the final countdown.

it's done. i sent in my last philosophy paper, a thrown-together slapdash discussion of the "parable of the cave" in plato's republic which will probably earn me an A- if my last 3 thrown-together slapdash essays in this class are any indication, and my work for the semester is finished. i am a senior in college, a position in life i can only associate with the following images: short-haircut felicitaaay talking into a tape recorder, all-nighters working on thesis while inexplicably wearing unflattering and uncomfortable turtleneck sweaters,  and either a calm understanding that i'm supposed to actually BE grown this time or sheer panic and confusion when i'm booted out of bates college come may 2010, finally faced with reality, rent and dating outside of frye street house parties. 

i keep coming face-to-face with reminders of indianapolis, things like discovering the publisher of my copy of republic is in the one and only naptown (largest non-port city, represent!) also i've been downloading the series "parks and recreation" for a number of reasons, most of them centered around amy poehler and aziz ansari, but also because the show manages to create humor in one of the most mundane jobs imaginable, the department of parks and recreation in pawnee, indiana. coincidentally, it also mirrors my last summer, though mine was composed of far fewer madcap hijinx and a much higher level of disgust with bureaucracy, local government, and the rednecks i called co-workers/superiors. 

i've also been having dreams that i'm already home, though it is usually a mashup of maine and indiana, with my house now part farm. it's jarring to wake up to athens, but relieving in some sense; i haven't wasted my chance, i still have time to absorb as much as i can from just being here. i know i'll be sad to leave greece, regardless of how much i get done in these last five days, but there's so much at home that i can't wait to do again. even just driving around indianapolis sounds comforting. it will be nice to have a few days in the green house before embarking on the next phase, living and working in new york. 

i think what worries me most about leaving school next year is eventually running out of things to be this excited about, running out of opportunities like this and getting bored. i don't think this is an uncommon or unique fear among near-graduates, but that isn't much of a comfort to be perfectly honest. all i can do is keep pushing myself, embracing the changes that come and taking full advantage of my youth as it dwindles. that or give up and learn to play golf (sorry frank. seriously, consider another hobby. golf blows.) 

love, 

kg.

green ladies do crete.

so sorry for the delay in updating; i could pretend i'm very busy and important but really it's just laziness and sunshine-induced procrastination. 

i officially leave greece in nine days. what. is. that. right now i'm in a lull of school work between end of the semester insanity with papers and presentations, and the dreaded finals period... which actually won't be that bad: oral/written modern greek test friday, myth test on saturday, 5 page philosophy paper due wednesday. business.

in the meantime though i've been making lists of things i have to do before i go. i definitely want to check out the 2004 olympic stadium... we've been living pretty much on top of the marble stadium, but athens worked its booty off to get the other one ready for the olympics (typical of greece, they were still working on it two weeks before the opening ceremonies... hilarious)... also i think it's funny that they insist on continuing to hock olympics-related souvenirs at outrageous prices, so this needs to happen.

there are a number of lasts to take care of, like the last taverna dinner, last run through athens, last frappe from cute old man in the kafenio across the street... things i have categorized as "sorority girl shit" as we have all found ourselves whining "you guyyys, this is the last time we'll ever [insert mundane activity] in aaaaathens" which just screams sorority girl to me, even more so than VS PINK sweatsuits coupled with uggs and walk-of-shame hair.

on another note, it was a dream having beej and big megs here over the weekend... beej, i still don't know how you're going to fully justify a spontaneous four-day trip to GREECE, but i support you in that endeavor. after a long day of travel, both safely arrived in athens on thursday. maria and anna, you'll be pleased to know they both stayed at the HOTEL ELECTRA (i just lost.) we left for crete friday morning and pretty much spent our time there eating, drinking wine and shopping, which i think we can all agree is an ideal vacation. i made them try a number of amazing greek foods and raki, the aftermeal liquor served in crete... they were big, big fans.... n't! 

on sunday we wandered around athens, accidentally ending up at the acropolis. beej and meghan were both troopers when it came to hiking up to the top, and both agreed it was worth the trek. on monday meghan flew off to stuttgart to start work there for the summer and beej headed home, with an extra bag full of crap i didn't feel like dealing with come next saturday. aaaah next saturday! i can't believe that.

i am still in the process of finding an apartment in nyc for this summer, which is a pain, but an exciting pain... i just hope i can work something out soon and maybe not live on the street this summer? sounds like a plan.

love,

kg

i still can't believe i did this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzv5bvXTgBA

i wasn't the good kind of nervous until we actually got to the corinth canal. the people at zulu bungy were completely amazing... it's clear they've been doing this for a long time. they knew exactly how to talk to us and what to say. in the video you can see me chatting with one of the women about studying in greece but the camera cuts away before i ask her "so... do people get hurt a lot doing this?" girlfriend was mad anxious. in any case, i'm so glad i did it. i knew i would, it was just a matter of whether it would be the last thing i did or not. 

and no, i wasn't supposed to touch the water. 

love,

kg

spring break, the abridged version

the task of blerging about the last ten days right now seems almost as exhausting as my spring break was. so we're about to break out the bulleted list format to squeeze it all in. ready, go:

- left apartment in athens for plane to rome at 4:30 am, friday the 10th

- ran around the city for the rest of the day, meeting up with other katie's friends from unh to see the trevi fountain, (the outside of) the coliseum, and later, the spanish steps; all sites were madhouses given the holiday

- pub crawl round 1; saw the pope pre-crawl; did our part to improve morale among the troops when we met and clowned with a group of army guys stationed in germany

- sightseeing throughout the next day; dinner at a completely out of the way vegetarian restaurant... cab fare was almost as much as our meals. hilarious, roma

- early morning train to florence, stumbled upon the scoppio del carro (literal translation: explosion of the cart) which involved a seemingly endless parade of people in medieval attire leading two huge white oxen pulling an enormous, elaborately decorated "cart"... more like tank, armed to the teeth with fireworks; square outside of the church was packed with people, waiting for a dove rocket to set the cart off at the moment of resurrection... see facebook for pictures

- wandered around florence; rode a carousel... subsequently relived my childhood; walked along the old bridge, window shopped and haggled; waited in line to see michelangelo's david... fell in love a little bit? pub crawl round two, this time with air force dudes... we are nothing if not patriotic.

- after maybe 24 hours in flo, train to venice the next morning; wandered the streets/canals, walked through the piazza san marco, took an ill-advised nap at 7:30pm, rallied for tea and wine along the grand canal

- mini boat trip to murano with other katie to see the glass-blowing furnaces; demonstration, narrated in italian, was fascinating nonetheless; after much deliberation, group decision to spring for a gondola ride; loved life.

- loitered in pub for as long as possible before moseying to the train station at 11pm; snuggled on floor; snuggled on a different part of floor when we discovered we had attracted the attention/affections of a v. creepy italian gentleman; kicked out of train station at 1am; group decision to spring for a hotel; discovered i was broke; naptime before jumping on 5am train to cinque terre

- 4 hour train ride to riomaggiore; lunch then began beautiful trek to corniglia, the middle town; minor clowning then dinner and wine to prepare ourselves for the nighttime walk back to our hostel; next day, walked down to the beach in riomaggiore before almost missing our (again, 4 hour) train back to rome; 9pm flight to athens; stayed up all night, packed and unpacked, showered and hopped on 7am ferry to santorini with 10 friends

- cozy (read: packed with pushy, loud greeks), semi-sleepless 8 hour ferry ride to santorini; upon arrival, remembered why i chose to study in greece. 

- briefly attended megalo friday church service in perissa beach; left upon realizing how out of place and inappropriate we were; relocated to del mare bar and restaurant, the greatest establishment on the planet

- next morning, rented atvs for 15 euro a pop; rode to fira to goof with tourists and donkeys; climbed down to the port for picnic lunch; rode said donkeys back up; atvs to oia on the other tip of the island to watch the sunset; rode to pyrgos for candle lighting service; midnight, priest says "christos anesti" to declare that christ has officially risen and greeks lose their minds; feared for our lives as fireworks were shot off around us/at us... very cold ride back to perissa beach

- easter morning, walked along the beach, saw too many lambs roasting on spits -- heads, eyeballs and all... felt ok about being vegan.

- monday morning, drove to lighthouse on tip of the island; walked along the beach one last time, ate at del mare one last time, bid santorini a proper farewell; 8 hour ferry ride back to athens, arrived back in apartment at 12:30am this morning.

decidedly the greatest spring break i have ever had.

love,

kg

hot damn, i'm cultured.

two museums, two days, AND out of my own free will. new record for kg. i demand the proper recognition.

the suitemates took a trip to thessaloniki this weekend... i politely declined because i was mad stressed with intern business last week (consider me employed. or unpaid-interned. www.pgfusa.org. count it!) and riding a midnight bus on friday night, returning 5am monday morning sounded like the opposite of good. instead, i have spent my time doing an inexcusable amount of yoga in the middle of the empty apartment and paying my cultural dues by visiting the national archeological museum yesterday and the benaki museum today with my dude rob, an art history major and therefore handy as hell. besides a stalking incident (i was the stalkee, not the stalker... just to clear things up) on saturday in omonia aka trifesville junkietown, it was a pretty nice weekend of educational excursions. i actually enjoyed myself. is this what maturity feels like? it's cold and weird. 

there are these horrifying posters up all over town of a pale naked woman with her head thrown back and blood pouring from various orifices. just to up the graphic description ante, it is literally like being raped in the eye everyday on your walk to school... truly goddawful. and it's to promote some nerdy 15-member orchestra band, like the michael jenkins band or some other westernized name along those lines. people have tried to cover them up with flyers and graffiti tags (well, those are probably unrelated and not altogether altruistic) but the image is burned into our minds, and now probably yours too. enjoy sharing our pain. 

there was a general strike last week, temporarily shutting down all public transportation among other things. striking is different in greece; they tend to do it in scheduled 2 hour intervals on a previously announced date when it's something that affects everyone so as to avoid sheer chaos... they also don't keep it up until changes are made. they just make their statement and head home. how this actually works to change anything continues to baffle me. i don't understand why greek government pays attention to these tame demonstrations, or how the demonstrators themselves don't see that full-blown apocalyptic chaos would be way more badass and legendary. but i'm probably just mad because i'm pretty sure it's affected the mail system, and girlfriend wants her expected package.

i just sent in my thesis proposal form to skr, advisor extrarodinaire. ask me how psyched i am to start planning the most hellish project i will ever undertake in life, 5 months in advance, while still living in greece where it is beautiful and tight like erraday. 

so psyched.

love, 

kg

remember the boat times?

i feel like college professors should know better than to assign description papers. i can't even imagine how to write a paper without an argument. in an act of protest, i'm going to blerg instead of writing a pointless paper on adonis. it's the athenian way.

in the past, i have expressed ambitious hopes of rocking the pr industry in new york and being a fly-as-hell business lady. clowning on paros and mykonos this weekend maybe convinced me that living on a boat, sailing from greek island to greek island, selling fish or kitschy tourist shit might be an ok option, too. i could have a pink pelican (see below) named stan as a sidekick. you look me in the eye and tell me that doesn't sound like a phenomenal lifestyle. CAN'T.

karen k, megan, katie and her visiting boyfriend derek and i hopped on a ferry to paros wednesday morning; someone had the spectacular foresight to buy deck seats when the temperature was topping out in the 40s, but after about half an hour we sneaky snaked into some of the lux numbered seats inside to snuggle during the four hour trip. paros was beautiful, despite the chill, and our hostel owners were adorable. it's one of the lesser advertised islands, but i recommend it for sure. 

we've noticed that traveling during the off-season has its pros and cons... the pros include fewer douchebag tourists, lower prices, street cred. cons: COMPLETELY DESERTED ISLAND. there was a bad news thunderstorm the night we spent on paros, and an anonymous menacing fisherman with a hook for a hand stalking us in our every move would not have been terribly surprising. horrifying, but not surprising. 

during the day we stomped around the hood, taking a bus to naoussa, a fishing village nearby. oh, also we stumbled onto a half-submerged venetian fortress, no big deal. dericious taverna meals were starting to take their toll fiscally, so we had a picnic lunch on a bridge. after the bus back, we wandered into the church of 100 doors, watched the sunset from a bar and caught the ferry to mykonos, arriving on the island around 11 that night. again, super cute hostel owners. this one picked us up at the port, somehow cramming all of us, some greeks and a canadian couple into her hilarious awkwardly sized van. we somehow booked sort of an apartment living situation, which was perfect, minus the treacherous stairs leading to our front door which posed a serious problem for a temporarily handicapped derek; poor guy got into a serious snowboarding accident the day before his flight overseas. greece is a terrible place to be on crutches, but he was a trooper. 

mykonos was also deserted for the most part, and though it was sort of a bummer to discover most of the restaurants and bars were closed, it was neat to see them all in renovation mode, getting ready for the tourist season. mykonos was breathtaking in general... i'll never get over watching sunsets on the aegean. probably the greatest part of the island, however, were the pink pelicans loitering around the fish markets. they were huge, no, HUGE, with super soft feathers. they were also borderline domesticated. i guess they must be used to a ton of people milling around the island. i love them and seriously considered taking one home if it would have me.

there was talk of secretly renting mopeds, but ultimately we just ran around the tiny narrow streets near the seaside and little venice for our two days on mykonos. the 5 hour ferry ride back was fairly uneventful, ooh except i learned how to play texas hold em, betting with torn up bits of paper... like i said, we poor. 

i feel like this is not an adequate representation of the past 4 amazing days, but it's now 9pm and i have not a sentence done on my paper, so i should probably get to it, for the sake of keeping up the "study" facade of study abroad. 

love,

kg

the final excursion.

i've found that calling them "excursions" as opposed to "field trips" keeps me way more interested and excited. humor me, please.

this particular excursion to delphi and olympia, our last of the semester, had all the makings for a goddawful weekend, but ended up being surprisingly dece in practice. first off, there were our leaders: our professor was named kriga, and it is putting it delicately to say she could easily be the lost greek hunchback of the acropolis... 'stache, perma-pregnant belly, janked up teeth and all. i would feel bad about saying this if she had demonstrated any proficiency in teaching or leading students in any way. i could not have learned less about each site if i stayed home, in indiana, under a rock, in a self-induced coma, and these were things i was actually interested in learning about. essentially, we showed up to each site, were lead around by kriga, who often supplied proven false information, to maybe 48% of the significant bits, told to look around on our own for 10 minutes [note: i don't know if you've ever tried to sprint up a mountain in skinny jeans that have gotten too baggy, but i tell you what, it is exactly as uncomfortable as the mental image you have right now might suggest... i almost mooned many a tourist/ruin... but i saw the stadium at delphi. boom] and got back on the bus generally an hour and a half ahead of time. 

if we had been staying in super fly locales such as santorini, this unexpected free time would have been a dream. olympia is no santorini. to be fair, our first night spent in delphi was pretty nice: amazing view from a cozy hotel, good company, and an appropriate amount of time to appreciate what was essentially a one-street town. the next two days and nights spent in olympia were borderline madness-inducing. it is worrisome when a 5 hour nap in a trife hotel on a bed constructed of sofa cushions seems more appealing than exploring greece. 

i should also mention our other leader, maria, an administrator for cya. greece has never known a snarkier woman, and after spending 2 months getting mean-mugged by every woman between the ages of 9 and 65, that is saying something. but i can appreciate a little snark... what i can't handle is legitimately THE most patronizing tirade i have ever been subjected to, at 7:30 am, one-on-one in the hotel dining room, about how unnatural it is to be vegan and how i am going against evolution in doing so. oh bitch no you didn't. all i said was no i don't want a goddamn hard-boiled egg, coffee is fine thanks. step off. we are now mortal enemies, a fact she may or may not be aware of.

our final day, we checked out of olympia and headed further into the mountains and had a weirdly refreshing experience with snow? i sort of miss maine? we stopped for literally 8 minutes to learn a little more nothing at an open air museum about water power, which in no way relates to anything any of us have ever studied... ever. at this point, my fairly small group of 18 had so firmly bonded in our unified hate of so, so many things that the trip in retrospect was pretty fun in social terms. i'm actually totally okay with suffering under less than stellar circumstances as long as the clowning is above par.

i have two days of classes this week, and we leave for paros and mykonos on wednesday morning. i checked the semi-reliable weather report, which says it will be a high of 60... but i'll be damned if i don't get in the sea again and wear an inappropriate sun dress. i am deeply committed in my idealistic romantic standards. 

love,

kg

dis n dat

i've been meaning to update this for a while, but things have been crazy. midterms are sort of over? hard to say, as a lot of papers have been pushed back... greeks are pretty chill about deadlines and getting things done. it's physically hurting the type 'a' psycho in me, but pretty handy when it comes to traveling and athenian clowning.

i finally got new computadori... it is the prettiest thing in the world. unfortunately it is a law-abiding mac book and refuses to pick up the stolen internet in the apartment. i'll let it slide.

we went to hydra this past weekend (see facebook for photos) which was about a two hour hydrofoil ride. we only ended up running around the island for about 5 hours, but it was a perfect day... amazing weather, greek island, those are really the only two ingredients needed. i cannot wait to get to paros and mykonos next week. i have a total of 4 school days left in march. hilarious.

i'm leaving tomorrow morning at 8am for a field trip to olympia and delphi. as previously expressed, field trips are not my favorite, but i'm actually looking forward to this one. beej has been telling me to get my ass to delphi since i first mentioned maybe studying abroad in greece. doin' it.

academic center is about to kick me out for the night, will update after the f-teezy.

love,

kg

amurrica!

wow, importante, i totally forgot to mention that a few friends and i had a lovely evening at tgifriday's last thursday. i love trife american culture abroad, i've decided. our server openly hated us, clearly dismissing us as unadventurous tourists rather than mildly homesick students, there for the irony. the ever-classy decor was the same, except do they have live bands in fridays in the states? i don't think i've actually been inside a friday's since high school... it's not what one might call vegan-friendly.
in keeping with our amurrica theme, we went to see "he's just not that into you" afterward. greek movie previews are completely perfect in every way. also i brought shame to my country again and embarrassed everyone affiliated with me during a commercial for god knows what, featuring a charging midget in viking gear... i lost it, in a completely silent theater. god i'm tight.
it was nice to see ben affleck in a movie role that didn't make me want to punch him in the forehead, but it was hard to find any merit in a movie that only reinforces the relationship/dating myths it claims to be above in the end. and ginnifer goodwin, i hate you so hard. get your ass back to "big love" and stop assaulting my eyes with implausible and irritating cuteness.
while on the subject of dating (jeez, check the flow of this blog) the paper i am half-working on right now is the end result of weeks of interviewing greeks about the characteristics their ideal mates absolutely have to posess... and by "weeks of interviewing" i mean "weeks of venturing out to cafes, becoming too intimidated to be productive and leaving after overpaying for tea and wasting an hour." our optimistic professor had us thinking greeks would be totally down to clown in answering our questions... not so, say the athenians. i started entirely too many conversations ("parakalo, xerete anglika?") only to be shot down either because the potential interviewee did not in fact xerei anglika, or because they just did not feel like talking to a silly amurrican girl. rough. i ended up going into pharmakeios and bakeries and forcing them to answer my questions in exchange for buying something... the suitemates were more than happy to take the guilt-fueled purchases of chocolate off my hands. i ended up with only about 10 usable interviews, so i'm about to make some damn broad generalizations in this bidness.
ooh also i think solo adventure might be cancelled this weekend... cover letters and writing samples are taking up the front burner for a while it seems. bummer jams, but we might do a day trip to an island though... i will never say no to a greek island.

love,
kg

all things considered.

it's midterms. i should be writing a paper or working on a massive study guide for my myth test. what a splendid time to blerg instead...

- typical of march, all things that can go wrong, have in the last several days. i have never before had such a ridiculously off week in my life. on the bright side, things can only go up, yea?

- i got my hurr did on thursday, and it. is. blonde. like BAM! blonde. the greeks are all bout the dark roots platinum strands look, one i was hoping to avoid... oh well, maybe i'll blend in better this way? chyea right.

- sometimes i'm sort of bummed i'm not living with a greek family. the immersion element is defintely missing. greek is a fly language and i'd like to be semi-fluent in it, but we speak anglika all the time, so there's not much chance of that happening here. but hot damn am i good at asking people if they know english...

- i've been running several times a week here, which is lovely for the most part. the streets and sidewalks of athens provide many an obstacle to keep the hour lively. i have learned, however, that it is not advisable to go for a yog when i'm tired, as all people-weaving skills of my carefully honed craft go out the window, and i run into athenians... a lot of athenians. luckily i have not injured anyone or myself, though i have had my fair share of near-death experiences with sneaky snake taxis. also, for real athenians, how are you that bewildered by what i'm doing? or, at the very least, how does it not occur to you to get the hell out of the way when someone is running AT YOU, panting "parakalo"? figure it out, goddamn...

- i can't believe i'm almost halfway through with greece... that's completely insane.

- on friday i went on another field trip to brauron and sounion, and surprisingly, had a great time. i chalk this up to three major factors: first, it was a day trip, not a 4-day excursion like nauplion. second, i had my roommate megan with me to keep me interested in ancient greek bidness. third, the professor in charge of my group was GERMAN, and therefore, captivating. his name is wolfgang drecker (ok.) and he looks like he very easily was involved with some dirty under the table black market dealings in berlin before joining the witness protection program and becoming a prof of ancient greek athletics for cya. except i think if you were in hiding, you would probably consider a less conspicuous name... also poseidon's temple was pretty amazing the second time around. add it to the reccomendations list.

i should probably pretend that this is real school and get crackalackin on these scholarly endeavors.

love,
kg

not constantinople.

[actually, according to mod greek prof eleni, greeks still call it constantinople... typical of a lot of greek things we've encountered, it's difficult to say for sure whether this is traditional or just archaeic]
ooh this is bout to be a biggie.
i'm totally gay for istanbul, to put it nicely. i was not a fan of turkey during the 2006 trip, but we only visited ephesus, and while i would not trade the experience of having the turkish tony danza as a tour guide for the world, istanbul 2009 kicked that trip's ass.
we (katie, blonde karen and i) left the apartment friday at 4:20 am, booking it to syntagma to catch the X95 bus to the airport. we arrived in istanbul around 9am, and got into a number of wrong lines while trying to pay the 15 euro visa fee. karen's almost-stepmom arranged for a van to pick us up and take us to the hotel empress zoe (i know. this was not at all the dirty grungy hostel stay of yesterday's study abroader, but this hotel was super fly. i wasn't mad.) we dropped our stuff off and set out to have our adventure, but not before a brief mid-morning snack in the ultra quaint dining area. our hotel ended up being incredibly close to both hagia sophia and the blue mosque, and walking between these two massive entities, watching european tourists milling around, trying and failing to ignore the persistent shouting vendors, while the call to prayer blasted all over the city was like stepping on a cultural landmine. unbelievable. we also made the observation that both the blue mosque and hagia sofia look like palaces straight out of the newer (suckier) star wars movies... we're on to you, lucas.
hagia sofia was definitely my favorite of the two. in it, i had my first of many awkward interactions with turkish men, generally characterized by nervous laughter, high fives and probably sexual tension? it's hard to say. in any case, i swear to god this guard was telling me to put my foot in a certain spot on this pillar inside, but apparently not... i still don't understand that exchange, and i probably never will. so be it.
hagia sofia is truly breathtaking, and the history of it all blows my mind, that they just took a church and decided it would be a mosque. what? how does that happen? inside there was a wishing... hole? i don't really know what to call it. but you stick your thumb in it and turn your outstretched hand all the way around to make your wish come true. as far as i can tell, normal human joints can't do this. thank god for my freakish swimmer/rower shoulders.
after sofia we stopped for our first of many tea breaks. i wish i could adequately put into words how perfect and delicious apple tea is. we ended up having a lot of time to kill during our trip, as the grand bazaar/spice market were physically and mentally (and fiscally...) exhausting after a while and it was a whopping 35 degrees outside... for the most part, though, it was hard to get too upset about losing the feeling in our toes while stomping around istanbul.
we were exhausted by friday evening, opting for an early dinner and smoking shisha afterward (it's legal beej, keep your shirt on)... we actually finished out most of our evenings this way, but sunday night was particularly good. we met a charming man from south africa named darren, whose profession we never quite figured out. we spent a lot of time talking about "the big lebowski" and road trips, two of my favorite things in the whole world. i can't express how much i love meeting people while traveling, especially if they are also foreigners. ooh, next time you are at a hookah bar, ask for apple and mint combined, which the bar owner reccomended to us. it is the tastiest.
i forced katie and karen to go to a sufi whirling dervish ceremony on saturday night, which was clearly a tourist affair, but still really rad to see. that mevlana, he knows what's up. and how can you resist something that utilizes the tag line "800 years of LOVE"? i mean... come on.
another major highlight of saturday was finally finding HUMMUS. it is also apparently not a turkish food. what is wrong with me? how do i keep picking these places that don't understand the beauty and goodness of hummus? in any case, it wasn't that tight, but mama got her fix.
sunday we went to topkapi palace, which featured hilarious sultan attire and completely ridiculous jewels, and later crossed the bridge to asia, no big deal i walked to asia don't worry about it.
monday i was determined to go to the turkish baths, which ended up being a little more expensive than we thought, so that quickly turned into a solo excursion, which was for the best, considering i was the only one who was actually excited about it... little did i know. steamy, sweaty, old-ass turkish ladies, completely naked. i'll let you simmer in that mental image for a while. it was a lot louder (and NAKEDER) than i had anticipated, but i'd say it was worth it. consider it reccomended.
we tooled around for the rest of the afternoon, eating our bodyweights in turkish delight samples at the markets and walking along the shoreline in the rain, before getting picked up for the airport.
our trip back went smoothly, excluding the scuffle at security when karen's souvenir dagger got me into mad trouble (the upswing? the fact that the official asked "is there a dagger in your bag?" not knife. dagger, specifically. i love turkey.) once it became clear that this was just a souvenir and was inside of a bag that would be checked, they let us go, but not before taking down my passport information... ruh roh.
so now i'm back in athens, where the weather has come back around the bend to 65 and sunny. this computer thing is becoming more of a hassle as midterms draw near and the internship search continues. the academic center internet is embarrassingly slow, and our stolen greek internet in the apartment is unreliable at best... but i can't complain.
i have a god forsaken field trip to brauron and sounion (i haven't the slightest idea what or where these are... oh actually poseidon's temple is in sounion... seen't.) on friday, said midterms the following week, and then i'm planning a kg-only trip for the following weekend... destination tbd. we'll see.

love,
kg

moment of truth.

kg is tuberculosis-free. i know you were all very concerned...
on another far more irritating note, my macbook pro died. computer whiz roommate karen thinks it's the hard drive, which i thought i had replaced a year ago, but maybe they just repaired it. damn you, genius bar. it could be way worse, and could have happened at a much more inconvenient time, but it's still a huge pain in the ass that i have to deal with this while in a non-english speaking country. i have a greek apple phone number to call... i'm just praying one of their reps is fluent in anglika.
i have my second modern greek test in an hour, so i must be off. roommates katie, other karen and i are heading to istanbul on thursday. i don't think they know what they're in for once we find hummus... they're about to see something special.

love,
kg

carnival in greece

is sort of a let down, to be totally honest. this is probably because we as a suite are missing the BIGGIE carnival weekend, as half of us will be in istanbul (holla.) and the other half will be in cairo (bomb blast killed a 17-year-old french tourist in hussein square yesterday... we are concerned, to put it mildly) this friday through monday. 

thursday was tsikopempti, which everyone calls 'meat thursday' to save time; tsiko actually means "the smoky smell that rises up when you grill meat" so the entire city has reeked of grilled meat since thursday. i wouldn't have it any other way. this falls into the sympathetic magic category of ritualistic practices; it's thought that if you eat meat on this day, you will have meat available to you for the next year, meaning you're making bank. it marks the official beginning of carnival season, which leads up to lent, though there have been babies running around in costume since the weekend. they get to go to baby discos and have parties. i'm down with anything that incorporates small pirates into my daily routine. 

carnival is the european grandaddy of mardi gras; it's characterized by excess and drank. my modern greek teacher eleni, whom i love, made a point of telling us that all babies in greece are born 9 months after carnival... jeez. public revelry is expected, including drankin in the streets, singing dirty songs, and mackin on strangers in masks. 

practices vary from place to place in greece. i'd love to see how it is in a smaller greek village, but alas, hummus awaits in turkey (priority). 

this weekend we did our damnedest to take full advantage of the festivities, but nothing really blew my mind. we went to a taverna in plaka on thursday so everyone could eat meat and be joyful. on friday we chilled, saturday we wore our masks over to a friend's apartment for clownin and then went to pangrati square, not knowing that we would need reservations to actually go into a bar. this shouldn't have been a surprise; when we visited mike's irish pub a few weeks ago for karaoke and beer (and creepy 45 year old men named giannis. they are all named giannis) even the bar stools were reserved. thank god the stage was free, right? 

we also went to a parade yesterday. it was gray and freezing out, but a lot of fun, minus the mouth-breathing old men pressing up against us. i don't want to talk about it. 

so this weekend is the big blow out, which we are missing, and then it's clean monday and the city shuts down so everyone can repent and start their lent bidness. i guess the following 40 days are a good time to be vegan in greece. dietary restrictions according to the greek orthodox church include abstaining from anything that has blood (for some reason this doesn't include squid... i'm pretty sure they have blood though. right? whateva.) some super orthodox badasses take this to the vegan level by not eating dairy and eggs, and monks also stop using olive oil; for the average greek joe though, it's just 40 days without meat. rough life, yea?

i have to go to a visa extension doctor's appointment to get an xray and a tb test. this is the only type of shot i have ever tolerated, i think, and also the only disease i have never convinced myself of having. [edit: except for that time junior year of high school. whenever i coughed i checked my hand for blood. i'm tight.] but i'll let you know how it turns out, fingers crossed!

love, 

kg

update: that was the sketchiest hospital i have ever been in. also it was not a cute scratch tb test, it was a straight injection in my forearm. i'm upset. and lastly, i hope all monday mornings from now on include getting topless with a strange greek man... n't!

it's always sunny in nauplion.

no. false. leave it to cya to schedule a field trip the one weekend it is 40 degrees and rainy in greece. 

this past weekend all 170 of us traveled to nauplion and saw some old stuff, to put it as eloquently as possible. i think i have a physical aversion to field trips, most likely caused by my nine year tenure at sycamore school for the gifted. any trace of ADD in my blood worms its way up like a ptsd 'nam flashback to the countless museum trips from the ages of 5-14. i ultimately miss out on any chance of enrichment while on these mind-numbing excursions. i cannot listen to save my life. i mean, i saw the lion's gate at mycenae but i couldn't tell you a thing about it besides "it's big. there were two lions, i think." this is a serious affliction. i can guarantee that if i had gone to these sites with just my suitemates, i would have gotten way more out of the experience, publishing an informative and enlightening blog and subsequently not disappointing my parents... this says something both about my apparent problems with organized learning, and about the overwhelming combined knowledge of my smarty-pants roommies.

anyway, the classics nerds (in the nicest way possible) of my program were all hot and bothered, but i was mostly cold and pissed. i did get some dece pics, but i will probably not put them up on facebook. i know from experience that scenery pictures from friends' travels abroad have a fairly short half-life in terms of intrigue for the rest of us. since i was barely interested and i was actually there, i can't imagine why anyone else would want to look through them. 

according to my planner (since i blocked most of this from memory), we went to the following between thursday and saturday: corinth (seen't. going to see it again for the bungee jumping), heraion, mycenae, the argos museum, tiryns, epidaurus and the castle of palamadi (walked down the 999 steps, it was rad. calf muscles were doing the jitter bug by the end, which is endlessly hilarious and fascinating to me.) we also had ample time to wander around nauplion, which is a hot spot for buying the worry beads old men all over greece use as stress release. it was a cute town, but we were over it by the time we had to leave saturday afternoon. 

i have another field trip this week to brauron and sounion with the same professor who showed us around this last weekend. she is hilarious, primarily because she resembles professor trelawney of harry potter fame. also she tells us stories about her childhood that closely shadow roald dahl's "matilda." hopefully i'll be able to actually get something out of this one...

love, 

kg

three posts in one day? THIS IS MADNESS.

(this is sparta. whatever, you wanted it.)
side note: i'm pretty sure greeks invented cat-calling. a popular vocal leering is the "pss-pss-pss-psss-psss" sound that i can only associate with beej beckoning to cats. i have also been meowed at. they take the colloquial idiom super seriously.
i made the dire mistake of wearing the candy-striper dress out to run errands today, one i won't make again. not only did i accidentally accept a coffee date invitation with a round 75+ year old man (liver spots and all), i also attracted the attention of literally every seemingly unattached man in athens. including a truck of gypsies who gave me an "ooowwwwwwww" as they drove by, and a man who simply shouted "thelo" at me: "i want." stop that.
katie, megan, anita and i went to the flea market in monastiraki today, which, i don't know if you knew this already, actually translates to "grab katy's ass as she reaches for antiques." hilarious.
despite the frequent episodes of sexual harrassment however, it was all-in-all a really great day (including a passable substitute for hummus, pureed fava beans) and a dece ending to a dece weekend.
greece is good again.

love,
kg

meteorites

my bad, i didn't realize it had been over a week...
on friday i hopped on a train for 6 hours (roughsies) with my roommates to go to kalambaka (or kalabaka... signs used both names for the same place, probably to discourage people like us. i called it clambake just to be safe) which is a teeny tiny town surrounded by meteora which is in. sane.
i was not at all looking forward to this trip, but it was completely worth the commute. even the trip over was beautiful. OH GOD a man with no teeth playing an accordion strolled through our car. i did not even care that my dozing was interrupted. i want to marry that man. or at least pay him quarters to play yearround in the corner of the house that i share with the man i marry for entertainment purposes. god bless him.
we got in around 2 or 3 in the afternoon and started wandering around the town looking for our hostel. instead we were accosted by a man offering us hotel rooms for the same price, 15 euros a person. i'll take it. we spent the rest of the day/night adventuring in the town, which consisted entirely of eating and drinking coffee at cafes, because there's not really much else to do there. also i napped, because i started feeling mad sick at the end of the train ride. what timing.
the next morning, we ate breakfast at the hostel we were supposed to stay in (and navigated the awkward guilt-tripping from the nice old lady who made us brekky) and then started up the mountain. ok so i made it a goal to not have my camera attached to my person like a third arm, but hot damn, when you see meteora, you can't NOT take pictures. words can't even do it justice. the mountains, the rock formations, the monasteries, and there were SHEEP. also my roommates are all shutterbugs (i even think this word in a goofy voice... see if you can guess which one) so when they stop for pictures, you sort have to go with the flow. it was a pretty great day all around in terms of doing amazing things in greece and bonding with the 5 people i live with like we're in a goddamn sorority [note: the benchmark of true familiarity, bonding, and comfort among girls is being able to freely discuss poop. this is consistent with every group of friends, sports team and church organization i have ever been a part of since the age of 14. we hit that point this weekend.] see facebook for pictures soon.
we hiked pretty much all day, stopped for late lunch in a taverna and then got on our train back to athens at 5:36 (fi tirty siiixxx. oh my god high school.) i was under the impression that we were all tired, but not so, say the roommates. so i went to bed when we got home at 11pm because i'm tight and got the old lady genes from beej and frank, while 3 of the roommates went out. it is 8:30 the next morning and i am still wearing the clothes that i hiked and travelled in. filth.

love,
kg

pirates? naw girl, piraeus

suitemates 1-6 went on an epic journey to piraeus yesterday, involving two metro rides, hopping on a bus for a while (note: when excited, i am too loud for public transportation) and walking around aimlessly and cluelessly for hours. but we were determined to see some sea, and eventually we did. we had many a photoshoot walking around the harbor (tourists) and finally stumbled upon a beach... it's hard not to get smacked in the face with "WHAT WE LIVE HERE HOLY HELL" several times a day. hopefully we'll be able to find some swimmable waters when it's a tad warmer.
our adventures on the athens nightclub scene have been varied and hilarious. last night we held off on going out until about 1am, ending up at kalua in syntagma square, but apparently athenians don't start their evenings until 2:30-4 am. what. partying in athens is not for the weak. endurance and hydration are key. OH we also recently found out that the hot spot in athens is the bar in TGIFriday's... i kid you not. i sincerely wish i were joking. what a let down, athens. oh don't worry though, i still plan to scope it out for myself one of these evenings.

love, kg

an unfortunate follow up

not only is there no hummus, but pita chips and MAYONNAISE are sold as packaged deal instead. 

you must be joking.

greek coffee = instant coffee?

and it's somehow good... ancient greek sorcery. there's also often a drink on menus called "greek coffee"... i'm assuming it contains a shot of ouzo and some stray doag hair.

i don't know when i became a morning person, but it's unsettling and gross. i don't have class today until hmmm 1.30pm and here i am at 8am. what? cya as a program functions under the assumption/understanding that we're here to run around europe and talk to greek people and have a life experience, so classes are intended to be pretty chill. the workload is a lot lighter and we don't have friday classes so we can leave on thursday night for a weekend adventure if we please. this is amazing because i already have big bright dreams of where i want to go: istanbul, santorini, crete, florence and amsterhotdamn. the suitemates schemed together last night with our friend rob and made plans to get our asses to the corinth canal soon... there may or may not be a long bungee cord involved. we'll see if i actually go through with that one.

we also have a planned program-wide trip to olympia and delphi (control yourself, beej) maybe in march. there are tentative (everything is tentative at this point) plans to go to meteora and mykonos. i think i just agreed to go to spain and italy for spring break. i am wandering like nobody's bidness.

i don't think i actually set up how my life is laid out here. there are two neighborhoods that cya students occupy in apartments ranging from 3-6 people. i live in pangrati which is cute and sort of run down but very close to the cya buildings. the other neighborhood is kolonaki, which is about 20 minutes away and much more upscale (one of the girls on my flight from frankfurt got her housing assignment at the airport and, very pleased about it, cooed "oooh kolonaki, that's the rich one right?"... we don't really hang out much.) i think my neighborhood is more what you would think of if you pictured athens as a city. there's a cafe across the street run by this old couple (i almost wrote "greek couple" but that's sort of assumed, yea?) who make us frappes, and give us the verbal equivalent of "a for effort" when we butcher their language.

there are a lot of great nearby places to walk to should you have a couple hours to kill, which we often do. syntagma square is maybe 10 minutes away, and you pass zeus's temple and the national gardens on the way. anna, maria and big megs -- that's where THE HOTEL ELECTRA is. it's a lot of shopping and not terribly great tourist restaurants, but i think i might stop in the book store there before my class to see if i can find anything in english... the plaka is just up the street from syntagma, and is straight tourism zone, with the kitschy prezzies (note: i have no idea what to buy you people for greek presents... i have yet to find the category of things between triflin, blatantly touristy things, and bottles of mouthwash with greek labels...) and easily excited waiters harassing you into dining in their overpriced establishment... i think we're going there for dinner tonight.

internet is spotty here so i'm going to quit while i'm ahead... 

love, 

kg

i'm just telling you what i heard

greece is maybe not the place to be a twenty-something struggling to establish a secure, grown-ass woman identity for herself. it is not a place where someone can think to themselves in response to a conflict "it doesn't matter what they say or think because i know what happened." it's very much a place where what people hear and what assumptions they make about what happened, did happen.
there is a huge, legitimate concern with what others think of you all the time, and this does not just apply to semi-incompetent blonde americans making futile attempts to blend in; it applies to literally everyone within greek society. there's a bizarre sort of paranoia that sets in when you realize that everyone in your neighborhood knows who you are by sight and possibly name already, without you ever having set eyes on them. this makes the process of acclimating and adjusting to social norms all the more vital to functioning within athens. any faux pas is publicized by word of mouth before you have a chance to apologize or react. the flustered but nice people of cya have warned us this would happen, but when it finally hits you that your every move will be noted by greeks passing by, it's totally unsettling.
at the same time, there's only so much impact this whispered mean-mugging can have on us. we're only here for four months, we don't have parents here that will die of shame if we go out in sixty degree weather without a big mama coat on (you would legit think it was 23 degrees here... greeks dress for the season, not the daily weather... i can only assume they're sweating their tits off) and we don't have a ya-ya who will receive a scathing phone call if we accidentally invite attention from an unsuitable greek manfriend. but it's hard not to feel paralyzed by these things... i desperately need to go for a run to feel ok, but no one runs outside here, and if they do, it is for damn sure not in underarmour spandex shorts... whateva, i'm going to give it a go this afternoon, hopefully it will be fine.
on another note, i maybe have been flipping off motorists this whole time? apparently you're not supposed to raise your palm at people, which i do when a car or moped lets me walk in front of them (this happens rarely... if i die in greece, this is probably what did me in) so.... good. my neighbors can can add that to my file.
ooh and finally, i don't know who has been calling me because when calls come from the u.s. to that virtual number, it just says Unknown Number, so if you call and i don't answer or call you back, um just call again later because i don't know how to check my messages yet... splendid.

love love love,
kg

i don't take kindly to liars

there is no hummus in greece.
i was led here under false pretenses.
i'm going to istanbul asap.

an american in athens

i knew going into this that the US maybe didn't have a great reputation abroad, and that i would probably experience the repercussions of that... but i had my first passive-aggressive taste of it yesterday, at the greek/french version of a walmart no less. i mean, the cashier wasn't awful about it, i just had to make it really clear how happy i was that obama was entering office. [notes on inauguration: don't cheer during a prayer, even if it's from a tool like rick warren, and fuck that oath-giver for screwing up barry's big day] beyond that, the 'tude really hasn't been bad at all, there's just a general assumption when you start speaking english to someone that you're a little bit retarded. unfortunately, if you approach them speaking greek ( i know maybe 5 words...) they think you're fluent and reply with rapid fire speed. it's sort of lose-lose, but i'm willing to look like a jackass to get what i need.
we're just about done with orientation bidness (this process has consisted of hour-long meetings during which they tell us to read the guide book and come talk to them if we have any questions... helpful) and we start classes tomorrow. the last couple of days have just been super awkward milling around, meeting people and getting acclimated. we have a pretty serious problem with running around in big groups which i'm sure is terrifying for the people of athens... last night we went out for a suitemate's birthday (and by went out, i mean we wandered around for fucking ever looking for a goddamn bar before eventually settling on the first one we saw) and managed to get hit on by some policemen on the way home... somehow the police force is composed of the most attractive men in athens. boooyyyyfffriiiiiieeeennnnd. sorry for being adorable, officer.
i'm going to go wander the streets like a hooligan,
bye loves.
kg

edit: apparently, 'oath-giver' is Chief Justice of the United States... SORRY beej. and a shoutout to the rhetords -- obama broke his rule of 3!

i can say i hope it will be worth what i give up

ok it just took me roughly 10 minutes to navigate this damn blerg (i feel like a tool saying blog) in greek. whateva. appreciate my efforts.
i don't actually know what i hope to do with this bidness... i feel like any thoughtful observations or sentiments about travel and culture shock have been covered by far more poignant writers and then shot to death by douchebag college kids before me, but i'll give it a go.
i'm settled in finally and hot damn do i love greece. yesterday/sunday was rough... i was already antsy after the flight to philly, and still had about 10 hours of air time left. and frankfurt airport? overwhelming as all hell. i happened to touch down at the height of morning commute rush hour i think, so here's hungover and trife-ass katy stumbling around in green chucks, very much in the way of thousands of professional and grown germans trying to do very important busy things. it's fine. i brought shame to my country while buying coffee. again, totally fine.
there were some other cya kids on my flight from germany to athens and i gotta say, i'm totally impressed with my own ability to be adorable and have charming conversation on literally no sleep... despite my best efforts, none was to be had during the overseas flight. i napped on the way to greece and woke up to islands and sunshine and 70 degrees. this will probably be said ad nauseum over the course of this blerg but OOH. YOU. JEALOUS.
i'm living with 5 other girls (!) in an apartment literally 2 minutes from the academic center if you have broken both legs and gone blind. they're all pretty dece so far, we'll see. showering is an exercise in patience and determination. in order to enjoy 10-15 minutes of hotish water, you first have to turn on the water heater for about half an hour. nbd. figuring this out pretty much took the fight out of me last night and i passed the fuck out (beej, maybe don't send this link to gma yz...) around 7.30pm. roommate snores, athens is loud and stray doags looooove the barking, so it's about the same as sleeping on frye street on a saturday night. still i managed to sleep for maybe 13 hours? god i'm tight.
i have to go get books and be orientated, but here are my goals for the next four months:
1. befriend a mean-mugging ya-ya (glaring gma, duh)
2. informally adopt a stray doag and name him bucco II (rip bucco I, the doag i adopted the last time i was here who bit a german man and was presumably killed by said german man later, as he followed us back to our hotel and then continued to follow bucco. i don't want to talk about it.)
3. keep being vegan in a country that is all bout the lamb and cheese. (this is already proving difficult... but inexpensive since i can't eat anything, or read the ingredients.)
4. travel like a muhfucka
5. learn some shit? idk.
will write again soon, suckas.

love,kg