Γεια σας (yia sas) everyone! It's absolutely beautiful here in Ικαρία (Ikaria). I'm going to do a quick recap of the past few days just to get this thing started.

Saturday, July 1: I leave JFK for Zurich at 6:10pm. A pretty smooth flight. I highly recommend Swiss Air - very reasonable food, decent video game entertainment (solitaire, who wants to be a millionaire, etc), and excellent movie selection (I watched Eight Below - very good). At the end of the flight, we flew over the Alps, which was somewhat amazing.

Sunday, July 2: Caught my connection to Athens. Sat behind this adorable little girl who turned around and tried about 4 different languages to try to talk to me (Portuguese, which I could understand a little but not speak, then Greek, to which I was forced to say "den katalavaino ellinika") and finally settled on French, in which we got along quite well. So clearly she was my hero (for speaking so many languages perfectly) before I even understood what she was saying. We ended up drawing pictures of animals most of the way to Athens. Unfortunately this meant that I still didn't get any sleep.

When we got to Athens (at around 2 p.m. - 30min delayed), I got massively lucky with customs - the line was about an hour long, and I could feel the beginnings of a panic attack that I would miss my ferry (which left at 4 p.m.). However, another line opened up right when I got there and I sprinted to the front. Guy barely looked at my passport and stamped me through. Yay for Greece. Got my suitcase, picked up my ferry ticket from the travel agency, and snagged a taxi to Piraeus (the port of Athens). Typical terrifying European highway driving. Got to and on the ferry with minimal hassle. At this point I hadn't slept in about 30 hours. Sat down on the ferry, had the delirious idea of turning on my cell phone, and lo and behold, full service! Stared at the phone bleary-eyed for several seconds before I made sense of what I was seeing. Bravo Cingular! Called home to let everyone know I was safe, then passed out for a few hours.

When I woke up, it was very foggy. I went up on deck and it was like something out of a dreamscape - islands looming up in the fog all around the boat. I had to keep reminding myself that yes, I was actually in Greece. Went back down below and read my book/dozed for the 10 hour ride.

Monday, July 3: Got to Ikaria at about 3 in the morning. Found Giannis, my taxi driver, and set off for Arethoussa, the village in the mountains where the school is. Although I was exhausted beyond reason, I managed to catch a few views of the lights of the port as we circled up and up into the mountains. The roads are extremely windy, narrow, and steep. Who needs Six Flags when you can just go for a drive around the Greek islands? Got to the school where Mixalis greeted me and showed me into my room. At that point I had been traveling for about 36 hours (43 with time difference), so I didn't take much notice of anything before I just collapsed into bed.