More Food and Selfies

My father requested that I post more pictures of me actually in them so I’ve made an effort to step up my selfie game. Pictures include our trip to the Herodian Theater at the acropolis where we saw an opera performance of “Othello” and the pictures of food are from the meal we ate before the opera!

Pre-opera selfie. My tan is finally starting to come in!

Traditional veal stew

Turkish dessert

Fresh fruit!

Opera ticket

inside the Herodian

Rocking the (required) swimming cap at our olympic pool!

reading my kindle on campus

before the opera started

rewarded myself with an ice cream bar after a run (sorry mom)

“My surroundings”

My sweet momma who I miss a little too much has requested I upload pictures of my “surroundings” to get a feel of where I’m staying. So per her request here our photos of the city and my school. Enjoy!

 

 

 

farmers market by my apartment! best tomatoes ever

syntagma square

metro station

Monastiraki Square

One of the many gyros I’ve consumed 🙂

west plaka district

our pool that michael phelps trained in!

front entrance

The spot where I sit during class breaks

on my walk to class

Parliament and Strays

This week our program director arranged for a private tour of the parliament building for our group and it was great! It’s a building we walk by quite often so it was really cool to get to go inside and hear the history of the building from a guide. We only walked through one metal detector and our names/identity were never verified….casual. Just a little different than getting into The Capitol! I also included a couple other pictures of the building I’ve taken from either roof top dinners or just walking around

 

I also have a confession to make. I have fallen in love….with the stray animals of Greece. We all saw this coming, it was only a matter of time. There are little kittens everywhere and all of them playing together is the cutest thing I’ve seen. The dogs are an entirely different story. I did a little bit of research on the stray dogs of athens out of concern and discovered there are multiple well-funded organizations to care for these animals. They provide almost all of them with vaccines and food and tag them so they can be accounted for. Any of the strays that have collars on are all safe and disease-free which is a good thing because I want to cuddle with all of them. I still have to remind myself to approach cautiously even though not a single one has shown even the slightest indication of aggression. Normally they run up and start kissing me faster than Ellie does. I’ve always known dogs can sense when someone is a dog person and this proves it. A few pictures show this one guy who was having the time of his life splashing and rolling around in a park fountain (ellie-style of course) and then walked over to hang out with us. My favorite so far though has been the black mix that immediately laid down and rolled over onto his back asking for belly rubs. It is so evident that these animals are healthy and well-loved, it just warms my heart. Most of the research I’ve done explains how many people live in such small apartments that they’re not able to accomodate larger pets so instead the entire city shares a few dozen dogs. Essentially instead of 1-3 loving owners each stray has hundreds. Which explains why they’re all so well-fed and loving towards people.

Dogs of athens, you get me.

Food and Beaches

The weekend was spent eating amazing food and enjoying incredible beaches. Saturday night we enjoyed a beautiful group dinner at a rooftop restaurant. The picturesque view made me feel like I was in a postcard. The coolest part was when a lightening storm rolled through the other side of town and we could all safely enjoy watching while eating yet again another delicious meal. After dinner we headed to an outdoor movie that was being shown at Greece’s National Garden (google it, breathtaking).

On sunday we took a high-speed ferry (the green thing) to an island called Aegina (ah-gee-nuh), a smaller more authentic destination for locals and celebrities alike. The downtown area was along the marina which was filled with boats, both big and small. We took a short bus to the main beach area and laid out while sipping on cocktails all day. Very surreal. Afterwards we had a group meal at a seafood place which again had unbelievably fresh food. I’m starting to imagine going back to eating processed foods in america might be difficult.

Today was our first day of class and we spent 4 hours learning the modern greek language. I was a bit worried about this class since I have really struggled  while trying to learn languages in the past but I surprisingly had SO much fun. Our instructor (who is a professor at the school and native greek) has a linguistic background. Having just taken linguistics this past year I had a fairly easy time understanding the way he explained the general rules of greek grammar and such. We spent a lot of the class learning the alphabet and translating all of our names. Rachel translates to “Pεητσελ”! Tonight we’ll be heading downtown to start our research and interviews. Enjoy the pictures! 

 

Acropolis and Downtown Athens

Hello all! Yesterday was a complete whirlwind of events. I don’t have much time to write a post so please excuse my brevity. We started off the day getting up early to climb the acropolis and see the parthenon to beat the heat. Then we all ate lunch together and the food was AMAZING. We strolled through the plaka (the historical shopping area) and then the central downtown area (more modern shopping). We finished the day eating gyros in the park and checking out the greek night life. I continue to be blown away by how nice everyone constantly is and how willing people are to help us out. We even made a few friends last night who were from London and were spending their “holiday” sailing around the Greek islands. I’ll leave the rest to the pictures!

View of Athens from the top of the Acropolis

Greek Soldiers raising the flag

Sweet stray dog that the guards adopted

My roommate Sara and I

Parthenon!

My first greek salad

Acropolis Museum

Acropolis Statue

Panoramic shot of athens

 

Ancient Theater where we get to watch an opera later this month!

Athens selfie

Parthenon

Yummy cheese pastry

Streets of Downtown Athens

Group lunch

YAY

Hellooooo Athens!

 

I have arrived! Being on a plane for 10 hours was weird and has made me vow to start saving up for first class plane tickets from here on out. I was so lucky to meet and get to know so many native greeks on my flight who were all coincidently quite elderly…but they had great stories! I’ll admit I got a little obsessive watching the GPS tracker screen showing our plane slowly progress along our flight path. I couldn’t help it though I was just THAT excited. As soon as the wheels touched down I had this involuntary smile that I couldn’t get rid of even having been awake for over 24 hours.

Athens is much greener than I expected. I was prepared for a desolate desert landscape but the rich foliage and green grasses are a welcomed familiarity. The drive from the airport to campus took around 20 or so minutes and it was amazing to drive through and see the city for the first time. Graffiti is a BIG deal here and I was intrigued to find out that it has an entirely different connotation in Greece than in the US. In the states we think of graffiti as being the sign of gangs or violence and almost all of the spray paint here in Greece is instead viewed as artwork or the expression of one’s views.

Our RA met us at the entrance to our building and led us up to our room and let me just say I’m STILL in disbelief at how amazing these accommodations are. We’re living like royalty in our apartment-style three bedroom dorm. Each bedroom has 2 beds so there are a total of 6 of us living in our suite. Our particular apartment has three balconies (what does one do with THREE balconies?), three full bathrooms, walk-in closets, an updated kitchen, a formal dining room, and living room. We’re even spoiled enough to have a dishwasher and laundry in our suite. How did I get so lucky?! Wow

I’m sure I’ll wake up tomorrow thinking this has all been a dream and I look forward to realizing it isn’t! Until then enjoy my HGTV House Hunter style pictures of our apartment

My bedroom

The closet my heart has always desired

A small portion of the main balcony

View from the balcony

Neighboring buildings

Kitchen

Breakfast table in the kitchen

The dorm next door

Got storage? We do

Dining Room

Living Room

Bathroom

Bathroom attached to my bedroom

I hate blogging but this is my blog

I really don’t like blogs but I haven’t been able to think of any better way to share and document my travels this summer with all my friends and family. I’ll mostly be posting images but hopefully I’ll have time to jot down a few thoughts about my experiences as well.

Sitting in the Philadelphia airport right now my heart is overflowing with excitement, to the point where I can barely sit still. For the last few months this trip has been the focus of just about every conversation I have had and to think it’s finally happening is blowing my mind. I am about to get on a plane that will take me to a surreal destination unlike anywhere I’ve ever been before. True to self I of course have expectations about how my trip will go and what it will be like but I’m trying my absolute hardest to allow those thoughts to fade. Hopefully with as few expectations as possible I will be able to enjoy each and every moment whether it be a trial or a triumph.

For the next 6 weeks I will be staying at the American College of Greece in Athens, Greece. During which time I will be taking 12 credits offered through the University of Washington’s International Studies Program. The focus of my courses will revolve around researching the effects of immigration on the Greek people and their culture. Once my program concludes I am lucky enough to have my sweet momma join me on the other side of the pond where we’ll travel around to the major European cities together.

Greece, Albania, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom…..I’m comin for ya