Welcome to Crete

I feel so truly blessed to be here right now, this place is incredible. And while it is Sunday morning and I'm not at church, it is a very spiritual experience to look out at the sea and mountains and feel a constant breeze in your face. But enough preaching, I don't work at a church anymore. So I arrived yesterday morning and got to my apartment around 7:30 in the morning. My roommate Dave (he's taking the course with me) and I quickly realized we were just off the coast so we dropped off our bags and found our way to the sea. The combination of early morning sun, ocean, and spectacular mountains was a great welcome to the island. We walked up and down the beach for awhile, taking pictures and soaking up the scenery, and figured while we were out we might as well make our way into town. Our place is actually outside of town, maybe a 25 minute walk to the city center. So we zig-zagged our way into town and eventually made it to the old city. And the old city of Hania is incredible. Most of the buildings are from the Venetian era, 500-600 years old. And the "streets" are mostly narrow alleys, clearly built before cars were even a thought. It was such a unique experience to wander through the town with no map, just turning whichever way looked interesting and eventually coming out into the harbor. The harbor is magnificent as well. Remants of Venetian fortifications still stand along with an old lighthouse. After thouroughly exploring the old city, we made our way back to our apartment, stopping for a lunch of tasty Greek pizza and local wine. The walking, eating, and drinking made us pretty tired so in true Greek fashion, we spent the afternoon napping and taking it easy. We awoke to meet two of our classmates that had arrived next door, a young Canadian couple. They offered to cook us dinner and the evening was spent eating and talking. We discussed everything from travelling to politics to crazy work experiences and everything in between. We didn't even make it out but still a wonderfult first evening in Hania. Our program orientation is this evening. We meet the head of the school at 7 and she will take us into town, show us where the school is and go over the program. So until then it looks like I will spend the day on the beach and by the pool (I don't know if I mentioned, our aprtment has a pool as well). So the odyssey has begun in fine fashion. I am excited to begin classes tomorrow and continue exploring the city of Hania and the island of Crete. This is a magical place and the combination of clear blue seas and rocky mountains creates one of the most inspiring settings I have ever seen. I'll eventually post pictures on the blog but for now, check out my facebook page for the first photos. Let the odyssey continue!