Today we have officially been in Athens for an entire week...it feels so much longer! We already know our way around the small part of the city we walk in every day. Today we had late class because we all went to the Hard Rock Cafe last night to watch the superbowl...kickoff was at 1:30 am here and we were told that was where all the Americans in the city go to watch it. There are 3 levels and we were at the top with 3 big screen tvs. We quickly found out that they don't play commercials here...the only reason I like watching the game, so we talked with some other people who traveled from Oklahoma City. Today we went to the location of Socrates' trial as we are studying Socrates in our Religion course right now. We also saw the location of his supposed prison, it was a cave in the wall with bars. We re-enacted the scene of his death, as the city of Athens condemned him to death on the charge of corrupting the youth along with other things. After this it was my turn to present my paper topic, Greek Cuisine. I made a scavenger hunt where the task was to find foods served at restaurants or sold in shops around the city...the words were written in the Greek alphabet because we learned them and it was good practice for our Greek language lessons on Wednesday. They loved it and I treated the winners to some awesome Greek desserts!
Yesterday we climbed Mount Philopoppu to watch the sunset. It was really gorgeous, but this time of year there is a cloudy haze on the mountains so the sun was gone behind them before it was actually set. From the Mount we can see the Mediterranean sea...this week we are going to the coast to explore!
On Friday we climbed the same mountain at night. It is not really a "climb" but just a bunch of rocky paths and steps. The city is amazing at night, there are so many lights and the Acropolis is lit up. We stayed for hours until we got chilly and on our way down got a little scare. We had no flashlights (oops) but there were about 10 of us including our 2 guys. We heard a bunch of angry barking dogs...very common here...and somehow ended up being surrounded by them. They didn't do anything though, just barked...so we high-taled it out of there and back to our hotel just down the road.
There is so much great food here! They have spinach pie, baklava, which is a layered dessert with honey and pastry dough called phyllo and sometimes chocolate and cream that comes in all different sizes and shapes and flavors! It is to die for! They also have a pita-wrapped meat sandwich called a gyro, pronounced "euro" that you can get for under 2 euro. There is so much to try every day! The hotel feeds us breakfast and dinner every day and we get to find our own for lunch. Dinner is all out, starting with salad and bread, appetizers, a main dish, and dessert...always different and always good!
The weather has been wonderful...sunny and a little breezy but in the middle to upper 50s, it is supposed to get stormy and rainy the rest of the week 
We'll see!
Yassou!
