Sunset in the Saronic Gulf

I’m not sure why, but it’s customary for bloggers to explain their absence if they don’t write for a while. So here goes…

It was my brithday on October 4th (thanks for all the cards and birthday messages that you guys sent to me) We celebrated it as a team by going for a wonderful Greek meal after church and then for some fantastic ice cream in Psirri because it was so hot (27C). After that a few of us went back to the Clark’s and watched the Snowman and Father Christmas. It was a great day because it combined the best bits of the year – summer, birthday and Christmas.

Because Sunday 4th October was general election day, the schools and university were closed for good reason on Monday. I do not know the good reason, but I hear it was convincingly good. Anyway, as it was even hotter than the Sunday and our Greek lessons hadn’t started and the many Clark/Callow children were not in school, we we had a team outing to the beach. I’d never been to the beach after my birthday and actually felt like I needed to swim because it was so hot. I also got burnt much to the hilarity of unnamed team members. Apart from this, it was a fantastic day out!

Greek and coffee

But it meant I ended up going to my first Greek lesson feeling not only like an international student, but an English tourist who did not understand the concept of skin cancer. Greek lessons are going well. They’re incredibly tiring, but my classmates are a great bunch and our teachers are fun. My job out here is essentially to explain the good news about Jesus, so it’s great that they’re nice and up for drinking frappes after lessons discussing things to do with Jesus.

On Friday Nicky (fellow IFES team member) and I discovered it was going to be 30C on Saturday so decided to tag along with Nicky’s housemate’s trip to Egina. We invited Team America (the American guys and gals who work with Agape here who we’re good mates with) and all enjoyed a super relaxing day out to the Egina – an island in the Saronic Gulf about an hour away by boat from Athens.

We ate the most wonderful seafood feast for €5 in a tiny garden behind a fish market, which was everything you expect Greek island food to be like – and I ordered almost entirely in Greek. Almost everything we asked for came to the table and we had an awesome meal. After then we spent a lot of time doing some serious relaxing on the beach (we were all exhausted from the first week of ministry on campus) before coming back in the evening.

So I hope that’s a satisfactory explanation for why I’ve not had much time to blog… Will write again soon(er).

Egina