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