Back in late May, I signed up to take the Graduate Management Admissions Exam (GMAT), which is a required component of every MBA application. It isn’t offered in Cyprus, so I signed up to take the exam in Thessaloniki, Greece. We had a rough plan to build a little vacation out of it by driving to Meteora from Thessaloniki, and then once it was done jetting off to Santorini to celebrate (or lament) for a couple of days. Less than a month later, I was sitting at my desk at work and thinking, “Dang, I should have checked to see if they offer the GMAT in Turkey,” since I figured it was possible exam dates might be offered in northern Cyprus, where offices frequently have addresses linked to Mersin, Turkey.
There seems to be a pretty high bar for GMAT test centers, so it was pretty dumb to think that, but after checking I saw that in the weeks since I had signed up, they had added once-a-week test dates in Nicosia! Fortunately since we are in the European Union I was entitled to a full refund of the Thessaloniki test that would not have been available to my U.S. peers (including a $60 tax on levied by the Government of Greece on a $250 test!) and I then signed up for an exam in Cyprus. Hooray for aggressive EU consumer protection laws. And the news was great! I wouldn’t have to fly anywhere to take the exam, worry about what Thessaloniki’s morning traffic patterns were like to get there in time, and best of all, I could sleep in my own bed and just generally be in my own environs and focus on the test itself.
We thought about traveling to Greece that week anyway, but Santorini was obscenely expensive by anyone’s measure– any halfway decent hotel with a view was going to set us back at least $400/night in September, but the rates do fall precipitously in the off-season. So we looked at another cheap option for that week and settled for a short getaway to Transylvania, leaving Thursday night and returning Sunday evening. Of course within one week of buying the plane tickets, I received an email notifying me that my test had been canceled and that there would be no GMATs offered in Cyprus this year after all.
All of this is my rather long way of telling you that very early last Saturday morning, Severin and I flew to Thessaloniki, drove three hours to Meteora, then back to Thessaloniki on Sunday. My preferred Monday GMAT date had been filled since the first cancellation, so we ended up taking a food tour and walking around Thessaloniki on Monday. I took my GMAT first thing yesterday morning while Sev checked out of our hotel and had a coffee. I survived and did pretty well, despite being as nervous as I’ve ever been and having barely slept the three nights prior! And that’s saying something, because at the end of the day the potential for humiliation is much greater at the Foreign Service Oral Exams than a computer-based test! We celebrated with burgers and a quick visit to the Thessaloniki Archeological Museum before heading to the airport to buzz home. We were back in Cyprus by 8 pm last night, only to find that my car battery had died in the airport parking lot. Between waiting for roadside assistance (who was the nicest guy but couldn’t help but say he had to jump cars all the time when “women” leave the A/C on when they turn the car off), driving back to Nicosia, and picking up the dog, we didn’t settle into bed until midnight. [Edited to add: Car died for a second time when we came back from Romania, and I am therefore absolved of all responsibility for this event. The car is now at the mechanic.]
I woke up this morning absolutely knackered and basically incapable of doing anything productive except for getting every trace of GMAT studying (books, scratch paper, practice problems, etc) out of my sight. Fortunately, I was smart enough to NOT attempt to go into work today and tomorrow, but it does feel a little bit like I wasted the day. We push out for Romania tomorrow evening for a whirlwind road trip around Transylvania before returning to Cyprus again Sunday night– just enough time to do some laundry and re-pack the suitcase. Aside from hotel arrangements in three different cities I have no idea what we’re doing.