For those of you playing along at home, here are the scores:

Days in Athens: 3

Number of times I’ve heard ‘oh, you speak English pretty well for an international student’ or variations thereof: 6

Filipino grocery stores in the neighborhood: at least 1 near the Academic Centre

Times I’ve narrowly avoided being run over by a taxi/motorcycle/stray dog: 521

The first day of classes was less daunting than I imagined. Discussions in the Orthodox Church class should be interesting. Except for the fact that I know nothing about the subject, and will have to pretend like I know what I’m talking about. Or, you know, do the reading.

Modern Greek is a laugh riot. By that I mean it’s going to completely screw up my ancient Greek (damn you, ioticization! I hate diphthongs). We discussed ouzo, and I remembered that guy in that one restaurant in Delphi who said ‘Ouzo is like the breast of a woman; one is too little, and three is too much.’ Oh, Winter Term 2006, that was fun.

Ancient Greek, well, I sort of strong-armed the class into reading Sophocles’ Ajax, and by ’strong-armed’ I mean I said ‘Well, this is just me, but I’d love to read Ajax since I think Ajax is a fascinating guy. But that’s just me. No, really, I’m not saying we should do it, but I’d like it.’

And just having attended Archaeology of Athens (which will require A LOT of walking around sites, which is nice, but so early!), I can say I think I will enjoy my classes for the most part.

Wonder Dogs

This morning, on the way to class, a dog was right outside our apartment door (apparently he had been following my roommates last night), and followed us all the way to CYA. The dog was then joined by a much fatter dog, and they barked and chased at motorcycles.The best part, however, is when the first dog stole the water bottle belonging to the armalite-slinging guard, twisted off the bottle cap using his teeth, and drank straight from the bottle.

welcome to greece

Sunlight creeps into my room and I hear a man with a megaphone yelling things I can’t understand. ‘Seems terribly early for noise’, I think, and go back to sleep.

Moments later (or what seems like it) the distinct sounds of an accordion being tortured to death and a man yelling (yelling, not singing) ‘O Sole Mio’ right outside my window. Surely it must be too early for crimes against humanity?

Turns out it’s 11.30 and I have to pick up my books at the Academic Center, 20 minutes away, by 12.00.

Other than that, Athens has been great. I moved into my apartment a couple of days ago, and it looks suitably lived-in now (read: it’s a complete mess already). It’s a three-person apartment in Kolonaki (if you walk past The Body Shop, turn left when you see the Starbucks, turn right at the top of the hill, and look for the Music Lovers high-end speaker system shop, but don’t go beyond the Kickboxing School, you’ll find it), but I took the single ‘room’. I put it in quotation marks because it’s directly connected to the small common area, so it’s not a room per se, but it does have a balcony, so I have no complaints.

The weather is beautiful, by the way, but that goes without saying.

Classes start today, and I have The Orthodox Church, Modern Greek, and Ancient Greek: Attic Tragedy at the inhuman time of 3.45 – 5.15. I haven’t been in a class after 3 PM since I started college. There’s also the small matter of me not having been to class in, oh, eight months.

I’m going to do more exploring over the weekend (ideally I’d love to find some sort of Asian market or grocery store, but I think Saturday will be spent mostly walking around the Syntagma area), and there will be pictures, I promise.