I have tweeted 132 times. What do I possibly think I have to say that I need to tweet that often as well as have a blog?
I’ll continue both, of course. This time I get to use real names. Except I do have to say that Delta and a few other funny people here keep quoting "It's just a flesh wound" about her head injury so that is absolutely hilarious. Moving on. So far Olympia has been really wonderful. We went for a stroll last night as a class. It took about 4 minutes to get through the entire town and that’s because my professor stopped to talk a few times and I’ve mentioned how he’s a slow talker. There’s about two streets and there about two blocks long. Afterwards we were all going to go to dinner together, but some of the class abandoned Kristine as she was helping Fisher pick out what to get us for lunch today. Since Caroline and I are really close with Kristine and decent human beings, we waited for her while everyone else just walked away. Fisher ended up buying us delicious chocolate and then showing us the place where he’s taking us out to dinner tonight. We sat down there while he lit a cigarette and drank a beer completely disregarding the no smoking signs in Greek and English with a picture of a cigarette with the red circle and line through it that reminds me of Ghostbusters that was sitting on every individual table. This guy is just so boss. He does whatever he wants and knows everything and everyone. So strange. We were all incredibly hungry after the ridiculous day we had and were so ready to eat. This was probably the best tzatsiki I had ever had. It was really good combined with starvation. Yummy. Then we got souvlaki which is basically a kebab and maxed out on it. It was called “Souvlaki Big Chicken” and the big part sold us. Kristine accidentally catapulted the first piece of her meat off her skewer and I think I saw a couple tears. The flung meat just stared at us, tempting us for the rest of the meal. It was delicious. We scraped the tzatsiki clean with fries and left no traces of food. When I went to go pay for the check, which you have to go get it or else they’ll let you just sit there for hours without ever bringing it, I had a humorous conversation with the busy owner. He was trying to tell me that Professor Fisher had paid for our meal, but he had left before we even got our food and I assumed he was saying that he paid for his beer. This was very confusing for me and took minutes to straighten out. When I returned to the table, my friends didn’t believe me, which is reasonable since I’m a moron, and checked with the owner again. He began to get annoyed by our stupidity. All I know is that us being patient and waiting for Kristine got us a free dinner and free chocolate. We are clearly the favorite in the group and that is pretty fantastic.
After dinner we walked back and went past a store that some classmates were in. They awkwardly walked out and tried to hurry us along. We were very annoyed by this. They’re lucky we had just eaten our body weight in meat because we were all super cranky and hating everyone before that. I put some pieces together and realized that a boy I recently referred to as Cullen was buying the girl I called Delta flowers because he felt terrible and personally responsible for her still. I figured that out, high kicked, shouted “Nancy Drew” and then tried to figure out why they wouldn’t let us know that. That bothered me even more. Like they were going to get her flowers and try to be that person who wants all the credit for caring and showing sympathy and not let everyone else be involved. You know the kind, the person who will sign individual names on things just to point out that they were the first name, the one to organize it, and show who they shouldn’t thank. Considering the three of us were the most helpful and involved in the night, we were pissed. Well, it was more like me being annoyed by that.
We noticed that the stars were absolutely beautiful and decided to lay down on the hill street thing that leads to our hotel and look up at the stars. The group from the store came walking up and I had calmed down about them being “those people” and offered them to lay down with us when Cullen walked up holding three bouquets of flowers, one for Delta, one for Telescope and one for me! We all helped with his sickness the previous night and he wanted to thank us so he got us flowers! How nice, right?! People don’t get me flowers. I couldn’t even spell bouquet just now. It was pretty precious. I asked him to take a picture with me and the flowers and he was hesitant to because he didn’t want people to ask why he got them for me and then I have to explain that he projectile vomited all over the hostel wall. I reassured him that I would not tell anyone. I am always full of shit.
Our professor walked up, saw us lying there alone and started to talk to us about the stars. He sent me to a kiosk to get us some drinks. We actually paid for them though because we actually would have felt bad if he did considering he paid for so much. I bought 6 of these delicious drinks in a bottle and was holding two in my right hand and had one in my right armpit. I went to grab the fourth and the armpit one slipped out. I made a miraculous catch behind the back with my left hand without dropping or breaking anything. One of my prouder moments, especially relating to coordination. After buying out all the fruity drinks left at a kiosk, I ran back up the exhausting hill. Everyone went inside but I was so freaked out that they were hiding like jerks trying to scare me since they know I’m afraid of the dark. I screamed the entire way up calling them names and trying to get them to come out of the hiding spots only to find out I was completely alone. I’m weird. Then our professor came back out with us and gave us an astronomy lesson that was really amazing since I’m used to Chicago stars and not being able to see anything. I kept calling it astrology and that is not right.
I got a full nine hours of sleep and felt amazing when I woke up. Breakfast had these potato things that were so delicious. It was a nice change of pace from the usual breakfast we get of hard break and slices of tomato. We went to the archaeological site of Olympia. It was a sanctuary but also held the Olympic games that started in 776. I asked my classmates around me if I just call it Olympia or what and they are now continuing being smart and specific about it. All I care about is that it was beautiful and makes me appreciate history so much more knowing about the athletes. I am the only one here passionate about playing sports and only one other has very much appreciation for how cool this is but they get excited about workshops and streets and were so confused to see me so excited about a historic site. I got to start in the ancient starting blocks and run the race in the stadium. Amazing. I remember Ms. Brabec told me she did that and it has sounded like the coolest thing ever and it might have been. Then we sat and watched as the tourists did a similar thing. I got sunburned while arrogantly laughing at them while the other groups ran the race backwards. Psh silly tourists. You always finish a race towards the sanctuary. I guess not everyone can be such worldly scholar like me. I just spelled worldly wrong. Thank you, spell-check.
We finished, ate some lunch and some of us decided to walk up this hill that barely had a path. It was a beautiful view. You could see the whole sanctuary from above. On the way down I slipped, grabbed onto a tree to catch myself. Funny story about that tree is that it bent with me and I landed in a thorny bush. Luckily a classmate who is probably clumsier than me saw and we got a good laugh while everyone else tried to figure out what happened. So hilarious.
We got back to the hotel and showering felt wonderful on my sunburn and scratches from the adventuring through the thorns and other unknown things. I forgot to move the towels from the shelf in the shower so those got sopping wet so that’s good. Now I’m downstairs in the lobby to get Internet in my sister’s boyfriend’s basketball shorts (sorry, Mag) and a long sleeve t-shirt that just says “Teamwork” on the front and “Trust It.” on the back. I look pretty ridiculous. I am barefoot and putting my feet up on the table even though the bottom of your feet or shoes are considered to be very rude and offensive. Hence why people over here threw shoes at Bush a few years ago. Greek assholes are judging me. Typical. We’re going out for a meat filled dinner tonight again in about an hour so maybe I should get dressed and look like a real person so they will serve me.
Some of the classmates just realized I’m blogging and are interested in reading it. They want me to send them the link to it. Errr…not a good idea. Maybe I’ll start a fake one and send them that link? You think I can just send them Maggie’s blog about Iceland? I think they would believe that it’s mine not because they’re stupid, but because they think I’m one of the dumbest people they have ever met.
Everyone around me is attempting to create their schedules for next year and one of them had a free class to do whatever with it and I told them to take a comm class because they’re easy and usually the more entertaining ones. She told me she couldn’t because her dad would kill her. I think the quote was, “I once joked to my dad that I was a communication major and he started to cry. I had never seen him show that much emotion. He asked why I was disappointing him.” I guess her dad thinks that communications is a pointless major. It probably is, and I think it was hilarious, but part of me wants to defend it for the sake of defending it. Yes it’s stupid and I have no visible future because of my decision to be a comm major, but it’s like making fun of my mom. I can say absolutely anything about her tiny feet, terrible concept of song lyrics, and crazy antics on sports she doesn’t fully understand, but the minute you insult her I will get personally offended. Same goes to my ginger cousin. Don’t cross me.
So my defense is that sure, he is probably much smarter and more successful than I’ll ever be. And sure, his daughter is probably smarter as well. Sure, she’ll have a future with her history major and will always have that intelligence to rely on…
I just dug myself a pretty deep hole.
I can communicate better than her and her dad. Personality can get you far, right? I’m well-rounded? I have options with a career and her major is one track? Umm…
Screw it, I’m going to go sit by my friends who are creeping on facebook instead of planning a schedule.
They’re psych majors. My kind of crowd.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
You're adopted. Your parents don't even love you.
I was just a part of an earthquake. Pretty hilarious when this entire floor of this small hotel are kids from our program who aren’t used to this and we all ran to the hallways, then our balcony all in excitement. I believe the first thing said was “Guys! It’s an earthquake! Come outside!” which is the most obvious thing to do, right? Once again, the logic of my generation is basically flawless and I love getting to live with it. I am dumb enough to admit and especially share with others when I do something hysterically stupid. This is one of those times. When the earthquake started, I first thought it was my roommate just bouncing on her bed. Then it clicked that it was an earthquake, I first ran out to the balcony in excitement followed by me thinking to myself “Wait, we practiced this in school.” My instinct was to put shoes on, grab my purse, and leave the building as if it was a fire like I learned in school. Brilliant.
I don’t remember if I said this last blog, but even if I did it’s worth repeating. On my birthday at Knossos was the most outrageous ginger I have ever seen. He was Greek, which is already a problem. He had a mohawk sorta. The worst part was how he was wearing a completely tacky low low low low cut v-neck. If he were a girl, it would not be acceptable. Not that it is acceptable as a boy, but with him a bra wasn’t showing. He had the most disgusting red chest hair just curling out of this v-neck. Everyone in our program saw it when we were just wandering the site alone and when we reunited we all said it first thing. Amazing. A girl got a picture that shall be on my facebook wall soon. Figure out a way to see it. Totally worth it. Especially because he was drinking orange juice in the picture which makes the orange unbearable.
I just got back from the beach. It was so hot and sunny all day, the back of my neck is probably really burnt, but of course the minute I get to the beach it gets horribly cloudy. It was still beautiful.
Today was our last class for the first section. I miss Matthew already. We went to a museum where I gave a presentation on peak sanctuaries, which are the sacred areas, cut off from the rest of society on the top of mountains. I miss giving speeches on things that get to have my personality and obnoxiousness involved. My fast-talking doesn’t pair well with intellectual information. Much better when I’m arguing for the side of dodgeball or talking about my ridiculous family or really anything that doesn’t have intelligence involved. That says a lot about me. And my major. Good.
After the museum we went to one of the coolest sites. It was Gornia, which was excavated by a woman in the early 20th century. She was one of the first excavators who put an emphasis on the town instead of ignoring the houses and focusing on the palace. This was an awesome experience because we were just sitting in people’s houses and it all seemed so real and it hits you how old this is and how people were living and doing day-to-day things. It’s hard to grasp the idea of kings but much easier to talk about games and jobs of the people. It also was only a few meters away from the water. I totally just used the measuring reference of meters to sneak some European in here. Not that I know the concept of distance especially in meters. Whatever, it was really close to the water. Since this bus system is weird, we had about an hour and a half to kill to Matthew just took us by the water where they are just starting to excavate ship houses and then we just messed around. I took off my shoes and sang The Little Mermaid while my classmates laughed at me while either taking pictures or splashing me. Both acceptable responses.
My mother emailed me yesterday saying how I probably add such a different dynamic to the group that has probably never been a part of the Greece Program before. This may be true since I am very one of a kind and unique (that’s a nice way to put it.) This is weird to think about because I bet a majority of them would still have the time of their lives without me being ridiculously annoying.
The next email I received from her started with her saying, “I’m sure this will end up in your blog…” so I’ll do just that. She’s so freaked out about this earthquake, which is hilarious because I just think it was pretty nifty. I understand that they are serious things, but I’m fine and it was quite an experience. I signed up to come to Greece and that included everything. She panicked a little. A lot.
I started this blog in my room but am now finishing it from my seat on this unbelievably comfortable chair on the Minoan Line to head back to Athens. Couple things. First off, I am beyond excited to get back to Athens. I think I have made it basically my home. I love it so much and miss it dearly. Good thing I have six free days off in Athens now…awesome. Next thing, I found the MTV channel on the little tv connected to my chair and the best part if that the next hour is “Absolutely 90s.” So far the highlights have been Shaggy, Green Day, Biggie and now Ricky Martin. Yes, I am Livin’ La Vida Loca at this moment. Couldn’t be happier. So cheesy. Everything about the 90s is flawless. I’m in heaven.
All our busses are Mercedes Benz. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that yet but I find that hilarious. Also, they are terrible drivers. Saw a hit and run today where a car hit a delivery boy on his moped and then the car drove away and the moped tried to chase it. Quite common. The busses and taxis are also stick shift so we bounce up and down and start rolling back most hills. There are lots of hills. Although they are terrible drivers, they can parallel park into any spot. So impressive.
I have a very long (at least 10 hour) boat ride ahead of me. We leave at 10 and I’m still sitting here. Then we get in early, have to walk a lot, and can’t move into our living situation until later in the afternoon. This means me and a couple guys will be finding a sports bar that opens especially open for March Madness. Isn’t that hilarious? The games are at like 5:30am but they’re all for it so I guess I have no reason not to be. This also means that I have a lot of time to kill. Which means I will ramble on this for some time. Sorry I’m not sorry.
I blame Kelly for my obsession with Bueno Bars. Also, Kelly, look up the songs Mr. Saxobeat by Alexandra Stan and Written in the Stars by Tinie Tempah. Highly recommend both. We plan on getting all this ridiculous Greek music we found through the video channel and have a party with it but I’d hate to have you left out! Fam would love these songs too…
My mom told me that my uncle stopped by the house and asked what class I was even taking and that not a single person in my house could figure it out. This is hilarious to me. No one knows what I’m doing here. Myself included. I am taking courses on history of Greek antiquity. I am taking one course at a time, which means I took a class on Greek civilization in general starting in the Bronze Age through Hellenic periods. That ended at the beginning of March and now I just finished the second course, which was specific to the Bronze Age. I will be starting the third course on the Classical Period in six days. Then about three weeks later I will start the last course, which is about the Byzantine. I learn about these time periods through going to archaeological sites of places or palaces from that time period. Super interesting stuff.
The next professor is Matthews girlfriend of 10 years. When we found this out it was very exciting because anyone dating Matthew must be hilarious as well. We went out to dinner as a farewell. We got him 4 packs of cigarettes and a cigar and he told us it was the best gift he has ever received from a class. Simple man. We also tried to convince him to come to class and do ridiculous things like undermine his girlfriend’s intelligence by making comments or laughing after things she says or bringing his own handouts. Okay, this was mainly my idea because I like Seinfeld too much to not try and destroy relationships through hilarious ways. I don’t want to destroy this one though. Maybe damage for some time for my entertainment. If he does not visit I plan on saying something like, “Guys, she’s great. Matthew was full of crap,” just to mess with it a little bit.
We got this really nice seats and I just went up to the deck for take-off or whatever you call it on a boat. It’s my mom’s worst nightmare/so much fun. So windy and rocky and sopping wet on all the decks. To get to the deck we went through the other seating area. It’s cramped and smells like sweaty gypsy children feet. Our professor wasn’t supposed to help get us these tickets but somehow he decided to make one phone call and he got us the nice seats for half the price. Unreal. Richard Fisher is an amazing man. He is so calm and relaxed all the time and it takes him about 25 minutes to get through one sentence because he likes to stop and touch his face and your shoulder a lot but he gets so much done. So impressive. We all have the imitation of him down too. Probably just as popular and commonly used as the ones of my dad from Hauser.
We had some time to kill so my friends Russell and Eddie decided the storm would be fun to go watch up close so I of course joined. Earmuffs mom: It has been made very clear that anything dumb I will do without question. Good for the group to figure out when we have more cliffs to jump off and everyone’s nervous. I’ll be going first most likely. Okay, mom. Well the water was insane. We were standing on rocks and got sopping wet. These walls were built so long ago and clearly go through so much. Fascinating and such a good time.
The song playing on this channel is Greek and the way you say “Yes” in Greek is “Nay” and it’s hilarious because they say it the way someone in an American rap song would say “Yeah” or “What.” Probably my new favorite thing. Naaaaaaaaaay.
I usually type my blogs right into the blog website box thing but since I’m in the middle of a sea I don’t have internet so I opened a Word document and it has been made decently obvious that I really like to use fragment sentences. Not a problem. I also like the word “So” a lot when trying to describe things. It is what it is.
When we go out to eat we usually just order a bunch of appetizers and share them and then split the bill. We usually will get a few tzatsikis, some sort of meat or fish, fried potatoes, olives, Greek salad, just typical stuff. Then we sit there and eat and be loud and keep ordering more and more while we run out. This makes the restaurant people love us for some reason. We are quite hilarious. Speaking our terrible Greek in Southern accents really gets us laughing. This leads to the restaurant people bringing us free dessert and shots by the end of the meal. Some of them will take shots with us too. They definitely bring enough too. Usually this stuff called “Rocky” which is clearly misspelled but what can you do about it. This is basically ouzo times 40 minus the licorice taste. A lot like vodka. Hope you could follow that math equation I just made for alcohol. Either way, these Greek people know how to do it. They are crazy jerks and rude and I hate most of them, but restaurant people are awesome. Just say thank you in Greek once and they’ll laugh at you and adore you and bring you free stuff. Americans are so selfish and fat and picky about their stuff. Also, tips are like 10 percent at most so it’s a little weird. A group of 5 of us will go get a full meal, be completely full and the bill will be 30 euros. Now, I could do the math and figure out what that means in American money, or I could just treat it as I already do (either equal to American money or Monopoly money or sometimes flex dollars) and be so excited about the fact that I spend about 6 euros for the most filling and delicious wide variety of food and move on with my life.
I’ll take a break from this to work on the paper that was due to Conor on January 12 that I still have yet to complete. I’ll be back soon with another stupid random stream of consciousness. This is good though because I usually rush through my blogs and remember so much stuff I want to say later. Deal with it. Or stop reading, it’s all up to you. If you choose to continue reading, stop complaining. I want both feet in.
So now I am in Athens and still haven’t posted in a few days so it’s just another extension of this ridiculous blog. Last night I went to a soccer game at the Olympic Stadium. Not that I like soccer or anything. I was obsessed with the Olympics in 2004 so this was an amazing experience for me. I saw the pool that Michael Phelps swam in. I think I peed my pants a little bit. I sat next to a kid who loves soccer hoping that his appreciate would rub off on me. It didn’t. But the team we were cheering for, AEK, had lost to the number one team last week 6-0 so the fans all hated them and came to riot. We were sitting in a section that was being rioted so we had to move. Luckily this Greek man helped us because these violent Greeks were just yelling at us. We moved to better seats and ended up leaving early just minutes before smoke bombs and tear gas started. Four of the rioters were arrested because they injured five policemen. This was all because they lost one game. And to think Cubs fans have been dealing with losing for over one hundred years.
I got my debit card in the mail from my mom today. When I picked it up from the institute, the lady was like “You could grab the rest of the kid’s mail if you wanted.” I did and realized that all these people get mail. Like, letters from their parents. It was weird. Mine was an envelope with an envelope inside that had my card in it and nothing else. Thanks, mom. You only love me two envelopes worth. Well, I bet it was really expensive so that’s a nice sentiment.
Now I will post this blog without editing or looking back at anything. This is very long and probably rambling and says nothing of importance but I don't feel like reading it. I apologize for the typos, repetition, and anything else that is wrong with this post that I don't feel like changing. Overall, I'm sorry.
I don’t remember if I said this last blog, but even if I did it’s worth repeating. On my birthday at Knossos was the most outrageous ginger I have ever seen. He was Greek, which is already a problem. He had a mohawk sorta. The worst part was how he was wearing a completely tacky low low low low cut v-neck. If he were a girl, it would not be acceptable. Not that it is acceptable as a boy, but with him a bra wasn’t showing. He had the most disgusting red chest hair just curling out of this v-neck. Everyone in our program saw it when we were just wandering the site alone and when we reunited we all said it first thing. Amazing. A girl got a picture that shall be on my facebook wall soon. Figure out a way to see it. Totally worth it. Especially because he was drinking orange juice in the picture which makes the orange unbearable.
I just got back from the beach. It was so hot and sunny all day, the back of my neck is probably really burnt, but of course the minute I get to the beach it gets horribly cloudy. It was still beautiful.
Today was our last class for the first section. I miss Matthew already. We went to a museum where I gave a presentation on peak sanctuaries, which are the sacred areas, cut off from the rest of society on the top of mountains. I miss giving speeches on things that get to have my personality and obnoxiousness involved. My fast-talking doesn’t pair well with intellectual information. Much better when I’m arguing for the side of dodgeball or talking about my ridiculous family or really anything that doesn’t have intelligence involved. That says a lot about me. And my major. Good.
After the museum we went to one of the coolest sites. It was Gornia, which was excavated by a woman in the early 20th century. She was one of the first excavators who put an emphasis on the town instead of ignoring the houses and focusing on the palace. This was an awesome experience because we were just sitting in people’s houses and it all seemed so real and it hits you how old this is and how people were living and doing day-to-day things. It’s hard to grasp the idea of kings but much easier to talk about games and jobs of the people. It also was only a few meters away from the water. I totally just used the measuring reference of meters to sneak some European in here. Not that I know the concept of distance especially in meters. Whatever, it was really close to the water. Since this bus system is weird, we had about an hour and a half to kill to Matthew just took us by the water where they are just starting to excavate ship houses and then we just messed around. I took off my shoes and sang The Little Mermaid while my classmates laughed at me while either taking pictures or splashing me. Both acceptable responses.
My mother emailed me yesterday saying how I probably add such a different dynamic to the group that has probably never been a part of the Greece Program before. This may be true since I am very one of a kind and unique (that’s a nice way to put it.) This is weird to think about because I bet a majority of them would still have the time of their lives without me being ridiculously annoying.
The next email I received from her started with her saying, “I’m sure this will end up in your blog…” so I’ll do just that. She’s so freaked out about this earthquake, which is hilarious because I just think it was pretty nifty. I understand that they are serious things, but I’m fine and it was quite an experience. I signed up to come to Greece and that included everything. She panicked a little. A lot.
I started this blog in my room but am now finishing it from my seat on this unbelievably comfortable chair on the Minoan Line to head back to Athens. Couple things. First off, I am beyond excited to get back to Athens. I think I have made it basically my home. I love it so much and miss it dearly. Good thing I have six free days off in Athens now…awesome. Next thing, I found the MTV channel on the little tv connected to my chair and the best part if that the next hour is “Absolutely 90s.” So far the highlights have been Shaggy, Green Day, Biggie and now Ricky Martin. Yes, I am Livin’ La Vida Loca at this moment. Couldn’t be happier. So cheesy. Everything about the 90s is flawless. I’m in heaven.
All our busses are Mercedes Benz. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that yet but I find that hilarious. Also, they are terrible drivers. Saw a hit and run today where a car hit a delivery boy on his moped and then the car drove away and the moped tried to chase it. Quite common. The busses and taxis are also stick shift so we bounce up and down and start rolling back most hills. There are lots of hills. Although they are terrible drivers, they can parallel park into any spot. So impressive.
I have a very long (at least 10 hour) boat ride ahead of me. We leave at 10 and I’m still sitting here. Then we get in early, have to walk a lot, and can’t move into our living situation until later in the afternoon. This means me and a couple guys will be finding a sports bar that opens especially open for March Madness. Isn’t that hilarious? The games are at like 5:30am but they’re all for it so I guess I have no reason not to be. This also means that I have a lot of time to kill. Which means I will ramble on this for some time. Sorry I’m not sorry.
I blame Kelly for my obsession with Bueno Bars. Also, Kelly, look up the songs Mr. Saxobeat by Alexandra Stan and Written in the Stars by Tinie Tempah. Highly recommend both. We plan on getting all this ridiculous Greek music we found through the video channel and have a party with it but I’d hate to have you left out! Fam would love these songs too…
My mom told me that my uncle stopped by the house and asked what class I was even taking and that not a single person in my house could figure it out. This is hilarious to me. No one knows what I’m doing here. Myself included. I am taking courses on history of Greek antiquity. I am taking one course at a time, which means I took a class on Greek civilization in general starting in the Bronze Age through Hellenic periods. That ended at the beginning of March and now I just finished the second course, which was specific to the Bronze Age. I will be starting the third course on the Classical Period in six days. Then about three weeks later I will start the last course, which is about the Byzantine. I learn about these time periods through going to archaeological sites of places or palaces from that time period. Super interesting stuff.
The next professor is Matthews girlfriend of 10 years. When we found this out it was very exciting because anyone dating Matthew must be hilarious as well. We went out to dinner as a farewell. We got him 4 packs of cigarettes and a cigar and he told us it was the best gift he has ever received from a class. Simple man. We also tried to convince him to come to class and do ridiculous things like undermine his girlfriend’s intelligence by making comments or laughing after things she says or bringing his own handouts. Okay, this was mainly my idea because I like Seinfeld too much to not try and destroy relationships through hilarious ways. I don’t want to destroy this one though. Maybe damage for some time for my entertainment. If he does not visit I plan on saying something like, “Guys, she’s great. Matthew was full of crap,” just to mess with it a little bit.
We got this really nice seats and I just went up to the deck for take-off or whatever you call it on a boat. It’s my mom’s worst nightmare/so much fun. So windy and rocky and sopping wet on all the decks. To get to the deck we went through the other seating area. It’s cramped and smells like sweaty gypsy children feet. Our professor wasn’t supposed to help get us these tickets but somehow he decided to make one phone call and he got us the nice seats for half the price. Unreal. Richard Fisher is an amazing man. He is so calm and relaxed all the time and it takes him about 25 minutes to get through one sentence because he likes to stop and touch his face and your shoulder a lot but he gets so much done. So impressive. We all have the imitation of him down too. Probably just as popular and commonly used as the ones of my dad from Hauser.
We had some time to kill so my friends Russell and Eddie decided the storm would be fun to go watch up close so I of course joined. Earmuffs mom: It has been made very clear that anything dumb I will do without question. Good for the group to figure out when we have more cliffs to jump off and everyone’s nervous. I’ll be going first most likely. Okay, mom. Well the water was insane. We were standing on rocks and got sopping wet. These walls were built so long ago and clearly go through so much. Fascinating and such a good time.
The song playing on this channel is Greek and the way you say “Yes” in Greek is “Nay” and it’s hilarious because they say it the way someone in an American rap song would say “Yeah” or “What.” Probably my new favorite thing. Naaaaaaaaaay.
I usually type my blogs right into the blog website box thing but since I’m in the middle of a sea I don’t have internet so I opened a Word document and it has been made decently obvious that I really like to use fragment sentences. Not a problem. I also like the word “So” a lot when trying to describe things. It is what it is.
When we go out to eat we usually just order a bunch of appetizers and share them and then split the bill. We usually will get a few tzatsikis, some sort of meat or fish, fried potatoes, olives, Greek salad, just typical stuff. Then we sit there and eat and be loud and keep ordering more and more while we run out. This makes the restaurant people love us for some reason. We are quite hilarious. Speaking our terrible Greek in Southern accents really gets us laughing. This leads to the restaurant people bringing us free dessert and shots by the end of the meal. Some of them will take shots with us too. They definitely bring enough too. Usually this stuff called “Rocky” which is clearly misspelled but what can you do about it. This is basically ouzo times 40 minus the licorice taste. A lot like vodka. Hope you could follow that math equation I just made for alcohol. Either way, these Greek people know how to do it. They are crazy jerks and rude and I hate most of them, but restaurant people are awesome. Just say thank you in Greek once and they’ll laugh at you and adore you and bring you free stuff. Americans are so selfish and fat and picky about their stuff. Also, tips are like 10 percent at most so it’s a little weird. A group of 5 of us will go get a full meal, be completely full and the bill will be 30 euros. Now, I could do the math and figure out what that means in American money, or I could just treat it as I already do (either equal to American money or Monopoly money or sometimes flex dollars) and be so excited about the fact that I spend about 6 euros for the most filling and delicious wide variety of food and move on with my life.
I’ll take a break from this to work on the paper that was due to Conor on January 12 that I still have yet to complete. I’ll be back soon with another stupid random stream of consciousness. This is good though because I usually rush through my blogs and remember so much stuff I want to say later. Deal with it. Or stop reading, it’s all up to you. If you choose to continue reading, stop complaining. I want both feet in.
So now I am in Athens and still haven’t posted in a few days so it’s just another extension of this ridiculous blog. Last night I went to a soccer game at the Olympic Stadium. Not that I like soccer or anything. I was obsessed with the Olympics in 2004 so this was an amazing experience for me. I saw the pool that Michael Phelps swam in. I think I peed my pants a little bit. I sat next to a kid who loves soccer hoping that his appreciate would rub off on me. It didn’t. But the team we were cheering for, AEK, had lost to the number one team last week 6-0 so the fans all hated them and came to riot. We were sitting in a section that was being rioted so we had to move. Luckily this Greek man helped us because these violent Greeks were just yelling at us. We moved to better seats and ended up leaving early just minutes before smoke bombs and tear gas started. Four of the rioters were arrested because they injured five policemen. This was all because they lost one game. And to think Cubs fans have been dealing with losing for over one hundred years.
I got my debit card in the mail from my mom today. When I picked it up from the institute, the lady was like “You could grab the rest of the kid’s mail if you wanted.” I did and realized that all these people get mail. Like, letters from their parents. It was weird. Mine was an envelope with an envelope inside that had my card in it and nothing else. Thanks, mom. You only love me two envelopes worth. Well, I bet it was really expensive so that’s a nice sentiment.
Now I will post this blog without editing or looking back at anything. This is very long and probably rambling and says nothing of importance but I don't feel like reading it. I apologize for the typos, repetition, and anything else that is wrong with this post that I don't feel like changing. Overall, I'm sorry.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, March 21, 2011
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.
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.
Friday, March 18, 2011
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.
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.
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