The Island

Having gone through with the trip's first all-nighter and falling asleep through the rides, it's pretty safe to say that the bus ride to the airport and the flight to Mykonos went pretty swimmingly. Before the plane actually took off, I closed my eyes and eventually woke up wondering if we had left yet. When we had already landed...

More sleeping was to be had while we were waiting to be checked in at the hotel with it taking a number of hours to get everyone settled in and everything. I also went with a group to grab food at Everest (Pretty much the Greek equivalent of Subway from what I've come to understand. They had a bunch of them in Athens as well), hung out in the room and adjusted, swam/sunbathed at the hotel pool, and then went out with a few other people to a Thai/Chinese restaurant nearby. If I'm not mistaken, the plans for tomorrow include leaving here in the morning for the island of Delos and coming back in the evening. Definitely looking forward to seeing the Oracle if we get the chance.

So far, Mykonos has been a pretty cool place and makes for an interesting first island to visit on this trip. The weather has been warm and the ocean view is certainly awe inspiring. I do wish the hotel's Internet was better and that the rooms were closer together (The hotel is mostly a set of buildings with several rooms assigned to each building), but the bathrooms are bigger and the setup is certainly more unique. That and you can't deny the awesomeness of finally getting a chance to get in some water after dealing with the hot climate here.

And on a final note, Dennis Hopper has apparently joined the endless list of celebrities that are passing away this summer. I guess the "Super Mario Brothers" movie finally caught up with him...

Feel The Thunder

One thing I found amusing today was how I managed to sleep in today but still managed to get up around 8:28 AM, about two minutes before my alarm clock was scheduled to go off. Fortunately, I did pretty well on the two quizzes today and the classes after them were pretty much around the usual lectures and such. After that, I spent some time in the room and went out to grab a gyro lunch with a few other students.

Around 2:30, we left to go on another monument sightseeing. This time, we ended up seeing the Agora as well as a temple of Hephaestus and a few other Greek/Roman structures. While the weather was as hot as ever, I think this may have been my favorite stop due to getting a lot of time to walk around and the general atmosphere of the site. It's definitely between and the Parthenon...

Following this, I spent a good portion of the day sitting on the rooftop garden having some engaging conversations with several other students. Since we are flying out to the island of Mykonos around 4:15 AM this morning (It being 3:41 AM at this current moment), a bunch of us elected to not sleep tonight and decided to just pull an all-nighter. Hopefully we'll get some rest on the plane and won't have too much going on after we get there...

Once Is A Fluke, Twice Is A Coincidence, and Three Is A Pattern

After a few days of hanging out and exploring the city, we finally had our first day of classes. Mine, The Ancient City and Love In Ancient Greek Literature, seem like they won't be too challenging though there will be a lot of writing associated with them. Kinda makes me wonder if I could get away with using this here blog as my form of the journals...

Following the classes, I lingered in the room before we had another museum trip around 2:30. I think this museum may have been the best one we've seen yet and seemed to have a rather old school feel to it. I also managed to take a ton more pictures of several things there and will probably end up with too many photo albums by the time this whole thing is through.

After hanging around the hotel some more and grabbing dinner around town at one point, another highlight of the day came about when about ten of us went to a nightclub with the hotel's bartender. We ended up riding through the Athenian subways (Don't worry, they're nothing like New York...) and went through a lot of crowds for most of the trip there. Of course, not too many of us drank that much though I left early with about half of the group a little before midnight. I figured it probably wouldn't be too good of an idea to do it the night before we have two introductory quizzes. That and I didn't get around to taking a siesta today so that's made me a little tired as well.

So I should probably go to bed now. It's about 1:45 AM here...

Is Summer Just Celebrity Death Season?

Just read online that apparently Gary Coleman died today, and I suddenly can't help but wonder why an unusual amount of celebrities seem to be dying during the spring and summer months. With his two main competitors gone, I get the feeling that Arnold Schwartzenegger must be a tad nervous due to him being one of the great celebrity punchlines left in the business. The hard rock/metal community also seems to be getting hit harder than recent years with Peter Steele, Ronnie James Dio, and Paul Gray being taken away from us prematurely. Hell, I think I'm still in mourning over Dio...

While it hasn't been as eventful as last night, today was a pretty solid day and had a lot going on. I ended up getting up obscenely early again today though it was made up for by getting to talk to Heather for the first time in about 4 days or so. Of course, I'm still getting the Skype thing figured out and I've never been much of a webcam/phone person to begin with. After that and a decent breakfast, the group went out for the usual walking around the city. I think we saw more today than any other time so far and managed to spend some time at the Acropolis, Parthenon, a few select monuments, and a museum centered around Greece's overall history. All in all, it was great to see more historical artifacts and I've gotten hundreds of pictures out of it. I get the feeling that these might be a pain in the ass to upload when the time comes...

Since then, I spent my free time going with the same students from last night to look for a book/stationary store (And ate at a McDonald's along the way. Not too bad, actually...) and took a five hour nap earlier this evening. Considering how the first dream I remember consisted of another tour and seemed to be rather close to reality, it may be safe to say that this trip has officially drilled its way into my skull...

With that said, I think it might be a good idea to head back to bed sometime soon. We actually have our first classes tomorrow morning and I'm rather curious to see what they'll end up being like. Here's hoping I'll get up with the alarm as opposed to two hours before it...

Getting a Little More Worldly

When compared to yesterday, I think today was even more eventful and felt a little more comfortable when looking at the rush of the last few days. Fortunately, I also remembered to bring my camera with me for the most of the day. It started off nicely enough with the mandatory trip of the day being at a particularly interesting museum that featured many different items from Greece's long history. We also went through the National Gardens and witnessed a Changing of the Guard as well as a demonstration along the way. Fortunately the latter event wasn't as chaotic as people in the States may think due to it being a peaceful assembly. Hell, more people looked bored than angry...

Following that and a four hour siesta, a large portion ended up grabbing a late dinner at a place called the Quick Pitta. So far, the food has been pretty decent here though there are some things that I definitely am starting to miss. Thankfully it hasn't been much of an issue and I'm trying to get into the habit of trying new things on a regular basis.

Of course, what really made this day interesting may be the gathering of people on the rooftop garden this evening. While it started off well with nearly all of the students present and celebrating a girl named Maggie's birthday, it really got fun when three other students and I ended up having a few drinks with a Canadian woman, an English couple, and the hotel's bartender. All in all, it was a ton of laughs and I enjoyed seeing peoples of different nationalities here as well as hearing about different things from their perspectives. Definitely reminds me of what this studying abroad thing is all about. You can take as many pictures as you like but what really matters are the people that you come across along the way...

I should probably get to bed now. It's about 2 AM here and we're meeting at 10 again for another round of sightseeing. Here's hoping for another interesting day!

Giving In and My First Impressions

It's been a while since I've had a blog like this. I had several suggestions from people saying that I should get a blog going when I made it to Greece this summer and I wasn't sure if I would be personally up to the task. Of course, I kept getting things that I would say in a blog stuck in my mind and figured that it might be an interesting idea worth trying out. I suppose it's a good way to help everyone keep tabs on what I'm doing as well as helping me articulate the many thoughts that go through my mind. With that said, let's give this blog thing a shot again, shall we?

After a particularly long flight from Philadelphia to Athens and a rather quiet bus ride, we made it to the hotel in Athens around in the early afternoon (incredibly early morning in the States. Before leaving, I learned that Athens is about six hours ahead). After taking some time to settle in the hotel rooms and unpack, the group got together around 1 PM to take a quick tour of the city and explore a scenic route to the Acropolis. All in all, it was great to see the sights in spite of the heat though I had forgotten my camera. I'll have to be more careful about that sort of thing next time we go...

Following a three hour nap back at the hotel room (Siestas are a brilliant idea, especially you didn't get any sleep at all on a 10 hour plane ride...), I went out with another student named Emily to grab some food at a local eatery and enjoy the scenery a little more. I forget what the name of the place was but I ended up getting some calamari and Emily got some grilled meatballs if I remember right. Since then, I've pretty much been hanging out at the hotel and continuing to learn about the people that have come along for the ride.

So far, if I were to use one word to sum everything up in Athens, it would be "snug." For the most part, the streets and sidewalks are more narrow than those in the US and the hotel room is definitely smaller than I'm used to. Thankfully I don't require a lot of space to thrive and the city overall looks beautiful, especially due to the ancient architecture. Of course, a lot of the more open areas are filled with various peddlers, stray cats and dogs, and the like but there seems to be a charm to it if you look at it in the right light. I also find some of the language usage and integration to be interesting, especially since the warnings against going on the various sites are exclusively written in English. I suppose we'll see what other things I can find here to talk about and hopefully I'll get into the habit of taking more pictures...