Routines, Classes, and Blissful Nothingness

This week marked the beginning of classes and new routines. 

First day of school!

I woke up bright and early Monday morning for my first day of school! After grabbing a quick breakfast on the way from Kekkos, I made my way to the classroom building for my first class of the day, the Orthodox Church. I have never taken a religion course before (PLU requires us to take 2 in our 4 years), so I was interested to gain a new perspective. Professor Iosif began lecture describing the direction of the course followed by a brief introduction to Christianity followed by a documentary clip. The clip was from a BBC documentary where they visited Athens to learn about Christian outreach and Paul's unsuccessful journey, then an esteemed historian appeared to give context to the audience which just so happened to be my professor. It cracked me up that she was showing us a clip that she featured in when she could have just told us the information herself in person (but let's be honest, I would do the same thing). After lunch, I had my first meeting with my Ancient Greek comedy class where we decided what text to read for the course (Aristophanes' Frogs was the winner) followed by a course outline where we learned that instead of a final exam, we can choose to act out scenes from the play in front of the student body to get the same credit. After classes, Mel, Jamie, and I went out for waffles at Poco Poco, followed by a night in preparing for the next day of classes.

A lil doodle

Tuesday morning I arose even earlier for my 8:45 Topography and Monuments in Athens class. We met in the classroom that time to go over the course outline and get some background on the topics. Though from here on out, we are to meet onsite in various locations depending on the day (I'll explain more once we get to Thursday). I then had my next class, Sports, Games, and Spectacles in the Graeco-Roman world led by none other than John Karavas, our dig director. Most of the students aren't aware of his humor and I swear he scared more than half of them with his opening lecture about brutal games and torture in the ancient world, and how we would endure the same things throughout the course. I'm really excited about this class, as we get to actually participate in all of the sports that we learn about. Lunch is followed by my final class of the day, Modern Greek. Let me just say I'm very happy that I don't have both of my Greek classes on the same day because it would totally fry my brain. Greek is hard, but I'm trying. I can say/read a few general phrases and pick out some words in conversation, but other than that it's all Greek to me.

The next day is where classes truly began, now that the syllabi had already been handed out and expectations were set. Orthodox lecture continued on and we learned more in depth specifically about scripture of Christianity, including the apocryphal gospels which was really interesting. In between classes, I ate lunch and finished my translation for the first part of Frogs which is what we went over in class after a brief history of Aristophanes. I was worried that here in Greece they would pronounce the ancient text in the same accented way they pronounce modern Greek language. For example, the word καί is pronounced /k/ in modern Greek, but in ancient Greek you read it as /k/[ai]. Fortunately for me, it is read in the same way that I am used to, thought my professor warns me that my modern Greek will at some point try to over power my brain. 

Thursday morning we were to meet by the acropolis for Topography, so Katie and I got breakfast at Kekkos before heading over. My professor gave us a hand out and a brief intro to the map of ancient Athens to provide context before we headed over to Philopappos hill for class. We basically got to see an incredible view of the city and listen to his commentary while getting a grasp on the layout and structure of ancient Athens. History of Sports was an adventurous class this day as we role played as caveman discovering the role and importance of sports throughout history. I then completely embarrassed myself while at the same time frightened the entire class by answering the question "Has anyone ever gotten into a fight?" after moments of dead silence by shouting "Yes". And then I was asked how it felt and what happened and I continued with "It felt good" making everyone laugh. Lunch, followed by modern Greek with the extremely over-excited 80+ year old professor ended my academic day. Later in the evening, Heather, Clare, and my apartment all met at a restaurant/bar for drinks where I got my first cocktail! The did waiter made fun of me for ordering fries with my drink.

Friday was met with an early wake up call from our housekeeper, so I went out with Katie to get some fresh produce from the farmers market. I then got ready for a meeting with a Greek woman about a potential English nannying gig for her children which went really well, more details to come later. I met up with the gang downtown and walked around before coming back to the apartment to start some painting on a new record Jamie bought for me. I'm attempting to do a blackware pottery style piece and I'm excited to see how it will turn out. Late Friday night we went out to Gazi and had some drinks before calling it a night. 

Rock n Roll 80s bar

Saturday was a lazy day, I didn't get out of bed until around noon to get some brunch at Poco where I had waffles with maple syrup!!!!! (I've been craving pancakes/syrup for awhile now, and I usualy get my waffles here with ice cream, not syrup) We then got our school supplies and found a cafe down in Monastiraki called Poems n Crimes and it was super cute, we ended up spending about 4 hours there just hanging out and doing homework. Jamie and I then went back to our apartment and spent the night eating pizza and watching Netflix (Riverdale is really good, also I started watching Black Mirror, also really good). The rest of the gang came back and made homemade lukumades which we devoured before heading to bed.

Today was another lazy day, I didn't even leave the apartment. But I wasn't completely the worst, I actually did some productive video editing, we finished our dig journal to submit to the professor, and here I am blogging away. Back to the video stuff, I was planning on compiling my favorite shots for a long video that I would finish after my trip, but would anyone be interested in seeing some short clips of random video before then? I don't know, just a thought, let me know what you think in the comments, or via facebook! I think I will end my night with some quality roommate bonding over netflix and dinner, which awaits me now. xoxo

p.s. sorry for the lack of pictures, I didn't see anything super cool and my photos aren't transferring from my phone!