My Adventure in Greece :: Personal Narrative Place

My Adventure in Greece I topped the hill, and looked back down the narrow, winding street, winded. My grandparents were still straggling up. I told my uncle that we should wait for them, and he agreed, reluctantly. He was used to the steep slopes and uneven sidewalks of the Athenian back streets, and didn't quite realize that visitors found them more than a little challenging -- especially after exploring the Acropolis most of the day. I should have been tired; I'd been climbing all day, since around eight that morning, and we were just finishing the forty-five minute, up-hill-and-down-dale walk back to the American School of Archeology. Despite a nightly average of five hours of sleep over the last week or so, I felt like I could go on forever. There was so much to see and discover -- new things to try, ancient ones to visit -- and only a few more days of this amazing vacation left! My grandparents caught up, and we continued, leap-frog fashion, up the remaining streets to our destination. When we did reach my uncle's room in the American School, I had time to realize that I was more tired than I had wanted to admit. Why was it that I could do so much here, in Greece, when at home I'd be exhausted and begging to rest after finishing just half of the climbing that I was doing every day now? What was the difference? I refused to believe that the food, full of olive oil as it was, could change my stamina this drastically. Nor was it the hot climate. Still, here I was climbing forty-five grade -- and greater -- inclines in ninety degree heat when, under the same conditions in Wilkes-Barre, I would be hiding from high temperatures in the nice, cool basement and avoiding all activity. I thought back to the Acropolis and the view of Athens sprawled at my feet, of the great, symetrical Parthenon, and the graceful Keryatids of the Erectheon. I remembered the tiny temple of Isis on the desert-like island of Delos, and high, windy Ancient Thira on Santorini. Yes, seeing, visitin g, touching those ancient masterpeices was thrilling, but even walking down -- or up -- the dustiest, most winding street in Athens was a treasured experience in itself. But the streets in Athens were paved with asphalt just like the roads in Dallas or Exeter.