Feel The Burn

The trail goes up.

Who in their right mind decides, after a 16 hour ferry journey, to get up the next morning and go climb a mountain? This is what was initially running through my mind as I finished getting dressed at 5 AM and headed out of my dorm room. I had casual expectations of what climbing this "mountain" was going to be like, much like FEMA had casual expectations of Katrina's wrath. These expectations yielded disastrous results. To my surprise, the rise to the summit of Hymettos was not all smooth, winding, Bavarian style roads but rather a painful reenactment of Sam and Frodo's journey up Mount Doom. For about an hour and a half, every path we took were those gentle sloping roads so commonly seen on Volkswagen commercials. Eventually though we had to venture on to the far more treacherous and rocky trails. I had climbed Mt. Fuji when I was younger and that was a much tougher endeavor than this one due to the sheer altitude and angle of the mountain, but that is hardly consolation when you're winded like Rocky after the end of a super cheesy montage scene. I wound up trail blazing for the group, doing my best to stay on the relatively clear, marked trails that led up the mountain. I hate taking my time during physical challenges, I always like to finish as quickly as possible and I always enjoy being the first one to do something, like Seabiscuit on crack, but I had to remind myself not to get too far ahead of everyone for fear of them missing the trail. I really wanted to sprint up the mountain as fast as I could and leave everyone searching around like Hansel and Gretel, but I was able to stifle those selfish urges.

Looking out from a fire watch box.

Hymettos would have made Bear Grylls start drinking his urine (not that it takes a lot of encouragement) at the bottom half of the mountain had he been climbing with us, lack of water and extreme temperatures really killed me on the latter half. As you got to one of the first ridge peaks, you were given breathtaking views of the surrounding area, a blast of heat from the rising sun, and the psychological torment of the fact that you weren't even close to the summit. It was the latter two that really drew my focus unfortunately and that made me realize that Bananarama didn't know jack about a "Cruel Summer." My drive to reach the top became primal and really all else was secondary to me reaching the top of this peak! Another ridge. I could still see the summit quite a distance away from me and the adrenaline high that I was on came to an Earheart-esque crashing halt. I didn't know if I was poised for one more run at the top, but I was determined evermore to conquer this damn annoying hill.

The summit pole.

Maybe it was my legs staging a work stoppage, maybe the lack of water or heat, either way it was on that next ridge line that I started to have my own Rocky moment. I started quickly bounding and sprinting towards the summit like in the montage scene of Rocky IV sans "Hearts on Fire" blazing in the background. This turned out to be the wisest decision that I had made all day as the motivation from my Stallone impersonation got me to the top and some of the most remarkable views I've ever seen. Also, before you ask, I did triumphantly raise my arms in the air and yell out "DRAGOOOO" at the top. Hey, I'm a sucker for 80's movie cliches. We spent about 45 minutes at the top once everyone caught up and enjoyed the spoils of our conquest: a full panoramic view of the entire Attica basin. Despite all of the aforementioned complaining, I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to the top of Hymettos, and I'm planning a return trip to the summit.

Champs!

The trip up Hymettos was essentially the only highlight of that day as the exhaustion refrained all of us from any sort of physical activity for the rest of that day. The next day was similar, with most of us still recovering from the climb. The only thing on the agenda for the next day was the Greece vs Germany soccer match. A large group of us wound up going to a really nice installation that didn't reek of cheap European cologne and cigarettes and watched the game. The atmosphere was electric, everyone was hooting and hollering the entire match until Germany started to pull away in the second half. When Greece scored their first goal, the place went nuts like they just found out the government received an anonymous check for 360 billion Euros. Although the score didn't go the way of the locals, it was still an incredibly fun cultural event to witness and you could tell the Greeks just bleed passion for their national team. Next stop for Greek athletic hopes: London 2012.

The summit group.