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.