andiamo al bar?

This weekend we swam in the most unbelievably blue water you will ever see, not surprising that it is surrounding Posideon's Temple, We were jumping for joy on the edge of a cliff!

This was a great relaxing weekend before our crazy three day exam week.

For the rest of my week:

Monday: exam review/potluck dinner/greek dancing lesson

Tuesday: oral exam with Erin in Italian/packing/studying

Wednesday: final exam in Italian/last class with Dr. Kaplan/La Cavitos Hill 

Thursday: flying to Valencia, Spain to see Kendal and Brittany

 We stopped into a Greek Orthodox church that asked everyone to have their shoulders and knees covered before entering. They provided shawls and skirts outside to borrow and we all got a good giggle out of how we looked wrapped up.

photo_dana andresen

Ferry boat ride back from Aegina Island Sunday night. Everyone falling asleep and ready for our last week of school, just not ready to leave Greece quite yet!

playtime with ellie!

 

while the rest of the group saw that silly little 'harry potter' movie hours and hours before the states.

you give an offering, your goat shivers, you go on your way.

last full week in athens, starting now. ahhhh!

Another early weekend morning and off to the Agora, ancient marketplace in Greece. Stomping around the ruins and a nice lunch with the group where we shared ten different appetizers and tons of bread and bottled water, as always. Dr. Kaplan brought us by her favorite bead shop where I went crazy buying beads to make key chains, and then to "The Loom" where I bought my first souvenir for myself, a big colorful tapestry made in Northern Greece. The new Acropolis Museum was next. Big and beautiful with a view of the Acropolis out the window and glass floors with displays underneath. The group split after the museum so Valerie, Katie, Dr. Kaplan and I went off to find the First Cemetery of Greece and the zoo inside of the National Gardens to make our sight reports more thorough.

The cemetary was huge, first of all. It may have been the same size as Hillcrest in Ft. Pierce, FL but the way it was designed made it seem to go on forever. It was actually enjoyable to walk through with lots of big trees providing shade and places to sit and rest, much different from the standard American cemetary which goes on forever in perfectly neat rows on open land. This is a cemetary for celebrities and important people, all of them Greek so many of the sites have elaborate tombs that include sculptures and even entire rooms dedicated to the deceased. We noticed many more pictures included also which to me was comforting.

Temple to Apollo

our view at lunch, up in the mountains

[postsecret.com]



MYKONOS

hold onto that feelin'

 Ciao! It has been a few days since I blogged so the details are fuzzy but the pictures tell a pretty good story themselves. While today is tuesday I am blogging about the past friday. I'd say it's more important to live it than write about it, although I love writing.

  

 Spent the day after class wandering around downtown with Phil and most of our group. We stayed on the outside of Syntagma square but passed many police wearing thick jackets and holding big guns on their chests. Everything was kept in a centralized location and we avoided all the trouble by walking a little further. The funny thing about these 'riots' is, the demonstrators have all the tricks down at this point. 'If we light something on fire, it will surely make the news;' and this seems to be how it works. We walked around an area as peaceful as our residence hall neighborhood and came back to see on the news that more 'chaos' was happening. But that is good news. It's not as bad as it seems.

Special Olympics Summer Games 2011: Athens, Greece

Congrats to Richard Heath of Vero Beach, 2011 Golf Olympic Team!

Our room took a trip downtown friday night for dinner and drinks before heading to Mykonos in the early morning. No feta on our salads but a delicious meal including: bread, chicken, salad, wine and dessert for 11 euros each. The exchange rate trips me up here sometimes, seeing 5 or 6 euros for the price of a quick dinner seems cheap until realizing that in the US, you would be paying for a modest sit-down restuarant. It takes a little bit of practice.



happy birthday, dr. leslie kaplan!

We're sitting in class watching CNN which is showing footage from downtown Athens where protestors are 'lost in a cloud of tear gas.' It is odd to think about, aside from the fact that I have stopped by the square where the demonstrators are, these images on the television seem as far away from us as home. Sitting in our Deree residence hall, the loudest noises I hear are the buses whizzing down the one way streets (excluding riot days) and the rowdiest people are not black shirted protestors carrying signs but the students down the hall from Washington stumbling home in the middle of the night.

this is the kind of music you have to play on a night at home in greece...



THE PARTHENON.

 Dana and I met a nice Greek man at the flea market in downtown Athens:

"Where are you girls from?"

"Vero Beach, Florida, United States."

"I used to live in Miami and work as a bartender. I made 80 different types of coktails."

"What was your favorite one to drink?"

"Oh no, I didn't drink coktails. You know... because I'm a man."

On top of the Acropolis we walked around for over an hour in winds that felt like they could throw you to the ground. The view looked like I was on top the world like it does everywhere in Athens. We spent the morning up on the Acropolis and the afternoon picking through a flea market at the Plaka. After eating lunch, Dana and I hopped on the metro to head back to the Deree residence hall. A pretty much sucessful underground metro ride later we ran into the Kaplans at the bus stop where we got on for our second leg of the trip home. A few curious girls and 20+ stops later we ended up right next to the highway while our driver took a smoke break. Oops! Finally got it figured out when Leslie Kaplan played 'dumb american' showing our address and had an enjoyable ride anyway while Ellie sang 'five little monkies jumpin on the bed, one fell off and bumped his head.'

Valerie and I headed up to the Parthenon through the crowds.

Signs and two sleeping bags on a grate where the demonstrations are held. 

In the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding it mentions 'moussaka,' when I saw it on a menu near the flea market, I went for it. yum yum yum!

day day dee dee water, the dog.

Because a picture is worth a thousand words,
here are thousands of words to look at.

This is today:



ευτυχισμένος Παρασκευή!

felice venerdì, happy friday!

third day of class. cafe after class. italian homework. skype with michelle.

set off the fire alarm. dinner with Kaplans. early night for an early morning.

"We're one but we're not the same, we get to carry eachother."

"we are pandora": at the Platka

Our whole group (including the Kaplans) took our first downtown trip last night to the Platka (tourist-area) in downtown Athens. Once we naviagted the bus and metro system to the square, dinner was at Scholarhio which boasted to be "the most traditional family restaurant." We had to split our big group into three tables and at ours we ordered calamari, meatballs, beans, hummus, greek salad, potato wedges and tons of bread for dipping in everything! All of this for 32 Euros split between the five of us. We had a sunset view of the Acropolis walking around shopping, mostly window shopping...Dr. Kaplan gave us information about some of the ruins in the city and little Ellie took a few pictures for me.

photo_ellie kaplan

photo_dana andresen



Ciao, American College of Greece!

First day of classes at Deree and I learned my first few words in Italian.

Mi chiamo Erica, sono americana....and so on.

I felt great today, nice and awake and healthy which was the best! My roommates keep all the windows open and it smelled like fresh oranges and watermelon all day long (thanks, katie!) We made pasta for dinner and everyone is doing their homework now. Got our metro and bus pass today so downtown for class tomorrow, yippie!

sweet dreams

Spending a day in bed to get rid of the little bug in my system was frustrating.

Finally getting out of bed to see the sunset was worth it.

Crepes at the the end of the night were perfect.

photo_dana andresen

photo_dana andresen

jazz music in the plateia after dark

kicking jet lag's ass

here comes the sun, little darlin'

sunrise hike. 20+ found condoms. student reception. Oktoberfest.

teaching Jesus beer pong

 Dusseldorf, Germany International Airport

This photo of my lunch is serving as a shout out to Alex, you can imagine how much better this is than a Greek Salad in America. More good food to come..duh, it's Greece!

bye bye, Dusseldorf!

and hello, Greek Islands!

Dinner at the Kaplans apartment, looming jetlag, time for bed.