Over this past weekend I visited Mycenae and the Argolid with the group. It was a pretty good field trip, minus the fact that it was cold, windy, and raining all three days. We took a bus to the site; it was only a 2.5 hour trip from Athens. I never really realized how close some of these areas in Greece are to each other… I really got some perspective when I was talking to Demetra (one of the ladies who works at the Athens Centre and went on the trip with us) and she said it can take less than three hours to drive to Northern Greece, and she found it quite amazing how much time it takes to drive to some places in the U.S.— one of the people on this study abroad session said it takes him 14 hours just to drive to the University of Wisconsin from their home in Washington D.C., and we also gave an example that it takes 5 hours just to FLY from the east coast to the west coast… and Demetra said if you drive 5 hours in any direction in Greece you’ll either hit water, or another country! It was hard for her to fathom… Anyway, I got some pretty good pictures at the sites (links to the pics will be available in my next entry). We stayed in the city called Nauplio, ate at a couple excellent restaurants, got some AMAZING gelato from this awesome Italian dessert place (3 days in a row, mind you), went to Epidaurus, saw some Thollos tombs, saw the Lion Gate, went to Lerna and Tiryns, visited the Palamidi Castle, and unfortunately did NOT see Frankthi Cave because the weather was too crappy.
Back in Athens, 19 out of 24 of us got together and had a “cooking class” with Demetra Monday evening. She taught us how to make tzatziki (cucumber) sauce, pastitsio (Greek lasagna), Greek salad, garlic sauce, and meatballs. I was on tzatziki duty, along with two other girls named Hannah, and another girl named Marianne. It was gooooodddd…. along with everything else our group made! The only downside was that we started making stuff around 5:30pm, and didn’t get to eat around 9:00 or 9:30 I think…. but man, it was worth the wait. I’d really enjoy doing that again—at least most of us know how to make these wonderful dishes again… hopefully!
I’ve finalized my Spring Break plans (March 7 through 16)!! I will be traveling to Italy (Rome, Naples) and visiting with my friend Carrie from U of Michigan who is actually studying abroad in Florence, Italy for the year, but is taking a weekend trip out to Naples and I’m meeting up with her and her friends, and then I will be traveling to France (Marseilles, Paris) for the 2nd half of my Spring Break to visit Hayley, my other friend from Michigan who is studying abroad in Marseilles for the year. It will be cool trying to remember 4 years of studying French in high school! Hopefully this immersion of Greek won’t block my brain too much… although I’ve tried to practice a little bit of French the other day, and I said “Je veux na paei sto…” …crap… half French, half Greek. I guess we’ll see what happens, come the 2nd week of March :) Tomorrow, all I have to do is purchase my reserved plane tickets at the travel agency in Athens!
My new Greek class has commenced as of Monday afternoon – it is with the same teacher, and the same two other guys, plus one more new guy who is from Oxford, UK. He speaks pretty good Greek has a rather heavy British-English accent (when he speaks English, obviously). I have advanced from level III to level IV in the Athens Centre Greek Accelerated program… I’ve also advanced up to the 2nd year Greek book (the one I used sophomore year of college in Modern Greek class). This class will be even more helpful than the last one… Having taken the same class using the same book previously, it helps a lot to take it again because it refreshes my memory, and at least now I am forced to use the Greek in everyday situations, and it should stick in my head a lot better :) Meanwhile, class tomorrow is cancelled (we have class every day Mon-Fri 1:00-4:00 unless otherwise noted) because of some sort of strike in Athens that will prevent some other students from getting to class. There seems to be a strike every week, it seems.
On another note, tonight I went bowling again with the same other 5 guys that I did last week (Matt, Sasha, Kurt, and the 2 Pats), but this time we didn’t go to Glyfada—we found another better, cheaper bowling alley in Athens. It’s actually part of a complex that connects with a movie theater, a karaoke place, and a bunch of restaurants. Exciting! I bought some movie theater popcorn…… mmmmmmm….. the first REAL popcorn I’ve eaten since I’ve left the States. I bowled significantly better this time… We bowled 4 games-- I bowled a 94 and an 80. I don’t really feel like mentioning the other two scores at this time. !!
Anywho, time to do some reading, and then go to sleep!
MANNY OUT
