First Week of Greece

Waking up at 6am had become the norm this semester so it felt natural when Lane rapped the door. One things the Europeans do that nobody else does is work early and close shop by 2 or 3. Today we went to Thebes, where Lane works his technical aspects of archeological in conjunction with the city's museum. It took a while for the appropriate person to guide us through the maze of the underground as this was the first time Lane had returned since the year before. We were given some space in a rather large storage area, and Lane took out several boxes of broken pottery, building pieces, human remains, etc. He showed us what previous years had excavated and directed us in what we were going to be doing for that day. We split into two groups. One group inputted data into a system, while the other played a jigsaw puzzle and attempted to unite broken pottery pieces together. By the half way mark we switched, and by 3pm we left the museum to head back for a late lunch. The post-lunch nap was the best part of the day. As this was a slow day, not much else was done until dinner time, where we agreed to go stargazing once the sun went away. Unfortunately the clouds had another idea and obscured the night sky, hopefully later this week will be a better night.


I haven't been sleeping well the past few nights. It's been more of a rest for the eyes, if that makes sense. Ive been hearing everything all night long, from doors being slammed outdoors, to dogs barking at each other, to my roommates having an impromptu snore-off, one Cheppo would be proud of. I think its the sofa that's the problem. I'll switch to a cot for tonight, see how that goes.
Today was less exciting that yesterday, we left by 7 and the museum already had a space readied for us and we go to work. We had a break at around 10 and 1 where we just wandered around the city, got to see a streets market selling all kinds of fruits, vegetables, and even cloths. When we came back I took a much needed nap, dinner passed by uneventfully and then the rest of the night passed quietly. Hopefully the metallic cot will be more comfortable than the stiff couch.


Woke up today to Lane shaking my big toe. So I guess at one point in the early morning I fell asleep. The cotn was definitely more comfortable than the sofa. After our morning routine and working for a couple hours we had our first break. I went to a fancy looking bakery and bought myself a giant circular loaf of chocolate bread. Thing was about the size of both my open hands and it only cost €2! Delicious. 2nd break we just walked around the area to do something instead of sitting numbly in the workspace. We came back and during dinner, one of my classmates wasn't eating enough so the restaurant owner came by with her husband all worried that she didn't like the food, Lane was trying to explain them that she was just not hungry. At one point it seemed he was attempting to stop them from doing something. Apparently it had escalated to them thinking that they should cook her a 3 egg omelette. We were laughing as he explained that to us. Once it became darker at night Lane took me and a classmate, Cris, to go star-gazing. I was able to see the big and little Dipper, Castor and Pollux were on the horizon lines, Cassiopeia was slightly above the horizon and unfortunately Orion wasn't visible I guess Orion isn't a summer constellation. Plan for tomorrow is beach after work!


Today started off like any other, with little sleep, after a hefty breakfast of a cup of juice we went off to work. After working for a couple hours we were treated to a tour of the museum we were working in. It was much more modern that I thought it would be. Naturally Dr. Lane have us more insight into certain pieces in which he knew more about. After anothet couple hours of work we left straight to the beach.
On our way their we took a few pitstops to take scenic pictures. The view here is spectacular and something I will never get tired of, it's so beautiful. As we were driving a pink bushel started to appear on our right. As if guiding us to the beach. We followed the row of bright pink bushels down to the right and the view from the street was a beach side view of the lake. Gorgeous. Once we parked we walked a little distance and I could tell this place wasnt very well known or this was not the prime time to go to the beach. The place is called Stroponeri. It's an area that's on the coast of the Northern Eurobean Gulf. Water was nice and cool against a 90° weather and little ripples passed by. It had been a long time since I was in a large body of water, it was relaxing and peaceful. Unfortunately the heat got to us and we left after a while. It was dinner time, which meant something unexpected was going to happen, today's treat was that we had flies around us and the lady grabbed a fly swatter and hovered over us attempting to away the flies, she swatted a couple of is a few times. We couldn't eat since we were half trying to stay still and half laughing at what was happening. Later that night we went to the local bar. It is busier than it's typically looked before, probably because it's a Friday night. Of course Dr. Lane knows the owner of this place and after introductions we shared a local drink. Tomorrow we're planning on going to Naphleo. Think that should be a blog entry by itself.

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