The funny thing is, what makes life here so extraordinary is that my routines are becoming to feel so ordinary. Walking to the Acropolis every day is routine by now; I can walk to it in my sleep. This isn't to say it's any less mind-blowing each subsequent time I walk up those marble steps, though. The Parthenon, the Erectheon, the Propylaia, the Temple of Nike--the Acropolis as a whole hovering above Athens--is not just one of those "good-to-do" sites to snap a picture of and check off of a list, at least not to me. It's beautiful and incredible, every time (evidenced by the number of pictures I take, only a tiny sample of which I will post):
Adding on to our daily walk, I've begun to run around the top of the Panathenaic stadium. No big deal...
The first week of classes have been a little hectic, sorting out schedules and being bombarded with syllabi and assignments. But I really like all of my classes so far (Aegean Art & Archaeology, Sports, Games, & Spectacles in Ancient Greece, The Ethnography of Modern Greece, and Greek- the language), and most importantly all of the professors seem to be enthusiastic and engaging. Ethnography is an extremely relevant and useful class when it comes to understanding the culture that I've thrown myself into. Our first assignment is to observe a public space and see what we can infer about Greek life based on the way the space is arranged. Totally up my alley, and a comforting dose of social-sciences within the overwhelming CLASSICS emphasis.
Greek (the language) class is a whirlwind of gestures and expressions and sounds (by the professor) and tongue-tied stumblings (by me). She is extremely enthusiastic and has an interesting teaching style, saying on the first day, "You will be like babies. Don't write anything down. Babies don't write. They listen." Unfortunately, my brain is no longer that of a baby's (and believe me, in this case I wish it were), and hearing a bunch of sounds and then "repeating" them--really just guessing and throwing sounds together at random--doesn't quite seem to do the trick. But the waiter at the cafe we went to this afternoon did compliment my Greek, so.. (I said all of "hello...one frappe, please...no milk, no sugar [but that part in English because I couldn't remember how to say it]...and thank you. Very impressive stuff.) Also some woman stopped me on the street and spoke to me and I managed to stutter out "I don't understand"...but come to think of it she may have been speaking some language other than Greek for all I know, seeing as I've never been mistaken as Greek by anyone else.
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Last night I finally mustered up enough energy and motivation to make dinner--quite a feat when a delectable € 2,20 gyro is just down the block--and once I started chopping I realized how much I miss cooking. I kept the meal pretty simple (we have one knife, barely more impressive than a steak knife, two pots and two pans, a stove with four electric burners, one of which is, curiously, the size of a tea cup, and an oven that couldn't fit a large chicken in it). I made ratatouille with all of the fresh vegetables I had bought at the farmers' market, and felt very pleased with myself that finally I was having a healthy meal...until we started (and finished) a whole loaf of fresh bread from the bakery. But when there's olive oil and feta cheese to go with it, it's hard to stop! The feta is unsurprisingly, so much better than the feta in the states. The bread is, surprisingly, also excellent. I wasn't expecting to find such normal "French"-style bread...but then again, all kinds of expectations have been proven faulty (for example, I assumed I would be able to flush toilet paper down toilets, and find hummus in supermarkets/groceries. Apparently Greek plumbing sucks and hummus isn't Greek in the slightest). There is also no vanilla extract to be found, so too bad I didn't think to bring that along with my peanut butter and tampons! I don't think I will be able to do much in the way of baking here anyway, seeing as we have no ovensafe cookware and the oven probably isn't big enough to fit anything. Leading me to wonder what, exactly, the Greeks use their ovens for. I miss baking dearly, but more the activity of it than the product; surprisingly, I haven't really begun to crave any foods in particular (although I've noticed that when my friend Mary buys a milk chocolate bar and offers me some, I devour it painlessly, so either the milk chocolate here is better or I'm incredibly chocolate deprived. Or both)
But going back to things like grocery stores and toilets, I feel that I should take a few minutes to think of the things that are so very different here (and as I said earlier, this is harder to do now because, well, they don't feel so different any more). The first is the number of stray animals around--seriously the streets are swarming with them. Cats and dogs all over the place--and, unlike in America where these animals would be picked up and taken to the pound/animal shelters where they may or may not make it back out, people feed them and let them roam freely. (Ok now I can't resist putting a few cute kitty pictures here):
Driving protocol, while noticeably different from the US, doesn't faze me as much because the last foreign country I went to was China and in comparison Greek drivers are tame. In general, it's interesting that my most recent point of comparison--foreign or even just large metropolitan area (excluding Los Angeles because it's not a typical city)--is Shanghai/Beijing. I was talking to some of my friends and commented on how empty Athens seemed to be for such a big city, and they looked at me like I was crazy. But hey, there aren't masses of people everywhere you go all the time.
The craziest thing about driving is the moped culture: there are mopeds everywhere, being driven extremely fast and dangerously. The other day we were walking and saw a man driving a moped, with his wife sitting behind him who was holding on to a baby. With both arms. Leaving no arms to hold on to the moped with. I see why CYA made us sign a waiver swearing we would not go near mopeds/motorcycles.
--
Tonight we ate at a beautiful taverna, feasting on a meal of fried zucchini and tzatziki and fava bean puree and Greek salad and the taverna's signature "cheeseburger" which ended up being basically braised short ribs with Kerrygold cheddar (the waiter specifically said that, I don't have a freakish ability to determine brands of cheddar cheese or anything) melted on top, over french fries. Needless to say, it was delicious, if a little misleading. Highlight of the night other than the delicious food and wonderful company was the fact that I read the bill and caught the fact that they had over-charged us (I recognized the word "bread", which we hadn't ordered).
Adding on to our daily walk, I've begun to run around the top of the Panathenaic stadium. No big deal...
The first week of classes have been a little hectic, sorting out schedules and being bombarded with syllabi and assignments. But I really like all of my classes so far (Aegean Art & Archaeology, Sports, Games, & Spectacles in Ancient Greece, The Ethnography of Modern Greece, and Greek- the language), and most importantly all of the professors seem to be enthusiastic and engaging. Ethnography is an extremely relevant and useful class when it comes to understanding the culture that I've thrown myself into. Our first assignment is to observe a public space and see what we can infer about Greek life based on the way the space is arranged. Totally up my alley, and a comforting dose of social-sciences within the overwhelming CLASSICS emphasis.
Greek (the language) class is a whirlwind of gestures and expressions and sounds (by the professor) and tongue-tied stumblings (by me). She is extremely enthusiastic and has an interesting teaching style, saying on the first day, "You will be like babies. Don't write anything down. Babies don't write. They listen." Unfortunately, my brain is no longer that of a baby's (and believe me, in this case I wish it were), and hearing a bunch of sounds and then "repeating" them--really just guessing and throwing sounds together at random--doesn't quite seem to do the trick. But the waiter at the cafe we went to this afternoon did compliment my Greek, so.. (I said all of "hello...one frappe, please...no milk, no sugar [but that part in English because I couldn't remember how to say it]...and thank you. Very impressive stuff.) Also some woman stopped me on the street and spoke to me and I managed to stutter out "I don't understand"...but come to think of it she may have been speaking some language other than Greek for all I know, seeing as I've never been mistaken as Greek by anyone else.
--
Last night I finally mustered up enough energy and motivation to make dinner--quite a feat when a delectable € 2,20 gyro is just down the block--and once I started chopping I realized how much I miss cooking. I kept the meal pretty simple (we have one knife, barely more impressive than a steak knife, two pots and two pans, a stove with four electric burners, one of which is, curiously, the size of a tea cup, and an oven that couldn't fit a large chicken in it). I made ratatouille with all of the fresh vegetables I had bought at the farmers' market, and felt very pleased with myself that finally I was having a healthy meal...until we started (and finished) a whole loaf of fresh bread from the bakery. But when there's olive oil and feta cheese to go with it, it's hard to stop! The feta is unsurprisingly, so much better than the feta in the states. The bread is, surprisingly, also excellent. I wasn't expecting to find such normal "French"-style bread...but then again, all kinds of expectations have been proven faulty (for example, I assumed I would be able to flush toilet paper down toilets, and find hummus in supermarkets/groceries. Apparently Greek plumbing sucks and hummus isn't Greek in the slightest). There is also no vanilla extract to be found, so too bad I didn't think to bring that along with my peanut butter and tampons! I don't think I will be able to do much in the way of baking here anyway, seeing as we have no ovensafe cookware and the oven probably isn't big enough to fit anything. Leading me to wonder what, exactly, the Greeks use their ovens for. I miss baking dearly, but more the activity of it than the product; surprisingly, I haven't really begun to crave any foods in particular (although I've noticed that when my friend Mary buys a milk chocolate bar and offers me some, I devour it painlessly, so either the milk chocolate here is better or I'm incredibly chocolate deprived. Or both)
But going back to things like grocery stores and toilets, I feel that I should take a few minutes to think of the things that are so very different here (and as I said earlier, this is harder to do now because, well, they don't feel so different any more). The first is the number of stray animals around--seriously the streets are swarming with them. Cats and dogs all over the place--and, unlike in America where these animals would be picked up and taken to the pound/animal shelters where they may or may not make it back out, people feed them and let them roam freely. (Ok now I can't resist putting a few cute kitty pictures here):
Driving protocol, while noticeably different from the US, doesn't faze me as much because the last foreign country I went to was China and in comparison Greek drivers are tame. In general, it's interesting that my most recent point of comparison--foreign or even just large metropolitan area (excluding Los Angeles because it's not a typical city)--is Shanghai/Beijing. I was talking to some of my friends and commented on how empty Athens seemed to be for such a big city, and they looked at me like I was crazy. But hey, there aren't masses of people everywhere you go all the time.
The craziest thing about driving is the moped culture: there are mopeds everywhere, being driven extremely fast and dangerously. The other day we were walking and saw a man driving a moped, with his wife sitting behind him who was holding on to a baby. With both arms. Leaving no arms to hold on to the moped with. I see why CYA made us sign a waiver swearing we would not go near mopeds/motorcycles.
--
Tonight we ate at a beautiful taverna, feasting on a meal of fried zucchini and tzatziki and fava bean puree and Greek salad and the taverna's signature "cheeseburger" which ended up being basically braised short ribs with Kerrygold cheddar (the waiter specifically said that, I don't have a freakish ability to determine brands of cheddar cheese or anything) melted on top, over french fries. Needless to say, it was delicious, if a little misleading. Highlight of the night other than the delicious food and wonderful company was the fact that I read the bill and caught the fact that they had over-charged us (I recognized the word "bread", which we hadn't ordered).
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| fried zucchini+tzatziki = yum. |
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| the "cheeseburger" |
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