I'm sorry that people are so jealous of me...but I can't help it that I'm so popular.

Every single time I try to post I have to go through the process of resetting my email address and password because frankly, I'm an idiot. We haven't had Internet here at all so it's been a while. I apologize to all my fans.

We left Athens on a big boat that we were given cabins in to go on a 10 hour boat ride to Crete. Good times, those will be personal stories that I cherish forever along with a few of my friends here. We are in Heraklion where it is way too beautiful to describe. The water is so perfect. We saw the site of Knossos, Phaistos, Agia Triada and Kommos. Knossos was great and really cool to finally see since we have been studying it for so long, but it sucked at the same time. The archaeologist who worked on Knossos decided to recreate what he believed it looked like so a lot of it is modern and ruins the fun of other archaeologists to come in and discover more because it's all modern concrete. It's a little frustrating. The next was Phaistos where is was much better. A lot less tourists and some amazing things there. Huge courtyard and this thing that was a rock garden that had holes in the rocks and originally would have flowers planted in the huge rock. The attention to detail in these palaces is amazing. They lined up these columns in the central courtyard to be perfectly even with these two mountain peaks in the background. Also, all palaces follow the "golden dimension" which makes it aesthetically pleasing to the human eye and it's so true. It seems so comfortable. Agia Triada was interesting, a lot going on because there were a bunch of different periods of people building there so it gets confusing trying to separate which part existed when. Kommos was a ship storage place on the coast. This is also the first place that purple was invented out of these shells. It was very rare and difficult which is why it is used in royalty. Fun Fact, huh?

In between the sites today, we went to the beach. For no educational purpose except to eat and tan and swim. The water was cold but I jumped off a cliff into the water. The first girl to do so, of course. It was so much fun. Amazing feeling. Felt like Pocahontas except the whole talking willow tree thing. But besides that, basically the same. Then we just sat around in the hot sand for a couple hours. It was so amazing to adventure through the caves and just stare at the flawlessly blue water. Beyond description. I seriously love everything about this place. Except the Greeks. They suck.

On my birthday, we were at Knossos and I was told there would be peacocks there. I couldn't find any until a friend calmly said he saw one around the corner. I. Freaked. Out. I love peacocks!! There was one man and like 15 girls and the man was sitting on this bench. Having a fear of birds is rough but I snuck past a little gate thing and ended up walking through this courtyard to get closer to the peacock where I took some pictures, gazed admiringly, felt accomplished, then the bird looked me dead in the eye and I panicked and ran away. Don't worry, someone got it all on tape. Bambi-yes, I saw a peacock. Greatest thing ever. I had seen one before but it was not nearly as cool. I know, you're so jelly you're basically a Smucker's Factory. I have pictures. Draw me something.

Also for my birthday the professor took our class out to dinner. I know, I'm so special. If you asked me a few years ago if I would be on Crete eating mussels, snails, and octopus for my 20th birthday, I would have told you that you had the wrong person. My life's a joke. Usually a 20th birthday should be so boring. You're not a teen anymore, cool. I mean, it's pretty cool I beat teen pregnancy, but at the same time I have now missed out on the opportunity to be on teen mom so I'm not sure if I came out on top or not...

I am currently sitting in this weird open air cafe that's an attempt at some Asian theme but it's totally not but it's pretty cool. It was so hot out today. I love air conditioning, not because I hate the heat so much, but because it's the best feeling ever needing air conditioning after such a cold time in Chicago. So wonderful.

Our first class ends this week. So sad because I absolutely love our professor Matthew. He's hilarious and unbelievably brilliant. Not sure how any other teacher will ever compare to him. So smart, it would be intimidating to be in a class with a professor who graduated from Oxford and Cambridge and now teaches at Cambridge. Normal. Considering I didn't know if I was even spelling those correctly, I'd say I have no business being in his presence.

I'm bored of myself right now and want to go eat elsewhere. Too bad I can't afford anything because there is not a single place in the country that accepts credit cards, especially food places. Glorious. Oh well, it will all be settled soon I hope.

We found a tv channel that only plays music videos 24 hours a day no commercials. Some are terribly awesome American. Some are terribly cheesy Greek music videos where they love to rhyme "higher" with "fire." Some are Mel C from Spice Girls. The tv has yet to be turned off.

Ps. I made it this entire time without making fun of my mom, I think. She's lucky because she sent me about 25 emails since I hadn't responded.

Your illiteracy has screwed us again

It is actually frustrating how stupid I can be. I just spent about 2 hours trying to figure out how to log onto this account in order to post again. I don't remember my email. I don't know how I finally got on. All I know is that my usernames are typically saved but someone here uses my laptop to do their gmail whatever and it saved their username on the homepage. I immediately became clueless and had no idea what to do. On top of all that, it's all in Greek and wasn't being translated properly. Once translated, they would send me an email to help, which was in Greek. It was a long process.

Moving on. I am now in beautiful Pylos. It is so gorgeous here. I'm just sitting in the lobby of the hotel just staring at the water right now. We left Nafplion yesterday. I walked the steps up to Palamidi. You know, that place I originally drove a bus up to because we're lazy. We were the first students to ever count all the steps. We did on the way down and only counted 909 instead of 999 like everyone says. We had a few discrepancies about what number we were on or if certain things counted as stairs. I'm pretty sure we repeated the 780s and skipped 589 but whatever, close enough. It only took 10:26 or somewhere around there. Our math was flawed while we tried to add together the number of Biggie songs played on the way up. I'm glad I did it. I would have definitely regretted not doing it because I will probably never be there again, but who knows. We went out that night for a friend's birthday and had a simply glorious time. Then here in Pylos was her actual birthday so we went out to eat and had a huge buffet style meal. We did this for lunch too. This was the first time I had a meal besides when our professor bought us dinner once. Doing it twice in one day really took a toll on me.

Before we got to Pylos, we stopped at a Venetian fortress not for educational reasons, but simply because it's cool. There was a huge lighthouse right on the water. There used to be a moat too. Amazing place. We just sat and stared out at the water for an hour or so and then continued our drive.

Today, we went to the Palace of Nestor. This is where mythology and history combine in an awkward way. It is really a great thing to have a brilliant professor walk you around a site and interact with it and then we go to museums where we still have the plans and get to determine where each piece is from down to the exact room. So much was preserved from this one. I never thought I'd enjoy the learning part so much. Matthew was shit-talking our next professor though so that's upsetting.

We finished class today and get a couple free days. We head back to Athens tomorrow and that's perfect because it's Thursday karaoke. Already preparing. We got back to the hotel after class today and a majority of the group decided they wanted to go climb a mountain to see a castle. Seems like a good idea and all but I was way too determined to figure out this username to call it quits. Plus I am more than happy with the view from my chair.

I'm lucky because I still talk to everyone from home and know what happens in their life, but what I do miss is interaction. We send messages or wall posts and it's all fine and dandy, but I thrive on responses and have no patience to ask a question and have to wait hours for a response only to have my mom not answer the question and then ask a bunch more and even worse create about 25 more. None of this thought out weighing of each word. Too much room for blame. If it's just a knee jerk reaction, it's not a big deal. I'm not even sure if that's the expression, but if this was a conversation it would be passed by. Instead, I have to sit here and decide if that's right or not, decide if I care or not, and ultimately google it to settle this problem. (I'm right. Yes!)

I make fun of my mom far too much. She prides herself on the fact that I get my legs and butt and witty personality from her so I guess I just took it and ran with it. Also, we both run like idiots because we're knocked kneed so maybe I shouldn't be running with anything.

The table I'm sitting at has a little vase with a fake flower in it. For the past day I have been annoyed by these flowers because they added some glue or something to the petals to give the false image of a dewy morning flower. I have proceeded to pick most of this glue off. What a stupid idea. I always see things so simply dumb like that and just wish I could have been part of that business meeting. There has to be meetings for stuff like this, I assume. (Shows how much I know about real life.) And some woman who has tons of cats was like, "You know what would be really great, if we made our cheap fake flowers look wet. I know I like to pick myself flowers from my overgrown garden that are fresh from a morning dew and put them as the centerpiece at my small wooden table. My cats love them. Except a drop once got on Fluffy's nose, it was the cutest thing. Here's a picture of all 17 of them."

I had to stay in a hostel owned by said crazy cat ladies. That was my form of therapy to release my anger. It's called displacement. Take your anger about something (cats meowing in my hostel) and put it on something else (fake flowers.) Another solid example of this is my mom (it's been almost a paragraph without making fun of her) because she takes her anger (Maggie lost; Dan is a moron; cell phone's "broke" again; Lady GaGa's song sounds like Madonna) and puts it on something else (me.) It works fine, just like a cycle.

I'm not entirely sure how anything gets done in this country. This is how I see the businesses or workers go about their days.
10am-stores open and people begin to work
12pm-things start to wrap up in time for their quiet hours that start at 1 so it's basically pointless to do any work at this point
1pm-stores and businesses close for quiet hours
5pm-ish/whenever they want-stores reopen and workers get going again
5:30pm-start winding down
6pm-everything shuts down or ends except some food places
So this explains why construction on this hostel my classmates stayed at was so ridiculous. They probably got one nail in a day.

This really smart kid in my class also keeps a blog. I'm assuming it's much more impressive than mine because he's very smart. I believe many people follow him to get information on the specific life-changing things we do on the trip. This makes sense. When thinking about my blog, I really offer nothing.

Our bus has to be broke. This is the most fearless busdriver ever, but we hit a pebble and the entire back of the bus gets air. Many heads have been injured. Also, the winding street while trying to cross other busses while the other busdriver is smoking and/or talking on his cell phone is a problem.

My classmates are just getting back from the castle. I finally figured out the username or else that would be embarrassing. They look exhausted and accomplished. I just look accomplished. I won this one.

I had my key privileges taken away but usually need a key. They only have one key, like real key and keyhole key, per room. No problem, the system these people have adapted is that you just hang your room key on a hook in the lobby when you leave and use it when you need to and return it to the hook. This is outrageous and so helpful. Also, this place must be a bubble. How is this not an issue? This system hasn't failed them? Insanity.

I haven't broken a chair in like a day so that's good but I probably broke out toilet first thing. Just learned that you aren't supposed to flush your toilet paper down the toilet in this country. I don't know if I understand this completely. Kristine was making fun of me because above our toilet is a little sign that says "Don't throw paper down toilet" with a drawing of what seems to be a hand tossing a ketchup bottle and a head of lettuce down the toilet. I went ahead and assumed this was another terrible translation mistake the Greeks love (lamp chops is one of my favorites) and proceeded to ignore it. The drawing is really quite ridiculous and is actually the opposite of helpful.

Time to adventure. Go, youth inspired.
Or eat some more cheese filled meatballs. It's a tossup at this point.

Hell, I can get you a toe by 3 o'clock this afternoon... with nail polish. These fucking amateurs...

Yesterday we started by visiting some tombs in Dendra. These included some tholos tombs as well as chamber tombs. I demand to be buried in a tholos tomb. They're crazy awesome. It's a long dromos (hallway) that leads to a beehive shaped burial area. The people are buried with lots of pots and jewelry but the funniest part is that there would be a channel that runs from the outside of the door under the door in order for people to poor libations to their dead relatives. So even after I'm dead, people still have the opportunity to buy me drinks. That's the Irish way if I've ever heard it. Then we went to Mycenae where we stood on the top of a mountain in the pouring freezing rain and wind. So obnoxious. These past two days can be defined by "Whitegirlproblems." We're in beautiful Greece along the sea and it's nicer weather at home in Chicago where we were so excited to leave. We're leaving here in a day and it will progressively get better especially weather wise, but everyone still complains. White Girl Problems.

Today we went back to Mycenae to learn more about those guys. We saw the amazing fortification walls that are made of huge rock that I couldn't imagine watching someone attempt to move even with today's machinery. So crazy. Then we walked through the rest of the site since it was just cold wind today instead of cold windy rain. There was this hole that lead to a water supply that no longer exists but it was incredibly long and pitch black with complicated slippery crumbling stairs. Being afraid of the dark and rather uncoordinated, I'm always up for these random secret holes we keep finding so we all went down. The mud was sticky at the bottom and I felt like the horse in "A NeverEnding Story." We wrote our names on the rock at the bottom because it seemed like the cool thing to do. We learned about all the different uses for the rooms and saw how massive the palace actually was.

After this, we went into the Mycenaea Museum where we got to see all the wonderful things they found while excavating. The pottery and jewelry as well as cute little figurines of "pointy boobed women" as my hilarious professor would say. He is from London so I love listening to him talk even though it's usually all way over my head. He says great things like "I need to use the loo," and "It's all higgledy piggledy." I'm pretty sure his diet consists of one water bottle a day with a pack of cigarettes a day. Lucky for him, all the learning we do is outdoor on site. He's absolutely brilliant as well as awkwardly hilarious. He has certain specific biases against some archaeologists and gets really irritated when discusses how they ruined a site, it's all "rubish" or "bullocks." He sometimes finds it difficult to explain something to us and when we tell him that we speak the same language he says, "No, you all speak stupid American. That is not English." He has a point. Something else he likes to say it "GWA" which means "Greeks Win Again." This is probably meant on a bigger scale, but sometimes a place will be closed or blocked off from general people and he'll just let it be and say "GWA." Oh, and when describing a mythological story, he once told us to imagine that the woman was fat, but instead of saying that he said "I imagine her attempting to clean herself with a sponge on a stick." Such a more vivid way to say that.

The last place we saw was a bridge built b the Mycenaeans along the border. While getting off the bus, our professor from Lake Forest told us we didn't need to bring anything because it would just be a "quickie." Every student immediately laughed. I. Love. College.

Another really hilarious thing about our group was St. Patrick's Day in general. There are three students in our group involved in this specific story about that day. Russell, Keegan and Zakea. Russell is a boy, the rest are girls. Confusing, I know. But Russell was a little...hmm...out of his element on SPD (I was told to clean this up because my grandpa finally started reading. I know my grandpa wouldn't care, but I do know my mom would.) So Russell asks Keegan who is quite giggly herself "Where's Zakea?" Well, Zakea was about 5 feet away purchasing some beverages at the Irish business we were at, but Keegan didn't see her and said "I don't know." After about 20 minutes, Russell is nowhere to be found but none of us care anyways. Russell calls Keegan at this point and tells him, "I'm at the Acropolis looking for Zakea." Sadly, he does not remember said event, but we can only hope that Russell managed his way up to the Acropolis at 1am on St. Patrick's Day in order to find our classmate. I sporadically laugh just thinking about this. First off, why was he so concerned about Zakea? She was with all of us. Secondly, how did he not know she was there, they talked later. And lastly and most importantly, of all places to look for your roommate at this hour on that holiday, why was the Acropolis the first place he searched? Bahahahahahaha!! Still gets me. Probably something that won't be appreciated unless you're here, but just try and imagine how funny that is. Thanks.

One of my classmates who is also my roommate was telling us that if you catch a bee and put it in the freezer, it freezes. Then she puts a string around it and lets it thaw and then it's still alive and flies around on the string. I find that hysterical.

I'm impressed by how much intellectual crap I put in this one. Since I do as my mother says, or basically what anyone says, I thought I'd add more detail about the school part. "Terry wants to hear specifics blah blah blah." Terry, I have one thing to say to that. Your name is Terry, not John. I'm sick of seeing that said "John" is following me on here. I never knew your name was John until Michelle, Jim, and I went to Oberweis with you and when the lady asked for a name to call, you said "John." I thought you were kidding. Michelle will agree with me on this sentiment. That's like if I decided to go by Mary to my family now. Cut it out.

Greece hates showers. Not that they're dirty, well, they might be dirty but I am referring to how terrible their actual showers are. We have witnessed four different types of showers as a group here in Greece and not a single one works properly.
-The first one was about a foot wide and didn't have a flat floor so your stood with your feet kinda facing outwards if you could imagine. It was horribly uncomfortable. On top of this, the shower head was low and low pressure. Anyone over 5 feet tall were not going to be able to use these showers.
-The next was at a hostel. I will try my best to explain this one. So you walk into our bathroom which is perfectly square. right in front of you is a sink, on the left of the sink is the toilet, on the left of the toilet is a piece of glass about 4 feet high and 1 foot wide attached to the back wall. Then there is about 3 feet of free space, then the perpendicular wall where the shower head was. The floor was all the same level, and there was 1 small drain in the back corner. If you followed that at all, you're probably still confused because why the heck is that a good idea? It's a terrible idea. The entire bathroom would flood. But don't worry, there was a squeegee so clean up the 2 inches of water left on the bathroom floor. So ridiculous.
-The current shower I am using has the shower head across from the door, about a 2 inch ledge that doesn't really help anything. The curtain is across from the shower head which would be a problem, but the shower head doesn't stay up so you have to hold it in your hand. This entire bathroom also floods, but no squeegee is offered.
-Some people live in a different hostel and I saw their shower. I was so excited to see that this shower was a basic glass shower in a bathroom corner that had a glass door. It was such an exciting thing to see that it was possible to find a normal shower in Greece. That was until a boy took a 5 minute shower and the bathroom as well as some of the kitchen were flooded. I'm not really sure how that happened.
In conclusion, these showers suck and it is hard enough to convince myself not to be a scumbag without the added temptation of not having to deal with these stupid showers. I feel better after complaining.

Our busdriver hates us. We didn't know that it's like sacrilegious to eat on a bus. Fatass Americans is what he's thinking.

When a classmate saw my blog, she made fun of me because I am not in Athens, Trick. I am in Nafplion, leaving for Pylos tomorrow. So that was logically a bad idea but it happens. More often than it should.

Chair break count is up to four. This time I was just resting my feet on it staring at the beautiful water at night and my feet went through the whole butt part of the chair. Sucks to suck.

There's a girl in my group named Nicolette. She is more sarcastic than me. Take a second to figure that one out. We also have identical tastes in tv and movies as well as a similar ability to quote them in inappropriate situations. It is so wonderful to have someone like that because the slightest things set us off and we just laugh for about 40 minutes saying one word from a quote and not being able to finish. Other group members believe that all we do is watch television. That's not true. I spend more of my time quoting television than I do watching it.

Watched Lucky Number Slevin so I will now be known as "Bad Dog" please and thank you. Also, Josh Hartnett is beautiful. Where did he go?

Well that is all for now. I am going to go shower, get annoyed by that, be freezing in my room, and probably get back into bed. I took a four hour nap last night only to realize that my nap length exceeded my previous night's sleep by a long shot. This was the same time I figured out that one-quarter of my big toenail was missing. Good times.

Suck it Trebek.

And I'm giving him to you as a replacement cat for the one I destroyed.

I've broken three chairs so far this trip. It's getting pretty ridiculous.

So we moved to Nafplion today where there are about 6 bajillion stray cats unlike Athens that has that many stray dogs. We decided to stay at this hostel that takes in strays too. This is a weird place. We had to choose as a group where we were staying and we split up into two groups and each looked at 3 or 4. We fell in love with this cat place because the women who owns it is hilarious and so nice. So we regrouped and basically told them we wanted to stay here. There was no argument and we moved in. (This is about the time I broke the chair.) Then as we were eating later the other group started telling us about the places they looked at, all of which were about 60% better and most of them cheaper than this one. This is why college students should not be in charge of such decisions. All that matters is who talks first and everyone settles. Considering I'm always talking, this can cause problems because I'm a moron and should not be a part of any decision making process. I hate cats.

Nafplion is so beautiful though. We went to Palamidi which is a fort or something. It was really huge and so cool to be at. In order to get to it, there are 999 steps. Or just stick to being American and have a tacky bus take you up to the front door. The views of the town below and the water were ridiculous. We went to the prison of Kolokotronis. Not that I know what that means at all. I do know that you entered a room and they had a sign that says "Prison of Kolokotronis" with an arrow towards an Alice in Wonderland-sized door. I thought it was a joke. You entered there to a small room that could fit maybe two people that had another small door that took you to the bigger room that had one light bulb in it. It was terrifying, and I'm assuming he didn't have a light bulb at the time either. I panicked and the kid I entered with was attempting to video tape this experience but I ruined that for him by freaking out and grabbing him when water dripped on me. So scary. Then a group of us found a hole that we clearly had to crawl into. Being afraid of the dark and small spaces, I was the obvious first choice to enter and lead them down the tunnel that ultimately lead to a dead end. I would not have been surprised if I saw a dead body. Great place though.

Before we got to Nafplion we stopped at the site of some palace. Interesting. Much cooler to be walking around the place instead of looking at plans and drawings in Lake Forest, Illinois. Most anything is better than that.

One of the funniest parts of this experience is how American we all are. People automatically speak to us in English even if we don't say or do anything. We were walking down a street in Athens a few nights ago and a man smoking said "Hello Americans" in his accent without even talking or listening to any of us. So hilarious. The hostel we stayed at was owned by Australians and had a wide variety of people staying there. It is interesting to meet someone and hear their random story. Really, the only thing I see in common between everyone I had met at the hostel was how much we all really liked karaoke last night. Karaoke is always the same. It starts out slow and awkward because it's always the weirdos who sign up at the beginning. (Side note-I was the second to perform. Take A Chance On Me. Abba seemed appropriate for karaoke in Greece. Nailed it.) Then people laugh and start to get comfortable and by the end of it every single person is singing and there are at least 7 people up at the microphone, sometimes strangers. This is how I met my new friend Kara who is a 23 year old American who has been nannying in Athens for 9 months. I've had many brilliant ideas like this placed into my head by these new friends. My mom would go for something like that, right? Bahahahahaha

I have taught my friends in the program the fun game called "Can Molly Jump That?" My stupidity matched with being incredibly easy to convince to do anything matched with my vertical makes this fun. So far I have succeeded in all these jumps. What I haven't succeeded in is general coordination while walking on stone pathways which are frequent here. Tricky stuff.

I have just been scolded by my lovely cousin Michelle to update my blog. Which is confusing because I don't know why people read it. I have even lost interest in it myself, and it's my life.

Last thing, I constantly have to reorganize the entire sentence structure based on the fact that I don't know how to spell a word or what form it goes in.

My Favorite Box.

Their salami sandwiches have cream cheese on them already. I'm so glad this society understands me.

We had our first real class today. We went to the Canadian Institution where we take most of our classes which is basically someone's apartment with a decent sized room filled with books. I'm serious, there's a bedroom, the bathroom has a washing machine, and a kitchen filled with numerous empty wine bottles. I can only hope that those were from the morning before class. After, we went to the museum where a majority of it was closed and somehow we still stayed for an extraordinarily long time. This professor is so brilliant and after he showed us all the stuff he wanted us to know, he told us to go wander and make sure to ask questions because we should have tons. It was a little disheartening when I wasn't even smart enough to come up with a question about anything in this museum without insulting his intelligence by my stupidity. So that's good.

My last blog was just filled with grammatical errors and multiple mistakes. I was just rambling for hours into my Microsoft Word when I didn't have Internet and am under the impression that there is no way to make a mistake when using Word even if it is a mistake in quoting Mean Girls, for example. I apologize. I also apologize to all the teachers and professors who have had to read my papers that I refuse to proofread because if Word doesn't catch it, there is no chance I'm going to find it.

I was told that my uncle Terry has been reading this blog. He has been the source of our family's entertainment for some time when it comes to written out humor. I really only expect Kelsey to read this if we're being honest. I don't have friends and anyone who told me they would miss me can easily replace me with the next man-voiced obnoxious laughing girl. Shouldn't be too hard. I was a bit intimidated when I first learned this because he is so great at writing out humor that mine is pathetic in comparison. I realized that this is another one of my philosophies: only do things that you can assure you're the best at and walk away from feeling completely accomplished. This explains why I hate card games, board games, playing my sister or brother in basketball, and dating. There is no way for me to assure that I end up being the best which is a problem for my delusional ego. The easy comparing makes it difficult because my cockiness is based on the fact that I'm in a very thick walled comfort zone. I like it here, there's everything I need here. But then I remembered that I also assure that people have zero expectations for me in anything I do from the very start. So I think the fact that I know how to read and write is impressive enough for the viewers of this blog.

We were told to continue to check our texts and phones because there is a chance that class is cancelled tomorrow. There is going to be a strike and it might be a general strike where everything shuts down. Except for the bars, of course. It's Saint Patrick's Day, don't be ridiculous. But we won't find out until the morning. The plan for tomorrow's class is to walk to a museum and learn stuff supposedly and then walk up this huge mountain because it's cool. This would be a long walk. I could use the day off. My feet hurt from walking all over Athens and only averaging 4 hours of sleep per night and having the time of my life. White Girl Problems.

Back to this riot thing. They hate Americans and blame us for their problems. To be honest, it makes sense and we probably deserve it but I'd rather not be tear-gassed for our countries mistakes. It's not like I had anything to do with them. My political lethargy is the reason democracies crumble. I just figured I'd travel to places like Greece and avoid it all, but it's coming back to bite me in the ass, or tear gas me in the face. When told about this tear gas issue, they were very calm saying it's not a big deal, walk it off, rub some dirt in it. They ended it by upbeatedly (made up word) telling us, "Yeah, just if you get tear gassed, go on with your day. Try not to rub your eyes though. Rubbing your eyes can make the top layer of your eyeballs come off." No big deal. Anything that has to do with the word "eyeballs" always sounds pretty awful. This relaxed view on something so ridiculous reminded me of the first meeting we had about the program when we discussed the hospitals over here and our professor reassured us saying there have only been typical problems such as bad sunburns, rolled ankles, STDs from the discotheques. You know, the usual. Side note-I hate the word discotheque.

We went to this town today that was originally forbidden by the program but we ended up having to go there as a group. The reason it's forbidden is because it's super shady and terrible and I guess people openly pee or shoot heroine so that's a problem, I guess. This place was absolutely unreal. From what I noticed I concluded that every single person there hates every other person. I smiled once and I can't know for sure, but I'm pretty certain they swore at me and attempted to spit on me. It was a four year old playing the accordion for money wearing a Dora the Explora shirt. A mother came up to us with a kid who was far too old to be held on her hip and she told us that she couldn't afford food and wanted our money to feed her child. The kid was literally holding restaurant food and had a mouthful. The biggest problem is that the way they signal "no" here isn't by shaking your head, it's be quickly nodding upward. So I'll shake my head and they just stare at me like I have a problem weighing their options because someone who walks around shaking their head like that must be easy to pick-pocket.

Our groups new found hobby is trying to pick pocket each other. They keep telling us it's such a big problem and we need to be careful so instead of being threatened by this, we become intrigued by the idea of the levels of pick pocketers. There are professionals. Then there are apprentices who are basically the wingman who create a distraction. Then the professionals use their children to hold a bag under your bag that they slice open and catch all the contents. This would be terrifying if it weren't so brilliant or if I weren't carefree to the point of oblivion.

Well, since my mom will overanalyze and panic about everything and look way too deeply into things, I will stop typing for now. Blame her. Last time when I wrote so much she said it was due to sleep deficiency. Now that I'm stopping early I'll assume that she's assuming that I'm about to go acquire one of those STDs we talked about. But it's fine though, that's normal according to the program.

I see Blue. He looks glorious!

First thing-very important. In our shower, we have an emergency cord to pull like old people places have in case you fall and need assistance. Considering the bathtub is so narrow and I’m impressed I didn’t fall, it makes sense. I. Did. Not. Pull. The. Cord!! I have never not pulled something like that. I’m so impressed with myself. I mean, we still have three hours here but I plan on completely avoiding the bathroom, specifically the shower. We have to meet out travel agent soon who is this crazy old school and formal. And I’m not wearing pants to this meeting. I figure I should have his expectations low to avoid responsibility for anything. Maybe I should just go ahead and pull that cord to get out of any extra work to do with common sense.

Greece and I have more in common than I expected. So much energy. Crowded with buildings on top of each other, clustered like my thoughts. When looking at the city from afar and high up, it’s clear to see that there was no organizing or planning. They just started and decided as they went along. Spontaneous, some might say. Most importantly, pictures cannot capture how amazing and truly beautiful it is. Plus an Irish Pub.

It hasn’t hit me yet that I’m in Athens. I’m living out the days and fantasies that crowded my thoughts for nearly a year now. I couldn’t ask for a more perfect experience, and it’s only been a day. Seeing everything and being a part of it all is impossible to explain. There are so many things that I would love to tell everyone about, but there’s nothing else like them. Sitting on my balcony with great company gazing at the Acropolis lit up at night could be one of my favorite things. Every once in a while, probably every 20 minutes, someone in the group will stop us all and simply say, “Guys, we’re in Greece.” Okay, so that’s just me and one other person, but her name is Zakea so I think that counts for more than more people.

Everything with the flight went so easy. Oh, except that I had 2.5 pounds too many in my luggage. That was to be expected because that thing is huge. I took some stuff out and put it in my travel buddy’s carry on so that worked out nicely. Walking with them wasn’t too terrible either. Not my preference but I’m in Greece so I’m not complaining. I didn’t experience any jetlag. I wasn’t tired except for on that 9 hour-long frickin plane. I was about 10 minutes from going insane. My left eye started twitching at about hour eight. That’s not nearly as bad as hours three through seven when “Stacy’s Mom” was stuck in my head. I’m going to assume (Mom-I know, it makes an ass out of you and me. Clever.) that it is now stuck in your head and you’re probably swearing at me for it. Trust me, I know. It sucks. What’s worse than that being stuck in your head? A nine hour flight sitting in the middle seat unable to sleep sitting upright in the dark while everyone else sleeps, having to pee for the majority of the time, barely blinking due to insanity because of having that song stuck in your head. I believe that when something sucks and has happened to me, if I have control over it I should pass it forward so I’m not the only one who suffers and so that people can relate with what I went through without it being nearly as bad as mine in order to get more pity from them. The Anti-Karma.

We had breakfast in the hotel today and everything is so simple here. Yogurt and honey have never been more delicious, yet the sores in my mouth are going to start burning holes through my tongue after a few days of that menu. Luckily we get kicked out of this hotel tomorrow. Also, we found out the Acropolis was free today so we took a walk up there and marveled over how they built it because of the amazing architecture, but mostly because it’s so frickin high up and exhausting to get up there. We would have complained more and earlier if we could catch our breath. We wandered around there for some time and I can honestly say that this is something that should be on everyone’s “Bucket List.” I would love to tell you what it’s like, but there is literally not a single thing in the world that comes to mind that could correctly explain them. I took so many pictures to try and capture an image that gives it its proper credit, but it was impossible. There was this giant rock called something Greek that I should probably know near the exit. We sat up there and enjoyed overlooking the other side of Greece. Once again, this is something that the pictures look like a perfect screensaver but still is a crappy knock off version of what it’s really like. Classes start tomorrow and I’m sure I’ll have more scholarly things to say when that happens (don’t count on it,) but for now the most I can tell is what we have done on our own without saying too much. My name’s attached to this and I’d hate for someone, say a future employer or boss, to google me and find out what hooligans we are.

I will say that I have never loved being this age so much until now. I have always been excited about where I am in life age wise, but now I am overly excited about where I am in life in every aspect. The logic that these people I’m with come up with is almost too much to handle. Since I have had my mother’s responsible logic hammered into my head my whole life, I’m still able to see how she does while still making my stupid decisions. Well, her response would be much different and she’d be appalled compared to others. For instance, we have 10 weeks here. We spend a good portion of the time in Athens. We had traveled all day and missed an entire night’s rest. We got there and our body was telling us it was 4am. Anyone else besides our generation right now would say that we should take it easy, get some food, and then go to sleep to get a good night’s rest to recover. But no, we say, “Guys, how many times can you say it’s your first night in Athens. We have to live it up.” without any counterargument. The expression, “It’s fine, guys. It’s a good idea,” will never be worn out.

Now, considering how many different places we’re traveling, I believe this is a valid reason to live it up. Replace “Athens” with the numerous other places we’re going. That covers our justification for a bunch of nights. The rest we’ll improvise. The back up is always “Screw it, we’re in Greece.” I can already tell. Also, the awe we feel towards Athens won’t fade for a few days, so it will be the same thing over and over again each time we move. I am so appreciative for all of this. I’m incredibly lucky and I know it yadda yadda yadda. (it’s all true but mostly it’ll make my parents happier about paying for this if I say it openly especially after me describing the shenanigans to them)

I haven’t gone for a run yet. I did walk a block to the atm alone only to remember that I don’t know my pin code. Cool. I actually haven’t run yet at all, sorry Mom. I swear I’m not fat yet. I may, however, be getting a tattoo by the end of all this. Plus we’ll probably dive off cliffs into water. Preemptive apologies.

Hmm anything else funny? We were on the balcony waiting for our professor to get here just chit chatting from probably 2 until 3. It was very quiet in retrospect, but we were loud and obnoxious and lots of swear words were being tossed around. Later, at our meeting with our professor, we started to laugh somewhat loudly in the lobby of this hotel and our professors told us to quiet down because there are official quiet hours in Athens from 1 until 4 and if anyone is loud at all in the city, the police are usually called. They take this very seriously. Good thing we absolutely destroyed those quiet hours.

My roommate talks in her sleep.

I’m allergic to the blanket on my bed because every time it touched me I would start heaving and coughing and have difficulty breathing. I discovered this through many trial and errors moving the blanket for a moment, and then returning it to only immediately start coughing. This entertained me for some time.

They have good oranges because there are a bunch of orange trees that I’m not allowed to touch, I guess. The only problem with them is that they don’t really separate into the slices very easily. I don’t know why. Also, they completely dilute the orange juice so it just is like orange-ish water. It’s strange. Reminds me of Fruit2o that my mom used to buy. Well, that’s what I think of to manage to drink it. Sadly there is no cranberry juice here. Maggie, go ahead make the joke from The Departed. Or you could just say, “She asked me how to orange.” Either one of those is fine.

Kristine went on this trip about two years ago and is an LFC graduate and basically is a liaison between us students and the faculty. First thing, I hope Corie is reading this and appreciated the use of the word “liaison.” It worked into this blog better than flux, but I’ll try my best. Second thing, I want her job. I’m already competing for it with another one of the students who is clearly smarter than me, a history major, and completely qualified but it’s fine because I have the convincing personality. Not worried. Third, she loves similar movies as me and gets my quotes. Salvation.

Our room right now has three twin-sized beds, two of which are put together but sheeted separately. I plan on rolling over to annoy my roommate Keegan later tonight.

The roles have been set very securely. Basically, the boys are in charge and the girls have zero responsibility. This is a dream. I am not liable for anything I do anymore. We refer to them as archons. I would explain this nickname, but I love that I just made a nerdy joke referring to Ancient Greece. I’m usually not smart enough to make such dorky jokes that would go over common people’s heads or not be categorized as common knowledge. Most people make smart people jokes and I don’t get them and hate it because the explanation is far too lengthy and pointless because it has no importance to my world and I forget it before I even listen to it. If you’re smart and don’t understand what I mean 1) Why are you reading this blog? Not the behavior of a smart person. 2) It’s a very similar experience to when you don’t understand my pop culture references. Anti-Karma.

I don’t think I’ve made very many pop culture references in this blog now that I mention it. Well, obviously yadda yadda yadda was one. Well, obvious to some. Fine, obvious to a very select few. I decided the title to my blogs would all be pop culture references that relate to what I’m thinking. We can make a game of it. Like “Guess that reference” or figure out why I chose that one. That wouldn’t work because I’m not one hundred percent sure of why I say or in the case type and title most of the things I do.

I’m off to the kiosk to love life some more all over Athens. YOLO. We’re young. Aaaaaand I feel better about my decisions that easily.

Peace. Love. *NSYNC.

www.creedthoughts.gov.www\creedthoughts

I always promised myself that if I ever decided that my thoughts were important or good enough to blog, I would start with a reference to The Office. Creed decides he wants to blog but Ryan doesn't think that's the best idea. The quote is, "Even for the Internet, it's pretty shocking." If anyone was smart, they would have done the same and opened up a word document for me to type my stupid thoughts into regularly and not share them with the world. I would be happy and no one would have to waste their life attempting to read them. Too bad google makes this stuff so easy for me to figure out on my own. So here I am blogging...

Usually blogging is about the bloggers thoughts or personal beliefs. The reason anyone would read this would not be to hear about my inner dialogues or my thoughts or stupid ideas, but for the experiences I have and the adventures I go on and the things I see in Greece. Unlucky for you, I am vain and think I'm hilarious so in order to hear about all the cool stuff my parents are paying for me to do and learn (shoutout), you'll have to deal with my hysterical antics and tangents about life. This was a terrible idea.

I am still in Riverside while starting this, but I am preparing to leave. Well not right now. At the moment I am continuing my seemingly endless marathon of Jason Segel television shows alternating Freaks and Geeks and How I Met Your Mother. (This is an example of the useless information you'll be given through my blogs. Blog? Is it plural? Whatever.) I also have no faith in myself and don't know how great of an updater I'll be, but who knows, maybe I'll be on top of it. But since there's a chance that I don't give any good details, I figured I'd start while still at home. I'm just packing and getting organized and (most importantly) reassuring my mom that she'll be okay and that (less importantly) I'll be okay. I leave Friday morning and will be arriving in Athens on Saturday. Since I can barely tell time, I don't understand the time differences or time zones in general.

Looking at this trip, I mean, learning experience beforehand, I have a few thoughts pop into my head immediately. Some are important and somewhat mature of me to think about. Like what kind of school supplies I'll need? Do I have enough sunscreen? Are the classes too challenging especially in such an odd learning environment? I have never been out of the country so I hope I can handle all the airport stuff as well as transitioning to such a different lifestyle.

But mostly I think of ridiculous things that no one would care about but me. Will the person I share a room with mind that I like sleeping with a light on preferably a leg lamp? I wonder if they have delivery options for food. Where are all the donkeys that I get to ride located?  I have never owned this many pairs of underwear at once in my life. How great is the url to this blog? You know, the important stuff.

My mom has started some lecturing. Nothing too major, I'm impressed with her collected outward appearance. One of the first things she told me was "Molly, don't go for runs by yourself." This is logical for her since I am known to run late at night alone with blasting music. I wouldn't do it in Greece, I don't think. Then I realized how pathetic it is that most parents are concerned that their daughters will meet a Greek guy and run away with him either ending in pregnancy or death. Or they will go out and party way too hard and will get sick or lost. Nope, I'm not even cool enough to worry my mom. The worst thing she could imagine me doing it exercising by myself. I need to reevaluate my youth.

Well, this is it until I'm overseas. I can hardly wait! Wooh! I have really enjoyed writing this. I think this is dangerous though because it has been made very clear on many occasions that I find myself more entertaining than anyone else considers me. That matched with my shameless attitude make for one great blogging experience for myself.