Living the Life

So yesterday (Friday) was pretty much the best day ever. Since our Crete plans got cancelled because of bad weather and choppy waters, we stayed in. We had a family dindin (dinner) on Thursday night and then Friday morning a bunch of us went over to Pete and the two Kevin's apartment, which is right above the fresh market. We got a bunch of free lettuce, apples, and we went out and bought a ton of fruit and made a big fat fruit salad that like 10 of us shared. Then the boys started to play Hearts and me, Tim, and Kevin went to the Benaki Museum. It was basically a Greek man's exhibit of photographs taken through the 1930's - 1960's. All black and white and of archaeology, people, landscapes, etc. It was pretty cool. Then we went back to the apartment and watched the market some more and got some more free food! Then we started to cook dinner. We chopped zuccinni fried that. Chopped up bread and put it in the oven to make croutons for our chicken casear salad. Chopped potatoes and carrots and made this delicious baked dish. Whipped together some tomato pasta. Then for dessert we had chocolate cake. It was a fantaastic day. We had another big family dindin. Went over to Union (the pool hall across the street) and played some pool. It was a great day :) We've all bonded so much over the past few weeks. We're pretty close already and just thinking how even more close we'll become in the next 3 months is just sad because saying bye is going to hard :( But not going to think about that now!

It's going to be weird going home and living. I'm going to miss the open market twice a week. Everyone here is so relaxed, not rushing to be on time (although it is annoying when you're in a rush and the other person isn't). There really isn't a schedule for things, transportation is so convenient, food is so good, and just the hustle and bustle of the city in general. :)

The earth is flat and the Titanic is the biggest ship in history.

Sorry it took me so long to update but this past week has just been a whirlwind. We spent time trying to figure out travels plans for the next 3 months and everything. So far, I've booked tickets for Barcelona, Spain in March for 5 days, then we're going to Crete next weekend for 4 days. I still have to book hostels/hotels for both of them and buy ferry tickets for Crete. Then in March we're going to Delphi and Thessaloniki. Some of my friends are going to Meteora too, but I'm going with my parents when they come visit in April! :) Then for Spring Break we're going to fly down to Rhodes and island hop our way back to Athens.

So this weekend, we went to a city by the coast called Patras to celebrate carnival. We left Saturday at noon with the plan of staying up all night and taking the bus back at 5:45 am. Well, let's just say things didn't quite go according to plan. The bus ride was about 3 hours long so we got to Patras Saturday afternoon at around 3. So we wandered around the city and at lunch at a Souvlaki place where we got Pita club sandwiches with chicken. We sat there for a while then wandered around the city looking at decorations. We bought some one and snack and went to the ferry port and sat on a ledge next to the water and watched the sunset. We were being complete Americans sitting there taking pictures, singing songs, and just taking everything in. I am definitely living the life right now, just lounging in Greece, traveling. Then we went into the plaza when the sun went down and ate us some dinner. We went to this pizza/pasta place and sat there for about 2 hours. I think people were getting annoyed of us loud Americans. After that we walked into the city to a plaza where the Carnivale celebrations were going on. There were games and music and people dressed up (it's basically like halloween). But there were a lot of immigrants there and eventually the 12 of us were surrounded of them. At first they were just talking to one of the guys in our group then slowly more of them started appearing and before we knew it they were everywhere. My friend said he thought that the guys were going to mug him because they were leading him aways and every one of the shop owners seemed to know him and were leading him there. So we decided to leave and a few of them followed us and asked for one of our guys' phone numbers, so he gave him a fake one. Then we walked away from the sqaure and went into a club where there were more Greeks and things were safe from there. That's when I realized that I didn't have my camera with me anymore. It had been either in my pocket or bag so it could have either fallen out or someone pick pocketed me. A few of my friends wanted to go back and look for it with me but the guys wouldn't let us go back there in case anything happened. So we ended up just hanging out at the club for about 2 hours to pass the time and hopped on the 2:45am bus home. All in all the trip wasn't what I expected and definitely more expensive too considering I lost my camera, but it was an experience. an adventure. Sitting by the water and watching the sunset was definitely worth it.

Today I ventured to Syntagma and bought myself a new camera. I'm going to miss that Canon but I have great expectations for this Fujifilm :) I'm excited to go test it out in Crete this weekend!

Down here it's better, down where it's wetter take it from me!

Today we headed to the Temple of Poseidon in Lavrio and it was absolutely beautiful. This temple is built right on the edge of a cliff that overlooks the sea. It was cloudy and pretty windy and cold today, but it was still beautiful none the less. The water was soo clear and it was just crashing against the rocks. We wandered around there for about an hour, me and jess singing along to disney songs. then we drove down from a cliff to a little taverna by the water where we ate SEAFOOD for lunch. BUT before lunch, a couple of us decided to uh...ha take a dip in the aegean seaaa :) We jumped off of this little dock and lemme tell ya, that water is deceiving because we all thought it was going to be a deep plunge but it was pretty shallow. So we swam out for a bit but man was it cold. At first I was like oh okay I'm warming up as long as I stay submerged, but then I realized no, the only reason why I think it feels warms is because it's so FREAKING COLD. That scene from Titanic when Rose is about to jumped off the back and Jack describes how the water feels like a million little knives stabbing into your body came to mind haha. But I think it was pretty worth it. We all came back in like 5 minutes running to shore to dry off and put on warm clothes. Everyone else probably thought we were idiots, but it was worth it :) My body was in shock for a while haha it was confused with the body temperature, but after a cup or espresso, some fried squid, and bread and a nap on the bus, and of course a LONG HOT SHOWER WHEN WE GOT BACK (that probably did the trick), I'm feeling back to normal :)



Pictures are of the Agora, Archaeological Museum, some random pictures, and at the Temple of Poseidon

Omonia Square

This morning for my Greek Key class we met at Omonia Square, which is this big hustle and bustle area that's kind of business central. The Greek Wall Street is right next to it and there's shopping stores lined up. So we walked around and it is just amazing how many people there are, just lounging around eating, talking. People of all ages. I mean, what do people do here during the day? There were lots of old people which was expected, but there were tons of young people too just shopping on a Monday morning. Don't they have work? I can't figure out how Greeks just have so much time on their hands. They all seem so relaxed and have all the time in the world. They have quiet hours everyday from 2:30-6pm where shops close, people go home and eat and take a nap then wake up again. So when people go out at night, they don't go out until midnight because they don't eat dinner until at least 8 or 9.

Then we walked through a fresh meat market. Everyone was lined up with fresh meat still on the bone hanging from their stands. Goat, lamb, rabit, and pig were popular, everything attached. We saw intestines, livers, stomaches, tongues, fully attached and hanging. It was pretty gross, but I guess it's fresh right? Then we passed through the fish market part of it and that was SMMMEEELLLLYYY. There was octopus everywhere, squid, all different types of fish, crab, clams. It's funny because you don't see a lot of women at these types of markets. Mainly just men and the vendors try to get you interested by flattering you and speaking English. It's pretty funny, they'll tell you how pretty you look and reach out for your hand. After that we walked through some streets that are basically on the outskirts of town. The atmosphere there was so different because they were mainly occupied by immigrants. There were lots of Pakistanis, a few Chinese people and stores, some Indian, and some Egyptian, all selling random things from leather shoes to curries and spices. But it was so different because it feels like they're exiled from society and they all live together. They were just staring at us as we were walking through, but it wasn't just a normal stare. It was piercing and almost full of judgment. That was pretty uncomfortable. I've noticed people here have no problem with staring. At home, if you catch someone staring, they look away, but here they just keep that eye contact. So that was an interesting experience...probably won't go back there by myself..or ever haha. Oh and apparently the area around Omonia is filled with drug addicts so they advise us to stay away from the place late at night haha. I just find it so amazing how within a few blocks the people and atmosphere just change. The street of immigrants was literally 4 blocks away from the Wall Street area of business men in suits with briefcases and 5 star hotels. It's mind boggling.

Well that's my 2 cents for the day. Hope everyone back home is doing well and being safe. I absolutely love it here and am having a blast. These next few months are going to FLY by, but I'm going to make the most of it. I just mailed out post cards to a bunch of people so expect those in a week or so! :) ADIO!

Greece, Sea Trutles, and Greece

So classes started this week and they've been going pretty well. I love my Greek language teacher. His name is Apostolos and he's Greek and gives tours of Europe in the summer. He's HILARIOUS and super sarcastic. I love it. His favorite words are "very interesting" and "very nice. I like". I told him he should come visit California and he was like "Oh yes California, I do like Pamela Anderson and Bay Watch". And he's afraid we don't understand when he's joking so he always says he's joking just to make sure and we crack up even more. He always thinks I'm laughing at him because of his accent but it's just because he uses his words in different contexts than we're accustomed to.

I'm also taking a nature conservation class and we went to visit a sea turtle rescue center today by the coast and they are the cutest things ever! They're really big and it's sad because they're all there in need of treatment because they're pretty badly injured/sick. Most of them were tangled in fishermen's nets then hit on the head by fishermen, or got stuck in propellers. They then get watched up onto shore and get taken to the rescue center. We also got to see baby ones and there was one that looked EXACTLY like SQUIRT! from FINDING NEMO!! :) it was so adorably cute. I think I'm going to go back and volunteer a couple of times :) We get to go into the intensive care unit :)

We also took a trip to Eleusis and saw the remains of the Temple of Demetra. It was mostly destroyed in the early centuries when Christians burned everything down. It was one of the last pagan temples left.

oh and ps. Thanks to Jen (my roommate) me, Katie, and Jen are now stuck to our laptops with our respective shows. They're watching Grey's Anatomy and I'm watching Gilmore Girls. It's a never ending cycle i swear. It's always, ONE MORE EPISODE!!! :) but i love her for bringing THEM!!


These pictures are of Dexter the stray dog, Eleusis the temple, and the sea turtle rescue center :)

Watch out for that TRRREEEE

So we went shopping at this really cute store today called Bershka, which is basically an H&M because all the clothes are pretty cheap. But along the waayy...I was talking to Jess just chattin away when BAM! I walked head on into a tree branch. Yea, I walked into a tree. I swear I could feel my brain bounce around in there. It hurt sooo bad!! I wouldn't be surprised if it were bruised tomorrow. It was so embarrassing cuz it was really loud and at first my friend Liz didn't realize why we stopped but me and Jess were just cracking up. Then Jess proceeded to take pictures..great. Like I need to remember this incident..I would walk into a tree..But in my defense those tree branches are short and low and I was distracted!

I also tried a Spinach pie today. There's this bakery right across from the school and it just has so many yummy foods! well all the bakerys do actually. They're all these fluffy flaky crossiant things that are stuffed with different types of stuff. There's cheese pies, spinach ones, chocolate ONES!!! yuumm. there are like 3 different types of cheese ones. I'll make my way around to all of them ;)

Other than that...nothing much has happened. We started classes this week and they don't seem too bad. A bit long since all our classes are 2 hours each but we only meet twice a week. I'm really excited about my nature conservation class! Our professor is Greek but grew up in Australia so he has this cool australian accent! He worked at a sea turtle rescue center for several years before moving on and getting his phd but he's still involved with helping sea turtles so we're visiting a rescue center this Sunday! and depending on how that goes, I may volunteer at the rescue center reguarly. I'm super excited about that :) My other classes seem okay. Archaeology of Alexander the Great seems pretty fun. I really like the professor :)

Well that's it for nooww. We're cooking dinner at the center tonight with Joanna. She's going to teach us how to cook a few dishes. They host a dinner thing every week or every other week i think and 7 students can sign up each time for only 2 euro! :) YAY JOANNA! i really like her. She's our director kinda...well she's handles most problems and plans activities for students. Anyway she's Greek but lived in England and studied their too so she has an awesome English accent. She's hilarious too.

Dexter

I fell in love today and got my heart broken less than an hour later by Dexter. Dexter the stray dog haha don't worry it's not a boy. There's lots of stray dogs in Athens and they're super friendly and like big nice ones. Dexter was..a german sheperd I think? Anywho we were walking around in Monisraki (this out door market next to Sintagma square) and we were leaving when this stay dog got up and started to follow his. He stopped and one point and wouldn't keep moving so we thought he was saying bye :( but then we turned around he came trotting haha. He responded to "HERE BOY" very well. So we crossed streets and got lost in the National Garden together. We were walking down the street out of the garden and we wouldn't follow. So we kept walking and he got distracted with this other lady who was feeding her dogs so we were like oh well it was bound to happen anyway. Then half a block later he came out and came RUNNING down the street to us. It was so adorable! Cuz he was big and kind of ran sideways haha. We thought for sure he was going to follow us all the way home. Then when we were maybe 3 blocks from home we passed by another 2 American students I think and he left us and followed them :( It was really sad. There wasn't hesitation at all. We were so set on him following us home :( Oh well Dexter. Maybe another day.

The market at Monisraki square were so cute! They sold lots of touristy stuff for a good price. I bought myself some sandals, a wallet and bracelet. Definitely going back there for more souveniors. I definitely want to get a Greek flag for my room too. Greeks decorate their houses with lots of different ornaments to keep evil spirits away and stuff and the most popular one is the Evil Eye. It's this blue stone with a white dot in the middle and it's on everything from keychains to bracelets to earrings. So might snag a couple of those along with some summer dresses? :) Excited to explore more of this part of town ;)