These Boots Are Made For Walking

This blog post was inspired by a restaurant we had lunch in one day. As we sat and ate, we suddenly heard a song that sounded familiar. Almost simultaneously, Reed and I asked incredulously "Is this These Boots Are Made For Walking in Greek?" It was. It was awesome.

This song reminded me of the many walks we’ve taken on this trip. Dr. Krentz was the captain of the club volleyball team at Yale, has run three marathons during the course of his life and is in very good shape. Thus, he greatly enjoys walks and hikes and sets a pretty blistering pace. The first and perhaps most entertaining walk took place once we landed at the Munich airport. We were all tired and eager to unwind. Not Dr. Krentz. He immediately started powerwalking towards our terminal. Even worse, he had been near the front of the plane and had a tremendous head start. We must have looked crazy- a bunch of American students with heavy backpacks speeding through the airport following a man in a yellow Columbia shirt. But that’s not even the best part of the story. One might think that we were rushing because we were late or had a short layover. In fact, we had an eight hour layover. When we reached our gate, panting and sweating, it wasn’t even open and we ended up sitting on the floor outside of it. Figures.

Another walking highlight occurred on our first day in Herakleion (on Crete.) We were set to hike up to Anımospilia, a Minoan temple. I asked Dr. Krentz early in the morning if İ needed to wear my boots (I had put my Converses on earlier.) He smiled and said that the walk was pretty easy and I didn,t need to worry. We had another dilemma that day; Caroline had gotten sick on the ferry and we didn’t know if she should go with us or stay and rest. I decided to put on my hiking boots and she decided to rest, both of which turned out to be good choices. The walk up to Animospilia turned out to be quite a trek (45 minutes each way, steep uphill.) Sarabeth, our varsity volleyball player, said that it was a workout, not a quick walk. İ agreed. From that day on, I’ve always worn my hiking boots, rain or shine, in accordance with the Girl Scout motto (Be prepared.)

İ think my all-time favorite hiking story of the trip took place at Marathon, the site of a Persian defeat by the Athenians and the subject of Dr. Krentz’s next book (due to be released spring 2010.) We got off the ferry that morning at around five and had settled in for a longish bus ride. Around seven, we reached Marathon and got off the bus to cold and windy weather. Dr. Krentz talked about the battle and then, pointing to the mountains, told us we were going to climb one of them. We looked at each other in dismay, having each gotten about five hours of sleep. The news only got worse. There was no trail up the mountain. Dr. Krentz wanted 16 exhausted college students to trailblaze up a mountain at seven in the morning so we could get a better view of the plain. On the bright side, we all made it up and back down the mountain without any injuries, regardless of how unwillingly we climbed. I’m sure there are many more hikes to come and I’ll keep you posted.