Day 7

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Day 7

I had a late start; I skyped with my family and boyfriend at 7:30am here, then went back to sleep until 10am. I started my box of cookies from the grocery store, took in my bathing suit from outside and am absolutely ready for another beach day before school officially starts tomorrow. Did some emailing and the cleaning lady came in to clean. I guess she thought everyone was out. We're getting cleaning on Mondays and Thursdays from what I hear. But she stole all my towels, except for one I was hiding 😞 So I only have 1 towel for now. I'm planning on leaving a note on the bulletin board so the administrator can see it. That's what we were told to do if we had any problems or concerns. I guess 1 towel is good enough for now, but I wish I had realized that she never replaced my towels 😞 I slipped on my bathing suit, ate some breakfast then headed down to the cafe where others were having coffee. After that we went around town; bought some more groceries (I have grapes and apples now, yay!) and to the bakery for lunch (and I got a loaf of whole wheat bread that I'm sharing with my neighbor next door). Once we had bought our fair share of groceries, we slowly headed back to the hotel. We unpacked our loads then got sunscreened up for the beach! I spent maybe an hour or so there, but I got a little tired and cold so I headed back to my room. I took a shower and am now just waiting for the group to get back and go for a cheap dinner. A few girls went to this restaurant along the waterfront, just beside the one we had our first dinner and lunch here, about a 10-15 min walk. They said that gyros were $2 a piece with fries and that a club sandwich was about $1.50 or smthng dirt cheap like that. So we're planning on checking that out. It's almost cheaper than buying our own groceries. But I'd say in total I've spent about only $10 on my groceries so far?

As a nice surprise, a girl in our group decided to make a communal dinner for everyone; she bought almost all the ingredients necessary to make a Thai/Indian red curry (without ginger since I suppose it isn’t very popular in Greek dishes). I wasn’t that hungry but it smelt so good and it was so nice of her that I shared a small plate with a friend. These past few nights they’ve been stuffing us silly, that my appetite was lower today than usual. I find myself eating more and needing more food for lunch than any other meal. Today, while grocery shopping I had a fresh ham and cheese pie, which is ham and cheese in a filo pastry baked to perfection! At the beach I also ate an apple and we brought a mysterious basket of grapes we found waiting for us in the common area of our hotel. It was a pleasant change from what we’ve been doing normally; tonight we were all dressed in our pj’s and at-home-clothes because we all cocooned after the beach and then gathered for dinner up on the 3rd floor.

During the day, a couple of the girls adopted a stray dog, named her shaggy for the time being, bought her a flea collar and gave her a bath while combing out her fleas. Apparently they were crawling all over her. She’s a beautiful golden retriever, at least I think she looks like one, that’s quite young still. Once she was clean another group of girls took her with them to buy candy. She waited eagerly outside of the door where we were eating dinner. When I left, she was cuddled around herself in the shadows sleeping. A restaurant owner nearby saw the dog as the girls went to grab candy and said that they’d be glad to take it to the vet. We’re hoping that maybe the owner will adopt the dog and give it a home by the end of our program; it’s still a stray dog and we wouldn’t want to get it too comfortable of a home here if we’re just going to have to abandon her in 3 months. But it was the cutest thing, seeing her all cuddled in the corner sleeping; we were advised to not get attached to any of the strays here, but it’s so hard to avoid!
I’m just about to go to bed, before 12midnight for the first time!! I was hoping to catch some friends or family online, but I guess everyone’s out at 1pm on Mondays. I’m getting just a little homesick, but I suppose finally having some downtime on my own will do that to a person. Not that I’m not loving it here, but I wish that there wasn’t a whole 10hr difference between me and home. I miss home, but I guess I have to push myself out of this funk and just enjoy my time here, so I’ll have something to miss when I finally get back home.

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