On Sunday I did perhaps the most adventurous of all the things I will do while I am living in Greece. I went to the Corinth Canal and went bungee jumping. What spurred on this need for some insane and mildly reckless behavior? A combination of factors and emotions. A part of me always wanted to do it, a seed planted early on that only grew in the last few weeks. First of all, the Corinth Canal is only about an hour from Athens, easy (and cheap) to get to. So I had the opportunity. Also, after looking into prices, it [View Full Entry]

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Last weekend I enjoyed my final field trip outside of Athens. My History of Macedon class went to Northern Greece to check out some Macedonian ruins. We stayed in Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece, second to Athens. On the way up we stopped at a number of battle sites including Plataea and Charonea. The first day we visited Pella, the capital of Macedon under the rule of Philip II and Alexander the Great. The best part was my professor. He acts a little bit like a little boy, constantly picking up things like rocks and potsherds and always needed [View Full Entry]

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I can't believe it has been nearly a month since I last posted! I have been keeping very busy and life has certainly been pretty hectic. As usual, Greece has been a lot of fun! On the sixth of March my program took us on a tour of Brauron and Sounion. Brauron used to be a Temple to Artemis and Iphigenia and Sounion was a Temple to Poseidon with a smaller Temple to Athena across the way. The weather was a bit dreary due to a sandstorm blowing over Greece from the Sahara, but all in all it was a great [View Full Entry]

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Last weekend my friends and I stayed in Athens and enjoyed some of the Carnival festivals going on here. We first attempted to partake in the Burned Meat Thursday festival but were unsuccessful in finding a taverna. We still ate meat, just in the form of gyros instead. Then on Saturday night we went to a parade. After the parade we got crepes. This was a wonderful experience because the waitress was absolutely phenomenal! First she was impressed that we capable of reading Greek (though it was very slow and we didn't understand most of it). She was happy to help [View Full Entry]

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Just a few brief words on one of my classes: So I am taking an archaeological drawing class here. It is both really fun and incredibly intense. My friend Anouska and I always leave feeling very tense and on edge, but the class is interesting and we are learning some really neat techniques! It is very difficult to describe what we are learning to do. We are basically learning to draw pots (for now) as they would be drawn for an archaeological publication. This means that the representation needs to be as precise as possible, in black ink, and two dimensional. [View Full Entry]

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Before telling everyone about the absolutely amazing trip CYA took to the Argolid, I am going to fulfill a request from one of my sisters to include some more personal information about my friends and life here in Athens! So... I have five really good friends here Lynette, Tori, Hilary, Anouska, and Sarah. Lynette is from Singapore originally and goes to school in California. Tori is from the Chicago area. Sarah is from Virgina and goes to school at Smith (and has never been further West in the US than Pennsylvania which makes me sad). Hilary and Anouska both go to [View Full Entry]

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The last week has been a lot of fun and very busy, just like nearly all of my time so far in Athens! Last Monday, my first class of the day, Archaeology of Athens, met at the Acropolis which was absolutely amazing. It was so surreal and interesting to be able to have our own private tour around the Acropolis! Then in that class on Wednesday we went to the Ancient Agora for class! We again got our own private tour from our professor followed by some time to explore the Agora Museum and the Agora itself. One of the neatest [View Full Entry]

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Well! I have certainly had a busy last few days! Friday was a study day which was nice and relaxing. A few of us went to the academic center for a few hours after to do homework. We were there as the sunset. This really was to our benefit because the view from the academic center is phenomenal! (see pictures) Prior to studying, we checked out the weekly open air market in our neighborhood. I have never seen so many fresh fruits and vegetables! It was seriously a good three or four blocks long and every stand was overflowing with delicious [View Full Entry]

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Today was a lovely, lovely day! The day started with a visit to the National Archaeological Museum for my Archaeology of Athens course. Hilary and I were able to enjoy our first trolley ride experience on the way there. This was a bit of an adventure in and of itself since we had to go in the middle of rush hour traffic meaning that the trolley were incredibly crowded, making it very difficult to figure out what to do to validate our tickets (and harder yet to actually validate them once we understood how). In any case, we managed to make [View Full Entry]

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Classes have started and I have had the all but one of mine so far! Greek (ancient) is a bit difficult as the four of us in the class are all coming from different places and have learned different things in our first semester. So we are starting with a review part of which is actually acting as a very quick lesson on different things I have not yet learned! But the professor is really funny and the class is very much enjoyable! The Archaeology of Athens course I am taking only meets in the classroom seven times this semester! I [View Full Entry]

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