Rhinestone

Today has been a somewhat lazy day. We were supposed to get up and go to an island with the other group but our alarm didn't go off and they didn't seem to think they should wake us up even though they knew we were planning on coming. Sara and I woke up right as they were walking out the door and were told that they were already running late so they weren't going to wait on us. We went back to bed and slept until noon when we got up and decided to take the metro to Dafni to the grocery store to buy food for this week. We like the metro much better than the Tram which should be considered a form of cruel and unusual punishment. We slept in yesterday and took the Tram to the beach with the other group of students; it took about an hour to get there, most of the time was spent standing but rather uneventful. The beach was really fun, we got off at a less crowded stop and spread out on the only area we could find that wasn't full of huge rocks. The water was amazing, you could swim out really far and there were no rolling waves like on the Atlantic coast. We would swim for about 20 minutes and then lay out for another half hour and repeated that cycle for about 3 hours. We left around 5:45 and took the most torturous ride public transportation has ever seen. The tram was really crowded so all twenty of us ended up standing, and more and more people kept getting on at every stop. A group of high school aged guys got on and proceeded to harrass three of the girls from our group for the remaining 30 minute ride in several different languages and gestures. Their minimal knowledge of english seemed to include every crude phrase and curse word ever invented and they seemed quite proud of that fact; some of the stuff they said was so absurd it was almost funny-it would have been if it weren't directed at actual people. When we finally got into the city the girls and their boyfriends were quite angry and it was pretty much decided that the Tram will not be our favored mode of transportation while we are here. We got home about 7:15 and spent about two hours getting cleaned up and eating dinner before we headed over to the other girls's apartment for the "party" they had planned. The party ended up being about 15 of us sitting in their very cramped and hot living room watching Forest Gump on dvd. We all left early because the island trip was scheduled to leave at 6:45 this morning, but all in all it was a fun evening.
After we went to the store this morning, Sara and I came back and ate a quick lunch-I had part of a Dairy Milk bar and some Ruffles potato chips and a cup of juice. I finally finished The Jane Austen Book Club and Sara napped; we got up around 4 and walked into Monastiraki to the Ceramics store we found last week so that Sara could buy two more vases for her relatives. I found even more stuff I want to buy and have decided to start eating at home all the time to save money for souveniers. Cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and pasta for dinner. I got a weeks worth of groceries for about 25E; it's so much cheaper than eating out and its easier than having to go out everytime you're hungry. We stayed out for about an hour and ended up walking by the Agora on the way back. I stopped in Starbucks and bought another Mango Citrus frappucino-my only splurge for the weekend. We found the coolest mugs on display in the window, they are part of the Starbucks City Mugs collection and have either Athens or Greece painted on them along with grecian figures. I know I'm definately going to buy at least one if not both of them before I leave and Sara bought the espresso sized versions for her sister because she's a Starbucks addict. We made dinner about an hour ago; we had beef hardshell tacos w/parmesan cheese-an unlikely flavor combination that was really good-green beans, and chocolate chip cookie bars that I made from a Betty Crocker mix we found at the store today. I think next week I'm going to try the blueberry muffins because I've been craving them for two days. We found two different channels showing American tv shows and movies and watched Seinfeld and the Nanny while we cooked. Unfortunately the selection of movies is horrible-they're showing Rhinestone starring Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton-so we are watching a history channel special on Newton's theology. It is quite possibly the weirdest thing I have ever seen because they have this weird actor portraying Newton depicting scenes from his life while other costumed actors narrate the information. I've decided to spend the rest of the night working on my research paper because it is due on Tuesday and we have plans for the next two days. We were going to spend tomorrow at the National Archeological Museum for our Odyssey class and then go to the paid beach on Monday because we're out of class for a Greek holiday, but we found out it is supposed to storm on Monday and now we have to rearrange our plans. Our flatmates still aren't back from their island trip-they've been gone for over 13 hours-so we'll probably wait to discuss the situation with them before finalizing our plans. I'll write more later. ~Rachel