Archbishop of Greece has died

From the article http://news.ert.gr/en/c/1/30473.asp:

Late Archbishop Christodoulos, who breathed his last on Monday dawn after a seven-month battle with cancer, will receive a funeral befitting a head of state at Athens’ First Cemetery on coming Thursday. Church bells have been tolling since early in the morning, while flags in public buildings and schools have been flying at half mast throughout Greece. Christodoulos’ mortal remains have been lying in state at the Athens Cathedral. A joint ministerial decision singed by the Ministers of Interior, Finance, Health, Education and National Defence, declared a four-day period of national mourning, while the day of his funeral all public agencies and schools will remain closed. A vote will take place on Thursday, 7 February to decide on Christodoulos’ succession.

I will try to go to the funeral, if possible. Most likely our classes will be canceled that day, as every place of business in Greece will be shut down because of this sad occasion. The cemetery where he will rest is actually right behind our apartment, across the street. For now, the body is being laid out for viewing at the church in Syntagma Square (a 15 minute or so walk from my place).

The Greek Orthodox Church

I had my first experience of a Greek Orthodox church service IN GREECE this morning. (Mike and I were not able to go at all when we were here in 2005 due to unforeseen complications that arose....; I didn't go the first weekend I was here because someone told me service was at 6:30am [which it wasn't]; and this past weekend I was in Santorini [where we were actually supposed to visit a Monastery, but that got canceled because the monks were not on the island]) Aside from all of my excuses, I truly enjoyed the church experience here in Greece. I went to a relatively big church, which was very beautiful! The service started at 10:15am (and I showed up around 10:30... like a typical Greek). I walked in, kissed an icon and the Gospel, lit a candle, and sat down at the left side of the church. About halfway through the service, I was looking around and wondering why there seemed to be not too many men in church. I was sitting around all women (young and old) and I didn't see any men (except those who were with their families). But then, I noticed on the RIGHT side of the church (across the center aisle) that that is where all the men were sitting. Apparently the men are supposed to sit on the right side and the women on the left, but I didn't know that! It's not like that in America, as much as my experiences have shown me... The only time I've noticed the two genders split on either side is when I visited the monastery in Port Huron, MI, so I guess it wasn't that surprising--I was just not expecting it. I was going to go up and receive Communion when it was time, but I saw only some parents going up there with their young children, nobody else went up to receive, and Communion was over. I was confused. Next week I will try either to sneak up at the end, or try out another ekklisia (church) to experience as many different Greek Orthodox churches as possible!

After church, I stopped by a mini-market and bought some eggs and butter, and made myself some scrambled eggs with ham and cheese for brunch, along with an apple, banana, bread and jelly, orange juice, and chocolate milk. It was the most American thing I've eaten so far (usually eating souvlaki, gyros, spanakopita [spinach pie], tyropita [cheese pie], and zambonotyropita [ham and cheese pie]), and I've been craving eating eggs ever since I left the States. I suppose another "American" food I've had here in Greece is pizza, but Greeks eat pizza, so it's ok. :) We all found this really awesome pizza place.... soooo gooood... soo cheesey.... I've also been craving smoothies... something I so dearly miss drinking, like I used to 2-3 times a week.

Yesterday, I met up with my friend Ariste from the University of Michigan, who is also studying in Athens this semester (she is in Greece from Sept. '07 until May '08). It was so nice seeing here and catching up! We met up by the Olympic Stadium, and walked to a nice café and got some good (expensive) hot chocolate and talked for like 3 hours. Then we met up with my 3 roommates at this really nice (inexpensive) taverna, called Kosta's. That place is soooo good. They have excellent chicken, beef, meatballs, spaghetti, fries, bread, wine... I love it. A bunch of us go there like every 3 or so days. After dinner, I ended up back at Ariste's place and we watched some episodes of The Office, Season 2 on DVD... hehe... poli thavma!

I got sick this weekend.... I am starting to feel better, as my partial cold is starting to go away. It only started late Friday because I was walking around outside all day and the temperature was pretty cold. So Friday night I stayed in instead of going out to the bar/club with all my fellow study abroad-ers, and slept for 11 hours. I woke up feeling better, and today I'm taking it easy... staying in, doing some Greek homework, and doing some reading for my other classes.

MANNY OUT!

Greek has begun!

1.26.08 – Saturday

Life has been good here in Greece…. This week back in Athens after the Santorini trip has been fun! We’ve had a good amount of classes to attend, and finally my new Greek class started! It is the Third Level of Accelerated Greek, and it fits my needs perfectly. In the class consists of me, 2 other guys, and the teacher. The 2 other guys are actually Catholic priests from Poland studying Greek because their bishop has them serving in a church on the Greek island of Crete starting after Pascha this year. The class is taught only in Greek (the teacher doesn’t speak English at all, unless I completely don’t understand something, or if she herself cannot describe a Greek word with other Greek words) and one of the Polish priests does not speak any English, only Polish and a little bit of Greek, and the other Polish priest speaks a decent amount of English, Polish, and Greek a little better than I do. The Athens Centre director helped me find a class, so I joined it (but it had already started a week beforehand). The teacher is pretty laid-back; she is even helping me work this class’s schedule around my other classes. This class is supposed to meet everyday Monday through Friday for 3 hours, but my other schedule doesn’t allow me to meet for all 3 hours any day except for Friday. I’ve only had the class for 3 days as of now, and I already feel myself speaking better. It helps a lot being completely immersed in the language for 3 straight hours!

My other classes are pretty good so far… my Byzantine history teacher, John, is pretty awesome; he’s a very interesting speaker. He reminds me a lot of my 10^th grade American History teacher, Mr. George, in that he knows a heck of a lot about the subject he teaches, he presents it in a way that keeps you interested (even though you may not necessarily care about the subject), and he has a lot of “catch phrases”, i.e. “simply put”, “interestingly enough”, “at the end of the day”…. where as Mr. George would say things like “guys”, “actually”, “literally”… they both say these things an incredibly ridiculous amount of times during their lecture periods, both as much for tally-mark proportions. John also showed us a clip of the movie Gladiator the other day because he was talking about the Roman Empire and their war techniques… pretty awesome! My Archaeology class is good, and the instructor isn’t too bland, but I’m just not that interested in archaeology. Either way, it’s not a bad class. Finally my two philosophy classes (each taught by the same professor) are probably going to get better, but as of now, the prof likes to talk in circles and forget what he’s talking about, or forget the main point of the days lecture sometimes. He’s very smart though—knows a lot about philosophy. I feel that I will learn a lot from him – if he gets his act straightened up.

Yesterday (Friday), none of my fellow students had any class except me, because of that new Greek class I’m taking, at 11am. So I woke up relatively early and went to the farmer’s market (laiki agora) that’s just passed the square where my apartment is. Got some cheap apples and bananas…. mmmmmmmm good stuff. After class me and this other guy Pat ventured into the “downtown” area of Athens via the bus system, and we checked out the University of Athens. Pretty cool stuff. We also found this awesome Gelato place. Did you know that the Pizza Hut we found in Greece is actually really nice—like a fancy Italian restaurant??? It really surprised us; people were wearing suits and nice clothes! We’ll have to go eat there some day. Anyway, that’s enough update for now…

MANNY OUT

Santorini

I've returned to Athens from a 3.5 day weekend on the island of Santorini. It was amazing! It's actually the 2nd time that I've been there, and the 1st time I got to see the sun while I was there! We stayed in Fira, went to the Red Beach and Black Beach, visited the ancient city of Thira, swam in the Aegina, swam in the hot springs, visited the central Santorinian Volcano, taste-tested some wine at two wineries, and went to a couple museums (one in place of seeing Akrotiri because that site is currently closed to do the excavators' roof collapsing).

In all, it was very beautiful, and an amazing trip.

I've uploaded pictures of the trip, too:

FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2332048&l=d3797&id=2232176

KODAK GALLERY: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=99f8smt.85wbrxz9&x=0&y=-2atj5k


I also added some more photos from when we visited the Stoa and Ancient Agora in Athens last week......

FACEBOOK: http://umichigan.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2333636&l=8d0ef&id=2232176

KODAK GALLERY (I added the pics to the original Athens album): http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=99f8smt.5ditwdol&x=0&y=psvg9u

***PLEASE TAKE NOTE WHEN COPYING AND PASTING THE LINK.... The link may extend passed what you can see... so you keep highlighting to the right as far as possible before copying***

upcoming weekend trip!

That intensive Greek class that I wanted to take will not exist now, apparently. There were only 2 people who signed up for it (I was one of them) and I guess they just did not find a teacher for it. The next step now is to talk to the Athens Centre director and see if there is anything else I can do, but I'll do that when we get back from our Santorini trip.

Speaking of which, we leave for this trip tomorrow at 6:15AM (which i'm not too happy about) on a bus, and then we're going on a ferry boat trip which takes 7 hours... but I'll probably be sleeping! But the trip sounds amazing.... even the hotels we're staying in sounds most excellent :) We're there Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. We'll be getting back a little after midnight, late Monday night/early Tuesday morning via ferry again.

I just woke up from a mandated-by-Greek-Law siesta that was most amazing.... I love this country! :)

Time for a shower, dinner, and class.

- Manny

Classes have started!

So, classes have started and are now in full swing! The 5 classes I am taking are: Arts & Archaeology, Byzantine History, 2 Philosophy classes, and Modern Greek Language & Culture. They all seem really interesting, and so far the professors seem not too shabby. My Greek language course is actually a "101" beginners class that all the 24 students in my group are in. It is great for 22 of them, but me and another girl (Safia, from U-M) need to take a more advanced class (she has only taken 1 semester of Greek at Michigan, and I have taken 5). Right now, we don't know if we'll be able to take one because the Athens Centre doesn't know who is going to teach it yet (I'm planning on taking the Intensive Level III class), and class is supposed to start tomorrow. So who knows! I want to take a more advanced class so I can improve my Greek communication skills! That's one of my biggest goals as I am studying and living in Greece for these 4 months... (besides eating like a Greek, sleeping like a Greek, and basically living like a Greek!)

The weather has been relatively decent (for this part of the world, of course).... it's usually between the mid-40s and mid-50s Fahrenheit during daylight hours, and about 5-8 degrees cooler at night. It hasn't really been too windy, except 1 or 2 days. Yesterday it rained for like 45 minutes around 10AM and it was relatively cold, but today it is 61F and barely no clouds... most excellent.

The sunsets are amazing here, too... We have a pretty good view from our apartment. I'll try and get some pics up when I take some more!!


Kalispera for now!

here are two PICTURES links!

I will have to sources of websites for pictures: Facebook.com and Kodak Gallery

I will post the links of any new albums on this blog :)

FACEBOOK: http://umichigan.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2329079&l=3ba98&id=2232176

KODAK GALLERY:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=99f8smt.5ditwdol&x=0&y=psvg9u


***PLEASE TAKE NOTE WHEN COPYING AND PASTING THE LINK.... The link may extend passed what you can see... so you keep highlighting to the right as far as possible before copying***


-Manny