Well, things have been pretty exciting over that last month and a half. School has been crazy as I am trying to work with a poorly organized 6th grade curriculum, we had a huge grand opening ceremony, and MUN is at full steam. In the mean time my social life has taken several huge leaps forward, and climbing has re-entered my life to add to my consternation over time management.
I enjoyed my first long weekend traveling to Meteora with some students from the university. I have a good friend who is involved in a climbing club/class and when I arrived in Thessaloniki she was bragging that she was climbing all the time and after inviting myself I was climbing as well. The first time was about two weeks ago at a little crag outside of Thessaloniki. Everyone is super nice and I have met a number of people that I keep in touch with on a regular basis.
The pictures from the previous few posts are of Meteora and while one might think it fun to live in one of the cliff to monasteries we must remember that to do this one has to be a Greek Orthodox monk and among many other characteristics this includes being a man (no women allowed) and a strict belief in the Bible. The climbing on the other hand excludes no one and is wonderful, be you a beginner or the hardest of the hard. The rock is a sandstone conglomerate, think Maple Canyon, and was bolted in the days of yore by Germans, the hardest hardest of the hard, this means 10 to 15 meter run-outs are the norm and everything was done ground up and only recently has chalk been allowed in the area (thank goodness). For the most part the rock quality is good, but I was always on my toes (no pun intended) nervous about loose stones that turned a perfectly good climbing shoe into a roller-skate.
The final picture, right at the top, is a picture of my new sippy-cup (see previous post) that my mother sent me recently.
Hope you're all doing well and the weather in the States isn't getting you down too much. It has been sunny and around 20 degrees here for about two weeks now.
love luck and lollipops
ian
1 comment:
Snowing here
Post a Comment