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.
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