Word of the day: Love

Today we had our first bus/metro adventure into Athens...so many amazing and funny things happened and I'm going to try to remember them all. Ok we had to make a bus stop in Markopoulo to switch buses. While we were waiting, Lacey and I were approached by a greek man. He asked in English (which i've learned that many greeks know English) how are you and we just said good, thinking he would keep walking by but he stops and asked where we were from, so of course, I responded in Greek with "apo tin Ameriki" (from america). Funny thing, after I said that, he thought we were like best friends. Turns out he is a 70 yr old drummer in Porto Rafti! He was a sweet little old man...someone just needs to tell him the dangers of smoking.
Okay...on to the metro. I've only been on one metro previous to this adventure but this one was way more exciting. Our group was spread out all down the train thing so lacey and I sat across from each other, both by greecian, unfriendly women. The closer we got to downtown Athens, the busier and crowded it got. At one point, lacey was being laid on by a little greek boy!! I mean, come on people, watch your kids. Lacey could have been a creeper and the parents wouldn't even know!! After many stops, we finally made it to the Syntagma square.

I LOVE Athens. LOVE it. The atmosphere of crowded small streets with shops on each side, tons and tons of Greek people and food and even Starbucks!!! A group of 7 of us were stopped by one greek man. He was really friendly and way funny...he asked each of us our name, where we were from, and then he'd make a comment about that state or show us a business card he had gotten from there. Of course, when I said texas he exclaimed, "OH the lonestar state!!!" See, everyone knows how amazing it is. He gave us all a good luck penny, greek kisses, and he even picked out a dress that he wanted me to get (a little weird) but it was funny. I bought some handmade leather sandals that are extremely comfortable and really cute. This business has been around for three generations!!

We were able to walk around for about 3 hours until we met up with the group to head to church. It was about a 20 minute walk with twists and turns, and we even had a pick-pocketer unzip Bethany's bag but luckily she felt her before the lady had a chance to steal anything. The church is on the 2nd floor of what looks like a pretty scary building. However, inside it was a cute, quaint building with winding stairs (that aren't scary, lacey).

What a great service! The song leader was bulgarian but he knew English as well so he did an amazing job. The cool thing about this church is that it had 4 services on Sunday. First a greek service, then bulgarian, then russian, and finally English. Our group of 47 defintely filled up the church (it was small) which made the singing even better. The best part was communion. They had 5 prayers at the beginning, all in different languages. Dino (kind of the service leader) explained how love is the most important thing to share and give because it is a language that everyone speaks. Then he said "because we all know that God is love." This just took my breath away......earlier that morning, I read this as my verse for the day: "If any of you does not love, he does not know God because God is Love." Talk about one of those "God moments"!!! And then, the prayers started and I couldn't help but get teary eyed. Hearing men pour their hearts out in Farsee, arabian, greek, russian, and English was pretty amazing.

Yesterday we watched a sunset at Sounion (Temple of Poseidon), again breath taking. I'll have pictures to post but they just can't do it justice. I think everyone should experience that at some point in their life!