reasons I am contemplating leaving Athens
Friday, June 8, 2007 at 02:33AM 1. They think putting 17 girls in one apartment is okay.
2. Those same 17 girls are supposed to share 2 showers, one kitchen, one table, and one couch.
3. They can't figure out that the reason the lady downstairs is upset is because 17 people walk around over her head all the time. I'd be a tad bit angry myself.
4. We had to store our luggage in some strange person's apartment, which we then couldn't access when we got back to Athens at 5:00 this morning.
5. When we got back to 'our' apartment at 5:00 this morning, there were people in our beds.
6. Those people were supposed to leave yesterday.
7. Those people are still here, as I am writing this, and only one of them is awake.
8. The new Odyssey students are arriving this morning, except there are people in their beds too.
9. And the cleaning lady won't have time to clean the rooms and replace all the dirty sheets, towels, etc, because those aforementioned people are STILL HERE!
10. I am supposed to be helping with the picking up of people at the airport, but no one told me what time to be there or where to be.
11. No one answers their phone, no matter who I call, what time of day, or how many times.
12. The only person I could get on the phone yelled at me because I called at 9am, which, if you are in an office at 9am, I would assume it would be perfectly acceptable to recieve phone calls. Then, after yelling about the 9am business, they were of absolutely no help.
13. There is apparently an orientation meeting at 3pm today, that I am probably supposed to help out with, that no one felt the need to tell me about.
14. My 'internship' so far has consisted of sitting in the office for mindless hours-on-end, on the off chance that someone somewhere needs some help, and then following Owen around on the 5 hour walking tour last Saturday.
15. Cara is leaving tomorrow. She is very homesick but also incredibly frustrated/angry with the Odyssey Program and UINDY Athens in general. So she is leaving.
16. I got maybe 3 hours of sleep last night because the stupid man on the ferry wouldn't let us sleep where we slept last time, so we had to stay in the noisy room with all the loud/annoying French tourists.
17. I can't leave Athens because I need the stupid credits for graduation and also cannot afford to give my loan money back to the school.
18. I am starving, but getting food requires getting dressed and then walking somewhere. And I have no energy left.
19. I still don't have a bed to sleep in, which makes napping rather difficult, seeing as how there are three of us and one very small wooden sofa.
So, as you can see, I am not in a very good mood. I had hoped Santorini would calm me down, and that things would have improved by the time we got back, but they have in fact gotten worse and I am now even more upset. Santorini pics/tales will come later, when I am hopefully feeling a little better. For now, let me just say, they both involve a movie set and some celebrity stalking.
~RLM
P.S. Thanks for all the comments, they made this morning just a little bit brighter.
rachellake
Dear concerned readers:
Thanks so much for all your care and concern! It really does help to hear from you all.
Thankfully, my complaints to the main campus made it to someone on this end who managed to do something, so now we only have 12 people in the apartment instead of 17, which doesn't seem like that big a difference, but has actually been a big help.
Funnily enough, in my complaining to the main campus, some of the higher-ups here have gotten upset with me because I'm the "girl who was saying bad things." But honestly, I've invested so much time and money into this program that they should be glad I didn't just up and leave and start giving them bad press.
So for now things seem to be looking up, I may be singing a different tune this time next week when I have homework to do and no desk to sit at, or food to cook with no kitchen space or dishes to do so, but for now I'm going to try and stay optimisitic.
At least I really like almost all the girls in the apartment, and if nothing else, we will have a good time suffering through it.
I promise I'll post about Santorini later today, there is much to tell. Pictures are here and stories will follow...and yes it does involve me, Cara, and Vanessa being in a movie.
~RLM
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Reader Comments (4)
Oh.my.goodness.
Okay, I think it is clear that you need to start coordinating this!!!!!!!
I am beyond speechless that everything is so unorganized. I mean, first people have difficulty getting their passports to GET to Athens and now they appear to all be there and there aren't enough beds?!?!?!?
I'm looking forward to hearing about your trip to Santorini and seeing the photographs.
I'm sorry that Cara is leaving....I hope that things smooth out for you all. Please keep us posted!
Hugs
Melody
Oh honey! That's just Europe for you! You should know that by now! ;)
Trust me...it will all get worked out when they feel like working it out.
*squeal* Pictures! *squeal*
I love the black and white photo of the girl's face on the beach towel, the two dogs curled up, the one of the boats in the water, and the one of the city with the horse (?) in the upper left.
I hope you have plenty of memory cards with you LOL!
Glad things are improving. Are the UINDY employees in Greece Greek or American? Are they not use to complainers? It's not too much to ask when you are going to have a bed to sleep in, to make sure that someone didn't go on an island jaunt and forget to take care of...oh, I don't know....twenty students' living arrangements?!?!
Looking forward to hearing about your fifteen minutes of fame..... :-)
Seriously...could the water and the sky be any bluer?
Not fair. ::insert pouty face::