Surviving the first 24 hours!

Well now that I've been here for a full 24 hours, I feel that a question I keep getting is "Why Greece?". Unfortunately I don't have the best answer for this question at all, but I think that a lot of different things brought me here. I was set on going on a trip with the EIU Sociology Department for about a year and a half now, that I didn't sign up for last year. I went in the study abroad office at EIU to sign up for this summer, only to be told it was not going to be taking place this year.

After a little disappointment, I asked what they thought I should do. They told me to start looking at different programs to see what I wanted. There were no other faculty lead programs that I wanted so I began asking questions about direct enroll programs. Now I didn't think I'd actually end up in one, because they are less structured, and definitely not my style, but I thought, might as well look at see what looks interesting. I narrowed it down to 2 choices- Italy & Greece. I talked through it and realized that although I fell in love with Italy when I visited, I should try something new, and thus- Greece!

I was so excited that I began contacting the program coordinator regularly before I could even officially sign up. Her name is Dina and I thought via email she was so nice. So nice is a complete understatement for this woman. She has been amazing thus far and I can definitely see why she is doing what she is doing for UIndy. She is so organized and any problems she helps fix and addresses them immediately. Even small things, like how our apartment washing machine is tiny and loud, and after a complaint from the cleaning people she is going to make sure it gets fixed or replaced asap. She also spent the afternoon doing an orientation for us that was scheduled for last night but cancelled because one of the students was late getting in.

There are only 3 students for the summer session Odyssey in Athens. Its great because the other two students are really nice and we get along really well. We hang out with about 10 Greek American students that are here for a two week session taking classes. They are all nice and from all over the US and know all the good places to go! 

Whats nice is that one of the classes I'm taking is more of an independent study, which I did not know. Basically, we have excursions to different sites and we research them and write papers on what we saw/learned. What a way to learn about Greek Art & Architecture outside of a classroom!

I haven't started my other class because theres some confusion on when it starts and what I'm actually taking that will be figured out tomorrow.

The food here is AMAZING, as anyone would expect. We went to a restaurant last night that served us Greek Salad, fried zucchini, dill sauce (cant remember what its called in Greek) and pasta. It was delicious and more than enough to take home as a snack for today. For lunch we stopped at a little cafe and had some huge sandwiches for only 2.50! For dinner we had some more Greek Salad (which the Greek students taught me how to put the right amount of oil & other things on top), bread, and lamb with rice. I'm absolutely loving the food.

I am hoping to get to bed pretty early tonight because tomorrow we are off to the parliment building to see how that looks and to learn more about that.

Liz