Well, I’ve been here over a month, which is ridiculously hard to believe. In a way, it feels like I’ve been here for just a few days but when I think about all I’ve gotten to see and how close I’ve gotten to know some of the people it does seem like I’ve been here that long.
The last time I wrote on here I was a little frustrated with the school stuff going on and getting ready to go to Santorini. School is still ridiculous in a few aspects…It’s only three days a week, for starters. I’m definitely not complaining about that. Also, it’s been great to finally have all the registration mess cleared up. I wound up taking ancient Greek history, photo, and Greek language. Greek language is still insane. It’s lived up to all the hype that people gave it. Learning a language that is made of an alphabet with a bunch of shapes isn’t so great, but I’m enjoying it mainly because now I am understanding a lot more of what people say to me in Athens. History is great. There are three people in my class and my instructor lived in America until she got out of college, so it’s a nice breath of fresh air to have an American-born prof who can relate to us culturally. I’m learning a lot of pretty cool stuff in that class too. Plus, it’s one day a week for two hours. Not complaining there, either. And photo. Well, we haven’t exactly had an official class yet. Our instructor (who is actually a renown photojournalist for several major newspapers in Athens and also internationally) got into a motorcycle accident on the way to class the first week…which led to a cancelling of class and an interesting run-in with someone (more on that in a second…) so we’ve had one class with a substitute who seemed to know much more about the history of war than photography. It was a weird three hours to say the least.
Oh, and about the run-in with a certain person after that cancelled class. We sat for about half an hour for the photo prof and eventually an administrator came up to tell us that class was cancelled. The people in that class are all BCA American students so we all we pretty excited for a free day. We walked out, went to the post office and decided to go back into the Plaka (a section of Athens near the Acropolis full of shops and stuff) to do some shopping. As we walked from the main square to the Plaka, we heard a strangely familiar voice on the sidewalk talking to another American. There were only two guys with the group and we were kind of in the front of the pack….A few steps after I passed that recognizable voice I turned to my friend and started to say that it sounded strangely familiar. With that, we turned around and a few of the girls in our group were stopped and talking to none other than Kevin Costner. Turns out, he was in town doing a concert (who knew he sang?) and was just hanging out in Athens for the day doing some shopping. The ten of us got to hang and talk to him for about 5 minutes and he told us about his kids who were in college back home and he invited us to his show that night. We got a picture too (see facebook). Needless to say, it was pretty cool and we were all a little star-struck to meet the man who played Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams, Crash Davis in Bull Durham, and Elliot Ness (thankfully he didn't respond like that when we asked him for a picture) in The Untouchables to name a few of his roles.
So that’s been the deal with school…not a ton going on on that front. Oh and a few crazy things about schooling here:
1. This is the first year of City U’s existence in their new building. It’s pretty nice. It’s small and is only made up of about 10 classrooms over 4 or so floors, but there is one striking difference from any other school building I’ve ever seen. There’s a bar. It’s absolutely hilarious. I walked into school a few days ago and saw the school president having a coffee and cigarette with some students. Now, it’s not that weird to have a café or something, but as I was leaving class later in the afternoon I saw bottles perched behind the bar and couldn’t believe it. I can just envision students walking out after a tough class and asking the bartender for a shot to ease their stress hahaha. It was definitely different considering Messiah won’t let you carry too much hand sanitizer without making you go to Alcoholics Anonymous. Anyway, that was definitely a shocker.
2. I’ve noticed a few educational differences. The classes are like once a week for three hours. However, the actual learning time is nowhere near that. Profs give breaks every hour on the hour for about 15-20 minutes a pop. It’s great. However, Greek students have come to expect these breaks. I don’t have any classes with Greeks but from what my American classmates have told me from their experiences here, Greek students show up with basically nothing besides their iPhones (to play games on) and don’t take notes and come and go as they please. One student even stopped a professor to tell him it was 8:02 and time for him to stop talking and give a break. I’ve also heard that many students don’t come back after the second break. They just decide to head down to the school bar and relax. I can’t imagine telling a guy who has a doctorate that he needs to shut up and let me take a leak. But hey, I guess it’s a cultural thing.
Anwyay, Santorini was the big thing looming last time I wrote. Needless to say, it was beautiful. We planned hardly anything besides the ferry tickets and it was definitely a unique experience. The ferry ride was 8 hours each way but it was pretty fun with a group of people like the one we had. We got there and were instantly bombarded by Greek hotel owners. These guys saw 18 college kids and that translated to big dollar signs considering it was the off-season in the Cycladic Islands. After a lot of debate and a ton of arguing between a few different Greek men over who saw our group first we went with a hotel that was 10 Euros a head per night including free transportation to and from the port. The place was run by a guy named Artemis who initially promised us a lot more than he actually gave, but whatever. The place was very nice and clean and just straight up beautiful. Nothing like palm trees and pools on October 18th. Later that night we grabbed dinner where I had shrimp that was freshly caught and the size of small lobsters. Absolutely incredible. It was well worth the 20 Euros I forked over. Then later that night we went out and explored the town of Thera. We found some really awesome places to hang and even got to a place on the cliffs that had a great view of the town illuminated at night. It really did look like a postcard.
The next morning Artemis hooked us all up with a boat cruise down at the old port. It was about a half-hour walk down this zigzagged road covered in donkey poop, but it was a great experience. Once we got down to our boat we took it to an active volcano not too far off the coast of Santorini. The hike to the top was worth it and even though the weather was a little gross we had a great view of the main island. It was also pretty cool to see an active volcano and see gases coming out of the vents. The fumes were a lot hotter than I thought they would be and it was pretty sweet to see something I never have seen before. From that island, we had one more stop. This was the one we were all interested in…hot springs. We jumped off the side of our boat and swam to the hot springs that were in a cove near the island. The island was pretty much just a big rock that was uninhabited by humans, but covered in white specks that as we got closer, we discovered to be goats. The springs weren’t exactly hot…More like warm, but it was still a very unique experience and a great time. The water was kind of gross….it had brown flecks of earth which beared some resemblance to potential gifts from the goats, but we were assured it was safe to swim in.
When we got back to the main island, we got to experience the most essential part of a trip to Santorini: a donkey ride up a winding road to the top of the island. It was definitely one of the highlights thus far. We shopped around the town some more, went back to the hotel, got cleaned up, and then went out again until about 3 am.
The next day we got up at about 9 and headed to a beach. The black sand was very cool and the softest I’d ever felt. There was also a huge cliff that jutted out from the side of the beach and the water was as blue as the Greek flag itself. It was definitely a change from the beaches of LBI or even the Outer Banks. We were only there for a few hours, but it was a great time to relax and enjoy the fact that we were really blessed to be in the situation that we were. We took the bus back to our hotel and went to the town of Oia later in the afternoon to catch what turned out to be the most phenomenal sunset I’d ever seen.
To put it in perspective, Oia is the town that is in all the movies that take place in the Greek islands. Like the other towns, the buildings are all-white, but this town has something different. There’s something really charming about it and it honestly may have been the most peaceful, beautiful town I’ve ever seen. The famous blue-roofed churches are here, and it was spectacular to see what we’d all been looking forward to for the past 6 months. Oia was literally the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen and I remember thinking two things: “This is the place I am coming on my honeymoon.” And, “I am going to retire here.” If you ever are within a day’s travel of Santorini, get there. Seriously, it’s one of the places everyone should see.
The overnight trip was rough and I got about 3 hours of in-and-out sleep on the boat, but I wouldn’t have traded the weekend for anything. When I got back I was able to meet up with Erin McCarty and her boyfriend, Brendin, who are studying abroad in Rome and in Athens for the weekend. We hung out, went to some museums and they stayed the night at my apartment….we had a great time and even got to see some open-air performances in one of the squares that night.
Alright, this blog post is turning into a novel and I’ve got some stuff to do around the town here today. I’m going to climb Lycabettus Hill tonight with some the people that stayed in Athens for the night and then go to my first Greek soccer game at some point this weekend.
Yasas,
Ryan
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