um they played kid cudi in athens...

hey!! today was absolutely awesome. i forgot about my loneliness and lived!!! i woke up this morning and left athens gate for the awful dorian inn hotel. its so bad youd died. there are drug dealers and prostitutes lining the streets (liora its okay im fine hahahahaha). i slept for a while and then went to the athens archeological museum. it was fucking sweet. (sorry for the fword parents ill try to sensor myself) but seriously. i forgot how much fun i can have on my own. i went there and for 3 hours just walked around happy and smiling and laughing. its amazing the company that you can keep with yourself. i just laughed and giggled and joked. all to myself. it was very nice. to feel at home in my own brain, even if the space was foreign.
i came home and hung out with my roommate for a little and then met up with my contiki group. apparently we are retarded (jenny i am sorry) for not knowing contiki. EVERYONE IN EVERY OTHER COUNTRY KNOWS CONTIKI. we met up and went to plaka for a GREAT dinner. it was more food then i could have ever imagined. (fried zucchini was the BEST) and everything was just great. i made friends and had conversations. i realized today that i hadnt had a conversation with a real person, face to face in three days. it was insane. anyway dinner was spectacular. my roommate was meeting up wtih a few girls from her last tour and they completely included me even though i was way younger (they are 29) and they didnt know me. it was so nice. irene put her arm around me and said, "Emma, don't worry, ill look out for you." I cant explain what the felt like. I got to know a bunch of Canadians well too. They are 21 and extremely cool. 2 girls and 1 guy.
I went out with the older girls tonight to a club in Athens. They were the nicest ever. kept buying me drinks, telling me, "Emma you're a student!! you cant pay for your own drinks!!". It felt really nice.
It was good to forget about the loneliness tonight. I am leaving at 1pm tomorrow for the cruise. i dont know if i can update then. please email. I am getting anxious and resentful. I dont mean to, Im sorry. I love you.
Em

"at least i wouldnt leave you a highschool hockey game"

i know this is suppose to be about my journey and whatnot but lets be honest. i cant really stick to the day to day stuff very well. im bored and cannot sleep for the life of me. i just watched half a season of the office. the second season when jim is absolutely in love with pam. it might be the most adorable thing ive ever seen in my entire life. it breaks my heart

whats with today, today?

so ive been gone for three days and ive yet to receive any comments or emails. i hope this isnt what the rest of the trip is going to look like kids..
Last night I watched Once and spent about 5 hours laying in the dark trying to sleep. It was lonely and scary kinda. Nobody in the world here but myself. Since my hours awake made the morning came quickly and I had nobody to tell me to stop pressing snooze on my alarm, I ended up turning it off and sleeping in pretty late. Ive got four months though, I think I can handle sleeping in one or two days. When I finally got outside it was blistering hot. But when I crossed to the shady side of the street it wasnt that bad. I spent the whole early afternoon running from one side of the street to the other, hoping to get out of the sun. I still managed to get a watch tan line though.
Later in the day I took this cool city sightseeing tour that goes around on a red double-decker bus. My family took the tour by the same company in York so I knew it would be helpful. The pass you get is good for the whole day and you are able to get on and off sporadically. Its kinda like the local transportation for tourists. I took it for a while until I got to the old Olympian stadium used in the first modern Olympics in 1896. I knew my housing and Arcadia's school was somewhere south of there so I decided to explore a little.
Once on the south side of the stadium things really quieted up a bit. I can imagine that being nice (considering this morning around 7 I was woken up by a bunch of workers down the street from my window.) There are a lot of hills in that neighborhood (imagine san fran but a little less intense) so im sure my dad will think its a great way to get lots of exercise!!(and i thought the walk to central classrooms was bad..) We got our housing in an email today. I have 4 roommates and 2 half facebook, the other two..well i dont know about them. fingers crossed they are cool and everything. from talking to june, jane and leora i really feel like who you live with makes a BIG difference on your experience.
Im gonna go upstairs to eat. I walked home this evening from a part of town kinda far from where Im staying and I have to admit my anxiety caught up with me and I got a little freaked out. I did make it all the way home (on foot) fine. There were a few instances though when I almost hopped in a cab. Greek men find it cool to come up to you on the street, tell you that youre pretty and then follow you for 20 minutes asking for your number until you give them a fake one to ward them off. (thankgod for fake numbers)
im a little lonely tonight. miss and love

Arrival in Athens

I clearly probs wont be writing this much once things really start up, but that isn’t a god reason not to write..right now. When I left Cleveland I was exhausted and not really ready to start thinking about what I was getting myself into. I got to my gate and instantly fell asleep, woke up when it was my turn to board the plane, and once in my seat passed out immediately. I really don’t have many unique skills but I do have a few ones that I find pretty valuable; one being my ability to work TVs, and my relevant one, my ability to sleep on planes. Honestly I can sit down and just PASS OUT. So anyway that was nice.
I got to Newark and had FOREVERRR to wait for my flight to Athens. I was dragging my backpack, that I swear is heavier then my suitcases (okay exaggeration but shit man, its heavy) and my purse, that was so filled that I could barely pull the handles closed. My Newark adventures were kinda fun. I bought a nail polish and painted my nails. They actually don’t look that bad! And I wondered around to about every electronic store in the terminal (there were about 5) comparing headphones and then finding the best priced ones.
I attempted to buy a book, but due to the fact that I felt like Atlas (you know..that Greek guy who had to carry the world on his shoulders? I’m trying to channel my Greek knowledge ha) I didn’t buy one. Good thing, because the minute I got on the plane I realized…nobody was on it? The plane was about 1/4th full. A huge 747! Yet I only saw like 50 people on it? At least in my section. That made it possible for EVERYONE to spread out. A lot of people took the three middle seats, put the armrests up, and lied down to sleep, but I kept my window seat and the one next to me because in my opinion window seats are airplane heaven.
My cab ride into Athens was really fun. I had an Australian cab driver who was interested in talking my ear off about Contiki tours (apparently EVERYONE in Australia does them), the fires, and placed to tell June to go in Sydney. I noticed on the ride in that we were being waved through every intersection, even through red lights. Confused I asked my cab driver what was up and he told me to turn around. Behind my cab was a caravan of 4 Black Audis with tinted windows surrounded by secret service looking guys on motorcycles. He explained to me that right after we got on the highway, the Prime Minister left his home near the airport and since my hotel is across the street from Parliament, he took the same route as me. My driver told me it normally takes about 35 minutes to get into Athens from the airport, but it only took us 15! I felt very VIP, Athens really rolled out the red carpet for me!
After checking into my hotel I channeled my mother and told myself I needed to get out and not go to sleep (I was 4 am my body’s time). Armed with only a small map from the reception desk I started walking.
I was nervous before. How do you pick to stay four months in a city you’ve never been to? What if you don’t like it? What if it isn’t for you? I was right though. It is really amazing here. So old and modern, tropical and yet cultured. I didn’t do anything interesting really. My mind was very fuzzy so I just walked and walked and walked and walked. It was great to feel free. Walk into the stores I wanted to see, walk out when I wanted to leave. I’m very comfortable wandering by myself.
For siesta I am back in my room with the window open reading guide book after guide book to plan my day tomorrow. I’m looking into walking tours and bus tours. I don’t want to do too much these first few days. I am gonna be living here for 4 months..I think I can take it slow.
Tonight who knows! Going out for a late dinner, possibly find a bar to drink some ouzo, ill have fun.
Love and miss to all!

Countdown: 2 Days!

Leaving in 2 days. I am getting pretty scared and anxious. I actually haven't started packing so that might be part of my stress. And clearly I am being ultra-productive by just writing on this blog.
For those who don't know I am going to Athens about 2 weeks early to do some much needed TRAVELING! (I realized I use exclamation points too liberally so I'm gonna try to keep them to a minimum on the blog) I am spending 3 nights in Athens then going on a Contiki tour (it is a tour group for 18-35 year olds) that takes me to Istanbul, Mykonos, Kusadasi, Patmos, Rhodes, Crete and Santorini. (http://contiki.com/tours/141-golden-fleece-incl-7-days-cruising/itinerary) Then coming back to Athens, spending 2 nights chilling by myself and then on the 6th of Sept I am meeting up with the rest of my Arcadia program! At that point I think we will have an orientation and move into our apartments and everything.

It seems really sweet but also scary traveling alone. I think I'll love it though. I think of the days I have spent by myself in London and Tel Aviv (given those are two cities I know pretty well) and I feel fine because those were the best days of traveling. So much freedom! Nobody there to try to share my dinner with me (ew), nobody there to make me a leave a museum early, or stay an extra hour that could be used for something else.

Wish me luck! Next time I update hopefully I will be in Greece! (Damn me and those exclamation points)

Pre Hellas

I haven't left yet the journey has already began. That's kinda a lie, but creating a blog was the easiest thing on my TO-DO list.