Sept 30 - Oct 2

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Tuesday Sept 30

Had my very first cancelled class since being in college! My Ethnography teacher was sick, so I had a break from 10:40-1:30pm. Other than that, not a lot of news for the day…

Wednesday Oct 1

My first experience at a Greek hospital! - No I did not injure myself…yet. In order to get our student visas extended for the full time that we are studying here, we were required to visit the hospital for TB screening. So, along with the 15 other CYA-ers in my group, I received the TB test shot and also had to have an X-ray of my chest taken. The shot, well, we all know how well I handle needles…and for the X-ray we had to be completely topless COMPLETELY. Thankfully, my X-ray technician was female, but as I stood against the plastic plate I couldn’t help but be grossed out by how many other bare chests had probably touched the same spot and how little the plate had probably been disinfected. One poor girl though, during her X-ray/her standing topless, the door to the room swung open. Luckily I don’t think anyone saw, but I can imagine how mortifying that must have been! Overall, I was struck by just generally how unclean the whole building was: holes in the walls, noticeable dirt on the floors, doctors and nurses smoking as they walked down the hall. It certainly made me hope I would never have to visit one for a real emergency…

Thursday Oct 2

Met up with Shoshana when she was done with class. After weighing our options for the night’s entertainment we decided to go to a movie in an outdoor theater with our friend George. George though, wanting to finish his paper due Monday because he would be visiting his family all weekend, couldn’t go until after 10pm. So while we waited, Shoshana and I walked around Plaka - the super touristy area just below the Acropolis. She managed to find a beautiful olive wood box for playing cards for her boyfriend that the store engraved for free and I also finally found an evil eye bracelet - the same one that a man in Chania tried to make me pay 15 Euros for, and I got it for 5!
After our successful shopping, the two of us headed back to meet George and walk to the theater in Kolonaki neighborhood - the very posh neighborhood of Athens where the other half of the CYA dorms are. When we arrived at the movie theater however, we were sad to discover the movie that we thought would be playing - Hamlet 2 - had finished the night before and the newspaper had not listed the new movie, Happy Go Lucky (?) Since none of us had any desire to take our chances on it, we walked down the street to a very chic 24-hour café. Rationalizing paying 4.50 for a frappe, when I was planning on spending 9 anyways on the movie, we sat and watched the Olympiacos soccer game.

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