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!