Out and About

Our Sunday started with a Metro ride over to the neighborhoods underneath the Acropolis for church. Both Emma and Jennifer are part of this particular church, which is appealing since we tend to trust their general tastes, but it is also English-friendly to boot! Now, this friendliness does involve wearing a set of big Mickey-Mouse-ears black headphones transmitting a kindly British voice from the congregation's interpreter. It feels a wee bit goofy, but certainly gets the job done. And we do sing in English while everyone sings in beautiful Greek whaa waa waaaaas, but the services have been fulfilling and peaceful to attend.

After the service today, we enjoyed lunch and an afternoon with Jennifer. To say a bit about her, she has honestly been our most comfortable, familiar bit of happiness here in Athens. Always amazingly accomodating and understanding, hilarious and friendly, she is also kind, wise, godly and generally fun to be around. We're big fans. Initially, she started Nea Zoi with Emma six or seven years ago, and only this year is transitioning to a different role of international policy work on behalf of the women. With her visionary personality, this is a perfect position for her, and for Nea Zoi's next stage moving from a local scale with plenty of international issues involved, to the global scale in hopes of affecting the local situations in more countries at once.

We enjoyed homemade Asian food at Jennifer's cute, tiny apartment followed by a hearty hike across Athens to Lykavittos Hill and a climb up to the small white chapel of St. George perched on top. Lykavittos is one of the random dark green hills popping up in the midst of the city's sea of white buildings, with a theater tucked into the woods on its north face. The hike felt like a never-ending stairmaster, but stayed pleasant with the dry air and cool breeze. We were pleased to see the familiar agave plant with its broad dusty green leaves and tall flowering stalks, and as we reached the higher, rockier slopes our pictures became very Big Bend-ish, just with a huge city in the background. Check out the Athens picture album for a photographic spread of the fun! The view from the chapel was wonderful, with all of the detail and color of Athens spread out in every direction. And tomorrow we're planning a hike to one of Athen's highest ridges with the goal of reaching an isolated monastery for a lunch picnic before heading to work through the Monday evening outreach late late tomorrow.