the slow fade to the ocean's arms

This has been an incredibly exhausting week. Yesterday was really good though. We had Lit class at 1 and met the third member of our class, we discussed the history of Greece some more and then the prof. let us leave a few minutes early. Laura and I decided to go shopping and looked up the sandal man's address and headed over to Ermou street for the afternoon. The Melissinos shop is about a 10 minute walk from the apartment and it was really easy to find, but it's on a little side street kind of hidden away from foot traffic. There were at least a thousand pairs of shoes hanging on the walls of the shop and tons of leather straps and strings; it was amazing. Laura got some lace up sandals called the Laconian and I got a pair of flip flop styled sandals called the Minoan and a pair of lace up sandals called the Mycenean which had to be customed made that afternoon and picked up later that evening. After we bought our sandals we headed back down Ermou street to find Laura an outfit to wear to the concert that night. We spent about 45 minutes in Zara trying on various things and I ended up buying a beach cover up since I didn't pack one, while she got nothing. She found a tank top at another store we went in and then we stopped at the Hondas Center, a 5 level multi purpose store that has high end cosmetics and perfume on one level, regular hair and bath products on another, and music/movies on another; we picked up some supplies that we had forgotten to pack and then walked back to the Melissinos shop to pick up my Mycenean's. We had to wait about half an hour while he finished working on them, but it was neat because we got to watch him make my shoes! We ate dinner at Everest, a fast sandwich shop and then walked back to the apartment to get ready for the concert. I wore my big hot pink MaxMara circle skirt, a black sequined t-shirt and black heels, and everyone else dressed up too even though there wasn't really a dress code. We walked over to the theatre at 7 and spent about 40 minutes waiting in line to enter, thankfully we had gotten there early and got good seats in the center. The theater was amazing, it was built in 161 AD by Roman consul Herodes Atticus and was restored in the 50s for use as a concert hall; the concert last night was part of the 50th anniversary celibration. Domingo was accompanied by the Thessolonika Orchestra and a female opera star whose name we didn't get because they were annoucing everything in Greek and it wasn't in the program. The whole performance was incredible, definately the opportunity of a lifetime. Most of the songs they performed were from Spanish operas but in the middle of the set they performed three songs in English, Domingo performed Some Enchanted Evening by himself. My favorite part was when the woman sang "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady-it is one of my all time favorite songs. They performed the famous duet from West Side Story and then went back to traditional opera. Towards the end of the concert, when Placido was doing a solo performance, he invited one of his friends, a young tenor who was in the audience, to join him onstage and sing a duet. It was really cool because the guy was really young-in his twenties-but he had an incredible voice. Unfortunately he didn't perform my favorite song of his, Nessun Dorma, but it was still worth hearing him. After the concert we walked up to Syntagma Square and had a midnight snack at McDonalds-I had a cheeseburger happy meal-their food actually tastes better here, I can't stand it in America but the french fries here are incredibly good. I finally got to bed about 2am and slept until 11 this morning. Today we didn't have English class, we had to visit a museum instead. We waited for Sarah to get out of her psychology class and then walked up past the Parliament building in Syntagma on the Vassilisis Sofias trying to find the Museum of Cycladic Art. We didn't have very good directions as to where the museum was located and ended up walking right past it and about 10 minutes out of the way. It was about 90 degrees today so the walking uphill was exhauting. By the time we found the museum I was ready for a siesta. It was a really interesting museum to tour; their collection covers the art of the Cyclades and dates from the 3rd century BC. I loved looking at all of the ceramics and vases and the Cycladic figurines were incredible; I took tons of pictures-they'll be on webshots shortly. We only spent about an hour and a half walking around-not nearly enough time to fully see everything, so I will probably end up going back another day to get a really good perception. We walked down to the Benaki Museum after we finished at the Cycladic and spent another hour and a half touring that collection which dates from the Neolithic era to the 20th Century. I didn't like it as well as the Cycladic, their collection seemed somewhat randomly pieced together and many pieces were on loan to other museums so they had photo-copies displayed instead. My Lit professor here discovered one of the pieces displayed in the older collection-an axe head, so we searched that piece out when we arrived. They had several gold wreaths of leaves on display that were really impressive, I want to find a store that sells them because they are gorgeous-I know I can't get a real one, but a fake would be cool. Their collection of costumes from the 19th century was incredible, it was really interesting to look through-the detail and the levels of preservation are amazing. There were several pieces I wanted pictures of but they don't allow cameras-which may be part of the reason I disliked that museum to be honest. Since we were incredibly exhausted from walking and disappointed in the collection, we walked through each floor and then decided to head back towards the apartment. Laura wanted to stop back at Ermou and pick up the pair of shoes she saw yesterday so Sarah and I walked down to the cheap scarf shop I found yesterday. Everything in the store was 5E and I found a gorgeous sunset orange wrap with fringe on the ends and threads of gold shot through it. Sarah hadn't been down Ermou before so we walked through the Hondas Center and I picked up some mousse for my hair since it has become somewhat unruly. There was a really neat store across the street that we went in and found beach bags-yet another thing I didn't pack with me, so we now have the same bag in different colors. We got back about an hour ago and I am still completely worn out, I'm going to have my leftover sandwich for dinner and then try and work on homework. I have an eight page research paper on the Olympics through ancient Greek literature due on Tuesday, a one page reaction to the Benaki Museum due Tuesday, and a five page reaction to the Cycladic, Benaki, and National Archeological Museums due on Thursday, so I will have plenty to keep me busy tonight and this weekend. I'll write more later, the Domingo pictures are up on webshots so check them out! ~Rachel