Just Living Like the Greeks

As usual, I must apologize for being a slow poke on blogging.  Life moves by pretty quickly, and I just need to get better at sitting down and posting on a regular basis.  In my defense, it is part of the Greek culture to be very flexible on time.  When they say that something starts at 8, they will show up around 8:15, 8:30...they really aren't strict on time at all.  The whole culture in general is very chill, and that fits me pretty well.  So, I'm just embracing the culture of course when I take my time in blogging :) but really, I hope to start posting more often instead of having one long post every week and a half or so.

I would like to take the time to remember and recall that today is September 11...very weird not being in the USA on this day.  Hard to believe that it has been 10 YEARS since it happened.  I can still remember clear as day sitting in my 5th grade class, having my teacher leave the room, and come back to inform us that our country had been attacked.  Here I am now, 10 years later, a junior in college and still feeling great sadness.  My heart goes out to the families of those who died that day, and those who have died throughout these 10 years for our country.  I pray for peace to come one day, and I pray for all of those defending our country now and in the future.  My gratitude to those people is so great, I can't even explain it.  Take some time to remember and pray today...I may be away from my country right now, but I have truly learned to appreciate already how much I appreciate the land that I love always.

When I left you all last, I had posted last Friday.  I think I may have forgotten to mention the wonderful market that we went to that day.  They have a market very close to our apartments every Friday.  This market is filled with more fruit and vegetables than you can imagine, plus other random articles such as clothing and flowers.  It is such a fun sight, seeing so many stands, so many people, and so many tasty foods!  We quickly decided the moment we got there that this was going to be a weekly thing.

Yummmmmm

One of my first purchases in Greece has been a pair of sandals.  But, they are not just any pair of sandals...yes, these sandals are fit specifically for my feet.  Professor Walker (our faculty director for our program) told us about a sandal place where the guy actually makes the sandals on your feet.  We had to check this out, so a few of us went there Saturday morning to get some sandals.  The place is called The Poet Sandal maker, because the owner's dad used to be a poet.  The place is COVERED in all kinds of sandals.  He has a bunch of styles for you to choose from.  Once you have one selected, you tell him your size, he grabs the sandal, then has you put your foot in it.  He then adjusts the straps, cuts, and hammers the sandal to fit your foot perfectly.  It was really cool!  The leather of the sandal starts of really light in color and then darkens over time, so I'm excited to see how mine change as time goes on.  The first few days of our trip, we had quite a few birthdays of people in our group, so for lunch that day one of the apartments offered to make a taco lunch for us.  It was a great way to start the day, and it ended just as great.  We then took a bus to a beach near Sounion to have a nice relaxing afternoon.  This beach was very close to the temple of Poseidon, which was our next destination.  Poseidon was the god of the sea, which makes sense, because this temple was up on high ground surrounded by the ocean.  It was built around 440 BC, which is unbelievably old.  This temple was built before Jesus walked the earth...it gives me chills every time I think about it!  The ocean surrounding it was so beautiful, and we saw an incredible sunset - one of many we will have here in Greece.

Sundays are becoming quite a lot like the Sundays I have normally at school - very relaxing days.  Church, homework, laundry, talking with each other...I've always liked Sundays.  The Sunday after our day trip to Sounion, we went to a bakery to get some loafs of bread.  As most bakeries do, this bakery also had many delicious looking desserts.  So we got a few to split, and we've enjoyed some very tasty pastries.  We decided that this would be a weekly Sunday special :).

Classes started this past week, and I think I'm going to like them for the most part.  Just Tuesdays and Thursdays are our busiest days of classes where we generally have class from 9 to 6:30 with little breaks between.  Otherwise, we have a great schedule - like I said, no class on Fridays :).  For pretty much all of our classes, we get to go on field trips.  Last week, we went to an Art museum for Art History.  This week, we will be visiting the Parliament and a music instrument museum for our Study Abroad Seminar.  I love the Study Abroad Seminar because it allows us to talk to each other as a class and learn about what people are struggling with and what they love about Greece.  I also think I'm really going to like my Theology class.  It has been so interesting learning about the Greek Orthodox religion, and the differences between it and my own faith.  One aspect of their 'sign of the cross' that I thought was very cool is that they put their thumb, first finger, and middle finger together and sign with that.  What is cool about it is the symbolism.  The three fingers represent Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and the other two fingers represent that Jesus is fully human and fully divine.  Also in that class, we need to interview a random person off the street about their faith.  I'm really excited about it, both because it will be hard and very cool.  It will be a challenge to just approach someone and ask them about faith, but I think I'm going to learn a lot from it.

One thing that I have enjoyed very much is spending time with the people in our group.  On Monday night, a bunch of us just sat in our apartment and had a little jam session.  Nick asked the school for a guitar that he gets to keep for the rest of the semester, so he and I played some songs and we had a little sing along.  It was really fun, and a great way to start the week.  This is where I'm going to leave you for now.  Yes, I know you are thinking, "Wait, what did you do for the rest of the week Laura?"  Well, since it has been awhile since I have blogged, I have a lot to tell you about the rest of the week, which would make this post painfully long.  As much as I'm sure you'd like to sit at the computer for an entire day reading about my life, I'm going to break this one up into two.  So tomorrow I will post about the rest of my week.  I fully give you permission to give me a hard time if I do not post tomorrow.  Stay tuned, thanks for reading!

Peace and Blessings,

Laura