It’s been a while since I’ve updated this sucker, and my dad keeps asking for an update, so I guess its time. I’ve had a pretty standard couple weeks in Thessaloniki, which is nice because the first few weeks were chock-full of exploring and traveling and just getting settled. It’s really finally starting to feel like home here, which is also a great feeling.
Classes are going really well, I’m finding them to be very interesting. My professor in my soc. of gender class is fantastic. She’s become almost a surrogate mother to us – the class is about 6 study abroad students (all girls) and four greek students. We are able to ask our professor Aigli just about anything – like how to find bleach in the grocery store or whether to accept a job offer at a bar – and she is always willing to pause the class to talk about life for a few minutes. The greek students always laugh at our seemingly inconsequential problems, but it means the world to us to be able to ask someone all these questions that we come up with.
My greek class is going fantastically – well, that might be an exaggeration. But I am finally able to read things. It’s so exciting to walk down the street and be able to read the things that I say – it doesn’t matter that I still don’t know what things mean, being able to read it is awesome. Sometimes I’ll hear bits and pieces of other people’s conversations and when I hear something I recognize I get really excited that I’m able to understand them. I can also now order a few different food items at a restaurant – like chicken, which is kortopoulo. I still don’t know how to order a gyro without tomatoes or onions, so, per usual, I just pick it out. But in greek class we’re learning a lot of great information and conversational things. Taking Spanish classes have really helped me learn Greek – they’re not at all alike – but learning them can be done in the same way. This is what I know how to say in Greek (I also know its variations – questions, referring to other people, that type of thing) – its not a lot, but it can get me pretty far in conversations:
English:
Hello. My name is Heather. I am from America. I live in New Hampshire. Now I am living in Thessaloniki. I am a student. I speak English. I speak a little greek. I don’t understand.
Greek:
γεία σας. με λένε Heather. Είμαι από την Αμερική. στη νέα Hampshire. Τώρα στην Θεσσαλονίκη. Είμαι φοιτητρα. μιλώ αγγλικά. Μιλώ ελληνική λίγο. Δεν καταλαBενώ.
Pronunciation:
Ya sas. Me lene Heather. Ime apo tin Ameriki. Sti Nea Hampshire. Tora stin Thessaloniki. Ime fititria. Milauw anglika. Milauw elenika ligo. Then kataloveno.

Ethics is going well. I’m still finding it very interesting. We had our midterm this week, which was an essay response to a film we watched about religion being the “root of all evil” and whether religion is the basis for morality. Class discussions continue to be very interesting and I look forward to going to that class a lot.
Econ. Oh Econ. I knew I was going to dislike this class a lot. And I do. The material is confusing and my professor just makes it worse. She is really terrifying. I know that’s a horrible thing to say, but we’re all in agreement. She’s just so impatient and makes you think you’re right when you’re actually wrong and then is very condescending when she finally tells you. I’m seriously scared of this woman – we’re gonna start a support group. Luckily she cancelled class on Thursday – I didn’t want to tell her I was going to miss it, in fear of getting scowled at the way she does. So, Econ’s going to be the rough class as I predicted, hopefully I’ll survive unscathed.

And now its time for another installment of “a day in the life…” Get psyched.
Grocery Shopping – Always an adventure. And when I say adventure I mean it. Grocery shopping entails walking into a grocery store and wandering around aimlessly trying to find anything that might look sort of familiar. It usually ends with several laughing fits and serious confusion. Grocery stores here are smaller and have much less variety than in the states – yet you can find the craziest things inside a grocery store – like socks, and underwear, and rugs, and plates, but never any ziplock bags or peanut butter. That’s a lie, peanut butter can be found, but only if you go on the right day. There’s only ever one tiny jar of skippy creamy peanut butter on the shelves – for 5 euro. That’s like 7 bucks – something that would cost less than a dollar in the states (I don’t know this – I’ve never bought peanut butter in the states, this is a guess). Luckily my mom is great and sent me some – Thanks Mom! Nutella, however is everywhere. I’ve never seen so much of the stuff – people must eat it at every meal. Like my roommate, Kathryn. The only food that she’s bought is nutella and bread. She has 3 jars, which I’ve named Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. Wow. Olive oil comes in 10 gallon jugs and salad dressing just doesn’t exist. I walked around the grocery store searching for tuna fish and was so excited when I thought I’d found it. I studied the can and concluded that what I thought might be tuna was actually condensed milk - maybe. I’m not sure how its possible to confuse the two, but I did. Then I really found tuna, and it was fantastic – until I opened the can in my apartment and found that what I had gotten was NOT tuna. It was some sort of fishy substance, so at least I got that part right, but into the trash it went.
Laundry – Also an adventure. There are no dryers in this country – unless you wanna pay 8 euro to get it done at a Laundromat about a mile away, which I don’t. We have one very small washing machine, which tends to discolor all white clothing (hence the need to ask Aigli about bleach). I do my laundry about once a week. I put a load in the machine in the basement of my building and I do another load IN. MY. SINK. Yes Mom, I’ve hand washed my laundry. The first time I did it on a bright sunny day and was really excited because the clothes would dry pretty quickly on my balcony. 10 minutes later the clouds came, and 3 days later my clothes were finally dry. Note to self – do laundry a few days before running out of clothes to wear – learned the lesson the hard way.
Tavernas – Now I know I’ve talked about tavernas before, but they deserve their own category because they’re great. Basically you go to a taverna after 10 pm and prepare for a few hours of wining and dining. We’ve recently adopted a certain taverna as our own. It used to be called the secret taverna, but surely enough everyone has since made a trip there. We used to call it the chicken place (Best. Chicken. Ever) but now its Apostoli’s. That’s not the name of the place because all the tavernas kinda mush together so you never really know the name of the place you’re at. Apostoli is the owner of this taverna, and he’s fantastic. He gives us free wine and free dessert and introduces us to all his friends. One night we met some greek men, Nikos (of course that’s his name) and Vasilis who then took us to a Bouzoukia/ Rembetiko, which is a traditional greek club complete with greek dancing. Like holding hands and dancing in circles type of greek dancing. It was so awesome, even though we had no idea how to do the dances. We never would have been able to get into the place on our own, let alone find it, so it was great to go with people who know the inside scoop. Somehow taverna outings always end in an adventure. You can go to a taverna with the intent of staying just an hour or two and then going home, but somehow, someway, it never ends like that.

Now its time for the really big news! In about 12 hours I will be in Berlin! This weekend is our fall break, meaning we have Monday and Tuesday off from school, but we’re leaving a little early. We’ll be in Berlin for one night, take a train to Prague for 2 nights, and then go back to Berlin for another 2 nights. I’m so excited for this trip! I’m going with Kathryn, Heather, and Joana. Whenever the 4 of us get together – which is a lot, we’re next door neighbors – it’s always a good time, so we know this long weekend will be great! I’ll update as soon as I get back!!!