Catch-Up Day

Christina Folkes

March 5, 2012

Catch-Up Day

            Today was a pretty easy-going day. There wasn’t much planned for the day. Now that our class with Ioanna is completed, we have much more time to do whatever we please. To begin our day, all we had on our plates was to go to Greek class and meet with Rich to go over some necessary topics.

We all finally woke up and struggled to get out of bed after a long weekend, we walked speedily to H.A.U. to make it to class on time. We passed by several little café’s on the side of the road that were so tempting to stop at but we had quite a late start this morning. Normally we have a few extra minutes in the morning to stop at the café across the street from school but this morning we could only glance over and fantasize about the pastries and drinks throughout our three hour Greek class.

Class was just like any other days work…we were all pretty disappointed since the teacher overloaded us with extra work out of nowhere. Tomorrow we will have our final for this class but now we have even more work to remember! I must say, the teaching strategies are quite different than the ones in America. We are so used to being given plenty of time and extra help in order to succeed in our classes, but here they stress that you must spend hours at home studying on your own time. Fortunately, we have gotten pretty used to this technique (not saying that we necessarily like it…).

After we learned about different verb endings, more vocabulary, and even more dialogues to memorize, it was finally time to go back to the apartment. We lazily walked down the three blocks to get back. It seems as though we take a different route home every time we walk back…it just depends on who is leading the pack that day. Since one of the main focuses for the past few hours was food and drink, we had to stop and get whatever we wanted. These little expenses throughout the day really add up though. I definitely have to work on that so I have plenty to spend on our upcoming trips! I enjoyed a little slice of pizza with ham and peppers on top, along with a freddo cappuccino. Some other things people indulged on were cappuccino latte’s, croissants, and Nescafe’s. I could go for any of these things at any point of the day!

Once we finally arrived at our apartment doors, our phones started vibrating from an email informing us that we would be meeting for class in a half hour. A little switch up of plans, but nothing to worry about. We had enough time to relax for a few minutes and get goin’. Since we had only been to this classroom once before, it was a bit confusing finding the way back to the building that it was in. But luckily enough, Rich, Lily and his other daughter Jeanie were waiting outside of the building.

We walked up the three flights of stairs and into the classroom. As we all sat in the creaky chairs, we discussed our upcoming trips and a paper due at the end of the week. It was a good opportunity to talk about anything we had on our minds and any questions we had. Through the ruckus of everyone talking over eachother, I continued to write down as many notes as possible. The rest of the week will definitely be a busy one. Without being as organized as I can be, it would be impossible to remember everything we have planned! After about an hour of going over everything, we were free to go.

Hayley and I needed to stop by a post office that we found out was right about the block. The only problem was that when we went to find it, it was closed and didn’t give any store hours. Guess we’ll have to go back another time! As we walked through the hustle and bustle of the city sidewalks, we discovered a different part of Athens that we weren’t very familiar with. There were cute shops that we figured one day we would stop by with the rest of the group. It wasn’t very difficult to find our way back to the apartment because the school is always a good marker. It seems as though whenever we are lost, the school always pops up out of nowhere making it much easier to find our way home!

For the rest of the day, we had time to relax and do whatever we needed to get done. It was a nice day to hangout on the porch outside of the boys’ apartment. After doing a few p90x and Insanity workouts up on the porch, we had the opportunity to catch up on any work that needed to be done. This time also gave us the chance to catch up on all of our Greek work since we do have a final in that class tomorrow!

Now time to get back to studying!!!