First Day in Athens!

It's the end of our first day in Athens and the reality of this trip is finally hitting home with me. I'm in GREECE! So far my very long day has been a huge success. We flew out of Jacksonville and 10:45, had a quick rest stop in Philly, and took a laborious 9 hour flight into Athens. It was worth every second on that plane. The views of the coastline off Italy and Greece were both amazing during our flight. We landed in Athens at 9:10 am, and took a bus to Deree, the American College in Greece. After a little adventuring with some of the group, we ended up in a small, two-story super market where I bought the most authentic Greek food ever: Pringles and 7up. I know, I know. Not authentic or Greek. But what was both of those was the ouzo that we bought and shared on our trip back to the college. And the souvlaki I ordered for our brief meal afterwards. It was a great experience to wander the streets as an obviously foreign group of kids, just exploring our new surroundings. After our excursion, we headed back to the college and participated in a nationally imperative Greek ritual: nap time. After not sleeping a wink on the planes, a nap was welcome. At 5pm we got together as a group for an official tour of the neighborhood which is an incredibly interesting place to be. After our tour, we sat down for a divine meal at a Cretan restaurant, where I tried lentil pie, snails, mussels, and a variety of fabulous red meats and fresh veggies/fruits. Overall, today has been long but an incredible amount of fun. I'm so excited to head to Santorini tomorrow!

Amid all the fun, I did have a few moments of difficulty. Most Greek signs have both the Greek and English translation on them, and the same can be said about some of the menus in the variety of restaurants in our neighborhood. But just as many if not more are strictly Greek. Having not studied the language as much as I should have, the amount of Greek in the city is overwhelming. Obviously, I'm in Athens and they speak Greek, so I should have been more prepared for the culture shock. But it can become frustrating not being able to understand most of what is going on around you. On the other side of that coin, there has been an amazing amount of English in the city that I did not expect. Many business have big, bold English translations on their exteriors, and some of the graffiti is written in English as well. So on the one hand, not knowing Greek has been frustrating but on the other the unexpected proliferation of English has been a welcome comfort.