First Day of Classes

I decided that I wanted to have a very productive morning so it began with my first run in Athens.  Just a nice morning jog around the Olympic Stadium – that’s all.   

Then I got back and showered, washed clothes, did the dishes, made breakfast, ate on the balcony and got ready.  Class didn’t start until 1:45p so I had time to finally go get some hair products.  I remembered during our Pangrati tour there was a Sephora so I figured I’d probably have the best luck there.  I found it all by myself and got everything I needed.  Thank goodness I brought my face wash/lotion because it was over twice the price there in euros.  I relaxed a bit- reading a book and having a cup of tea.  Then it was class time.  We all left together to go to our first class taught by both of the PSU teachers – Mary Lou Munn and Mark (Marky Mark) Munn.  It is a course about the Greek City States and it is a role-playing course, my favorite! Haha, but it actually seems like it is going to be really fun because it is going to incorporate all of our field trips and probably help me understand everything a little better.  We got our first homework assignments, which require a ton of reading.  I think it is going to be a challenging but fun course.  After that we had a break where I took advantage of the free internet to catch up on some things, and then we had class again at 4:30.  This class is going to be awesome.  It is a Modern Greek course taught by Yanna of the Athens Centre.  I honestly feel that I will be able to speak Greek in the next month.  We learned so much yesterday including: the alphabet (which in case you didn’t know was ripped off from the Greeks giving that the first two letters are alpha and beta – alphabet), basic words, curse words, what gestures not to make (arm straight out with palm showing and fingers spread apart is equivalent to our middle finger – which makes things difficult when explaining how many of something you want because if it is 5 you have to be very careful), and how to pronounce the letters.  I literally feel like a little kid.  Our homework in that course was to rewrite the alphabet in upper and lower case and copy 3 lines of text.  It is going to be very beneficial though.  After class my roomie, Kathryn, and I got our 2 euro gyros and went home to do our homework.  Later in the evening a bunch of people from the program met at our place, and we went out for a little.  Class tomorrow starts at 12 (normally 11) so I decided to have a Greek morning.  Going to sleep in and have a slow start :-)