The Actual Start of Fall in Greece

I realized that the title of my blog is ultra ironic because there is no Autumn in Athens. Although I have a park across from my house the leaves are not changing. And living in a city, I am forgetting what it looked like, that favorite season of mine. I was telling Melissa when we were in Mieza, at the ruins of the School of Aristotle, that the way I view fall is so different from its original purpose. Fall symbolizes the death coming to nature. The changing color mean the leaves are dying and the cold brings the end of the summer’s sun to the plants craving some photosynthesis. But the world has changed this, and the way I see it. I look at fall as the rebirth. I see the green lush striped away to see the colors changing underneath. And the false hope that the sun brings disappears and we all must prepare for winter. When the trees go naked, but we cannot. We wake up colder and must prepare ourselves for the day. Fall isn’t easy and neither is happiness. Loving and being need work. And I wake up fall mornings with energy, because I have to have it. To pry myself out of my warm covers and into the freezing shower and onto the sidewalk and into the fresh air. But once out there, I realize how great it is. The cold on my lungs and I feel like a fish finally back in water after a brush with death. We went up north this past week and there is fall there. Autumn in full bloom. A chill in the air. And I loved it. Loved every second of autumn around me. Anyway. This southern city does not experience fall like the north or at home. And I miss it.
We watched Gran Torino on the way home and I loved it. And I watched Away We Go on the ride there. I loved it too.
Our apartment is Freezinggggg. I wonder how it will actually be in December. I think I’m royally screwed.
I started to forget things this weekend. That I am a student, that I am old, that I am so far away from home. I felt like a child exploring the creek behind my house. Even though I was an almost 21 year old exploring Thessaloniki. There was one point when I was staring out my window and I felt that feeling people describe of the ocean or space, when you have been moving in different directions so much you lose track of which way is up and which way is down. Except for me I wasn’t sure where home was, or where I was?