Day at the Beach!

Well we had a 3 day weekend and for those of us that weren't lucky enough to leave Athens made the best of the good weather we were having and decided to head down to the local beaches. For myself it was my first ride on any public transportation besides taxi in Greece and we took the tram. It was really easy to figure out and it wasn't too bad of a travel experience. I went with 4 other girls... Whitney, Tabitha, Betsy and Christina. We weren't quite sure where we were off to, we figured we would just hop on the tram and when we saw a nice beach we would get off and find our way. Turns out there were two other girls on the tram and we saw they had swimsuits so we just followed them when they got off and we ended up at the most amazing beach I've seen! It was a soft pebble beach and had the clearest water I've ever seen in person. It was absolutely gorgeous!


We also had a bit of a photo shoot per Whitney's request! :) We had a great time!

Field Trip to Olympieion and Kerameikos!

On Wednesday the 23rd we went to two historical sites in Athens. One called the Olympieion and the other called Kerameikos. Olympieion is old column ruins that were once a temple but have now been somewhat destroyed but still stand as a beautiful site to see. Below are some pictures.




Kerameikos is what used to be right before the entrance to Athens. Back then they would bury all the dead just outside of the city... in some sense a hall of fame to show off all of the great people who once lived within the city. We saw a lot of tombstones and sculptures. It was a beautiful day out and it was quite the scenery. We also went into the museum there and saw some great sculptures. Below are some of the things we saw!

School and my Greek Family!

At the end of our first week of classes I was exhausted from school and homework. We started learning a lot in all of our classes. Greek language class is actually my favorite class of all. Our teacher (Yanna) is great! She makes it a lot of fun and its a lot easier than that I thought. I'm thinking about trying to keep studying it when I get back if I can find classes to take. Monuments Of Greece is a fairly mundane class... lectures are just historical facts after historical facts but the field trips are fun... until Michael our teacher gives us lectures along the way... but seeing the sites and everything is absolutely amazing! The weather since my last update has gotten much better! A lot less rain and a lot more sunshine! It has been great! Below is a picture of me studying at school!



Saturday I took Jessie, Betsy, and Justin all with me to Glyfada to try and track down my family's cafe. We took a taxi out there and luckily he knew exactly where to go. I was very nervous the whole way there but extremely excited to see what my Greek family was like. We showed up at the city plaza mall where their cafe called cafe plaza is. I walked right in and asked for Georgia my Aunt and the girl smiled and said this is your cousin Chris! I was so excited! Chris is my cousin he is 29 years old and an absolute sweetheart. The girl I talked to first was Eleni his girlfriend of 8 years and soon to also be my cousin... so pretty much family! :) They are wonderful! I felt so welcome and definitely felt like part of the family instantly. I learned about my aunt and uncle as well as my other cousin Kostas. They both have a great sense of humor and are eager to get to know me better. They want to spend more time with me while I'm here and they said I'm welcome to come back any time to visit even after I leave Greece. Unfortunately because they weren't even expecting me I couldn't meet anyone else but I plan on seeing them again very soon and trying to meet the rest of the family. They own a cottage about 1 hour away from Glyfada that they go to quite often and said I'm welcome to come with them anytime. I'm extremely excited to get to know them all better and get to know more about my own history. It's great to know I have such an amazing family half way across the world! Below is a picture of the cafe! I will take pictures of the family next time I see them!

Laundry and Thunder Storms!

So in our apartments here in Athens we don't have the luxury of having a washer and dryer. The 6 girl apartment across the hall does have a washer and we are all supposed to share it and they are more than happy to let us come over and use it... but its takes FOREVER to wash and you still have to hang dry and there's so many of us that want to use it that's it seemed easier to me to hand wash my clothes for the most part while I'm here. It was quite the day washing all of my clothes in a small bucket/bin type thing... I filled it with water and laundry detergent and put my clothes in and did the wash cycle... :) whoooshing my clothes around for a bit each load then doing the rinse cycle by running my clothes under running water and then the "spin cycle" or ring out cycle... to get them to a damp state to be able to hang them to dry... this process took about 2.5 hours total and was quite hilarious to Jessie and Betsy as they watched me do this. My back hurt pretty bad by the end but all of my clothes were clean and luckily it was hot out so my clothes dried fairly quickly. There is a picture below of me washing my clothes! :)


We had a couple of thunder storms come through Athens and I'm sure they weren't the last. The weather was very bipolar... it would rain, thunder, and lightning and then just an hour later would be hot as heck out and we would all be sweating... not sure what that was about but it was crazy to listen to and watch and its funny to watch people run around in shorts and tank tops trying to hide from the rain. Below is the view from our apartment during the storm!

Our Day at the Acropolis!

The day started off hilarious before even leaving the apartment... Getting ready with 4 girls is just a fun time every day no matter what we are laughing. Its great having girls to ask if your outfit looks good but having someone tell you, you look good and knowing you look good is a whole other story but the whole situation was over shoes... I wanted to be comfortable but wanted to look good... So the debate was comfortable tennis shoes or not so comfortable sandals... I put on the tennis shoes and knew I didn't look good but also knew my feet would hurt less... I kept asking the girls are you sure I look okay... and they all said yes... but I really couldn't agree we went though this same conversation about 6 times until it was finally time to go and I just ran out the door with my tennis shoes on... It was quite the joke all day and that is the purpose for the picture above... I was not lookin so hot but at least I was comfortable.



The Parthenon was amazing to see! It was extremely hot out so we were all dying of thirst and of course just a little while into our trip all of our waters were warm which was unfortunate but we all survived.


This is a picture of one of the many photo shoots that went on during our trip up to the top. Michael our teacher had to stop every 10feet to give us another lecture on whatever it was he wanted to talk to us about... and each lecture was anywhere from 10-20min so we were there for a VERY VERY long time so to entertain ourselves we would tune him out and just take lots of pictures and laugh at all the many people walking by in their funny hats and strange outfits. It was quite an entertaining day.


This was when many of us got lost from the group which yes we eventually found but there were so many people walking up to the top that we could keep track... I think next time we should all wear matching outfits... :) just kidding! But that would have been a site to see. Michael was one quick walker so we had to pretty much run to keep up... and trust me running with this many people around was not about to happen so we just took pictures along the way and figured we'd eventually find the rest of the group.


This is at the Theatre at the bottom that we had another 30min lecture at... we again took pictures most of the time and enjoyed the sun. There's a man in a red shirt in the background that was there for a very long time... we're not quite sure what he was doing but we all have pictures and we're hoping we'll all become famous for tracking down the man who stole part of the ancient theatre at the bottom of the acropolis hill.

By the end of the acropolis hike and the museum tour which also took forever stopping every 10feet for another one of Michael's lectures... we were all exhausted... 4 of us girls decided to sit down at a cafe and have some frappe's and then do a bit of shopping. It was a really fun day but I definitely slept like a baby that night! :)

1st Week in Athens!

OH MAN! has it been quite a week! Since I last blogged I've moved into my new apartments, seen much of Athens, been in the rain and the sun, ate many group dinners, started classes and of course made some amazing friends!

So Starting back to Thursday when I moved into my apartments... I was the 1st girl in my apartment to arrive so lucky me I got 1st pick of which room and bed I wanted! :) I'm on the second floor of our building in an apartment with 4 girls. We are in shared rooms, 2 in each room. I share a room with Aleka and in the other room is Jessie and Tabitha. All great girls and I'm very happy! Here in Greece we have to turn on the hot water boiler 30min before we shower which is interesting with 4 girls trying to shower at different times but so far it has worked quite well. We have a pretty small kitchen but none of us have done any cooking yet! We are going to try and make pasta tonight! :) I've been the last one asleep and 1st one awake every morning up until last night which is strange but probably just because I've been getting up to skype my mom in the morning! So if any of you would like to get on around 10-11pm (Washington time) I've been on around that time! :)

Friday we had our orientation at our school. They told us about our classes and had us register as well as give us some guidelines and rules for while we are living here. After that we had a walking tour of the area we live in. We saw the local super market, post office, bakery, and so on. The area we live in is filled with hills... and I'm talking mountainous hills! So rough to walk up them! Hopefully I'll be super tone by the time I make it back to the states. We also got to see the farmers market that comes here every Friday! Fresh produce galore! The venders yell at you while you walk by trying to get you to buy their items its quite exciting but I was so overwhelmed that I couldn't even stop to buy anything... but next friday I will be purchasing many yummy things! For the rest of the afternoon we just hung out and got to know each other better until our group dinner. We went to a restaurant with the entire group and they served us lots of different foods... greek salad, hummus, wine, and many other delicious things! After dinner a group of about 9 of us decided we wanted to check out the bar scene and we had seen a local pool hall close by so we headed down there for the night and I had a great time! Teamed up with Justin and won 2-0! The man who was running the place I began shutting the lights off on us around midnight so we figured we might as well head out! haha!

Saturday we had another walking tour but this time it was of downtown Athens where all the action is! We got to see so many things! the National gardens, the athens stadium where the 1st olympic games were played, Parliament, and many local churches which are all beautiful! We saw the more high fashion shopping center as well as local markets. I found a pair of sandals that I've been wearing ever since! love them! :) We walked and walked and walked around for hours it was a blast but extremely exhausting! After coming back to our rooms and showering we went to dinner at our directors house (Rosemary). She has the most beautiful home! I definitely wouldn't mind living there! Gorgeous garden as well as a rooftop with an amazing view. After dinner a group of us hung out for a while and I definitely played 90s music for everyone and loved it! :) After we finally figured out what we wanted to do we went out for a bit but as we were all tired headed back after not too long.

Sunday was our free day to do what we please. A group of 11 of us decided to head down to the beaches. The local bakery that's just a 5min walk away from our apartment. A boy named Tony works there and definitely has the eye out for my roommate Jessie so we decided to meet up with him before hand and see what he was up to for the day. And fortunately he was way nice and helped us all get taxis down to the beach and told the drivers all where to go. We had to take 3 different taxis though and somehow one group ended up at the wrong beach so our good friend Tony took each of the 4 of them one at a time on his motorbike over to where the rest of us were waiting. We had a great time lounging on the beach and playing in the water. Much of the group made friends with a group of boys who were playing volleyball and even though I didn't join in as most of you know I'm not athletic I had a great time watching and getting my tan on! :) After awhile we got hungry and headed on back. We got taxis back and somehow we all ended up different places but the group I was with ended up right back at our apartment and we decided to head down to downtown and get gyros! It was the longest walk and I was exhausted but we made it and the gyros were DELICIOUS! I will definitely be eating those A LOT while I'm here! After that we rested for a bit then all got ready and head to our teachers (David and Liz's) apartment to have dinner. We had a delicious dinner with salad, pasta, bread, wine and some other yummy treats! After dinner we came back and I played a little 80s music for my friends and they loved it! I will definitely be having lots of 90s and 80s nights while I'm here! After a while 5 of us decided to go to a place called the lucky charm for drinks and we had a great time laughing and getting to know each other better. By the way warning do not order long islands in Greece.... if you want to know more ask me individually... :)

This morning my roommates and I went grocery shopping as a group to get all the things we need for our apartment. I actually found tortillas and salsa today! SO HAPPY! I couldn't go 3 months without any type of mexican food! After that we got ready for our first day of classes. We had our monuments of Greece class and Beginning Greek today! They were both alright a bit overwhelming but I'll be fine just weird thinking I have to study and write papers while I feel like I'm on vacation! We learned the greek alphabet today its a bit rough but I'll catch on! :) Anyway now I'm just hanging out in the room with friends! We'll see what we decide to do tonight!

First Blog From Greece!

So after 24 hours of traveling I finally made it safe and sound. It was a ridiculous trip but not as awful as you'd think. I pretty much slept through all 3 flights... hopefully I didn't look too ridiculous while I was passed out. My layover in Paris was rough! I had to run like a crazy person to my next gate and almost didn't make it... during the run I'm pretty sure I sweat out whatever liquids I had left in my body. The airport was awful! SUPER hot and soooo crowded! Definitely not how I thought the Paris airport would be like. After my 3rd and final flight I was FINALLY here! Now to find my luggage and Hana who I was meeting to get a taxi with to our hotel room. I found my luggage easily and apparently my phone is not working so I called my mom collect then it was off to find Hana. Found her very easily and we ventured to find a taxi... we wondered for a few minutes but easily found our way. Our taxi took us straight to the hotel and we checked in no problems! The woman at the front desk reminds me of the mom from My Big Fat Greek Wedding which made me laugh so cute! As we were checking in there were random cats roaming around our feet which was interesting. We used a super tiny elevator to get our stuff up to the room I had to take 2 trips just for my own stuff because it was so little. After we settled in and got the internet working we both took showers. The hot and cold are opposite hot being on the right and cold on the left which I thought was interesting. You also can't flush toilet paper down the toilet here... the sewer system apparently can't handle it! WEIRD! haha After showers and some more computer time we decided to go find dinner. We walked a few blocks down and found a really cute Greek Cafe. The dining area is on the roof top and the little old man that served us was so nice and he even offered to take our picture! We learned that most cafes and restaurants don't even have a closing time and dinner starts around 10pm and can continue on until 4am. Greeks are nightowls much like myself... I think I'm going to really like this place! I ate stuffed peppers and tomatoes! so delicious! and had a beer called Mythos which was quite tasty! we had a view of the acropolis and it was the perfect temperature to have dinner outside. After our dinner we took a short walk up to see the acropolis a but closer up! The sites were amazing! I fell in love! :) I can't wait to go back and see it in the day time! We're now back in our hotel room and I can't wait to wake up tomorrow and really get this adventure started! That's all for now I'll post again soon!