I love Greece:)

I am absolutely in love with Greece and it is going to be so difficult to leave Greece in just a few weeks!

I know it has been a little while since I updated so I will try to include as much as possible. Since we are settling more into a routine here it is becoming harder not to miss home a bit, but luckily they keep us quite busy. Everyone said I could sleep when I got home and I didn't believe them until now.

Last week one of my roommates and I decided to walk to the acropolis and parthenon. We can see it everyday but we had not actually gone up to the top and the view around sunset is fabulous! Unfortunately, we got their a little too close to closing time so we didn't get to spend much time at the top. However, this week for our history class we hiked up to the top again and learned about the different structures.

Last week we also did a little bit a touristy shopping in Plaka, which is essentially a tourist haven. All of the girls bought matching greek tank tops that we wore this past weekend when we ran at the olympic stadium:)

This past weekend we had a 3 day excursion with our art history professor. Our first stop was at the Corinth Canal and from there we headed to Mycenae where we learned about the residence where Agamemnon would have lived and been killed by his wife in the bathroom. The view was all mountains which is another reason why I love Greece. You are never too far from a view of the ocean or the mountains and driving along the coast with the mountains on one side of the bus and the ocean on the other is amazing. After touring Mycenae and stopping for a quick lunch that the local bakery provided we headed on to Epidaurus where we had lecture in the beautiful Ancient Theater. One of the best part about the Greco-Roman program is that a lot of your classes take place outside of the classroom. From there we headed to Nauplio which was the first capital of Greece. It is a beautiful coastal village with fortresses high on the mountains and a beautiful pier to walk along. We wished we could have spent more than one night! After eating dinner at the hotel we went to a great italian gelato place that only uses fresh fruits and makes all of their gelato on site. From there we walked to the end of the pier and stargazed.

Nauplio Pier

The next morning we headed to Olympia bright and early where we spent the rest of our weekend. We toured all of the ruins at ancient olympia and saw the famous Temple of Zeus and the original olympic stadium where we had to have a race. Some of the guys in our group chose to run barefoot like they did back at the original olympic games. We also saw many other ruins of temples, and the large hotel, and some roman baths. That night we hung out by the pool at our hotel and then wandered into town for late night dessert and shopping.

After our race at the stadium

The next morning we went back and visited the museum that houses some amazing statues and pediments. It was very cool to see how much was preserved and how well they were preserved. If I had been touring the ruins on my own/the museum I would have been very bored by the end but touring with our professor was great! She is deeply invested in art history and knows so much about all of the different artifacts and ruins that she never runs out of things to say.

After our museum tour we headed back to Athens and began our next school week. This past week of school has been very busy with papers and our final language exam so we are very excited to be heading to Santorini this weekend!

For our final Greek Language and Culture class we were able to interview a greek woman about her viewpoints on culture and the Greek family. It was surprising how much of what she said is what is described in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The perfect quote from the movie to describe her opinion was "The man may be the head, but the woman is the neck and she can turn the head any way she wants."

Some of us also took a Greek cooking class through the school this week and prepared a delicious meal! It was a lot of fun and now we have the recipe to bring home with us and try making again.

Our delicious meal

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Week 2 in Greece

Time is flying by here and we all can't believe we only have one month left in wonderful Athens!

This week we started our art history course. For that class we have one class a week as lecture and the other we spend in a museum. Our professor acts as our guide through the museum and we stop at the different pieces of artwork and quickly jot down notes while she tells us everything about the piece. It is really interesting but so much information to process.

For our language and culture class this week we got to take a walking tour of the city and then toured the Parliment building. While at the Parliment building a guide explained their government system in Greece and some of the history of Greece's government.

We met our ancient history professor this week and he is British which makes everything better. He has a very dry sense of humor which I enjoy. For his class part is lecture in the classroom and the rest is visiting the different monuments combined with lecture. We hiked to the top of a "small hill" which was much higher than we thought because we could see all of Athens from it including some islands. It was a beautiful view that I would love to go back and see because unfortunately, I didn't have my camera.

On Thursday evening this week we went to a play of Odysseus. Luckily the play was in English so we were able to understand it!

After a long week we spent the weekend on a greek island named Aegina, which is known for it's pistachios. It is a beautiful island only an hour and 20 minutes from Athens. After getting up extra early to make it to the farmers market we caught the metro to the port and then caught a ferry to Aegina. Once we arrived on the island we found our hotel which was right along the water and across from some great restaurants. The first day for lunch I got a wonderful greek salad with fresh feta cheese and some bread. We got to watch the ocean and enjoy our lunch. After lunch we split up and went to a couple different beaches. My group found a great free beach with a wonderful view of a smaller uninhabited island. A little greek girl who was 4 years old and swimming with her mom came up to us and started trying to talk to us. She was adorable and luckily her mom spoke some English so we were able to communicate. She talked about some of the prettier places on the island to visit and about her other favorite places in Greece. The little girl did learn how to say "Bye", so she had a lot of fun waving and saying goodbye to us. After a long afternoon lounging at the beach we went back to the hotel to clean up and then out to find some dinner. We found a great little restaurant with comfy chairs and a large menu. I ordered the chicken souvlaki but some people got great omelets and crepes. The owner even gave us free watermelon which was some of the best watermelon I have ever had! From there we walked to a little gelato cafe and tried some Ferrero chocolate gelato.

For our second day on the island we headed up to the Temple of Aphaia which is one of the coolest ruins I have seen so far with an amazing view. We took lots of pictures and walked through the museum before catching the bumpy bus ride back down the mountain. On the way we passed either the largest church in Greece or the second largest. After touring the Temple we went to lunch. I ordered seafood risotto and it was the best meal I have had yet! From there we toured the other much more ruined ruins and the wind really picked up. It was storming in Athens and you could see the dark clouds rolling in so we headed back to the hotel. We were told that the ferries were having problems docking and that we may be stranded on the island for a bit longer so we chose to kill some time and go get gelato. I tried the pistachio and it was the best pistachio flavored gelato I have ever had!

Luckily, the ferry was able to land but the water was so high and the waves crashing over the dock that we were walking through water to get onto the ferry and they were all herding us trying to make us get on faster so they could leave without getting stuck! The boat ride was a little rocky but luckily we made it safely back to Athens.

After an exhausting day we all tried to recover a little bit before meeting up to listen to the Tommie/Johnnie game. It was a lot of fun and we couldn't miss out on the football game! We even had our own halftime show performed by some of the mens chorus members singing the johnnie fight song!

This morning we attended Greek Orthodox mass for theology class. It was the first time I have seen rain in Athens. It down poured on and off today and the thunder was so loud it shook the apartment.

Luckily, it cleared up by tonight so we could have a girls night out! We all went to an outdoor cinema that had an amazing view of the acropolis. I got to eat popcorn and we watched To Rome with Love! It was a great way to end the week!

First Week in Greece

I can't believe my first full week in Greece is already over! This week was jam packed with events including orientation, a scavenger hunt, a visit to the American Embassy, a greek dancing lesson, meeting other CYA students, the President's dinner, a trip to the beach, a taverna dinner, a weekend excursion to Meteora, and classes.

Needless to say we are all exhausted and trying to find time to sleep!

Classes began on monday and we are all finding the greek language to be a bit of a struggle. Not only do some of the letters sound nothing like they look but our professor likes to move along quickly! We also had theology, and our music and culture class. Our schedule was a bit messed up this past week because the other CYA students were just starting to arrive so not all of our professors were even here yet. This coming week we will start our art history class, and our History of Greece class in addition to the ones we are already taking. Some days of classes are incredibly long but the nice part is that the school is very close to our apartments and that they serve you a big lunch (meaning one less meal we all have to make/pay for). The staff at our school so far have been incredibly nice and helpful!

We ran into a few blips with our apartment once we got here including drain problems, a beeping smoke detector, a cockroach, some blinds that wouldn't open, a power failure, etc. I am happy to say that those problems are now (for the most part) fixed!

On Wednesday night we had a welcome speech from the President along with some Greek dancing lessons. After some fun dancing lessons we headed to a local taverna where the food was never ending. We had greek salads, fried cheese, fresh bread, little ham and cheese rolls, mushrooms, meatballs, chicken or turkey and fries, and fresh fruit. Most of the food we didn't know what it was or what to call it so my descriptions don't really match up entirely but it was all yummy!

On Thursday evening we had the formal President's dinner at his home outside of Athens. He invited all of the CYA students which was nice because it was one of the first opportunities we have really had to meet the other students. All CSB/SJU students have classes together separate from the other CYA students so we really haven't had a chance to meet them. There were lots of students from Notre Dame, Union College, Middlebury, and all over the US.

Eating dinner in the President's backyard!

My favorite part of this week was probably our weekend excursion to Meteora. It was about a 5 and 1/2 hour bus ride to get to the monasteries. It is a gorgeous place that I highly recommend anyone who comes to Greece visits. There are quite a few monasteries up on cliffs that overlook the entire city. This weekend we toured 4 of those monasteries. Some have gorgeous churches filled with paintings and nice museums. Others had much better views than others! Overall it was a very fun trip and nice to be away from the city for awhile. We found a small little pizza place for dinner, and enjoyed ice cream from a local bakery in town. It is a fairly touristy town and we were surprised how nice our hotel was! They even had TV's in the room which is a pretty foreign thing to us right now. After our dinner we decided to go back and watch some of the parolympics together. It was really nice to relax and get to bed early for a change.

One of the monasteries in Meteora.

Some other things I have noticed about greece so far:

• There is lots of graffiti everywhere.
• There are lots of stray cats and dogs wandering the city, however, not all of them look unhealthy. Around many apartment buildings you will see little bowls with water set outside and some food. The entire city takes care of these animals together.
• Many greek citizens know a little English and are very friendly and helpful!
• It is very windy here, and the sidewalks are awful so most people walk in the street.
• Pedestrians do not have the right of way and many streets don't have official crosswalks so you have to learn to be good at jaywalking.

If you haven't seen I have tried to keep updating my photos on facebook I tend to do a better job updating those than I have been blogging so keep looking at those! Keep checking back for more updates and I hope to skype with more of you soon!!!

Geneva/Greece

Our last morning in Geneva was spent touring a chocolate shop called Stettler. We all got to wear funny aprons and hats and go into the kitchen where a chocolatier explained their process of making and decorating chocolates. I got to help him cut out the marzipan for the fancy rose we then later constructed! We got to try all sorts of chocolate some very dark, milk, and white. I tried some orange marzipan, a champagne truffle, a green tea truffle, and many more. We also received a goody bag on the way out which became a great snack for the plane ride to Athens.

Our flight to Athens arrived right on time and we started our hike to the school to meet our assistant director so we could get the keys to our apartments. By the time we finally made it to our apartments it was about 10:30. I am living in a 4 person apartment. We each get our own rooms. I believe mine was originally supposed to be the living room in a 3 person apartment but I have wonderful big doors to the balcony! We have found that sitting and eating meals out on the balcony is so nice because we don't have to worry about the bugs like we do in Minnesota!

Our first full day we spent having a small orientation meeting and tour of the surrounding area. After our tour we went to the farmers market which is open every friday! There are so many vendors and it was so cool to see everything. I bought some delicious peaches, carrots, apples, and grapes. From there we headed to the beach where we spent a wonderful couple of hours swimming and enjoying the sun!

The group at the beach!

After our time at the beach we went to the Temple of Poseidon where we stayed and watched the sunset. Afterwards we went to the Blue Moon Concert on the hill next to the temple and ate dinner while listening to some greek music. Since we didn't know what they were singing about some of us created stories about what we imagined the songs to be about. It was very entertaining!

Yesterday we started our scavenger hunt all over the city. We found some really cool shopping districts and a really good place for gyros that were very cheap. Today the scavenger hunt continued and we found the greek sandal maker that custom makes them to fit to your feet!

It has been a very busy weekend and tomorrow classes start!