Sooo... read on and you will find out where all of my money has gone....
This blog entry is long over due and so will be the biggest smorgegbourge you will have ever seen.
Synopsis 1:
Were gonna skip a bunch of random Athens chillin and go straight for my trip to Vienna. I hadn’t heard too terribly much about Vienna but the recommendations that I did get led me to believe it is an incredibly bumpin place. We stayed there for 2 1/2 days and probably made visual conformation with about 70 human beings. When we walked around the city looking at the beautiful architecture people sightings were few and far between. When we attempted to find an open bar that had inhabitants on a Saturday night we succeeded in an odd, yet fantastic way. Before I get into this, earlier on Saturday we visited the Nacht Market (which is an open air market that has TONS of the best looking food in the world). We all know I can’t control myself when it comes to good looking food and the 4 other people I was traveling with were thinking along the same lines. We decided that we will take on this market with vengeance and buy every good looking piece of food possible, so as not to miss out on something fantastic. Enter market: sweet croissant topped with custard and fruit, chocolate covered strawberries, every kind of vegetable you could imagine stuffed with creamy cheeses, hummus and bread, pickle (yes! I had been deprived of pickles for far too long), frankfurter, beer, and not to mention taking bites of everyone else’s fantastic food purchases. This goes without saying but I’ll do it anyway, this market was literally like heaven. I would do it again in a heartbeat. The food in general in Vienna was very good. Lots of meat and potatoes which is a big difference from Greece so it was a nice change of pace.
After taking a group nap (getting 5 grown people to lay down in a dorm style hostel room and all take a nap at the same time was an amazing feat) we headed out for the night. Found an awesome restaurant after perusing the streets searching for something that was even open. Had ourselves some goulash, and dumplings. Then went on the hunt for a bar (or I guess even just people). We ended up coming across this cute little sports bar. Despite the fact that it was empty we decided that we were lucky enough to find a functioning bar and forgave the fact that we were literally the only ones in there. After recognizing the fact that shots were only 1.50 we decided that this definitely needed to be taken advantage of. Five hours later (4 am)- there is a giant tree stump in the bar with which people are playing a nail and hammer game with, there are probably now 20 people in the bar, music is bumpin, some weird Italian kid is profusely throwing unwanted advances at me, Greg is wearing Mandee’s scarf, the bar tender is being carried around on her boss’s back until she is accidentally rammed head first into a line of liquor bottles and is now bleeding from the head, etc etc. As you can see, by the time we left it was a bit of a different atmosphere than when we had arrived. As we descend the metro escalator there is music blasting in the station. Some kids had figured out how to hook their ipod up to the train announcement system and play their music for everyone’s enjoyment. Not to mention this electrical box they were using is located ON the tracks of the train. Complete and utter madness/ yet the most baller thing I have ever witnessed. This pretty much sums up the night and hopefully gives you a good picture of what Vienna had to offer us. Yea we did 1 or 2 touristy things but this vaca was more about expanding our stomachs than expanding our knowledge. I have never laughed so much in my life and this has solidified the fact that the more awkward and random an experience is, the more fun it is.
Side note: On Friday night we met these Australian girls that were traveling in Vienna as well and they took us to the smokiest, grungiest, most dungeon like pub I have ever been to in my life. We ended up like 3 stories underground where the cigarette smoke had penetrated everything so deeply that I could not breathe, let alone open my eyes.
Synopsis 2:
Four of the girls and I were looking for more of a nature adventure and decided to hike Mount Parnitha. A good portion of this mountain had been ruined by a forest fire about 4 years ago but we decided to check it out anyway. So instead of taking the bus that comes every like 5 hours we decided to walk to the cable car that takes you up the mountain. Bah. Little did we know that this meant hiking alongside/on the highway where cars came speeding at breakneck speeds around blind curves. Hmm... in hindsight, maybe we should have taken the bus. Despite jumping into the bushes every now and again the hike up was beautiful. Everything was so green and luscious which is something that Athens lacks. The air was fresh, I could walk on grass, and run through the trees.
Arrive at tram and take it to the casino that is located at the top of the mountain. You have to walk through the casino to get to the national forest. Very interesting. Let me drop 400 bones real quick before I go for this hike...
Exit the casino, enter the great abyss. We are legit in the clouds. I can’t see more than 20 feet ahead of me, there is a constant light rain misting my face. We are told that the trails are too dangerous because of all of the fog, so our other option is to hike on the road again. Ok, guess we survived the first time, why not push our luck again. As we venture down the road we agree that we are definitely in a place that looks like the aftermath of the end of the world. The fire has ravaged every last beautiful, luscious piece of green on the top of this mountain and has left behind charred tree trunks, chalky white rocks, and minimal burnt orange foliage. Even though the top of the mountain was straight out of the Sleepy Hollow movie I loved exploring up there. As we off roaded into the thick fog we never knew what was coming next. It was super quiet and peaceful. We saw gigantic red deer and billy goats in the misty distance. For some reason we decided that we could hike down the whole mountain. Boy were we sorely mistaken. That shit was huge. We weren’t even a quarter of the way down the mountain and it was beginning to get freezing, rain harder, and our feet hurt from the multiple hours of hiking. Hmmm.... let’s just say we found the best solution possible to this one. But I’ll let you come up with the rest of the story.
Synopsis 3:
A few weekends ago the ladies traveled to Delphi which is about 3 hours North of Athens. It was breathtaking. Such a cute, quaint town with gorgeous views from wherever you were. Every restaurant or cafe had walls made of glass to show off the spectacular view. We took to the streets and just winded our way around the town. We found one of the coolest lookout places I have ever been to. It was one of those moments where you feel like you are on top of the world as the wind swirls around you and you are surrounded by nothing but open valleys, mountains and the rays of the sun. For our night in Delphi we found a small taverna and set out to get some great traditional Greek cuisine. Food was sooooo good! We ordered the spread of food we usually get including Greek salad, tzatziki, giant beans, zucchini balls, tomato balls, and some other stuff I probably can’t remember. After this scrumptious meal we tried 3 different kinds of desserts, one piece of chocolate cake, one piece of cheese cake, and one piece of traditional Greek cake. All of which were absolutely bangin. During dinner we took the liberty to indulge in the house white wine. Three kilos in and many hours to go in the taverna we decided that maybe we weren’t as stuffed as we could be. After chatting and debating the topic for about 40 minutes a sure sign came to us. Our hostel owner had come in and was sitting at the table next to us. As his party was given their food we decided that whatever they got looked scrumptious enough that we had to have a second dinner. We summoned the waiter and said, “whatever that was... we want that. And more zucchini balls, tzatziki....oh and wine.” His response that came with a surprised look, “uhhh.... and water.” Needless to say, we still somehow convinced ourselves to order baklava. God was that fucking good. Homemade, fresh baklava. Greatness. So.... after our 2nd dinner and dessert I begged the waiter to bring our check so that we couldn’t order any more shit. We clearly didn’t need it. After our dinner we found a great jewelry store and spent like an hour too long in there buying stuff I really didn’t need. Awesome nonetheless.
Delphi is known for its ruins of the oracle and temples that were used to worship Apollo. There was an egg shaped concrete ruin that is supposedly thought to be the center of the Earth. It is the place believed to be where Zeus released two eagles from opposite ends of the Earth and this is the place where they met. As we came to the ruins there was an abundance of tour buses and groups that were getting guided tours. Uhh... what the hell. Let’s latch on to one of these groups until we get bored. This was the first super touristy thing I have done in Greece and so it was weird to be surrounded by such an abundance of old, English speaking Americans. The group that we latched onto had no one under the age of 60 in it. Normally I would try to slink around in the back of the group and blend in... clearly this was not happening as we were 40 years younger than everyone else. He greeted us after about 20 minutes of us being leeches and was like “well.... its not quite legal but...guess it doesn’t matter.” Let’s be honest, those old heads loved us. We were chatting them up left and right and they started cracking jokes. As the tour guide talks about the scripture carved into the stone an older man, Tim (our bud) points to the stone and says something along the lines of “Holy, moly this one says Denver 43- Florida 37. How did they know?” Frankly, it was adorable. God I miss American humor so much sometimes.
Well this about sums up our day and a half in Delphi. NEXT---
Synopsis 4:
So work... hmm. I have to say its been pretty frustrating lately. My school seems to be a little stuck in the stone ages and not willing to implement new things. As I am being given powerpoints and shit to teach I am questioning if I can create my own material that seems to cater to the lesson and is also not quite as ancient. Many times the response is that they have been using that same material for five years and that it works fine. uhhhh... wait a minute. I believe teaching is about adapting material not only for every particular class but also for the times in general. And on another important note I am then confused as to my role in the school. This program was advertised as a way of fusing American and Greek culture. Thus far my American culture hasn’t been taken into account in the classroom, I am told to teach the material created by teachers that are Greek or British. Despite these frustrations I have begun to make relationships with teachers that are willing and excited about getting new ideas and activities out there. Slowly but surely I will be able to put some touches into the classroom and introduce things that I brought over from the US of A.
On another note the kids are awesome. I am with grades 1-6 throughout the day so I get to have very different interactions with the kids. Many times I am able to joke with the older kids. This being said, usually only the students that are very good at English get the jokes. Well... at least I find them funny most the time.
I had one of the kids breakdancing in the middle of the classroom one day. That was priceless. I had felt that need to ask the kids how their weekends were and what they did. This particular kid told me he went to a dance party. I asked him to show me what kind of dance thinking that he would simply stand up and boogie for a second right at his seat. Noooope. He gave us a solid 3 minute break dancing show right there. As he was doing the worm all over the floor in the classroom I was praying that the teacher didn’t walk back in, seeing as that would’ve been hard to explain on the spot. More kid stories to come in future posts.
Synopsis 5:
General thoughts----
Greece, Greece, Greece. The things I have learned about you. Organization might as well be its Achilles heel. None. Anywhere. At. All. When all you need to do is get home, welllll... the metro is closed because they are on strike, the bus has probably broken down and all taxi cabs are somehow full. It really is true that almost everyplace besides America takes much more patience and flexibility. Our house is super ghetto at times. My room became a pond as the bathrooms on either side of my room flooded and crept across the hallway and all the way across my room. That was a nice surprise! Mopping is the worst. I think I would rather vacuum every day than have to mop something up. God knows where the water even came from. It was a mystery for about 2 weeks. The so-called plumbers that came to look at our bathrooms couldn’t even figure it out. Well, I’ll just make sure to keep my rowboat next to my bed just in case.
I have begun to make friends with some true Greekies. It is very nice to have connections with someone that knows where the good stuff is and how things work. My friend has introduced me to a bunch of new places and will hopefully be able to show me much more over the year.
Apparently Flo Rida is coming to a club in Athens on Wednesday and we’re going...Yep! Gonna be awesome!
Ok, this is getting a little long and I am beginning to ramble. Hopefully they will come more frequently so they aren’t long as shit. I will try my best! Going to London this weekend so I am sure that I will have stories from that!
Yassou (bye)
