The Acropolis Apocalypse

Alright, you lovely people, since I'm ridiculously behind on this thing, it's time for a double blog. Here we go:


Sunday July 24, 2012

Just for starters, I thought I'd point out the fact that the Acropolis is a giant tourist trap if I ever saw one. Honestly, 4.50 euros for a tiny bottle of knock-off Gatorade? I don't think so, beau! Really, they didn't even have water! Since it's against the law to charge more than 50 cents for water in tourist places, they probably want to force us to buy their other drinks. Well, that's just great, you bastards. If I had died of dehydration you would have SO gotten sued.

Ok, now that that's over, I can happily share with you the beauty of the Acropolis.

I mean, really, look at that!

It's actually interesting, most of the biggest pieces of the Parthenon are restorations. They're breaking apart one of the biggest monuments in Greece and bringing it inside for safe-keeping against the smog.

See these guys? Not real. Friggin' posers.

After browsing through the Parthenon for about an hour, we had some time to kill. So the obvious thing to do was to take as many creeper photos as possible. There shall be an entire album on facebook dedicated to our endeavors. I mean, really, an Asian guy wearing a white ski mask, a vizor, and a pair of sunglasses, how could we not take a stalker photo of that? I will forever be impressed with Katieanne's ability to photo bomb awkward family pictures, and Becca's creeper pic with the old lady is pretty much perfection. (Yeah...this is what we do...)

When our photo bombing excursions were done, we headed back down the mountain for lunch. The Kaplans treated us to some of the most delicious Greek food I have ever tasted. This restaurant presented food in the traditional Greek way, with about fourteen different plates of appetizer-sized dishes that everyone tried. Seriously, an entire tray of mousaka, saganaki, zucchini, meatballs, fried calamari, dolmedes, stuffed peppers and tomatoes, tsatsiki, fresh bread, Greek salad, and sausages was promptly placed in front of us. Not to mention the delicious desert. I'm pretty sure my tastebuds died and went to heaven several times.

We can put a hurtin' on some food.
Notice that the Greek salad remains untouched.

We toured the Plaka area of Athens, browsing through flea markets and tourist shops alike, before heading back on the metro. And so goes another day jam-packed with adventure. We arrived back at the dorms only to promptly pass out. I really, honestly made the effort to post this yesterday...but I do have priorities. Nap time-food-life-blog. That's pretty much how the list goes. Now, on to the first day of classes...

Monday June 25, 2012

I have to say, today was pretty uneventful until about 7:00pm. It was the first day of classes, which is kind of cool. I guess. If you like that sort of thing. Being completely serious, though, I'm totally the nerd that's excited for classes to start. I always forget about how much I love history until I'm forced to take a class. It kind of sucks that a history minor with a coastal biology major would be completely impractical. Son of a monkey.

Anyway, our first (second? I guess it would be second...technically speaking) class with Dr. Kaplan went relatively well, I thought. I got a new research project out of it, too. Hopefully pretty soon I'll be able to educate you on all this stray dog/cat business. (They're everywhere....no joke.) Our Greek survival class sounds like it's going to be very helpful, too. I may feel like a four-year-old again, sounding out all the words, but I've managed to read a couple Greek signs all by my self. What up, world.

I think our modern Greek history class is actually going to be really interesting as well. Like I said, sometimes I forget the awesomeness of history until I have to take a class for a gen ed or something like that. It's just so crazy to read about the events that brought about the Greece we know today. I mean, the eight page paper at the end of the quarter kind of sucks, but as long as the six of us in Modern Greece stick together it won't be all that bad.

The party really didn't start until about seven. Monday is our potluck night, and our room (304...it's the place to be) decided to bake potato chips smothered in cheese. Not to toot our own horn, but TOOT TOOT! They were freaking delicious. Actually, everything was very much good, I definitely ate like a fat kid tonight. 

Once we had our fill, Nicki thought it would be a great idea to have a dance party. Brianna promptly brought her laptop downstairs, and we all totally got down. I'm sure there are some great videos of the Electric Slide and the Cupid Shuffle...you probably won't find them on here, though. I'm not that stupid. 

Well, now that I'm danced out and out of crazy, it's time to hit the hay. Guess what? We actually get to sleep in tomorrow! Like, for as long as we want! AHHHHHHH! I'm so excited!

Alrighty, folks, this is Maddie, signing off. :D