What is that White Stuff Everywhere?

Greece...sunshine, blue water, islands...and snow. Lots and lots of snow. On Friday, I set off on a roadtrip with two of my roommates, Kate and Despina, and Despina's brother who is visiting. We planned to go around the northern part of the Peloponnese, where there were supposedly numerous interesting and beautiful villages. Making good time, we arrived in Diakofto around 11:15. There's a rack and pinion train that connects Diakofto and Kalavryta through a gorge. We decided to park our car in Kalavryta and take the train from there, because there was more to do in that area and we'd want our car there. The two towns are only about 40 km apart by road, but you have to go over a mountain. Starting up the mountain, it began to rain. Then the rain turned into big fat drops of wet snow. Then suddenly snow was everywhere. We stopped the car and played in it for a bit, delighted by it. But upon getting back in the car, we realized we were stuck. All around us, people were stopping and putting snowchains on their tires. Of course, we had none. There was no way we could go any further up. And being that the road was a narrow, windy, precarious mountain road, there was also no way we were going down. While trying our car around, we ended up off the road. We sat for a while pondering what to do, and occasionally running quickly away from the car as a coke truck and then other cars preceded to slide dangerously in the direction of our car. As we sat, about a foot of snow accumulated. Eventually Angelo, D's brother, rode down part of the mountain with a man in a truck to get snowchains. But the trouble didn't end there. While trying to get back on the road, the chains end up stuck around the axel instead of the tire and our car ends up in a ditch. Somehow, by a miracle of sheer willpower, Kate, Angelo and I push/lift the car out while Despina steers. Three hours after we headed up the mountain, we ended up back at the bottom of it, freezing cold, soaking wet, filthy dirty and exhausted. It wasn't quite the trip we had in mind, although it was certainly an adventure.

We ended up spending that night in Pyrgos. The next morning we made a trip to Ancient Olympia since we were close. It was a pretty good site, and the day turned out to be surprisingly nice. There are a good amount of ruins, plus the site is very pretty with trees, flowers, and mountains. After that, however, we just cut our losses and drove home. It just wasn't meant to be.

So that was my weekend in a nutshell. Trust me, there is plenty more to it, but if you want to hear it, you'll have to email me. Not quite what I was expecting from Greece, but hey, how many people do you know who can say they've been stuck in a blizzard in Greece?