thursday night: aphrodite made us dinner. it was delicious. then we went to my rommie's bf(?)'s name day party (a lot of greeks are named after a saint and celebrate their name day). that was fun. his friends danced for us and showed us traditional greek dancing. we ended up staying til about 3am even though courtney and i had wanted to leave by 2 at the latest b/c we were really tired.

friday was oxi (ohi) day. it's kinda like our 4th of july. we thought there was going to be a big parade and stuff but apparently the big celebration is in thessoloniki so i just went to the beach all day. it was gorgeous. i think it was in the 80s. the water was cold, but it felt quite refreshing after laying in the sun. friday night we lost our electricity, but amanda, courtney and i were going to bed anyways so it wasn't a big deal. we all brought blankets and pillows into the living room and had a little sleepover. it was cute. we started telling a scary story each of us doing a line at a time...it was pretty funny.

saturday the temperature dropped about 20 degrees. it's now cold. and by cold i mean 60s. lol. saturday night was our toga party. that was a lot of fun. i'll have pics up soon.

other random stuff:
i don't like that they sell porn on the street, just hanging up or sitting on a shelf at the kiosks. some things, i'd rather not see.
courtney and i found a ninja kiosk down at the port the other day. there was a case of knives and throwing stars.
i got plane tickets for istanbul today!
my dad and sister are coming for thanksgiving!!!!!
i'm going to go buy knitting needles and yarn today. i'm excited =)
*edit* the yarn store is closed so i'll have to get knitting stuff tomorrow =(

Relaxation

This weekend was wonderful. Friday morning, Courtney and I got up around 7, went to the produce market a few blocks from our apartment. It was great. I got 3 potatoes, a lemon, an onion, and garlic for 1 euro! Definately going back there on Fridays to buy my produce. Then we went back to bed for a while, and went shopping all afternoon. We found a yarn store near school that has knitting classes on Saturdays, so we might check that out one weekend. Friday night we went to TGI Fridays. It was amazing. It was so good to have American food! I had steak and cheddar mashed potatoes and a strawberry daiquiri. mmmm...yummy!
Saturday we slept in, studied/did some homework (we had a Greek quiz today) and did pretty much nothing. Sunday, we got up at 7 and went to a flea market, but it was all random junk, so we came back and took a nap. Did some more studying/homework. Got some kahlua and icecream to try to make mudslides. They didn't turn out quite as well as we had hoped. Oh well. We ended up only drinking about half of our drink and dumping the rest. Maybe next time it'll be better. And I think we need to not let our wine sit in the regridgerator so long. It gets pretty bad after a while. (we only have wine maybe once or twice a week, so it lasts forever) Sunday night we got a phone call around 3am from one of our roommates who was away. Thankfully it woke Courtney up b/c I didn't hear it. She said it was an emergency and she needed a phone # and she'd call back in a few minutes b/c her phone card was almost out of minutes. So we're really worried that something terrible happaned. After about 10-15 minutes, Courtney goes downstairs to the front desk to get the phone # b/c they have caller ID i think, but right then she called back. Apparently she had lost her aunt's phone # who she was meeting in Rome today. Definately not an EMERGENCY. We were pretty annoyed that she had woken us up at 3am and told us it was an emergency when all she needed was a phone #. Yesterday we again got up at 7 and went to the port to look for some more markets, but didn't find much so we were disapointed b/c there was supposed to be 4 there, and one of them was supposed to be an artistan's market which would've been cool. Oh well. Took another nap, studies, read, went grocery shopping...nothing exciting. Today we had our quiz. It was really hard, but I think I passed and that's all I need to do.
I'm putting up some more pictures, so go check that out.
I think I have all my travel plans pretty much set. The 1st weekend in November I'm going to Cairo, Egypt. The weekend after that I'm going to Istanbul. The weekend of Thanksgiving, dad and Michelle are coming! Hopefully we can go to Italy that weekend. Then, at the end of the semester, Courtney and I are going to fly to Paris Dec. 13 take the train to Amsterdam, stay there for a night, then stay in Paris until the 18. We're really excited now that we have definate plans!

looking forward to the weekend.

2 of my roommates are going away, so courtney and i have the apartment to ourselves! tomorrow we're going to this open air market to get fresh fruits and veggies, then we're going shopping...she wants boots and a scarf (scarves are the big fashion trend here, but i've always loved them...and by always i mean since last year) and i want to get new heels b/c mine broke, a belt, and another scarf. then we're going to TGI Fridays for a nice American meal. she's probably going to cut my hair (i'm a little nervous about that...lol) and we're going to RELAX! it's going to be fantabulous =) we may or may not go out. apparently the guy who owns our hotel, mario, invited us to go out with him. he's such a sweetheart. he's like our big brother. he's always telling us where good places to go are and warning us about greek men and making sure we're dressed warmly enough when we go out at night. so we might do that.
yesterday i made pancakes and bacon for breakfast and it was so yummy. it made me very happy. lol. a box of pancake mix is like 3or 4 euros, and it's not even a big box of pancake mix, there's 3 little packets of mix that make about 6 pancakes. i was quite disappointed, but it was still delicious. i really miss having lots of dishes and nonstick pans and various other kitchen equipment. we have one frying pan, that's not a nonstick pan and 2 pots. and there's nothing really to flip stuff with. it makes cooking quite an adventure. after that i laid around all afternoon and read a book (yes, an entire book) it was a kind of weird book called the Eyre Affair, so now I want to go read Jane Eyre.
anyways, that's the plan.

my week

let's see...
wednesday night a bunch of us went to see the russian superstars gala ballet. that was beautiful, amazing, greatly enjoyable, etc. it was a medley of a whole bunch of different ballets...don quixote, romeo & juliet, a chopin number, a japanese #, sparicus, and a bunch of others. i loved it.
friday we went to theatre of epidaurus, napfthlion (sp?) the 1st capital of greece after they overcame turkish occupation, and mycenea (not sure what exactly that was) it was fun, but everything just looks the same to me now.
friday was also courtney's birthday so we went out for a late dinner. that was nice.
saturday we just relaxed all day. sunday we went to aphrodite's beach house. it was good to see another side of her. she made us 2 really delicious meals and we laid on the beach for the afternoon.
i think that's about it for me for now. we're planning a trip to cairo and a trip to istanbul for the 1st 2 weekends in nov. so we'll see how that works out.

Santorini

so umm how's the weather in PA? cuz i just spent the weekend on an island in the mediterranean it was amazing. i didn't get any sleep, but it was definately worth it. we left around 5:30. it's about 45 min to the port, then an 8 hour ferry ride to santorini. i sat up on deck the first half and it was freezing and i was trying to sleep on this little bench which didn't really work. after lunch i went in and slept a little. friday afternoon was spent on the beach. then a couple of us went out to this really nice restaurant on the beach. i had veal in this santorini wine sauce...it was delicious! and we had a bottle of local wine which was good too. then our waiter gave us all free shots of ouzo before we left (i'm definately bringing a bottle or 2 home for you guys) saturday morning we spent at the beach again then went shopping in this touristy town, fira, that has the most amazing jewelry ever. if anyone ever wants to propose to me, tell him to go to santorini to get the engagement ring =P. we then went to the western-most point of the island, oia, for sunset b/c it's supposed to be one of the best sunset locations, but the horizon was pretty cloudy so it wasn't as spectacular as hoped for. after that we went back to fira for dinner then went to happy hour at one of the clubs then one of the other girls went to this jazz club, which was no longer playing jazz. but they were playing salsa music which i really like too, so it was still fun. i met this british guy who works for a publishing company and ended up talking to him for the rest of the night about books and music so that was cool. we went back to the hotel around 4. then 3 of us decided to go sleep on the beach and watch the sunrise so we brought a ton of blankets b/c it got kinda cold at night. then i decided to go swimming so 2 of us went for a nice early morning swim around 4:30/5am in the mediterranean. the water was really warm, but we were afraid to go out too far b/c it was really really dark. lol. good times. we got about 45 min of sleep then watched the sunrise and went back to the hotel and slept for a few hours, then went to the beach and back to the port for another 8 hour ferry ride.
so that was my weekend. tomorrow night, some of us are going to see the russian superstars ballet. that should be good.
i have a ton of pictures from this weekend that may or may not all get up today. we'll see.
you all are slacking on the whole sending mail thing! i think i'm the only one who hasn't gotten any =(

classes

I started classes this week.
Learning Greek is ridiculously difficult.
International Studies seems like it will be ok. The guy explains things very well and simply which is good since I know absolutely nothing about anything that goes on in the world/politics/economics/etc. I have my Humanities class in about 1/2 hour so hopefully that will go well too.
Tomorrow morning we're leaving at 5:30 am for Santorini so I'm sure I'll have a bunch of amazing pictures to put up next week.
I'm starting to get information about Ireland. I think it's going to be a little under $4000. They need a deposit in December so I'll have to think about that and see if it's going to be doable.
That's about it for me. Be back next week!

Meteora

Friday and Saturday we went to Meteora, which is these big cliffs jutting out of the land that have monastaries at them top. The 1st monastary we went to was on this one point and there was another one in front of it was a big valley in between and there were these wires between the 2 cliffs and Aphrodite told us we had to walk across the wires and me and Allison were freaking out b/c we're scared of heights and the wires were kinda rusty, but she was just kidding. The monastaries were nice, but I felt kind of bad being there. Those men go there to get away from the world and focus on God, then there's all these tourists all over. It seems kind of disrespectful, but I guess they help support themselves with money from the tourists. I didn't really do anything yesterday. My roommates and I just sat around. We were going to go to an island, but the weather was supposed to be bad so I didn't go. Today I'm staying here in the computer lab all afternoon to catch up on email and upload more pictures.
I got my schedule all messed up, so here's my real schedule:
Tuesday: 10:30-12 - Modern Greek
4-7 - Intro to International Studies
Thursday: 10:30-12 - Modern Greek
1-4 - Intro to Humanities
I think Amanda, Natalie, and I are going to join a gym. It's only E80 for the whole semester and they have a bunch of classes that look good.
I started doing laundry today in the bathtub. (That's why there are clothes all over my bed in the pic of the room) It costs E12 to do a load of laundry at the laundry mat. They do everything for you, but still...that's so expensive! I figure I'll do it in the bathtub every other time and go to the laundry mat every other time.
I don't really have much else to say. This weekend I think almost all of us are going to Santorini so that'll be fun.