Saturday, June 18

Today was an awful day. I hate Athens, so I threw up on it. Let me start from the climax.

19:30
An innocent American girl walks in the back of the group heading to shop in a square. With her shades on, she tries to hide her face. Behind the opaque plastic, lie 2 droopy eyes with tears getting ready to rush down. She holds them back. People bustle around her. Her stomach is in knots. She feels her stomach rise through her throat and she stops in the middle of the square. Puke. Before she can make it to a nearby bathroom she pukes right smack dab in the middle of the square in front of everyone. Carly holds her hair. Everyone stares. Embarrassed beyond thought possible, she lets out her tears and is walked over to a bench. She is mortified. Across the square she eyes 2 boys looking at her laughing. The least of her worries. Within seconds, a group of pigeons swarm the fresh puddle of liquid and undigested chicken, and start eating the chicken. EATING IT. It was disgusting. But kind of funny because it was so extremely gross. The girl starts laughing. Her stomach feels a little better.


From the beginning…

9:00
Greek yogurt, as you have learned, is one of Rachel’s favorite foods for breakfast and for dessert. Unfortunately, Greek yogurt will turn on her and cause great grief and pain. (She doesn’t know that at this point, so she digs in.) Around lunchtime her stomach feels a little queasy, but nothing to be worried about (she assumes), so she eats chicken and pita. Yum. After lunch the group was allowed to have a 2 hour break because everyone was so worn out, and Rachel went to her room, threw up, then promptly went to sleep, and continued to sleep until the 2 hours was up.

19:30 happens.

20:30
A man walks up to the girls and asks if they are married and then offers them a cigarette. They ignore him. He persists and the girls leave. He follows them. They find a place to sit away from him. Another man stumbles up to the girls and is speaking to them in Greek asking for money. He is overtly drunk, and the girls yell at him to leave them alone. The man reaches over and touches Rachel on the arm and is about to touch her face when she brushes him off, yells at him, and raises her arm ready to smack him in the face. He stumbles off before she is able to do so. Carly suggests they go to a nearby café so they will be free from creeps. The girl orders apple juice. Within about 15 minutes the girl’s stomach turns upside down again, and she rushes to the bathroom. She throws up all of her apple juice.

21:30
After walking about 20 minutes back toward the hotel with Carolyn, while the rest of the group continued on to dinner, Rachel again has an unmistakable queasy urge to expel what’s left in her stomach all over the ground. She finds the nearest bathroom. There is nothing left. She still has that feeling, but her body cannot find anything left in her stomach to get rid of, so she continues to feel miserable and finds the energy to make it all the way back to the hotel. She makes it up to her room and tries to fall asleep, but her body is so uncomfortable that between crying and cringing she lies awake for an hour.

23:30
B-lining it to the bathroom, Rachel discovers that her body has found more food to get rid of, and boy does it want to get rid of it. 8 minutes later her body is finally done. With the food. She manages to feel a little bit better, drinks some water, and falls asleep.

25:30
Sleep doesn’t last for long. She can’t digest her water and her body doesn’t want it anymore, so it attempts to get rid of it as well. Success. 6 hours and a truly empty stomach later, Rachel finally manages to fall asleep, and stay asleep until the morning.