It's All Greek to Me

The heart of man plans his way, 

but the Lord establishes his steps. 

Proverbs 16:9

Hello from Athens! Now it is time for a REAL update. From the beginning.

After a day or so of attempted jetlag recovery time (we are 8 hours ahead of SoDak), Anna and I finally  ventured out of our dorm and headed toward the nearest market with a group of our fellow study abroad students. Let's talk about about culture shock a little bit. This is something I have heard about my whole life but I've never really understood it. I still don't. However, when I walked into the grocery store and realized that close to nothing is labeled in English (let alone, using the latin alphabet), it began to hit me. I'm not in America anymore.

Our first market adventure!

I mean, duh, but still--Athens is a city and for the most part, a city is like most cities. And it's not like I haven't been in cities in foreign countries before. (I realized the other day that Greece is the 14th country I have traveled to!) But this is the first country that I've had to learn to really live in. The first time I've had to buy groceries abroad. Anna and I ended up being so overwhelmed, we only came home with instant coffee (that we thought was regular), tea, Nutella, and sweetened condensed milk (that we thought was coffee creamer--though that's apparently what they actually use here!). Thankfully, the school also provided us with some basic groceries in our fridge before we got here. Which was real nice. Groceries are a process.

But, it's starting to settle in a little more. We completed orientation yesterday and it was super weird to realize: Whoa. This is an actual school. People actually go here. There is a campus and there are teachers and advisors and students and.... everything! The people who have been emailing me all summer actually exist! What?! Classes actually start Monday!

After orientation, I joined a couple girls on a hike up a nearby mountainyhillthing. It was fantastic! From almost to the top, you could see ALL of Athens--literally. On our way back down, we ran into a professor from our university who let us look through his binoculars to see PARTHENON! It was again like: Whoa. We aren't in just any foreign country with a different alphabet. We ARE in Greece. We are in GREECE!

The little babiest hill in between the two bigger hills is the ACROPOLIS! 

Today, we toured our neighborhood and downtown Athens. It was an excellent introduction to the area to kinda help us get a little more solid idea of where in the world we are. Everything is made of marble. The buildings, many sidewalks, everything. It's the building material here--like cement or wood. In the next couple weeks for sure, I'll start to feel a lot more comfortable in the our area. There are many restaurants and shops nearby--even a Pizza Hut within walking distance! It will be a very fun neighborhood to experience one I've gotten the swing of things.

There is talk of going to the beach tomorrow. And in the morning, Anna and I are going to try and actually grocery shop. We've already compiled a grocery list and translated it to Greek. Wish us luck! Or, as they say in Greece, wish us success! That is better then luck.





ADDITION: If you want to see fun factoids and pictures from our walking tour of Athens, check out my new friend Carissa's blog. She's a smarty-pants and way better at remembering details of things then I am!