Attic Adventures

Like that Beatles song, only not nearly as cool.

I came home on the 29th, flying into Newark, and came home home late at night. I've been studiously putting off anything productive journaling since then. Well, since before then, obviously. It's been a while.

You know, part of me never stops writing. I am always observing things, reworking them in my head, fitting them with just the right words. It's a constant narrative of what I see and feel. Oftentimes I think, Good thing the folks next to me can't read minds. (I figure I'd know if they could, unless they were very good at keeping straight faces.) But rarely does anything I think make it onto paper. Or, as the case may be, onto the screen. (Guess this shirt wouldn't work for me, then. Almost right. Almost.) I'd like to believe that if I wrote down half the things I think, as I think them, I'd have enough to complete a couple books. Ah, so that is what's stopping me from becoming a bestselling author. Noted.

But there are things here I want to say. Too many of them for me to know, at this point, precisely how this entry, and any entries that follow, will come out, but I know that I would regret it if I let this journal go as it is.

( I'll put it behind a cut, just in case )

Today, Meghan T., Kristina O., Jess R. (and possibly Hannah T.) and I go Plaka-ing. It's going to be a last-hurrah sort of thing. Plaka is the neighborhood in Athens, sort of bundled up around the Acropolis and squashed between Syndagma and Monastriaki, that is often described as "quaint" or "old, with winding streets". It's one of the few areas of Athens that survived the war (II, that is), and the subsequent Put Up Big Boxes! rebuilding after the war. Athens is a cool city, but really, it's often not much to look at.

Anyway, so we're heading off to Plaka in about an hour (or more, knowing Kristina...), to get tee-shirts and Presents for This Last Family Member/Friend, and possibly other things (like A.E.K. merchandise. John played for A.E.K., by the way.) It should be a good time.

I finished my two final papers for philosophy last night. Woot! Thank God. Our noble professor most graciously reduced the assignment from 10-15 pages (each) to 3-5 last week, after making it very clear that it was only due to the "special circumstances" that he was making this generous allowance. I don't think I can type any more about this without risking the PG-rating of this blog, so I won't.

Hannah T. and I went to the National Museum yesterday, so I could get pictures of the hot naked men. No, really. (Pity they're all made out of marble. Although some were bronze...) We got gelato on the way back. There's a really awesome little place on Imitou - it's 1.80E for the smallest size, which is not very small at all. Man, I will miss gelato. I definitely like it better than ice cream. (We got ice cream last Friday, near Sounion, and that's when I decided this.) Anyway, we came back through Varnava Square (which is the closest square to the apartments, and also contains wonderful things, like a kiosk, an ATM, a fantastic bakery, a mini-mart that's open on Sundays, and Movpies'), and lo! There was John the Byzantine instructor, with his wife! Woo-hoo! My day was made - particularly when I discovered that his feelings for Socrates and my own are one and the same. Long distance high-fives, John. You are the man.

I got my two (un-fun) philosophy papers completed this weekend so that I could work on the (very fun) paper for my Byzantine class. John's letting me ("encouraging" me to, even!) write a story, instead of a researchy type paper - kind of like what I did last year with my Crusades class, if any of you read that one. In many ways it's going to be a lot harder than cranking out a paper (I'm writing on the Byzantine perspective of the First Crusade - hey, do you sense a theme around here?) - but at the same time, it should be super fun. I'd take writing creatively over stupid research paper thesis stuff any day.

(Really, I just want to be like Neil Gaiman.)

***

How am I doing? People ask that, and I feel like saying, "Do you want the neat and tidy answer, or do you really want to know?" Neat and tidy: I'm doing alright. I'm having a good time, over my last days here in Greece. It's cool.

Real answer, though ... that would take a while.

Erik (and I spell his name with a k, although everyone else uses the c, because that's how he began to spell it here - that's the Greek way of writing it. I started doing that on this blog, so I'll stick with it.) was buried on Saturday. I received an email from Diane, and she said that when she flew back last Wednesday, Mr. Stearns, and Erik's body, were on the flight with her. She said she was glad Mr. Stearns didn't have to make that trip by himself, and I am as well. She attended the funeral, which I'm really grateful for. At least one of us was there - maybe representing all of us.

There are whispers afoot of some people from Wisconsin and Michigan road-tripping this summer over to State College, for Arts Fest, and then going to Pittsburgh to visit Erik's parents. I hope it comes into fruition. That would be a good trip.

For those of you with Facebook accounts, Manolis (Manny) put up some photos from our trip to Rome. I'm tagged in a bunch of them, so just look at "Photos of Carrie" to see them. Don't worry, folks - when I get home I'll upload all of my pictures, to Facebook and possibly other places.

ps. Shoutout to Alia for her wonderful "make up for the modern youth" mix cd that she gave me over Christmas. I've been listening to it a lot lately.

:)

Sweet Jesus. Two weeks ago, at this time almost exactly.

"Let It Be" is playing on Meghan's laptop right now.

And when the night is cloudy
there is still a light that shines on me
Shine until tomorrow
Let it be

In many ways I am still in denial. I'm not thinking about it. It's like there's this layer of gauze between what I'm feeling from minute to minute, and what happened. Some time soon I will tear that gauze away, and accept it, and cry a whole lot, but for right now I'm just not thinking about it.

Meghan, Kristina, Jess, Manny and I went to Rome this past weekend. (By the way.) That was really good - a lot of fun. We hit up most of the major places, and did a lot of laughing. I'll talk about it some time.

"You're So Vain" is playing now. Bit of a switch from the Beatles. I like it, though. Reminds me of our venerable Byzantine History instructor. ("My Neck, My Back", by Khia, also reminds me of him. Koff.) My respect for him has increased exponentially over the past week and a half. I've thought he was pretty awesome since about the second week of classes, but now I can honestly say that he has transcended the Awesome Teacher category, and is fast approaching Friend. Yeah.

I've been spending a lot more time upstairs in #7, where Meghan and Kristina live (as well as five other girls). I know that I am a bit of a loner, but lately, I really haven't wanted to be alone. Diane went home this morning, with her mother. She's walking pretty well, now - we all cheer when we see her - and throughout all of this her attitude has been just great. Truly - it's so inspiring. We had a bit of a farewell party for her last night, with lots of Greek-y food, and lots of picture taking. People finished off Erik's bottle of Bacardi, which made me feel a little squishy. Kurt handed me a shot, but after the toast I found I didn't want it anymore. Part of it was because I feel like drinking shots is too close to drinking to get drunk, which I don't do - and another part of it was because I know Erik would've taken my shot for me. He did something similar at the James Joyce (an Irish pub we like to frequent here) right before our Northern Greece trip. A bunch of us were there celebrating St. Patty's. I got a pint of Kilkenny when I'd meant to get a glass. I drank about 3/4 of it, but I didn't want to finish it. The guys at the table (who'd had, at this point, two Irish car bombs and several pints of other stuff) of course wanted me to drink the rest, but I was feeling what I'd drank already, so I was wondering how I'd pull off making the liquid disappear without actually consuming it (subtly). Erik leaned over and nodded at my glass. "Want me to finish it?" "Want to?" I asked. He took it like a shot. A short time later, he walked me home, because I didn't want to walk by myself, and no one else was ready to leave.

He was a class act. Truly. I feel like people - guys especially - change when they're around their friends, and that's generally how I gauge what type of person someone is - how they treat me (and others) around their best buds. Sometimes folks turn into assholes, or just ignore one completely. Erik stayed Erik. If that makes sense. He was such a good guy. Oh man.

Tomorrow we have our last Archaeology class - a review session, really, so maybe our last one was yesterday, on the Acropolis - and our last Byzantine history lecture. That's hard to believe. Today we had our last Philosophy "seminar", and I believe it's no exaggeration when I say that my peers and I were extremely relieved to walk out of the classroom this afternoon. On Tuesday we have our Archaeology final, and our Byzantine final, which will probably kick my ass. Oh well.

I'm tired. It's almost 1am here. That's been about how late I've been staying up lately. But I am tired.

Mamas and the Papas now. "Go Where You Wanna Go." Yeah. I dig that.

It's like a rollercoaster, you know. I'm doing alright, one minute, and then the next, I'm not.

I downloaded this song onto my friend's laptop, and played it for us:

Hey Sweetheart take it slow
It can be hard to dance every day
There's so much we don't know
And there's no way to make it go away
Hey Jude don't make it bad
Take a sad song and play
You're not wrong to be sad
You're not the only one feeling gray
All those dreams inside your head
Falling all the way to your heart
Why do they seem so far?
Why is it still so hard?
It's always so hard

So many words I can't find
So much that words could never say
I want to promise you everything
Promise everything will be okay
If only I could love you loud enough
If only I could say how beautiful you are
It wouldn't be so tough
It wouldn't be so hard
It's always so hard

Hey Sweetheart it's okay
We have to say goodbye every day
I always keep you close
You're still part of me when I'm far away
If only I could love you loud enough
If only I could say how beautiful you are
It wouldn't be so tough
It wouldn't be so hard

Thank you, Matt. Because this song is exactly, absolutely what I needed.

And then I played Dagobah, and I bounced around and sang along.

That's the way it's going. Both songs are on my mp3 player, though. That's good.

Thank you, everyone, for you love and your light. It means more than you know, I think.

Tomorrow we take a field trip to Marathon, and a few other places. And we hang out on a beach, and picnic. I'm looking forward to it. And then on Saturday morning, Meghan, Jess and I leave for Rome. Rome! We are (hopefully) connecting with several of Brian Orland's Landscape Architecture students (guys) who are studying abroad there this semester. (Brian Orland, Artie's dad, is awesome. By the way.)

We return at about 20.30 on Monday. It will be weird to be away for so long, but also good, I think. Rome, man. Outrageous. (Says the girl who's spent the past three months in Greece.)

We had class on the Acropolis today. Dr Diamant lectured on the third and fourth temples (the Older and Newer Parthenons), and it was nice, in a way, to be back in class. This was our first class since last Wednesday. We didn't have Byzantine History, as we normally do on Thursdays, because John realized he had a lecture to deliver (in Greek; he was not excited) right about the time when our class ran. So we had a makeup yesterday - but of course that was canceled. John came over, though, and stayed with us, as did Dimitra. Last night we had a gathering at Rosemary's house - so different from the pizza party she held there last Friday - that seems so long ago - and we all met Erik's parents. What incredible people. Such strength. It was absolutely inspiring.

Erik was much worse off than we'd been told, we found. His parents acknowledged that he should've been dead on impact, but he made it six days. I didn't know it was that bad. But they were at peace with it. I believe that - they said it, sure, but I believe it, too. They knew that Erik was happy here, and they knew he was having the time of his life, and they were at peace with his death.

I wish I could say the same - but, maybe, they've had almost a week to get used to the idea. I've had about 36 hours. I know he's alright. He's fine, now. He's free. I know this. It's just getting used to not seeing him anymore, or hearing him say my name - he always did, when he greeted me, or anyone else - he used our names - or even joshing him about his Beatle-esque hair, or his fragile ego, or ... well. Yeah. Erik's energy is still here, but it's changed, and it's that change I'm having a lot of trouble with, just now.

It's a rollercoaster. But that's okay. We've got each other. And we love each other. That's good.

We received word this morning that Erik passed away yesterday evening. He left once, and the doctors brought him back, but then he left again, for good. His last few hours, we are told, were peaceful.

We are reeling.

Perhaps I knew this was coming. Last night I suddenly found myself very clearly picturing Erik in my apartment, standing there and smiling at me, crooked shoulders and crooked smile. I smiled, and hummed to myself, and hoped that I'd see that smile again soon.

He was going through 9 pints of blood a day, down from 13. His liver was failing, and the doctors couldn't get his left leg to circulate blood. The medical cause of death was heart failure - his heart was too weak. Maybe his soul just decided that he'd seen enough, and it was time to go.

I had meant to say this in my last post, but I'll say it here: The driver of the car, a young person maybe a little older than us, was not under the influence of any substances when he crashed, and - this moved me - he came in to meet Erik's parents and donate blood last Friday.

Why did this happen? I wonder that. But mostly, I am wondering who I am because of it.

Singing Taize songs helps. And I've got Psalm 46 open in my little green Gideon's Bible.

1 God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore will not we fear,
though the earth be removed,
and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
3 though the waters thereof roar and be troubled,
though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.
Selah.
4 There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God,
the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.
5 God is in the midst of her;
she shall not be moved:
God shall help her, and that right early.
6 The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved:
he uttered his voice, the earth melted.
7 The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.
Selah.
8 Come, behold the works of the LORD,
what desolations he hath made in the earth.
9 He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth;
he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder;
he burneth the chariot in the fire.
10 Be still, and know that I am God:
I will be exalted among the heathen,
I will be exalted in the earth.
11 The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.
Selah.

How fast things can change.

I apologize for not updating lately. But in light of all that has happened, you deserve an update now.

Last Wednesday night, two of us, Erik and Diane, were hit by a car. It was raining, and the car hydroplaned, and they - standing on the sidewalk, waiting to cross the road - connected with the car's back end as it spun out and into the light post. The rest of the group was about two hundred yards away, up the street and around the corner. They'd taken the long way to see if they could hail a cab. Had the whole group followed Erik and Diane, they likely would have all been hit.

Diane escaped with some bad sprains, scrapes and a couple of stitches. She remained in the hospital until yesterday evening, when her mother, who'd flown in yesterday afternoon, picked her up. She's back in the apartment now; her mother is staying at a hotel relatively close by.

We donated blood for Erik on Friday and Saturday. His pelvis is broken, and he was bleeding internally in 3 places. The doctors managed to close two of the places, before discovering the third, which thankfully stopped bleeding on its own sometime on Friday. They'll go in for a fourth operation when he's strong enough. He'd gone through 30 litres of blood by Friday night, the last I heard. We are hearing now that he will likely remain in the ICU until after we've left, on 29 April, which breaks my heart. I don't want to leave Athens without seeing him. He is stable, now, at least.

The women in the Athens Centre - Dimitra, Vassia, Katja, Nina and especially Rosemary and her daughter, Anthea, have been a force of nature. They are like our surrogate family here, quite literally, and for the first 48 hours I don't think they got more than two dozen hours of sleep between all of them. They've been constantly there, for Erik, for his parents, who arrived on Friday morning, for Diane, and for us.

Tonight we are having a potluck dinner. We'd been talking about it for a while, but this solidified it. We've invited Erik's parents, Diane's mother, all of the women from the Athens Centre, and some of our more favorite instructors. It's a way of saying thank you, for everything.

It's amazing how quickly things can change, isn't it? My entire experience here - and indeed, my purpose - has shifted. It has for all of us. Before I found out Thursday morning, I had planned to spend the day going to bookstores, and planned to visit museums and do research for my upcoming papers over the weekend. Although several of us did go to bookstores, and clothing stores, on Thursday, in order to do something while we waited for news, I found myself instead visiting hospitals, and being with the group - we didn't really want to be alone, we found - and escaping, when I did want to, into a pretty cool paperback. Last night I did finally pick up Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, and while I certainly found it easier to read than Plato's Republic, I still found it hard to focus. While I know that some people can throw themselves into work and let that distract them, I've found that that doesn't work so well for me. I keep thinking about Erik, and then when I do, I have to concentrate on not worrying about Erik. He doesn't need worry. He needs light.

How fast things change. John Lennon supposedly once said that life is what happens when you're making other plans. Before I left the party upstairs on Wednesday night, Erik hugged me goodbye. "See you tomorrow, Carrie," he said, and smiled.

Next weekend, three of us are going to Rome. Erik was thinking about coming with us. Meghan and Jess and I (with thanks to my dear mum, for planting the seed) are going to take pictures of ourselves in front of statues (we'll be sneaky; they don't like folks to pose), holding signs saying things like "Handsome, but not as good as you", or "You could beat David any day", and then create a slideshow and leave it on Erik's computer for him to find. We figure he'll like it.

Going back to class tomorrow is going to be tough. We've had five days off. We were supposed to go on a field trip on Friday, but that was postponed. Obviously. Fortunately we have Archaeology and then Byzantine History tomorrow - both of which should be much easier to handle than Philosophy, for reasons I won't mention publicly on this blog.

The fact that we have a little over three weeks left is rather mind blowing. I am so used to thinking in terms of months that the suddenly fast-approaching departure date is more than a little daunting. For the past several mornings I've had dreams of leaving, or being home and forgetting something here. It's been weird. I had a pretty tough bout of homesickness right after Ireland (which seems like ages ago), but now, after this - and after we have come together so strongly as a group - I find myself very reluctant to leave Greece, and the sort of suspended reality that Greece has offered me for the past three months.

All things cycle. Nothing ever truly dies.

Barack Obama is coming to PSU on Sunday. If you're in State College, go for me.

No, really.

(Maybe, if he wins the nomination, he'll be back...)

I sent my ballot yesterday.

And not even like the Pearl Jam song. (This is a good thing.)

Last week we toured around northern Greece. I gave a super awesome presentation on Delphi, at Delphi (although my professor apparently begs to differ: I got an 83%); we went to Meteora and I was stuck dumb by the rocks ("like the Great Mother's knucklebones," I murmured to myself); we spent three days in Thessaloníki, Greece's second-largest city, and I even went clubbing. (I can now say for certain that I prefer pubs to clubs, thank you very much.) Aaaaaaaaand we went to Ataturk's house! I think I was the only one in the entire group who was excited about this, but I kept thinking, "Wait 'til I tell Dr. Safran (my Middle Eastern Studies prof) that I've been to the house where Ataturk was born!" It was pretty sweet, even if the place was more like a shrine to the late leader than an actual museum.

Going on a week-long field trip right after Spring Break was good in many ways - it provided a smoother transition back to Life in Greece Again, and northern Greece is a lot more pretty to look at than Attica is. In my opinion. There's a lot of concrete around here. I also enjoyed being able to hang out with the group outside of the classroom. We've got some pretty darn cool people on this trip, and they are fun to be around.

The only bad thing about having two weeks off from classes is that now none of us are really into that whole Hey! Academics! thing anymore. (Some of us, I feel, never were.)

Oh hey! The February Newsletter is up! It was written by yours truly, and will probably seem quite familiar if you've been following this blog since the beginning, but there are lots of helpful pictures (including one of the author herself) previously unposted on this rather picture-less blog. (Sorry, readers. I have them, but ... not here.)

Now a few side notes: I received my absentee ballot today. It feels very important - and, indeed, it is - and I plan to fill it in and send it back ASAP. Julia, I also received your continuation of your previous letter. My name should be in purple sparkly glitter glue more often. :D

And. Outlander? Still about 200 pages from the end, but. Ooohmigosh. When I grow up, I am marrying a man like Jamie Fraser. Nuff said.

Oh well.

I can say with complete sincerity that I did not want to leave Ireland. I love it there.

I took a ton of pictures (including a couple of me not getting blown away in the gales that swept the island last week), but I'm at an Internet cafe right now, with one USB port, and I'm choosing to charge my mp3 player instead. If it's open, I'll come back tomorrow. It's pretty reasonable here.

But yes, I am back. I spent a large part of last night deciding just where to hang the postcards I bought. (Julia, Hillary and Brian: I received your postcards and letters! It was marvellous to come bak to that. Yay!) I am currently flattening out a "The Music of Ireland" poster I got, and that will go up later today. I think I'll hijack Jess's laptop, too, to play the CDs I bought. (De Danaan, and The Bothys.)

Sorry for any poor spelling here - this is IE 6.0, and I've grown rather used to the automatic spellchecker of Firefox.

More to come later! Pictures, certainly! (You haven't seen the Cliffs of Moher until you've seen them whilst simultaneously not flying away in a gale!)

:D

I've got less than five minutes of Internet left, but here is a quick post to say that I arrived safely in Dublin on Friday evening, and successfully took the train down to Cork, and from there even found my hostel. (There were some tense moments, and some "Gee, I wonder where the heck my hostel is...?" moments, but it's ALL GOOD.)

The weather is cloudy/rainy/windy right now, but it was just fine on Saturday and yesterday, when I spent a lot of time outside (I went to Blarney! Details later.), so it's alright.

Today I'm taking the train over to Galway. Tomorrow I may go to the Aran Islands.

YAY IRELAND!

Yesterday we were in Aegina all day (gettin' pistachios!), and then today, because the electric union people are striking in Athens, power was sporadic, and wireless even more so. John actually cut short our Byzantine class by an hour (at 1830) because the lights went out and it got to the point where we couldn't see our notebooks anymore.

So that's why I haven't posted pictures, or anything else.

I leave Athens for Ireland (omg) tomorrow at about 8.30. I'm checking in at the airport, for obvious reasons - can't do it here! so I'm leaving a little early.

(How am I online now? I'm bumming off of Meghan's laptop, which snatches wireless from somewhere, while she eats dinner. It's okay. She knows I'm using it.)

(But that's rather why this isn't a long entry.)

The Outlander book has me in a very Scottish mood. (Yup, Kyle, the very same one your mum read.) Funny thing about that: while nay in English dialects means "no", nai is how you transliterate "yes" into Greek.

And that's your random bit of Carrie-ness for the week. Enjoy yourselves, folks. I plan to have a blast.

:D

There have been a couple requests for my address again, so I'm reposting it.

Me
Penn State University (PSU is fine, too)
The Athens Centre
48 Archimedious Street
Mets, Athens
116 36
Greece

Kind of a lot. You might have to write small. Actually, the PSU thing is optional, anymore: everyone in the office knows who I am, and there aren't any other universities here at this time. (Which is SO nice. I'm generally the only one in the computer lab.)

As for me - it costs the same whether I send a postcard or a letter (.67 E), so let me know which you'd rather receive. Postcards do include, by default, nice pictures, but letters include a whole lot of me. (And my handwriting. Hm. Up to you.)

I'm going to post more pictures later today - I used this morning to type up my two philosophy papers (one on Socrates' concept of the soul, and the other on Plato's/Socrates' concept of virtue).

In other news, Anna, I started Outlander last night. I figured it was time to get into a Celtic mood. (NEXT WEEK I'LL BE IN IRELAND. OOOH MAN.)

And in totally un-Greek news, I found out today that I got into the Co-op next year. YAY!

Or bigger than that, perhaps - but evidence all the same, of my journey through the Peloponnese (and of the utter perfection that is Hermes by Praxiteles).

( under here! )

Okay, I'm being kicked out of the computer lab. G'night!

Forgive me. I'd planned to post them yesterday, but I ran out of time. Tomorrow, I think, I'll get some up. What I am also going to do is put most of my pictures I've taken so far on Facebook. Can anyone reading this not access Facebook photo albums? (I have no idea how that works, actually; I'm surprisingly Facebook illiterate.)

I apologize too for the lack of substance in my recent entries. I think I should start pre-composing blog entries, so that when I do sit myself down in front of a computer, I can remember what I wanted to say. (shakes head)

Tomorrow (and tomorrow, and tomorrow...)!

We got back from our tour of the Peloponnese on Saturday afternoon. Neither Jess nor I wanted to cook anything for dinner, so after some necessary grocery shopping (carrots, apples, garlic - gotta have those), we went to the bakery and got pies. Mmm, spanikopita! And then yesterday, which was, apparently, Carnival, I spent writing a paper for my Archaeology class on why I'm not sure if Mycenae was a citadel or a "true" city. Well, I actually took the former position, but it's a rather foggy business. And then a bunch of us continued the Eating Poorly trend and went out for souvlakis and gelato for dinner.

And I've just spent the past hour and a half checking my email. Crazy!

I intend to write lots about the Peloponnese, but I gone and run out of time again, so this is mostly just one of those, Hi! I'm Alive! updates. Tomorrow! Tomorrow! there will be more!

:D

Guess what happened in Athens this weekend??

( !!! )

Tomorrow we leave for 5 days to explore the Peloponnese. We're going to Mystras, to Pylos, to Sparta, and all sorts of other wonderful places. Considering that we're getting away with no Greek (she had to cancel today's class, because the roads are too bad) and no archaeology, I'm pretty pleased. (We even get John Byzantine history today! I like that class. For a couple of reasons. Hehe.)

Alright, I am going to go to the grocery to pick up some essentials for tonight's dinner (rice - you can buy it in bulk at some groceries), and then to find an International Herald Tribune. Jess wants to know what's up with Kosovo, and I do, too. We get different perspectives, here.

Last night, while perusing through my Ireland Guidebook, I (finally) had a revelation: The only thing I knew for certain was that I landed in Ireland at 17.30 on the 7th, and departed at 6.55 on the 14th.

I had the whole country at my feet.

Once I realized this, everything seemed much better. And now I am happy to report that I've got hostel reservations placed in Cork, Galway and Dublin, with the knowledge that the train (and the bus) can get me to all of those places.

Go me.

I'm spending 3 nights in Cork, two in Galway, and the last two in Dublin.

I'm pretty excited.

Now, however, duty calls, and I must run off to feed myself before catching the Metro to the National Archaeological Museum for a stimulating afternoon with our professor. Such is my life.

XD



ps. It's sunny today! YAY! (Attitude shifts. I should have them more often.)

No pictures today; I've found that unless I get online before noon, the Internet is quite slow. (Why? Because many of my classmates have laptops, and sit up in the big class room using up the WiFi.)

I am in the middle of two things that are sort of stressing me out, but have to be done soon: Thing Number Most Important: finding places to stay whilst I'm in Ireland. I have the flight booked, and now I need a bed. A nice bed. Hostels generally have nice beds. My problem (as my mum alerted me to last week) is that rooms are booked for the 7th and the 8th in Dublin. I land at about 17.30 on the 7th. If I can't find anything tomorrow morning, I'll start looking in Limerick and Cork. I can take a late train there, and skip out on Dublin until later in the week. I must be back in the city by the 13th, because my flight out leaves at 6.55 the next morning.

So. Places to stay. I've noted the Don't Go North of the Liffey After Dark thing - so I'd rather not stay there on the 7th, seeing as I'll be arriving after dark(ish).

Today I bought three guidebooks - one for Dublin, one for Cork, and one for Ireland in general. (I would've been happy with a Let's Go guide for Ireland, because I am IN LOVE with my one for Greece, but neither bookstore I visited this morning carried them. So I went with a Lonely Planet guide, which is also pretty cool.

That's Anxiety Number 1.

Anxiety Number The Lesser has to do with classes. Because I'm in Schreyer's, I get to schedule super-early: 5 March (when we have a day trip, helpfully, to Aegina). I've figured out a schedule. My biggest WorryWart is the fact that the schedule, and the classes I'm potentially taking, may not help the whole Don't Worry! Be Happy! thing. See, there are three super awesome classes that I want to take: Contemporary Middle East, Monotheism and Medieval Britain. But Monotheism is a once a week, 3-hour honors seminar (read: tough), and Medieval Britain is a grad-student level, once a week 3-hour seminar. But it's taught by Prof. Hudson, who's like a giant hobbit. And the Mid East one is taught by Safran, with whom I've had 2 other classes, and I know she's pretty sweet.

But here's the kicker: with this schedule, adding two other classes I want/have to take, on Thursdays I'll be going from 9.45 until 21.00. I'll have a two hour break for afternoon tea and another one for supper, but still.

But. I'll only have one class on Monday (a meeting of Soc 119: Race Relations), and none on Friday.

So I think I can do it. In theory, I'll have a lot of my thesis stuff done by over the summer. In theory. Yup. Gonna work ahead.

And work, in general. At Webster's. (Positive thinking!)

Okay, I'm definitely rambling now. Jess and I are going to make pizza tonight, and she's probably wondering if I fell in or something. (Pizza!! Soon I will dedicate a blog entry to our culinary wonders. We eat in almost every night, and almost every night, I am full after dinner. Yay!)

More pictures tomorrow. :D

Pictures!

( Here be empires )

I saw Mycenae and Tiryns this weekend. Holy Cyclopean walls, Batman. I have pictures, don't worry. And I even plan to post them all in one go, this time! (Yaaaay.)

I also tried ouzo and gelato for the first time. Although not together. That would've been intense. Ouzo tastes like my mum's anise cookies, only liquid and highly alcoholic. I didn't drink more than a taste, although I think I would've. I like sweet stuff. Gelato tastes like ten kinds of awesome, and I think I like it better than ice cream.

The weather this weekend was really quite miserable, even by State College standards. Spitting drizzlerain, with some seriously gusting winds. Low 40s. But despite that, I had a fantastic time. A much better time than I would've expected. Our archaeology professor seems to be the sort of teacher who dramatically improves once you get him out of the classroom.

Because I haven't got any pictures to show you now, I shall instead link the first Newsletter! for the semester. This is an introductory one written by Tina, our philosophy professor's wife. It includes photos of all of us, and all the women in the Athens Centre office, as well as all of our teachers. The newsletter (not the link above) is in .pdf format. Let me be the first to say here that I do not know where Tina got the photo of John the Byzantine History teacher. It has to be at least 10 years old, and maybe off his driver's license, or something. I laughed out loud.

Don't forget to give me tips on Ireland!! I'll give you pictures tomorrow if you do this for me! (No, really!)

XD