ÒDimitrus, your tour guide with Tania Travel [the tripÕs organizers], contacted me two weeks ago to see if we could organize matches,Ó said Pascal Gogidis, who is in charge of Physical Education in Rhodes and other islands, and who was in charge of organizing the games for the AUB athletes. ÒIt was difficult to organize matches especially because it is vacation time and many people are not here.Ó GogidisÕ Òtwo weeks agoÓ was around April 17, the time the athletes were finishing their visas and nearly half way to Rhodes. The first three days in Rhodes were dedicated to tourism, or whatever tourists can do on an island closed for Easter vacation. Students staying in the Ibiscus Hotel, the official residence of the AUBites, found no entertainment, except in the abandoned small roads of the island, roads that barely had any cars, much less any people. The old town was the one of the places where the delegation spent most of its time because many shops and cafŽs were open. The church was open for Easter evening mass, and so were some clubs such as Gaz and Colorado, which were mainly crowded with the AUBites. Training was carried out the first three days before the start of the matches on naturally provided facilities such as the beach at Faliraki or the windy beaches in front of the hotel, or even the concrete next to the Rhodes Aquarium. These facilities, not designed for sports workout and training were dangerous; Zaher Krayem, for instance, injured himself by accidentally hitting the telephone booth while chasing the ball. Hired by Tania Travel, three tourist guides took the athletes on the third day of the trip, on a tour of Rhodes city and then headed to Lindos. Each guide gave a different version of the history of the island. Luckily, the three of them linked the stories to Diagoras, an Olympic hero so extremely popular in Rhodes that the airport, sports teams, and fields, are all named after him. Once the games started, the AUBites discovered that their opponents were either retired professional players who had not been practicing and playing for a while, like Lazaros Telogloy of table-tennis, or so young that their parents would not allow them to participate. Some opponents, like the Rhodes track and field team members, were so professional that they were training two times a day. The Rhodes athletes came either from different sports clubs found in Rhodes, or were a selection of former top players from different clubs. Some of the clubs the AUBites competed against could have provided matches for all the delegates considering they had teams for all the sports, but alas this did not take place except with the menÕs and womenÕs volley ball teams, whose players were from the same club. Even though the games were not well organized and even though little before-hand planning existed, the matches were entertaining and filled with excitement for the spectators. Unfortunately, not all the spectators could attend the games they wanted to see because of the distances between the various playing fields. The athletes gave their hearts and souls to the matches, and tried their best to bring some trophies back home. However, winners, whether from Rhodes or from Lebanon, did not receive any trophies. The only exchange of souvenirs between the two was limited to the athletesÕ club flag and the AUB Athletics Department flag. The night and social life of the athletes filled 70 percent of the trip for some and nearly 100 percent for others who had only one game or race. Joining some male athletes on their nights out, and sometimes during the day, were Swedish choir girls rehearsing for a choir contest and residing in the same Ibiscus hotel as the AUBites. The trip started and ended as a tourist trip organized by Tania Travel. The Greek night in the Aktaion Hotel, which crowned the last night in Rhodes, turned into a speech night where numerous anonymous figures spoke in either Greek or English.