New Friend

I've been home alone this entire week while my parents were at a conference outside of Athens. I would have been able to go with them, but I started school on Monday (more on that later). Another couple that was with them just moved here from Russia and doesn't know anyone else so they asked me to dog-sit for the week. She stayed in the apartment with me and I let her out to do her business a couple times a day and made sure she had food and water. Not too tough of a gig, and it was nice to have some company.

The dog is a Shiba Inu named Katya but I think a better name for her would be Zoolander. Why? She doesn't turn left. She's not an ambi-turner. She runs in circles all the time, but only turns right. It's like a NASCAR race, but backwards. It's pretty amusing really, and I watched her for a long time to see if she would turn left. Mostly if she needed to go left so would turn to the right and turn all the way around until she was facing the direction she needed. When we went outside she would run in circles on the end of her leash. But only turning right.

How Old Am I???

I have recently discovered that I do not look my age. I started noticing it last summer when I was visiting Greece for two weeks in July. We would be in a conversation with someone (although I use the word conversation loosely because many didn't speak English) and they would ask how old I was. I would answer 18, or 19 since I had my birthday while I was there, and the person would look shocked and somehow communicate that they thought I was 15 or 16. I didn't think too much of it because many of these conversations were with gypsies and in their culture, as a 19 year-old I should already be married and have a toddler running around.

Ever since I left College Station about 5 weeks ago, I've heard a lot of people guess (in one way or another) that I am younger than I am. When I was in Dallas a couple days before I flew out, I had 3 people in one day ask me if I was in high school. Actually, I'm a junior in college thank you very much! Now that I'm in Greece I've made a game out of having people guess my age. Whenever we are having a conversation with someone I have never met before, I usually ask them to try to guess my age. I've gotten anywhere from 14 to 18. And when someone guesses 18, I want to kiss them.

My mom constantly reminds me that looking young in a good thing. After all, she has had the same "problem" her entire life. Actually, on my parents' honeymoon someone asked my dad if she was his daughter -- now that's bad! I know that when I'm older I will be ecstatic if people think I'm 5 years younger than my age but as a 19-year-0ld (that will be 20 next month), someone thinking that I'm 14 is not the greatest compliment I've ever received.

What boggles my mind is that during the other 9 months of the year I NEVER get that. I'm thinking that a lot of it has to do with the fact that I live in College Station where literally half the population of the city is in college, so if someone if going to guess my age, their best guess would be that I'm in college. But that's just a theory.

Edit: I had orientation for my study abroad program this weekend. In order to warn the guys to be careful who they hit on, one of the presenters commented that Greek women look much older than they really are. So maybe I really do look like I'm 20, but Greek women look like they are 20 when they are 14. That's the story I'm sticking with...

Cruisin'

On Monday night, my mom and I returned from a 3-day cruise. The cruises here are not nearly as luxurious as the American cruises but we still had a nice time. We had 5 different stops on our cruise including 4 Greek islands and one stop in Turkey, only staying at each location for about 4-5 hours. We took (or I should say I took) lots of pictures so I'll try to narrow it down to just a few. Here is a picture of my mom and my aunt looking very stylish in their life jackets.


Our first stop was on the island of Mykonos. This island was probably the most similar to what nearly everyone thinks of when they think of Greece. It had the white buildings with the blue roofs and even some old windmills and was a very touristy area. I'd like to note that very little of Greece actually looks like this, but it was nice to visit. We mostly just walked around, looked in a few shops and headed back to the boat.



After our first stop we sailed through the night and first thing in the morning (way too early) we got off the boat in Kuşadası, Turkey. The cruise ship offered excursions at each stop but this is the only one that we took. We took a small bus out to the ruins of ancient Ephesus. For those that appreciate ancient ruins (like my aunt) it was extremely fascinating. I thought it was pretty cool that I was walking on the same streets that Paul and so many others walked on, and some of the buildings were pretty cool looking (like the Library of Celsus) but beyond that I'm not quite as impressed at archaeological sites.

We also walked around and went into several shops in Kuşadası, including a Turkish carpet store/jewelry store where we learned all about the different types of Turkish carpets and the jeweler hit on my mom, hoping she would buy something. We didn't give in and make a purchase, but we did notice that the Turkish men are very charming. One guy even came up to us and said (in his Turkish accent) "Hello Ladies! Were you looking for me? It is me, the Turkish Delight man!" We heard this and other such sales tactics our entire stay in Turkey.



Our third stop was on the island of Patmos, which is the island that John was exiled to and the location where he wrote the book of Revelation. The main attraction on Patmos is the Monastery of St. John which sits on the top of a hill/mountain above the town and the Cave of the Apocalypse about halfway up. All in all, this stop was fairly boring, but it was pretty cool to be able to say that I've been in the cave where John was living when he wrote Revelation. Technically you weren't supposed to take pictures in the cave but I bent the rules slightly.



Our fourth stop was on the island of Crete. Once again, this was a pretty boring stop. There wasn't too much to see, although we tried to go to an aquarium but it was too far away and we didn't think we would have enough time. Instead, we walked to the center of Iraklion and explored a little bit. It was a Sunday morning so nearly all the shops were closed and there were not very many people out. Here is a picture of my mom and my aunt and also one of me gettin' friendly with some old dudes.



Our fifth and final stop was on the island of Santorini. Like Mykonos, Santorini is what you might call "postcard" Greece. It is what everyone thinks of when they think of beautiful Greece with the great views and blue and white houses. Like the other stops, our time here was short so we mostly walked around the town of Fira, checked out some of the shops and just hung out. One of my favorite parts was the very first thing that we did. Santorini was formed when a volcano erupted and a lot of the island sunk so the edge of the island where the boats come in is 260 meters down a cliff below the actual town. Your choices to get up to the town include walking up a winding, cobbled street, taking a cable car (like a gondola), or riding DONKEYS. That is probably the best 5 euros I spent the whole trip. The donkeys were a lot of fun and let me just say that they are not very modest about relieving themselves.







Our ship arrived back to the Port in Piraeus (Athens) early on Monday morning. My aunt was planning to stay in Athens for several days to see everything in that area of Greece. We took a taxi to her hotel and got her checked in and then walked over to the Acropolis, which was only about a 5 minute walk away. I had been up to Mars Hill (Areopagus), which is right next to the Acropolis, twice but I had never been to the top. After looking around on top of the Acropolis, my mom and I took the Metro (Athens' subway system) to the train station and took a train back to Thessaloniki.




I have one more week before I start my class so I hope to be able to do some more fun things before I get to start my actually work (although I'm hoping it won't be too much work.) There are several nice beaches around that are anywhere from 20 min. to 1 hour+ away. I've been able to spend a couple days at the beach with my parents already and we will probably go one more time this week. The water here is very clear so even when it gets deep you can easily see clear to the bottom. Also, it is very salty so you float very easily. Sometimes I'll swim as hard as I can straight down and I only get a few feet before I start floating back up. Here is a picture of my parents in Halkidiki earlier this week.

Headin' Out

I've had a pretty relaxing week this week hanging out with my parents and my aunt. We even made it out to the beach one day. It was a very windy day and my dad and I got to fly a couple kites that he bought from Ebay. My mom, my aunt (my mom's sister), and I are leaving in about 5 minutes to take an all night train to Athens and we leave from Athens tomorrow morning for a 3-day cruise around some of the Greek islands. I'm really excited and will have to write all about it when I get back as well as post some pictures.

I'll leave you with this picture of a game of Scrabble that my mom and I recently played at my parents' favorite Starbucks. OK, so we didn't actually play but we had fun writing Greek words (yes, those are real Greek words). Also, the top word is my Greek name and the word in the top right corner is my mom's Greek name.