6/25-6/27- Partying and sleeping

Friday we chilled with people in our group for a bit. They weren’t planning to go out. Liz/Marj/I ended up leaving around 11:30. We wandered around Gazi (young student area). There are tons of bars and clubs. It’s weird- in Athens most of the big clubs relocate to the beaches (Glyfada, Pireaus) during the summer- so that’s kind of a pain.We finally picked a club/bar (socialista). Dancing hadn’t really started (it usually only starts around 3 or 4…the Greeks are crazy partyers I don’t know how they have the energy/don’t get sleepy- we stayed out till 3:30 that night). We ended up talking with these guys and turns out they were highschool classmates with Stefano (a friend of mine in Davenport). One of them is in love with Marj and texted/called her the next weekend.

The next day Angela/Liz went to Olympia. I stayed in Athens. Marj was super super sick Saturday. I stayed in most of Saturday- too lazy to cook much other than pasta. Caught up on some TV shows haha. Saturday night I met up with Cynthia. We watched the US/Ghana game. Then her cousin took us to this really nice bar/lounge/club in Glyfada. It was crazy- he had to make reservations for us. The club was open by the coast and had a huge pool in it. Probably a few hundred people were there- they had confetti, dancers, and fireworks. Also Cynthia overheard someone say she was actually from the Jersey Shore (and she looked it)- so total win. It was this weekend I started really getting into dance/electronic music. We stayed out till 6 am (I had to wait for them to get a ride). Cynthia and I were EXHAUSTED. We were basically falling asleep on each other.

Sunday I decided not to be as lazy as I was on Saturday. I did groceries and then went to the acropolis museum. The acropolis museum is very nicely laid out. It’s cool- it has transparent panels through which you can see an archaeological sight below the museum. They also have a great sort of introductory exhibit which allows you to get a good idea of the times. It’s three floors. They have moved most of the acropolis statutes into the museum- so saw lots of coins and statutes. The top floor has a beautiful view of the acropolis. It also has the frieze (a reconstructed version and the real one) that used to run around the top of the Acropolis. They also have models of the pediments (and the statues left). It’s crazy! It’s kind of sad because much more modern buildings get a lot of credit for being gorgeous/awe inspiring like palace in England, France, Spain, and Italy. But the Acropolis is so much older it’s almost unfair to compare them. The original Acropolis must have been insanely gorgeous and imposing. They had a nice, short film on the building of the Acropolis too. Wandered the nearby area- watched a bit of the Germany/England game. For dinner I made a delicious shrimp fried rice stir fry with mushrooms, eggplant, onions, ginger, chili sauce, and soy sauce.

6/17-6/20- Delphi and Athens

6/17-6/20

Thursday – there’s this bar/restaurant called Yellow Dog one block down (it’s down some stairs from us- we’re in a very hilly area). During the world cup we’d often go watch the games at Yellow dog. They also have delicious homemade pasta. And they have karaoke. So we watched the game, I had pesto pasta, then we sang. We met some nice girls from Georgia state there.

Saturday Liz/Angela/I woke up early to take the bus to Delphi. We wanted to tour with Professor Hale of the archaeology group (nick/lili/ray went with the archaeology group- their car broke down, they also took a detour to a battle site- the one in 300).So we ended up touring by ourselves. We saw the museum. Then we went on the mountain- it was crazy I felt someone hug me from behind and it was Cynthia who coincidentally also was in Delphi climbing the mountain that day. So we climbed the mountain. It’s great touring these places with liz because she’s a classics major and knows a lot about the history. It’s crazy- the oracle sat on a tripod on a rather precarious stone. She inadvertently smoked sulfur and made crucial life decisions. There are many stories- like one emperor (again the one in 300 I think) asked the oracle if he should go to war. She said a great empire will be destroyed if you go to war- and he thought that was the green light but the empire in reference was his. Of course the oracle usually prophesized in vague/confusing ways so that the prophesies could be twisted into being applicable. They also got pretty rich off of tributes. They also have a temple, amphitheater, and stadium there. The climb to the top takes a decent amount of time and it was crazy hot.

After we had lunch at this cute café- pizza and lemon fanta. We then went to the Tholos- which according to greek mythology is the center of the earth. From there zeus sent two eagles to create or scout the rest of the world? unclear...but it was cool! really hot though.

Then we explored the town- which again was cute. Grabbed ice tea/gelato and went back to Athens. In Athens we were exhausted when we arrived (lots of walking/heat) and just got mcdonalds and went to sleep.

Sunday was also super productive. Liz/Angela/Marj/I toured Athens. We went to the Sunday flea market in monistaraki. That was nice- fun going through the flea market. We bought mean girls, prestige, and troy (with a greek dvd case/subtitles!) We went to Keramikos- it is a giant cemetery in Athens. It’s usually not that visited, but it should be it’s great. It’s an ancient cemetery- a lot of people were buried in (didn’t really distinguish by class). There are many gorgeous funeral monuments/pots/offerings that are in the museum there (interestingly they banned monuments/statutes once the democracy started bc they wanted citizens to be equal). We also saw several tortoises crawling around- which was cute. There were gorgeous flowers, trees, pomegranate trees, etc growing in the cemetery. It was just very nice and peaceful. Wandered around the streets of plaka/syntagma. Got souvlaki for lunch- souvlaki/gelato is going to make me really fat. Then we went to the Acropolis. It was stunning- a beautiful day and we went late enough that most of the tourists were gone. We spent a couple hours up there- talking, looking around, taking pictures of course. And blowing bubbles! Then we met up with the rest of the group (just getting back from Delphi). It was two people in our group’s birthdays. Also Emma was leaving (the archaeology people were supposed to work in the harbor, now working in the agora which wasn’t per her line of work and she had a better internship in new York). That was quite sad because Emma is really nice. We had dinner in a nice taverna in Pagratti. Afterwards we went back to an apartment and had baklava to celebrate the birthdays.

6/11-6/13- MKYONOS!

This weekend was one of the few weekends the archaeology people were in town- so we decided to take advantage of it by going to Mykonos! We all took Friday off and went super early in the morning (like 6 am or something).
The archaeology students had left the previous day. We stayed in cabins (little wooden boxes with two beds and that's it) in a hostel site at Paradise beach. It was cool as we left we saw the sunrise in both Athens and Mykonos (and obviously over the sea). The flight was only 30 minutes but we got a delicious caramel pecan cookie, drinks, and crackers- Aegean has great service! Oh- we get free flights on Aegean bc two of the interns work there. We only get 3 flights and one of the interns has to travel with us- so it's hard to coordinate. But it's a great opportunity.

We get to Mykonos. Funny story: we hear this noise and Nick asks if it's Teicher to which I respond no it's a goat. The funny part is Nick was totally right- when Sam woke up Marj/I died laughing because he did (at points) sound like the goat. So we arrived in Mykonos and took a nap. Then we went to the beach. We had gyros on the beach for lunch. Around 4 I think Marj/Liz/Angela/I went into the town. We wandered and took pictures. Then we found this cute cafe/coffee shop and ordered crepes for dinner and watched the World Cup. The first games were that day. At some point later that night we met up with the rest of the group.



We hung out with the rest of the group, but they didn't really want to dance. So Angela/Liz/Marj/Zheela/Emma/Becca and I went dancing.

The next day was pretty similar. Everyone but Liz/Angela/Zheela/Emma/Marj/Becca/I went on ATVs to wander the island. We just chilled on the beach. Again went into town in the afternoon. I had a pretty epic quest for mom's necklace (greek coin to replace the one she lost). I also bought taarini a necklace and myself a ring. For dinner we went to this delicious place in town (zheela/becca/emma/marj/angela/liz/myself). They had homemade pastas (many awesome varieties). I had linguine with fresh mussels- absolutely delicious. They also had great dips for the breads- olive, feta, and plain olive oil. Again we went dancing. This time it ended up being mostly Marj/I wandering around- we also ran into Cynthia (classmate from highschool here on a greek heritage program)! It was quite exciting. Marj and I also saw a few delightful drag queens. We also had various sketchy encounters. We went to one club the most (down under) so much so that the bouncers offered to give us a ride to Club Paradise. I'm sad we didn't go to Club Paradise- it's supposed to be the best club in Greece it's on paradise beach. The club doesn't get going till about 5 am though and we had to leave at 5 for our flight. So, pulled an all nighter.

Sunday we got back super early and all of us pretty much just slept all day.

6/9 Dionysus' art show

Dionysus was involved in setting up an art show. So we went to the art show- it was cool. It was the british art gallery maybe? The show included a lot of things with books. They also had nice wine/parmesan cheese- lots and lots of cheese. We obvs smuggled some back for cooking purposes. Though you can get ridiculous amounts of feta it's been much harder finding parmesan. Most of our group came, chatted, after Dionysus insisted we come for drinks. He always does this (today he wants us to come for drinks again but I'm meeting one of dad's friends). So we chilled and then went home (early night bc we had work the next morning). The art show was nice, got to meet some people, chat with each other etc. It was nice we got to see the archaeology people post their trip. Marj also noticed the toothpick holders were in fact shot glasses- we came up with elaborate ploys to snag the three glasses for our suite which has been excellent for everything from actually using them to storing grated parmesan and bread crumbs in them.

6/5-6/7- first weekend Athens and the beach

FIRST WEEKEND:

So the archaeology people left for Crete/Santorini midweek. Wednesday Nick/Ray came over for pasta (they didn’t have food). That Friday we had a potluck- we brought salad, liz/lili brought pasta, the guys (impressively) made chicken. We then chilled for a while and then went to Gazi. We wandered around Gazi- there are so many bars and so many people speak greek it’s a little intimidating/confusing. We went to a roof bar for a bit. It was around 2 and the clubs hadn’t started yet. We wanted to wake up early to go to the beach so we took the metro back (the metro annoying closes around 2).

friday's tanya has work off for maternity leave. So I finished what she assigned me and got off early. Went to Ionia and shopped (bought some sneaks because I really really needed them). Had fun wandering. This was also the day of the previously mentioned DJ/soccer shoot out/soccer players/air hockey. I was and am worried that I'm eating so many carbs/deserts and not really walking as much now that I know about the trolley that requires about 5 minutes of walking total.

Then Saturday it rained. It only rains 65 days per year in Greece…so it was shocking. We grabbed lunch in Kolonaki. Then we spent a lazy day at our various apartments. That night we were going to try and go out again. We knew there was a group of kids from BC in the neighboring apartment (where the boys live). So we met up at the boys apartment. We decided to say hi to the BC kids (ironically they have 9 guys 4 girls, we have 4 guys 9 girls). They were really cool and we just ended up hanging out with them till about 2:30 (some people left earlier).

Next morning we took a bus to a beach. We missed our actual stop but we found a nice beach anyway (forgot the name…it’s in greek anyway). We chilled at the beach- it was a bit cloudy but still nice. Tanned, swam, played Frisbee. Marj and I got delicious savory crepes for lunch. Then we came back to the guys’ apartment. We got pizza from Dominos (a few blocks away), converted someone’s room into a little theater, and watched Pineapple Express. It was a really chill fun weekend.

A consistent awkwardness/sadness has been that the archaeology people are traveling most weekends and have an entirely different work schedule during the week (7 am to 2 pm). Since 6 now 5 people are in archaeology it makes our group much smaller and we don’t get to hang out with them as much.

6/2- Angela's birthday!

from my trusty moleskin/brain

It was exciting having Angela's birthday! I got home late but Angela/Marj made a delicious ginger fish with garlic/soy green beans and basil rice. We then met up with Nick and Ray (the archaeology people had left for Crete and Santorini). The guys live right next door which is nice.

We had grand plans to befriend the old greek grandmother (who lives next door and helped marj/angela unlock the door the first day while muttering about their incompetency in Greek) to teach us how to make baklava. These plans sadly have never panned out. And I have yet to meet 'Nona' as we affectionately call her.

Instead we went to a bakery- the only one open/nearby. We got a caramel cake with a very nice glaze. It looked really pretty (I'll upload pictures later), but was extremely sweet. We also bought a giant bottle of wine (1.5 L for 4 euros) and candles. After deciding that cutting it would be too hard we all just dug in...we mutilated the cake but it was fun (again pictures to come).