Corinthians, castles, operas, Gone With the Wind, & Greece Wins the European Championship

*warning* This is going to be a long one.
And before I begin, for all of you that heard about someone dying in collapsed ruins on Santorini, we were not there.
Ok, Thursday. We went to Corinth and Monemvasia. It was really awesome seeing Corinth. I always think of it in Biblical times, but seeing it made me realize that the culture back then was all about the ancient Greek gods and stuff. The main street that I have a picture of, is the street that the people of Corinth brought Paul through to bring him before the Roman proconsul. The proconsul told them they should have taken him to the court of justice, so pretty much he told them Paul was innocent leaving him free to start the Corinthian chuch. Our tour guide explained that in Corinth, there were a ton of temple prostitutes, b/c it was a port city, and the prostitutes would go through town with arrows on the bottom of their shoes so the sailors could follow the arrows to find them. Apparently, the prostitutes always had their hair done up all nicely so that's why Paul said that decent Christian women should keep their heads covered - so they wouldn't be mistaken for prostitutes. He always explained about their banking system. They've had traveller's cheques since about 500BC! It was really interesting.
After Corinth, we went to Monemvasia, a medieval fortress built by some Byzantine emperor. (yes, if you look at the pictures, we hiked the ENTIRE way up the cliff from sea level) It was beautiful there. We spent the night at a hotel just on the other side of the causeway connecting the mainland to the mountain/cliff. Definately check out those pictures b/c there are some really gorgeous views.
Friday we went to see another medieval temple - Mystras. Another day with a lot of hiking. There was also a beautiful church there, but we weren't allowed to take any pictures inside b/c none have been published yet. After that we stopped in Sparta for lunch, then went to Olympia where our hotel was. There was a storm that night, and in the picture of Natalie and I on our hotel balcony, there should be a double rainbow behind us, but it didn't come out =( (explanation of the stray dog picture - there are a ton of stray dogs in Greece. don't worry, they're very friendly. one excorted us to class one day)
Saturday morning we went to see ancient Olympia. That was kinda cool. Don't really have much to say about that. We were all kind of tired of driving so much and seeing so many ruins in such a short period of time by that point. We were on the bus for hours each day. We pretty much went around the entire Pelopenus peninsula in less than 3 days.
Aphrodite told us there was some kind of performance at the Odeum of Herodus Atticus (the theatre on the Acropolis) Saturday night, so Courtney and I decided to go check it out even though we had no idea what it was. It turned out to be Paglicci, the opera. (dad, you're off the hook for going to an opera now). It was really awesome.
Sunday we went to the beach for the afternoon, then 5 of us watched Gone With the Wind. It was a lot of fun. In the middle of it, we heard people singing, fireworks, horns beeping, etc. Then the movie cut out to scenes of partying in the streets. Apparently Greece won the European basketball championships. It was crazy. It was still going on when the movie ended at 1:30. I kind of wish we had gone out to share the excitement. Some other people did, and they said it was a lot of fun. Oh well.
I think that's about it from the past few days. If not, I'm sure I'll add it later.