostel now, and gearing up for our travels tomorrow. We should be heading to the farm, and not quite sure when we will have access to the internet next so unsure of any future posts at this time..

We've learned a lot these first couple days, mostly that we would never survive the amazing race as a team, but also that God's protection and provisions are constant and never failing. 

Thank you for all of your prayers and thoughts!

Now we are going to go watch sisterhood of the traveling pants and get some sleep, but here are some photos from our trip so far!

 That tiny Western Union sign on the bottom left is where our friend works.. saw him again today and waved.. I'm pretty sure he's surprised we are still alive..

Just your friendly neighborhood riot police..

                                                          Comforting sign.. pretty sure we will be avoiding these "zones" from now on..