Athena Study Abroad - Study Abroad Programs - Paros Island, Greece

Student Blog from Paros Island, Greece

STUDENT BLOG: ADAM GOLDBERG
Dec. 9, 2007 | Dec. 2, 2007 | Nov. 29, 2007 | Nov. 18, 2007 | Nov. 14, 2007 | Nov. 3, 2007 | Oct. 24, 2007 | Oct. 6, 2007 | Sept. 30, 2007 | Sept. 22, 2007 | Sept. 16, 2007 | Sept. 12, 2007

Adam Goldberg is from St. Louis and is a TV/Video major from Emerson College in Boston. He is blogging about his study abroad experience in Paros Island, Greece.

Sunday, Dec. 9, 2007

Well, we’ve reached the end.

Classes are over, the show went well. People are leaving gradually, going back home and traveling or various other things. I’ll certainly miss a lot of things from the island. It’s been great to spend these past three months, and past few days with all the people here, saying goodbye and seeing what everyone’s plans are.

It’s pretty crazy to think that this place which has been my home for what seems like so long, is now just another place. I’ve been packing up all my stuff, mailing things home, and trying to get set up in the places that I will be visiting in the next week. It’s exciting, but it’s very sad.

We had a final potluck, where everyone compiled the remains of all the food that they had. We all got together and ate, drank and had a great time, just like at the beginning of the semester. We took lots of photos and tried not to really think about leaving. People keep leaving on the ferries every day, so fewer and fewer people are here at the apartment.

I’m sorry this is such a short entry, but there’s not much left to say. It’s been a fun and exciting time, and I look forward to keeping in touch with everyone, and seeing what wonderful things all the various people here do.

It will be great to look for all my friends in the future, when I’m sure they will accomplish great things. Everyone here is so talented and great that it’s hard to think about what it will be like without them.

And thank you for accompanying me on my journey. I hope at least you’ve found these entries enjoyable, though they could never really match the real experience.

Much love to you, and good luck in all your travels.
-Adam

Sunday, Dec. 2, 2007

The show was on Saturday!

The week leading up to it was busy with moving stuff around and cleaning up the school for the show - basically turning it into an art gallery. We moved all the furniture out, and people swept and mopped and cleaned up from top to bottom. A lot of classes were held at the apartment so as not to clutter the school.

All the visual arts students met and chose space on the wall to hang all of their stuff. People rushed to finish their paintings and get all their work ready for the show. The photo classes matted and hung all their work.

All I had on display were my photos since I’m not in any painting class. So I had to find pieces of glass that fit on my prints, cardboard backing and black paper matte.

I put it all together for all 9 of the prints that I chose, and then arranged them on the floor to see how I wanted to hang them on the wall. Then, a friend and I hung all of them on the wall in the proper arrangement.

Flyers were posted in shop windows all around town, so local people showed up, as well as students from the other art school on the island. The show started at 7 and went until around 11, it was so much fun, and felt too short, over too quickly.

Everyone’s art looked great, everyone here is so talented!

After a little bit, we started the poetry reading portion of the show and I went first. I read three poems. It was so much fun, as the atmosphere was really welcoming, and even after the show, when we were all at a bar, the bartender came up to me and told me how great of a job I did. I didn’t even know he had been at the show!

It was a lot of fun and I’m sad it’s over. I wish it could have been longer, or perhaps happened over two nights or so.

Well, classes are wrapping up this week, and soon we will be leaving. It’s so sad, but I’ll be excited to go back home. If only I knew when I would be able to return.

Nearing the end of my travels,
-Adam

Thursday, Nov. 29, 2007

Did I say things were getting crazy before? Well I guess I was wrong, because they’re absolutely nuts now.

Everyone’s getting prepared for the big show which is on Saturday. Today, in photo class, we went down to the school and matted all our pictures to be hung. The interrelated media students are in the process of clearing out all their projects from the gallery space. All the visual arts classes met at once too, to discuss how, and where everybody was going to hang their work on the walls. The school has been effectively converted into an art gallery. All the paintings have been taken off the walls, and all the furniture moved, courtesy of the students.

There are flyers up all over the town for the show, and I’m excited to see the turnout. Apparently, lots of people from the town come, which should be great! Of course, it makes me nervous too, because my photos will be on display, and I will be reading some poems to everyone.

In other news, on Saturday, a group of us students went to one of the teachers houses. The gathering was partially for anyone who wanted to go, but the idea of it was as a replacement for the weekly poetry class.

At the professor’s house, he had two Greek poets, or, more accurately, Cyprian poets. One woman and one man, the woman would sing, and the man played guitar. She would translate things for him. It was really a great experience, we got to listen to authentic Greek and Cyprian songs and poems, as well as eat homemade Greek food, and even local Greek wine!

When we got to the house, there was a water bottle filled with wine sitting on the rail of the stairs to go into the apartment. The professor told us that he will come home, and sometimes his landlord or someone, will just leave a bottle of wine there.

But it was so cool, because it wasn’t even like a glass bottle with a printed label - it was just a refilled water bottle, because they actually made the wine there and bottled it for their own use. It was really good.

Well that about covers it for this week. The show is coming up and I’m sure I’ll have tons to report on after that.

Until then,
Wish me luck,
-Adam

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2007

Well, I’m trying to write a paper for philosophy class.

It’s an essay on major points in my life that changed who I am or how I act or interact with the world. It’s a bit more difficult than I thought it would be, especially to pinpoint moments of change, and to articulate them. Wish me luck.

Paros is still great.

I mean, whenever I write this blog I feel as though I’m giving off the impression that things are getting static here on the island. They aren’t. Certain places are closing for the season, yes, the weather is getting colder and rainier, yes. But that’s just because it’s November already, and time is passing so quickly.

But this is still the greatest place I’ve ever seen. It still hits me from time to time that I’m on this island, and I just walk on air. The people on the program are of such a good quality, that I feel bad for you back in the states, since it seems as though all the good people are here.

Families are coming to visit. It’s interesting to see people that I’ve known for such an intense, albeit short period of time, now with the contexts of their families.

The fact is too, that since the semester is starting to wind down, we don’t go on as many trips, and aside from the day-to-day craziness, there’s not all that much to report. So I’m going to include a few pictures. They were taken earlier this year when the weather was nicer.

Here’s a view from the classroom.	The main windmill in town

The view from the rooftop at Jimmy’s where I live.	Sunset at the beach

... and the town from across the bay

Enjoy, and until next week,
-Adam

Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2007

It’s getting colder here on the island. The weather is starting to get weird. Most of the time it’s chilly, but then there will be rain sporadically and heavy winds. It’s somewhat of a nice change of pace though, but it can certainly get pretty grey from time to time.

The island is also emptying out for the season. People seem to be leaving at a regular pace, and more and more shops are closing. It seems like every day I see a new restaurant or store closed for the season. It’s pretty sad! Still though, enough stays open that it’s still possible to eat out, have a good time, and generally have all of our needs met, so it’s not that bad. I just think of it like having our own personal island all to ourselves.

On Monday night after poetry class, I and some of the other students went out with the poetry teacher. It was really a wonderful time. We sat and debated poetry, talked about life, explored the ideas of string theory, and talked about our experiences. I love hanging out with everyone here, and since everyone on the program is so great, its fun to do things with different combinations of people. I wonder if that makes sense.

Well, either way we always have fun. It’s great too because the teachers love hanging out too. Everyone relates very well to one another, and it’s never a problem being real with someone like a teacher.

Things are getting crazy here too. People are all trying to figure out what they’re doing for next semester. Some are staying, some are going home. People are registering for classes, and getting their travel arrangements set up for the end of the program. It’s starting to get wild, but I’m just concentrating on enjoying the rest of the semester.

Until next time, enjoy the rain.

-Adam

Saturday, Nov. 3, 2007

Back to life as usual here on Paros. Classes are reaching their climax for the semester as we near the end.

In photography, we’ve been working on a few interesting projects and everyone’s been trying to decide what to do for their final project. One highlight of the week was when the photo class took a short hike up the hill on the edge of town to an old broken down barn. There, we practiced photographing people, with the class switching off being subjects and being shooters.

It was a lot of fun to be able to be in such a great environment for photographing. I have been photographing for quite some time, but it always difficult to find people who are receptive and tolerant to being looked at so intensely and photographed so much, but since everyone was doing it, all the students and I were having a great time taking photos of each other.

Halloween came around on Wednesday, and although the island is starting to empty out for the season, everyone came out in costume to have a good time. One person actually dressed up as me, which was weird. It was great to see everyone’s costumes, people had to be pretty creative in using whatever clothes they had to design something to wear.

People are starting to visit as well, some students have family and friends coming, and it’s always neat to meet people from everyone’s real lives back in the States. It’s kind of crazy how well everyone gets to know everyone else here, and to think that we’ve only been together for less than three months!

Well, I’m sorry for the short entry, but there’s not too much to report, just classes as usual. Thanksgiving is coming up and there are some fun things planned, so I’m looking forward to that. But for now it’s just nice to be back here, trying to make the most of the time we have left.

Thanks for reading, I’ll keep you updated!
-Adam

Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2007

Terribly sorry for the interruption to regularly scheduled blogging, but as you may have read in the last entry, the group has been in Turkey for the past week. The trip was outstanding! The week prior to the trip was pretty standard, classes all week as usual, but on Friday the 12th, in the middle of the night, the trip began. I realize I haven’t written in nearly 2 weeks, so this entry is sure to be long. I hope you’re ready for it.

I have no classes Friday, so I spent the day taking care of business over email, and packing, and hanging out. One or two people weren’t going on the trip, so I wanted to see them for a bit before we left. At around 10:30 that night, I went with some people to this great little bar called Karen’s. We didn’t stay for long; instead, we went back to the apartment to hang out for a bit before going to the windmill to get on the ferry. I got all my stuff together, cleaned up and locked up my room, strapped my pack on and walked to the windmill, the time was about 1am. The ferry was about an hour late arriving, so we finally got on at around 2, we went to our cabins and hunkered down, preparing ourselves for the 8 hour ride to Samos. We got some drinks at a small stand on the boat, and watched the water move below us and the lights in the distance. a big group of us stayed on the side of the ship, talking and having a good time, but it started getting a bit late, so people split up to go do various things on their own.

I went inside the boat and saw one of the professors sitting and talking with a student, so I went over to them. I sat with him and talked as other people came and went, sometimes it was just the two of us (me and the professor) and other times it was us, as well as 6 or 7 other people. Regardless, this is where I stayed for 2 or 3 hours, until about 4 or 5am. We sat and talked, argued, read poetry, talked about poetry, and just generally had a great time. I was having such a great time that I really didn’t want it to end.

It didn’t.

One of the group got up to go to the restroom, and, upon coming back, announced that the sun was rising, the time being around 6 or 7 in the morning. The hardiest 5 of us decided to go above deck, bring our drinks and our poetry, and watch the sun rise. So we watched the sun rise for roughly the next 3 hours.

We discussed the beauty of the sun rise, sang songs, some old Scottish folk songs and some newer stuff as well. The whole experience was so much fun for me, because I was with two great guys, and two great teachers, one of whom is a painter, and one is a poet. So the experience of the sunrise was being filtered through such diverse lenses and differing ways of experiencing beauty. I hope that makes sense, but, when it boils down to it, it would be almost impossible for you to truly understand how that evening was so magical.

As the sun was rising, the scenery kept getting more and more beautiful. the shadows, reflected sunlight, highlights on the mountains, and passing scenery of the islands all made a glorious enchanted landscape that was truly affecting. After watching this beauty for a few hours, it became overwhelming, and my companions and I were afraid of exposing ourselves to too much beauty, that we would simply melt right there on the deck. It was as though the world was lining up all of these amazing things for us to behold, bragging at us and saying “hey, look what I can do, look how great I am”… Man, that was a really weird way to describe that… sorry. But just as an example of this, I’ll tell you that at one point, we saw a waterspout, we literally saw a tornado over the water. It wasn’t necessarily harming anything, just sort of being there, being beautiful.

So after spending the whole night (and well into the day) hanging out, experiencing beauty, singing, walking around the deck, talking to each other, reading poetry, and above all, not sleeping… I was a bit tired. I went to my cabin at around 10 or 10:30, slept for a good half hour, and woke to the porters pounding on the doors for us to disembark at Samos.

We spent a few uneventful hours in Samos, which is a truly beautiful island, and then we boarded a second ferry to Turkey. We arrived a few hours later at the port town of Kusadasi, and took a bus into Selcuk to our hotel. Our hotel was just down a small hill from the ruins of St. John’s Basilica, and a 10 minute walk from the main part of town. Turkey was outstanding, everyone was so friendly, the food was amazing, and there was a lot of excellent stuff to see. The first night, we had a huge dinner together at a restaurant, pretty much everyone in town, all the shopkeepers and restaurant owners know the faculty here at HISA, so everyone is always really nice and hospitable to us. Our dinner was amazing, and the people at the restaurant were so nice and accommodating. For dinner we had Hummus, baba ghanoush, spinach dip, flatbread, spicy couscous, beef stir fry, chicken shish kebobs, lamb shish kebobs, spicy meatballs, and drinks all around. It was truly a great introduction to Turkey.

The days went by pretty quickly, we went to the ruins of Ephesus, which was beautiful, we went to a small wine-making town, and then we went to a town about 3 hours away to see these massive calcium formations and hot springs. It was amazing. After those excursions, we pretty much had the rest of the time to ourselves to explore and do whatever we wanted to do. Among these was to go to the Hamam.

The Hamam is the Turkish bath. If you ever have a chance to go to one (especially one in Turkey) - do it. You start by taking off your clothes (we wore swimsuits, although, it doesn’t really matter what you do, because you end up wearing a towel the whole time anyway) and putting on this ornate towel. You then walk into the room and an attendant pours water over you. The room is somewhat like a steam room, it’s hot and humid, but it’s not unbearable, and it’s not terribly steamy. Once you are wetted down, you go to this large marble table in the center of the room and lay down on it. It’s a big octagon or some multi-sided shape, and there’s room on it for a bunch of people. It is heated up as well. So you lay down on it and relax for awhile, I had no idea how long I was there but it was really nice. Eventually, the attendant calls you over and you lay down on another, smaller marble table and you are rubbed down with an exfoliating glove type thing, all over your skin. Then you go to a cold shower, rinse off and go back to the marble block to wait. Next, you are called over to a second small marble bench, where another attendant soaps you down, and gives you a massage. After the wash, you take another shower to rinse off, and then you leave the bath-room. Once outside the room, an attendant, speaking to you in Turkish, tells you to dry off, and change into a fresh towel. Once you have the towel on, he wraps a second towel around your shoulders, and a third around your head, then you sit and drink apple tea and wait. The final step is to get a full body oil massage from yet another man, who rubs all your muscles and cracks all your bones. It was amazing.

After that was over, another guy and I went to the Turkish barber. We both got shaves and I got a haircut. The haircut was great, even though we didn’t speak the same language, he did exactly what I asked him to do. The shave was also amazing, it was like being at a real barber in the 1950’s or something. He used a straight blade, and lathered up the soap with a brush. While we were waiting, he gave us each a cigarette. After the shave, he took a small cotton swab on a metal stalk, soaked it in alcohol, lit it on fire, and used it to burn the hair off around my ears, nose and face. Then he gave me a scalp and neck massage, and cracked my neck. Finally, he generously applied aftershave to my skin. The hamam and the shave and haircut combined left me feeling like a brand new man. It was incredible.

I feel like that’s the long and short of Turkey. There were other things, good food, souvenir shopping, an outdoor bazaar, but to try to describe them wouldn’t make sense. It was just a crazy experience of cultural isolation.

Oh right! I almost forgot.

One day, a friend and I were walking home from dinner when one of the shopkeepers stopped us. The shopkeepers in Turkey, the rug store owners, and restaurant owners always try to stop you to talk to you, get you to eat at their place or come to their shop, and sometimes you try to avoid them. But on this particular night, I didn’t really have anything to do, or anywhere to go. So I stopped. He offered us a smoke, so I took it, knowing that this would obligate me to talk to him. So I did.

He invited us over to sit in front of his shop, where he had cushions set up and a backgammon board. We talked about all manner of things, and he brought us out apple tea. It became more or less a nightly ritual, whenever I would walk by him, I would say hello, and at the end of the evening I would go to his shop to hang out and talk. His cousin was learning English, so we helped him practice it, and he taught us a little Turkish (most of which, regrettably I forgot). One night, he taught me backgammon. It is experiences like those that make a place feel more like home. I poked my head in to his shop on the last night to say goodbye, and all the guys were sitting around a table eating dinner. Far from being mad at me for interrupting, they asked me to join them (which, regrettably I couldn’t). It was really surreal, how people could be so randomly nice all the time. It made me feel at home, and it made me miss home.

Either way, for better or worse, we left Turkey. The ferry back to Samos was short and sweet and I slept pretty much the whole way. We arrived on Samos on a beautiful day, got to our hotel and hung out, all the usual stuff. The next day we were to go to the waterfalls, which was very exciting. However, the following day, I woke up to the sounds of a horrible hurricane like storm with heavy winds and pouring down rain. I walked in the rain to buy my ticket for the ferry back to Paros, and by the time I got back to the hotel, all my clothes were sopping, soaking wet and completely waterlogged. There were canals running through the streets sometimes 5 inches deep. We hunkered down in the hotel, too wet to go anywhere, and waiting to see if we could even get off the island. Well, we couldn’t. The ferry was cancelled due to the rain, wind, and generally awful weather, and we were forced to stay another night on Samos. The following day was a bit cloudy, but still nice (until I went out of course). Then the sky opened up and soaked yet another set of my clothes (which isn’t necessarily bad, when you consider that I’d been living in the same clothes for a week already in Turkey, unable to have a laundry done. This would have been a problem, but everyone in the group was essentially in the same boat, so stop looking at me like I’m some sort of grease ball.)

Well, needless to say, we did eventually get off Samos. I’m quite disappointed however, because although I got to wander around a bit in the town we were staying in, I didn’t get to go to the waterfalls, nor did I get to really enjoy the island. I could barely leave the hotel! It’s ok though, I’ll just let it ride, and remember that Samos is a place I defiantly need to go back to.

So we’re all back on Paros now, and its good to be home. I’ll apologize again for my 2 week hiatus, but as you can see, it was full of adventure, and writing would have been impossible. I hope I didn’t forget anything!

Have a great week, wherever you are, and I hope you’ve been enjoying accompanying me on my journey. More to come soon.

Saturday, Oct. 6, 2007

I might have said this before, but classes keep getting better and better.

On Monday, for philosophy class, we went to the professor's house up in the mountains. It was gorgeous, and a whole lot of fun. We talked about philosophy and how we lead our lives. One of the reasons I love that class is because it's so personalized, however, as I write this, I realize I've already mentioned my views on this in past entries. But briefly, I'll say that it's fun because we talk about how we lead our lives, rather than simply going over facts about dead philosophers. Definitely my kind of class.

Either way, we discussed all manner of things, danced and listened to excellent music.

Then I rode back to the apartment in the trunk of a car. This was also fun.

The rest of the week went pretty routinely, good discussions, printing pictures, watching excellent movies. There's another school here on the island and we're finally getting to meet them. We haven't really done so yet, so I can't report on that. ...Sorry.

Today we went to Naxos, which was awesome. It was a short day trip, but I liked it a lot, and the professor said that we would be going back there later in the semester. We took the blue star ferry down as usual and then took a short walk to a museum of archeological stuff. I took a ton of photographs on the way. After the museum we stopped in an antique store, which was actually an ancient house complete with old stone columns. It was a trip and a half - just gorgeous!

After we finished there we walked back to where we started and took a bus up into the hills, about a half hour away from the shore. We walked around the old town, taking more photos of course, and found a place to eat. The town was beautiful and had this haunting quality, because most of the people were gone and the shops were closed due to the offseason. Everything looked very old, more so than other places we've been to here.

The restaurant we ate at was very good and very reasonably priced too, which was a pleasant surprise. Once we were done with our meal, we took the bus back down to the shore, and hiked up a small hill to see the ruins of the temple of Apollo. A few more photographs later, and it was time to go. All in all, it was an extremely enjoyable day!

Well, I'm looking forward to classes this week, and then onto Turkey for a week or so. I guess I won't be able to write for a little while, but I'll try to squeeze an entry in before I leave Greece.

Either way, have a great day wherever in the world you are!

I know I will...

As always, faithfully reporting,
-Adam

Sunday, Sept. 30, 2007

We went to Santorini this weekend.

When the boat arrives at Santorini, and you’re standing in the cargo bay waiting to disembark, all you can see is this gigantic rock wall stretching upward from the port. We had to take a bus all the way up the massive cliff to get to the city. It was really a fascinating island. All the streets in the town where we stayed were small corridors, spider-webbing into each other and moving up and down steep hills paved with stones. For the most part the first day, we stayed in, went swimming or exploring.

The second day, we had a choice of what to do: we could go on a boat to the active volcano and take a hike around the rocks or we could walk from one town to the other, older town on the other side of the mountain. I wanted to take pictures, and though the volcano sounded fun, but as far as photographic opportunities, I thought I would have more options if I went on the walk across the island.

All told, the walk was about 7 miles, give or take a mile, and took us about 2.5-3 hours. It was excellent, and I really felt like I got to see the whole island. Once on the other side of the island, we stopped to walk around, and get some food. The town we were in, Oia, was absolutely gorgeous, and we were able to watch the sun set from our restaurant. Oia is pretty much built onto the side of the island cliff and looks more Greek than most everything else I’ve seen thus far.

We also got to do other fun things, such as taking cable cars (more like suspended gondolas) down the cliff face, and riding donkeys back up.

I guess that seems about it for Santorini. It was really fun to see, but it made me miss Paros too, which is starting to feel more and more like home. It’s good to be back!
Classes are moving along very well, and I’m getting into the rhythm of photography again, developing my rolls and printing my pictures - I love it. Creative writing class is excellent as well. In our last class, we all divided up into pairs and wrote poems which we will discuss next class.

That pretty much wraps it up - just another week in paradise.

Peace,
-Adam

Saturday, Sept. 22, 2007

I suppose the key event to report would be the trip to Delos and Myconos. There have been high winds recently, so the trip was postponed until this Thursday, with classes being moved to Saturday (today). Everyone, or, almost everyone had been out quite late the night before carousing and carrying on, and, as such, were all quite tired on the morning of the trip, myself included.

We caught the bus to Naousa at 8:45 or so, which took us through the beautiful countryside. Then we met some ducks. They were nice.

The ferry boat left at about 9:30 and we arrived at Delos an hour later.

Delos, for those unfamiliar, is a largely uninhabited island where a very large city once stood. We spent the next 3 or 4 hours wandering the ruins and climbing a mountain, which, after an hour of sleep, no food, and half a bottle of water, proved much more difficult than I had originally planned.

After not passing out, and not getting sunstroke, I reached the summit and it was glorious.

The ruins as a whole were extremely impressive. The city is just huge, and when you climb the mountain you can see from one end of the island to the other.

We then left Delos and moved on to Mykonos, which is a largely inhabited island where a very large city stands.

It is gorgeous there, and I wish I could have spent more time, but we only had a few hours. We went through little Venice, though, I'm not quite sure why it's called that. It looks somewhat Venetian and its right by the water, but everything here strikes me as overwhelmingly Greek that I couldn't quite justify the name. A friend and I found a nice little pizza place that wasn't too pricey and had a nice meal. We spent the rest of the day on the beach and then headed back to the boat.

I slept the whole way back though the boat itself was swelteringly hot.

Classes are picking up now, and I seem to be getting sick. I suppose I could offer some brilliant insights about the trip or the ruins, but I'm at a loss. I'm not much of a wordsmith and my pictures have proven to be a poor substitute for experience. I'm going to try to get some sleep tonight so I can live to see another day of enjoying this island.

As always, your humble guide
-Adam

Sunday, Sept. 16, 2007

It hasn’t quite been a week since last I wrote, but here goes anyway.

Classes have been cool… not really much to say about classes yet except that overall I’m pretty excited about them. I mean… I’m definitely not really looking forward to class tomorrow, but that’s only because of the fact that this place is so awesome. It’s more like, once I get to class, I’ll be excited because tomorrow is my philosophy class. Going to class is never pleasant, but once I’m there I’ll enjoy myself. Wow, that was convoluted.

Anyway, what I’m excited about is the fact that the impression that I got was that this philosophy class is going to be very personal and self-oriented and that’s why I like philosophy. I took a philosophy survey course once and it was alright except that you have to learn about certain philosophies that aren’t particularly important to you. While this is valuable, I find that personally, it’s more valuable to look at the whole thing self-reflexively, and if the teachings of a certain philosopher would help me, then I’ll study them further. I guess that’s the opposite of convention huh.

I went to a movie tonight. Rush hour III… awful, just God-awful, but it was so much fun to go to a movie here in Paros. The theater was open air, and they were playing 1950’s surf music before the show. Also, they sell beer at the theater, and it’s also nice to be in a movie theater and not be surrounded constantly with advertisements.

Every part of this island seems to be just flat out amazing. I went down to this church built into the side of a cliff, it was just gorgeous. Also, we walked halfway across the island (it seemed) to get to this beach restaurant and we pretty much spent the whole day there just hanging out, talking and chillin’ on the beach.

I was supposed to go with the group this morning on a 4-5 hour hike across the island somewhere (because the trip to Delos got cancelled on account of the wind) but I couldn’t go. Some people came to my room as I was going to sleep and we just talked and hung out until about 9 in the morning, that coupled with the fact that I hadn’t eaten but one meal that day pretty much made my decision not to go. I kind of wish I would have gone because it sounded amazing, but I got some good sleep and had a crazy fun night just talking with people, which is one of my favorite pastimes anyway. Seriously though, I would have been dead if I had gone. I’m not terribly worried about it, though, because there’s plenty of time and plenty of experiences to have, and I had a fun and relaxing day nevertheless.

What else, what else…

I don’t know, just the fact that this place is cool for so many reasons.
1: all the cabs are Mercedes’.
2: I went to a bar one night, and as we were walking home, we went to another bar at about 3:30 in the morning, bought some water, and the guy at the bar gave us a round of shots for free… that’s so weird!

Speaking of cabs, I took a cab ride, and on the way, the driver pulled over to talk to some people. When we got back to where we were going, my friend asked him how much for the ride, and he replied, “Oh I don’t know, 4 euro, 5 euro, whatever.” The best part is that when my friend handed him a 5 euro note, the guy GAVE HIM CHANGE. Come on now, just take a moment to think about that.

Bizarre.

Well, until next time, much love,
-Adam

Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2007

Paros Island... I was speculating when I arrived here that the people who named this island must not have been very good spellers because they misspelled "paradise."

That about sums it up I guess.

I arrived in Athens on Saturday and took the train to the Acropolis stop. When I got off, to my pleasant surprise, the hostel was extremely easy to find, and exactly where everyone said it would be. The staff was extremely helpful when I was checking in, and never stopped smiling. "Take off your pack, you're home" she said, this was after her eyes pretty much lit up when I mentioned I was on the HISA trip. That of course would not be the last time I got that reaction from people after they found out what program I was on.

The hostel was amazing, I'd never stayed in a hostel before, and I get the feeling that Backpackers is probably the cleanest, best run hostel on the face of the earth. The rooftop bar is excellent as well.

It didn't take me long to meet the other people on the program who, again to my extremely pleasant surprise, are all ultra-chill. Every single person is so friendly and cool and laid back and they all put up with my outlandish sense of humor. Within an hour of being in the hostel, I met someone, one of the 3 or 4 other guys on the trip and we went out to lunch. We both come from completely different worlds, but we manage to get along famously. As a matter of fact, we're now neighbors on the island.

In short, in the two days I stayed in the hostel, I got to meet people that it feels like I've known for forever, and have crazy fun times wandering the streets of Athens. The minutia of cultural differences fascinates me to no end, but I wont ramble on about all that here as it would be poor substitute for seeing it for ones self.

After a short while, we awoke at 5:30 in the morning to catch cabs to the port for our ferry ride to Paros. We slept and joked on the boat and took lots of pictures of the stunningly azure water.

We also named an island "Steve."

We got to Paros.

It is exactly everything that everyone (school/program staff, former students, anyone) says about it and more. Sounds strange to say, but in the words of LeVar Burton: "Don't take my word for it."

Living here in Paros is like living inside a painting or a postcard of some kind. Everyone is so unbelievably nice to everyone else that it kind of makes one wonder what the hell went wrong with the rest of the world.

Classes started today, but I only have class Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, so I was free all day (today being Wednesday) to go grocery shopping, visit a bakery, and buy more cigarettes, walking through town a total of 4 times and seeing everyone that I've known from the trip, and all the locals that I recognize after only 2 days.

A man on the street tried to sell me (or give me, I wasn't sure) a pamphlet, and after telling him in Greek that I don't speak Greek, we joked for a minute and had a very friendly exchange. It was unreal. Every story I hear from every other participant follows much the same formula. A friend on the program had a similar experience just walking to class this morning, but his was far more hilarious than mine. (I'm going to leave you wondering on that one, since it's not really my story to tell).

I'll leave you all now with this thought for the day:
I am horribly sunburned.

Much love,
-Adam