Petracek Photography

  January 16th-22nd I began the second week of classes with a sunset hike that’s right down the street from my school. My roommate, Nina, and I talked to a new friend about the path and decided to spend our Monday afternoon headed up there. We were skeptical on our way up that we were choosing the right paths, but ultimately every decision we made led us right where we needed to be up top. We were ahead of sunset and got to see the entire urban area of Athens, just on a mountain right next to our school. It was one of the most captivating moments I’ve experienced.  On our way down, three dogs found us and followed us the rest of the way down. We thought they belonged to another man hiking on the trail, until they started following us into the city. I just kept thinking, ‘at what point does our moral obligation step in?’ When we saw one almost get hit by a car while chasing a stray cat we decided to take them back to the trail and call the name on their collars. Of course every...

January 6-15th, 2023 I’ve never experienced anything like the feeling of flying into Greece. The older man sitting next to me probably thought it was insane that this girl sitting in the window seat had her jaw dropped and was wiping her tears just at the site of the coast. In my head, I just kept repeating GRiZ’s Know Time Like The Present lyric, “When you came into this world so did the world come out of you, you exist so everything can.”  I can’t believe that I exist so that landscapes like the Greek mountains and Mediterranean sea can. I can’t possibly fathom the idea that I was born to experience these things.  After a two-hour delay on the runway, I slept through most of my flight over the ocean. That was my first time flying over a body of water larger than the Gulf of Mexico and it was a daunting thought! I’m glad I did an overnight trip because I was able to get into Athens during the day and see everything. However, as this was my first drastic change in time zones;...