August 29th

Day 01 August 29^th, 8:50 pm

First of all, you shouldn’t listen to word on the street. Second of all, I LOVE THIS CITY! I got to ride on a subway [or Metro here] for the first time in my life! It was so cool! And it only costs .80 euro cents for a trip! That’s like a buck to get to the other side of town! We ended up near the Acropolis for the entire day, but our mission objective wasn’t to focus on the ancient. We were to take in the sites, sounds, smells, food, and lifestyle of the native Greeks. Some of the streets I walked down were pretty touristy, but I feel like I’ve lived here my entire life. You can sit down at an outside table in front of a café, and people come up to you and ask you what you want to eat! And no one hurries you. For dinner [we ate early] we sat down, had a glass of water and decoded the menu until we found something that sounded good. I had a frappe to drink. Wonderful. So many of the people are just so nice.

Our first and foremost assignment is a travel journal in which we have to observe and sketch life. These journals and our projects will be on display to the entire college and public for about a month next semester. My sketches are… nothing compared to the architecture majors. [I’m ok with that.] However, I did sketch of a stray cat that turned out pretty well. We named her “Athina”. Tomorrow we’re actually going to visit the main archeological sites of Athens and study them. Today we just drank in the culture. I got lost a couple of times. Once by myself, and once with a group. We found our way eventually. It was really laid back. I got the cutest picture of some of my fellow foreigners on the Metro. Even though my back is drenched in sweat and my feet are throbbing, I am so happy. After we were totally on our own, four of us decided to head down to the harbor to attempt to find a beach to watch the sunset on. After about forty five minutes of walking we discovered there wasn’t a beach very close to the Metro station. So we came back to the hotel. It only took about forty minutes once we got on the Metro to get back from all the way across town. Then we walked a few blocks, but I feel so strong and confident. Tonight some are headed out for a real dinner, and some others [including me] are going to hang out around the piano bar in the main lobby and relax. I’m taking my journal because there’s so much to write about.

Mom, thank you for the day pack and compass. They both saved me. Also, thank you for the advice last night. You’re a lifesaver.