Week In Review

The snow finally melted (thank God)! As beautiful as it was, the followed two days left Athens covered in ice, resulting in my slipping and falling in front of an ambulance. Can anyone say awkward!

During the week I had class, followed by dinner parties at different apartments. I'm not sure if you could tell from the picture, but our apartment is too small to allow us to host any dinner parties. Nevertheless, our apartment is home the Mellisouzer (Mel-i-sou-zer), or a little burger made with Margarita buns (Margarita means sunflower in Greek and the rolls come joined together in this shape).

Many of my classmates went to Thessaloniki this weekend but I decided to stay behind and do a little of independent exploring. On Friday we took the metro to Piraeus, the sea port. I had never been to a legitimate sea port before, so I assumed it would be like a glorified version of Dana Point (where the Queen Mary is). My assumption was definitely incorrect. I got of the metro expecting to find quaint cafes and boutiques, but I was meet with crowds of bustling people, car horns, the smell of oily water, and construction. We did a little walking around and found calm inside a relatively new and extra-large church.

After our break we headed back to the metro station and found a masses of people, fire trucks, and ambulances in the middle of the street. When we cut through the crowd we found a train that had broken through a wall, suspended in midair. We started freaking out. You couldn't see any bodies on the train but we all assumed the worst. After a while we realized that the train was in a holding area and that the operator who was changing the train must have lost control of the train and rammed it through the wall. In a later newspaper we learned that a man walking on the sidewalk near the wall was killed and four maintenance people were injured. Click here for the media's take.

Still in shock and surprised that the Metro was still open, we headed back home and I took a nap.

Later in the night I made pizza completely from scratch! It was so much fun. I made my own dough, sauce, and ran to the grocery store to get fresh cheese. My first pie turned out kind of sloppy because I had a hard time tossing the dough. It ended up in a doughy mess on the pizza pan :(. The second one was a lot better except that I put too much flour down (to prevent it from sticking), so there was a coat of flour on the bottom. Hopefully next time will be better.

Even later in the night we went to Pisiri, an area of the city known for its restaurants, clubs, and bars. I had heard about this place call the Beer Academy so we wondered for a while until we finally found it. The place reminded me of back home (Yardhouse and Heros, for those of you who know) except there were all of these beers that I could barely pronounce. We had a few, grabbed a gyro, and went to sleep content.

The following morning I wondered around the city in search of the meat market and a place that sold razors. After 3-4 hours, I found the meat market. It was quite a spectacle, there were pigs heads, halves of animals, and fully plucked chickens hanging everywhere. It was intense but I couldn't help but to want to make dinner out of all of that fresh meat! After I walked the market, I began my quest home and came across this store, NotosHome. The store really reminded me of home - it was kind of like a Bed, Bath, and Beyond, with a kitchen and furniture section. There I found my razor (it took about 30 minutes for the staff to find someone that spoke English), and some kitchen supplies. The store had 6 floors and at the top there was a cafe that overlooked the city. It reminded me of the Cheesecake Factory inside the Macys in San Francisco and had I not been broke, I would have stopped and had a cappuccino. I will definitely be making another trip over there.

I headed from the store with my goodies. (There was an extra spring in my step because I was excited about shaving my overgrown beard - people were starting to stare. A man in the grocery store a couple of days ago asked where I was from and when I said California, he said, "Oh, that explains the beard." Haha!

I finally arrived home and like the day before, I took a nap. I awoke, made dinner and then headed downstairs to hang out with some friends. I wont go into the details, but the conversations that we had that night about people, life, love, and religion will never be forgotten. It was great to finally get past the small talk and know someone from their core. Good times.

Today I just slacked off and browsed the web. Another week in Athens is in the back. More to follow.