Back!

Got back last night.

I'm uploading my funny Greek dog video on YouTube. Whit will be home in less than three hours!

Psyche Out!

That wasn't the last blog in Greece! THIS IS! That was accidental capitalization but whatever.

Cody, Ricky and I just had an awesome time playing pool and darts. I did VERY well at darts. Well, the third game I sucked but most of all, I did fantastically. Ricky made this really funny comment when I did this really messed up, weird stance while hitting the pool ball. Instead of laughing or saying he thought it was weird, he said, "Cool! How do you do that?!" It kiiiilled me.

It was a perfect guy's night to celebrate the whole study abroad adventure. Still Cody ended our "awesome trip" cheers with "TO BITCHES" hahaha which is what we always toast to but what Ricky said about how great the trip was stuck with me.

Great farewell. I have to wake up in 5 hours or so. I don't give a flying fuck.

Tomorrow!!!

I leave at 10 am tomorrow. My flight is at 2 pm so I'm leaving early to be safe.

Finished recording Poor Jones today. Spent all afternoon doing that and recording real piano for some other tracks. We also talked to Petros down in the lobby. He told us that in some cultures, when they "fuck" they keep a compass with them to make sure they don't point towards Mecca. HAHAH.

I'm going out to play pool with Ricky and Cody!

THE LAST BLOG IN GREECE! CHEERS! Or in Greek terms, YAMAS (phonetically)!

Ahhhh

I am shwaisted right now. I won't throw up but I'm definitely drunk. I was just out with Cody, Ricky and Michael. Zoe showed up later after hanging out with Giorgos, a Greek guy from the Nakas conservatory. They saw the movie, Avatar. I thought I knew what the movie was about but I guess I didn't. I thought it had people with super powers in it but I guess there were blue men in it, whatever that means.

Tomorrow is the last day in Greece. I have to be at the school at 11. That is insane. Ricky said tonight that he made new friends in Greece. I told him I was glad he came to Greece and he said the same about me. Awesome.

We watched a lot of a pretty bad movie about Alexander today in our last Greek Civ class and then most of us had lunch at a Gyro place. I had a Greek salad but it wasn't as filling as I wanted ti to be. The reason was because I had a Greek salad when I was little at Jimmy Gonzales's house, his dad made Greek salad and from then on, I wanted to go to Greece. Well, that and the Greece travel video convinced me. My family and I were watching travel videos before we went to Tahiti in about 2001 and Greece was a possibility. I don't know if they knew but Greece blew me away.

See you tomorrow. I record at 11 and then I'M DONE! SEE YOU SOON FAMILY!

Stoddy.

Happy Birthday Whit!

24 big ones. Hot damn!

Big ass day today. Recording from 6 til 10:15 at a recording studio with Petros. All I recorded of my song were vocals and those ended up not working cause the mike was buzzing. So that was really annoying cause now I'll have to record them tomorrow at the engineer's house. The other recordings went well though, on which I played piano. Ricky got fed up at the end when he was being forced to sing and play guitar on a time constraint. I totally understood. It's awesome how he and I are joking around more and more. Maybe it was because in front of everyone at our last big dinner before Mia left for home early, we were all admitting things about each other, first impressions and such and I pointed at him and said I was SO happy when he first starting joking with me about "funny situations". Cody and I are actually getting along a LOT better now. Bowling actually brought us together considerably as a matter of fact! It was funny. I think it was because we were competing and we can relate in that way haha.

I wrote a random song for Whit and sent it to him just before writing this blog. He's gonna love it cause it has a big inside joke in it. It isn't about him or even about his birthday but it's FOR his birthday. It's called "Behind My Eyes". Attention readers, don't divulge this information once the song is received by the man himself.

Two more full days in Greece. I can't believe it. I actually made it through this semester alive.

This week has turned out to be MUCH busier than I anticipated but that's cool. It's definitely packed the trip with even more meaning. Plus, the more we all go through, the closer we get. At least I think we've gotten closer. Hey, maybe that's really why Cody and I are getting along. We've actually been sharing musical communication rather than only sarcastic words and the occasional beer.

Seth Rogen

It's 10:40 am at this moment. I wanted to write down my dream, or at least as much as I could remember.

DREAM-

I am in a movie theater. Somehow I end up inside the movie.

I'm in some kind of mansion with a lot of slanted floors. A cleaning crew is going around, dropping bags of cleaning supplies on the floor. I think outloud - "Just like a video game!" and shift perfectly to the left, right or forward to avoid the mounds of clumpy cleaning material all over the floor. The truth was, I didn't want to get that stuff on my socks and get all wet. A guy about my age, says, "Push A!" and I realized I have a controller in my hand. I push it but it doesn't do much. I realize I should have started singing cause that's like my super power, music.

I arrive at the top of the castle, which is where the main lady lives, the head woman. It's risky being around her cause she is like the mafia leader, I am thinking. In the middle of a conversation with me, she pulls out a gun and I'm sure that I'm about to die. The gun turns out to be filled with water and she starts pouring it into a hole where her left bicep is. She continues talking to me like it's no big deal. It is then that I realize she is not human, but a robot. So now I'm in even more of a predicament; I'm standing by the head mob leader who also happens to be a robot. I decide that telling her I am a human might make things worse since she clearly must assume I'm a robot too. I right then and there make up a story about me being a robot. This was an interesting because I really was thinking on the spot -

"You know what's crazy. I'm actually one of the most advanced robots out there, ahead of my time. My model is basically from the future because I'm so advanced and no one has heard of my type." She gives me a impressed look and listens while setting up some kind of light fixture, three lamps hanging from the wall at random spots with straw sticking out of them.

"You know, I actually feel kind of stupid sometimes," I continue with my story.

"Yeah, you feel stupid, of course," she interrupts understandingly.

"Well, because I'm more real than others. I started younger and am able to learn like a human. You know how those old computers sometimes are easier to understand, less frustrating?" She nods. "They solve the problem quicker. There's just one route to get there."

She did not hear the last thing I say and takes out some kind of blow torch, scorching the straw light fixtures with it. The fire blasts over the wall and when she turns off the torch, the lights are left flaming, giving light to the room. We walk out of the kitchen and she tells me not to go back in there without her. I catch the eye of her son on the way into another section and he widens his eyes, mouthing the words, "Do NOT go in the kitchen, EVER. She will KILL you." He waves his hands like an airplane runway guy would, motioning a plane not to land. I nod to him, promising not to go into the kitchen.

I then notice three robot dogs scampering around the room. They don't have bodies, just heads. One of them is a bulldog head. I assume they are robots, haha. I go over to them and say hi. The lady goes away for a while so I stay with the dogs. They start play biting me and then walking all over my head.

Suddenly, I heard a voice from one of the dog heads say, "We have figured out who you are, your machine history, everything." I realize that what they have found out is not my machine history, but my human history. I know then that I have to get out of the castle because my life is in danger. The dogs start biting me viciously, some attacking me from the back. I am trying to guard my neck with my hands and doing my best to have them bite my arms and hands instead of anything else.

I start having a conversation with the bulldog head. He says he must kill Seth Rogan, the guy who played the main actor in the first movie of this series (the robot series I guess). I somehow can see the movie posters of the series and the first one shows Seth smoking, puffing out marijuana, which is covering his face in the picture. I'm not surprised that the part in the series about smoking was played by Seth. I tell the bulldog not to kill Seth because he is actually really funny. The bulldog starts to be a little doubtful because he seems to like the idea that Seth is funny.

That's when I woke up.

A Bowl of Fun

Last night the boys went out to Sutsu, a bar we often go to, and Alex was with us, A greek student from Nakas. Ricky and I talked for a long time at the end of the night, especially at a different bar called Flower, and Cody and Michael ended up talking extensively. That is usually how it turns out. I made sure to include Alex at one point when Ricky and I were talking about Godfather. He was sort of the fifth wheel and I know how that feels.

Ricky said we should play together in Boston. HELL YES! I said I was honored he asked me. He said he was honored I accepted. I then told him he had a better voice than I do so I should sing harmony over him. He said, "Are you serious?"

It was an awesome musician to musician bonding moment.

Also last night, at the first bar, I actually went over to a girl that I wanted to talk to. I thought she was the third wheel cause her friend kept dancing with this other guy. I was so nervous but Cody kept saying I should do it. Ricky said, "You have four more days left," and Alex ended up coming over to me when I was sitting there on a bar stool, waiting for the right thing to say. He asked me if I needed help. I told him it was ok but then said it would be cool if he helped. He ended up walking away without helping me, telling me that I could call him if I wanted to. The girl luckily sat nearby me on her bar stool. I asked her, "Milate aglika" which means, "Do you speak English?" She said she didn't speak Greak, haha. So I said, "Neither do I!" and we started talking. Then she apologized and said she had to go back to her group and did a switch with her friend who had a pimple right below her lip. Ew, sorry. I talked to her for a while. She was very animated with her gestures, bobbing up and down when ever she didn't know something and out turning her hands while doing a clown face at the same time. After we finally introduced ourselves after about a ten minute long talk, I said I wanted to go back to my group. She seemed a little disappointed but honestly, I was interested in her friend, who, I found out from the pimple lip girl, had a boyfriend. Hmmm that's why the guy I thought was pimple's boyfriend was eyeing me, haha. He was probably wondering why the hell I was hitting on his girl. Anyway, I felt great that I actually talked to the unbelievably hot girl (she told me she was German! That's why I liked her. Explains it all). It was a HUGE accomplishment and I owe it to Ricky, Cody and Alex. But mostly I owe it to this trip, myself and the fact that she sat nearby me without knowing it. Good going self and random occurrences!

Today we all went bowling. It was AMAZINGLY fun. At least I know I had tons of fun. We went to Agios Dimitrios which is at the end of the red line in Athens. It was so nice also cause I felt so relaxed after figuring out all my bank stuff. WOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

I won the first game and Ricky won the second. I got second place the second time though.

What a day

I woke up and found out that most likely, the wire went through. Then I got an email about a transaction I wasn't happy about. That took up most of my day, skyping in A10 where we all hang out at the school. They have ethernet cables in there. I missed dinner cause I was on Skype with the bank til about 9. Afterwards, I was hungry and wanted to eat something quick in Syntagma. I went to an Alpha Bank which is my bank here in Athens. My mind was mush so I forgot my card pin number for the Greek credit card. I entered the number three times into the ATM incorrectly and then I realized that the machine was hungrier than I was! It ate my card.

That's ok though cause I don't need the card anymore. I need to withdraw all my money from Alpha Bank anyway and I might as well go in tomorrow and tell them what happened. It should be fine.

It's just funny how much bank trouble I've had in the past few days: the Wire that Couldn't, the Mysterious Subscription and the Card Monster.

At least our Greek teacher said to the class, "You'll have to write a song about this..." referencing a topic in Greek. Someone in the class said, "Stoddy wrote a song," so our teacher asked me to play it. I did! It went well and she was wide mouthed, holding her cell phone to tape as much as she could of it half way through.

It's amazing how one problem dissolves once another comes along. It really is all relative.

6

I wrote this to Amy and decided to post it here:

-----

Well I just got back and it's midnight here. Everybody had different songs and I ended up playing piano on a lot of them, including mine where I'm also singing of course. So I had to stay late today. Our teacher is so crazy too. He always adds these weird drum beats that throws me off. Ugh so tough. My song sounds good though. Except for one of my friends told me today I need to re-record my vocals and listed these specific things. So I might do that. It was tough to hear but possibly helpful.

-----

I changed some of the words in that paragraph but it's mostly the same. And I didn't record my song today but played in other songs. It took a lot longer than I thought it would.

I'm talking to Amy still. She is talking about how she wants me to cook her a dinner when I see her cause I said I like to cook. I said only if she agrees to be my sue chef. She said only if she can wear an honorary sue chef hat. Hahaha.

Tomorrow's the big day. If everything works out as planned then I will consider myself at home tomorrow cause it's so close.

Goodnight.

...

Yesterday I went out to dinner with Jason, some other Berklee faculty and the 7 others. The dinner was alright. I don't like pork chop that much but it was ok.

Today I found out about some things with the bank and it pissed me off. But my night was good. We went to a bar and had a good time. Mia and Zoe were, pardon me saying this, sexy. I just got back from hanging out at the bar so I'm still...yeah.

Goodnight.

Only a week left til I go home!

Stoddy.

Tired

Two days ago on Tuesday, I had a final test in Petros's class with the other 7. It was insane. First of all, a lot of the questions on the test came from nowhere. No one in the class knew them. Second of all, about ten minutes into the test, Petros said, "All right, finish already," and started pacing around the room. "I want to go down and play music." We have an album we're doing. But it was weird cause we were all trying to figure out the test. Then he goes over to the phone by the door and sloppily pushes both hands onto the number pad, lighting up every "on hold" button and who knows what. He then turns off as many of the lights he turned on and looks back with a boy's smile on his face. Courtney started dying with laughter. I didn't know what to say. I was dumbstruck.

Today I recorded "Stuttering Jones"! It was great. It's 4:30 in the morning so I'm not thinking straight right now.

Just finished an ichat session with Emily and Althea. It was beautiful. I miss them so much.

Checking out a 5:05 am. Wowza.

Ahhh, Bank Thing Is Done (Should Be)

Dad - "We had to shut down early today cause we're having a blizzard...no it was fine. It was just work that shut down...But you never know but it's supposed to be fine tomorrow...Minnesota got hit. Chicago got hit. It was one big whopping storm...for the rest of your life it [studying abroad] will just be a memory. You're in a memory. You're inside of it right now."

I'm about to go to bed. My stomach feels normal again after eating all that food. Ahhh. I thought I was food poisoned for a second.

How do I sum up this trip? Help me with this one, Dad. There are so many words so instead of writing all of them, I'll do the opposite and represent a lot with a little -

I.

One more thing: I just wish mom's nose could be pinched.

Moanin'

The title of this should have been the title of the last blog.

The girls (in our group) had a concert tonight. It was all jazz. They played a lot of the same tunes that were in the first concert, which was about a month or so ago. Courtney sang "Moanin'" in both of the concerts. She's great in that.

Afterwards, we went out to dinner. Jason Camilio is here visiting us and he paid for it with Berklee money. The food was great. I had spinach and ricotta cheese ravioli which was fab. For dessert I had brownies with icecream. Mmmm. Zoe said I should try standup comedy. Huh? Awesome! Wasn't sure how serious she was but I thought, why not give it a try sometime? I've actually thought about it quite a lot before.

Yesterday I went to see Christina again after not seeing her for about two weeks. Her store finally has a title: "CaFemme"! Haha. I like it. I just wish the "fe" in cafe had something to do with men so that Femme would contradict it.

Holy Cannoli. 9 full days in Greece left.

Concert

I played "Poor Stuttering Jones" today for this "Jam Session" event where teachers performed. The students opened the show with our song from class, the odd time signature ones we had to write for our assignment. It went well except for the middle of the song when the mics decided to die on me and my backup singer, Courtney. It died right at the loudest part of the song so you can barely hear me on the video of me. On the last verse/chorus, I had to project without he mic. It ended up sounding fine. Kind of a cool affect. I love how Ricky sounded on it. His guitar chops are so good.

Mia and I recorded the song we wrote for her dad's birthday tomorrow. It sounds good! She was so happy and excited and hugged me when we finished. It was sweet. I like that giggly, kiddy side she brings out once and a while.

I went up to Ricky and Cody's room and we watched Ricky's "Superstition" video and the "Stuttering Jones" video in which Cody and Ricky also played. I recorded both of them with my camera. The one of my song was recorded by Michael. After watching "Superstition", Cody clicked on the most recent video I made, which is a dog video I made. It's hilarious and it was even funnier since they stumbled upon it. After that, they basically watched all the videos on my Flip camera. It was really fun. Oh my god, I'm so corny/funny in them.

Right now and during the entirety of this blog, I have been hearing people have sex in the room over. I heard the same people before but I always only hear the girl. She's loud as fuck. I think she's in her orgasm right now.

Bare

This morning I did something that was very stupid. I don't understand why the hell I did it. Right after waking up I went down to breakfast, which is a room filled with hotel staff, random people that live in the hotel for a couple nights and always a few of my friends. Bear in mind that I was groggy because I had just awakened and was probably grumpy and out of it. I went down with bare feet. I thought to myself, "This will be like Shawshank.

'No one ever looks at a man's shoes.' So why would they notice me with the absence of any?" I was dead wrong. I went over to the bread to start making my usual cheese and meet sandwich and one of the head hotel guys came over to me and basically mimed to me, "What the hell are you doing?" without saying more than two words. He pointed at my shoes. His face told me that what I did was absolutely ludicrous and disrespectful. Agghhh. "What was I thinking?" I thought. When I went back up to the room, the card I had in my pocket was the one card that doesn't work. So I was locked out until Michael came up. At least I had time to go back down before breakfast ended. The man was outside the breakfast room again (which is wear I also have dinner every night) and apologized to him again. Once more, he continued to say nothing. All he did was mime again, "What, are you stupid?" with open arms and out-turned hands.

It was so weird. Last night I asked Michael, "Why do you always pull back your sheets before you wash up for bed?" He always does that. I don't understand why he doesn't just pull back the sheets right before he gets under them. The lights are never off when he's going to bed because I'm always going to bed after him. He replied, "I don't know. I just do," in a defensive way. Immediately, I sensed awkwardness and said, "Oh, sorry." He said it was ok. I added, "I didn't mean to be intrusive or anything." Then he said, "It's ok. It was just really random." How was that random? He was doing his sheets while I asked it. I found it strange but whatever, maybe he has a past with it. Maybe he does it cause it reminds him of someone. Or maybe I'm looking too much into it.

Highlight of today:

Mia asked me from the other dinner table tonight, in front of everyone, "Stoddy, my dad's birthday is on Wednesday. Do you want to write a song for him?" She clarified that she wanted to write it with me. I said yes and she seemed SO excited. We got together after dinner and in about an hour and a half, we basically finished it. It just has to be fine tuned. We're gonna record it tomorrow. She wants to send it to her dad on Wednesday through email so he finds it while he's at work. I like that, mix mundane (email) with unexpected kindness (song). "Unexpected kindness" coined by my dad, Gren Blackall.

Zoe's sister loved the song we wrote for her. Her sister is moving to California and Zoe asked me to help her write a song. Her sisters friends put it on in a party to surprise her. Then she heard it later to really listen to the lyrics. I heard that it really touched her. Yes!

I got a 95 on my Greek test! She said my dialogue was very good and well planned out. Something like that. I think a big reason is because I used some lines from my "Omorfia" song I wrote since I have it memorized. HA!

12 days til Christmas! At least that's what I say because I'm going home in 12 days.

A Command (today's second blog)

See "Lars and The Real Girl". Now.

Woah Momma

The night of the 4th (Friday) -

I got a noise complaint. I was walking out of the hotel about halfway past midnight to see if I could find a book light or flashlight when the guy behind the counter stopped me. "Sir, SIR. Are you in room 103?" I said yes and he began to tell me how my room has had several noise complaints, from 101 and 1o2. He said that a customer an hour before that had told him "I don't want to stay here. I want to leave because of the noise." He kept saying, "Please find a solution. Just find a solution. You are always leaving and coming in, the door going boom bam boom boom." He repeated that boom thing about three times. It was kind of funny. Then he told me that if I'm gonna talk at night, to come to the lobby. "I was young once. I understand. But find the solution," he ended with. The whole noise complaint thing completely destroyed my night though. I don't do well with that sort of thing. Actually, what helped me was thinking about the evil lady that lived by my family's apartment when I was a kid. I think Terri was her name. She always knocked. I think we got evicted. I'm sad because I really liked that guy who works behind the counter at night. He once changed the channel for me to an English station when I was watching TV in the lobby. I'm thinking now that maybe he just wanted to keep me in the lobby by giving me something I would like to watch on the TV. I doubt it though. He seemed like a nice guy.

Yesterday, the 5th (Saturday) -

I woke up late, around 1 pm. Soon after waking up, I walked to the Evangelismos metro stop and went to the Byzantine museum. It was all right. It was sunny before going in and pouring when I came out so I hid under a tunnel and stayed there until the rain passed. I sat there thinking and even made a little video. When the coast was clear, I walked out the gates and the guard standing in her little watchtower waved to me with a smile. I guessed that she must have thought it was cute or funny that I had sheltered myself and let me stay in there even after closing time. It was only twenty minutes past though. I got back to the hotel and watched a movie called "Ghost Town". It's kind of like "Sixth Sense" but a romantic comedy. It was good. Entertaining. Not fantastic but definitely funny. After that I got cabin fever and left the hotel again. I walked left from the hotel which I haven't done since the first few weeks of living here. I walked further than I ever had before and found so many more places than I had expected to find. I came across a tall hotel that has jazz events every Friday and Saturday at the top. I'll probably go there next Friday. They have Brazilian Jazz then. I also found countless clothes shops, some restaurants, like TJI Friday's, Pizza Hut, Applebees, some bars, cafes and other little stores. It was surprising.

I got back and started watching a movie called "Lars and The Real Girl" which is the movie about the guy who has the life-sized, anatomically correct girlfriend. It's really good so far and can't wait to finish it. Of what I've seen so far, I definitely recommend it. It has the guy from "The Notebook" in it.

Today, the 6th (Sunday) -

Oh today. Sweet sweet today. "One of the best days of my life," "One of the best since Mykonos." Those were two things I said to myself before I boarded the train back to Athens.

Today is the anniversary of a boy getting shot so there are always riots today and tomorrow of every year. That's why I decided today would be my day to get out of Athens rather than stay in the hotel. I was planning to go to Parnitha. I heard it was a great place to go hiking. The mountain is supposed to be one of the highest mountains surrounding Athens. The internet said that "the bus timetable commences at 6:30, again at 8:00 and then at 2:30. So I decided I'd get up at 8 and take a bus at around 9 or so because I figured that the buses left every 25 minutes or so.

That's cool Parnitha is supposed to be great but I didn't go. When I got to the bus station in Vathis square, close to the Omonia metro station (a very dirty square and slightly confusing to navigate for me) and I looked at the bus times, my plans changed. The internet had failed to supply me with useful information. Or rather, wrong language was used. The buses did not commence at 8. The only buses were at 6:30, at 8:00 and at 2:30. So I was about an hour late for my bus. Even though I was pissed that I missed the bus, a warm feeling of relief washed over me because I considered the idea of going back to the hotel and sleeping more, not having to worry about the risks of traveling again. I was sick of traveling. Knowing me, I did not take the easy way out. I went to the train station. I couldn't read any of the city names so I asked the information desk, "What's a town two hours away that you'd recommend?" The first place they mentioned was Halkitha, a place two hours up north near the water. After mentioning it they asked, "Do you want to go there?" I said yes. I got my ticket for the next train out which was in about twenty minutes.

I arrived in Halkitha in less than I thought, about one hour and twenty five minutes. It was sprinkling. The light rain lasted the entire time I was there. The first thing I saw when I got out of the train was a big rusty wheel. The second thing I saw were the big mountains in the distance. I focused on the closest one and said to myself, "I'm want to climb that mountain." I walked all the way around the port and across a bridge that looked just like the bridge in North Boston. There was a mountain road that I had to walk up without any sidewalks until I could find a place to start climbing. There was no easy beginning to the climb because keep in mind, there weren't trails on this mountain. That made things hard. Half the time I could climb up the rocks but at other times I had to brave it and walk through thick, painful brush. I had shorts on. That was a stupid choice on my part but it made it interesting. I climbed all the way up to the highest point and looked down at what looked like an island because there was so much water everywhere. I had thought before that the city was dirty and littered, which is was, but from high up I felt like I was seeing an older version of the city, a cleaner, purer version.

Except for scratching my legs like crazy, I didn't hurt myself once. No mountain lions either. Or snakes. Whenever a bird would fly out from a bush in shock of my presence, I thought it was an animal jumping out to eat me. I soon calmed down though and focused on the climbing. The trip wasn't like cliffhanger or anything obviously. Most of it I climbed with my feet. Occasionally I got on my hands and feet to get a better grasp. At the top, I found a couple areas where rocks were stacked up in the shape of a wall. I found that strange. I even found a dug out area, surrounded by two rock walls that looked like it might have been a tomb. I took pictures of it. I think I was just wishing it was a tomb. I tried to pick up a big rock to drop it in there, with hope that it would break through and I'd strike rich but I couldn't even roll the rock from its place. I found some pieces of rock that looked like pottery too. They had curves and parts sticking out of them that made me think they were formed by man. I took one home. I also too pictures of all this. I'm gonna show John, my Civ teacher who I think has some training in archeology also. I don't think I found anything special though cause there was a telephone pole nearby and some things that looked new, sticking out of the ground.

I went to the edge of the mountain and yelled, reminding myself of Anchor Man - "I wanted to scream it on the top of a mountain." I yelled two things - "YEAHH!!! GREECE!" and "I AM STODDY BLACKALL!!!" Hahaha, kind of cheesy but it felt good. I videotaped the second one.

Going back down was the hardest cause I started going down on a completely different spot so I had to scoot sideways across the mountain, through even more tough bushes, poking and stabbing at my legs even more. It came to the point that I would cringe when anything hit them, which was every few seconds. Finally, when I slid down the last steep decline to the winding road I first walked on, I yelled with joy. I felt so accomplished and happy that I didn't die.

I took an hour to walk back to the train station, got my ticket and still had an hour and a half until it left. I got a cup of sugary tea, which was immensely satisfying and had a semi-bad burger. It was gross but it still did the trick. The best was the chocolate crepe I had after that, straight off the stove. Mmmmmm. Boy did I deserve that.

On the train I finished "Memoirs of an Invisible Man", H.F. Saint. Very good book. I wasn't very pleased with the ending but it was an overall well written and well thought out book. The most impressive aspect about the book for me was how detailed and accurate it seemed.

I made it back, twenty minutes late for 7:00 dinner with my friends at the hotel. I felt so cool that I did all that and was now sitting at such a familiar place, in time to tell about my day. Now thinking about it, the day reminds me of Risky Business or Ferris Beuler's Day Out.

Before writing this, I studied for my Greek language final with Ricky in my room. Cody was there but he was kind of studying on his own. Michael was Skyping with family. I still feel like I have to study but I'm probably prepared for about a B+. I will study some more tonight and a little tomorrow. Maybe I could bring my anticipated grade up to an A-. That would be great. But right now I feel like watching more of "Lars and The Real Girl". By the time I'm done, Michael will probably be closing those curtains, getting his sheets ready, washing up in the bathroom for less than three minutes and then slipping into bed. I really don't feel like studying yet though. I'm sorry, I deserve to watch a little. So I'll make my later self suffer by having him study in the bathroom while Michael sleeps. I'd rather watch the movie while the room is light and I'm on my bed. All right, enough of that. Another AWESOME day. I'm so pleased. My travels are done except for maybe one more trip to the beach, less than thirty minutes away, one of these days to put the cherry on top.

Stoddy.

Birthday

Last night was a blast. It was John's birthday, our Greek Civ teacher. He invited a lot of his students from his other classes and the eight of us. Sadayah and Courtney weren't there but it was the most of us. I met a ton of girls which was new for me since pretty much the only girl I've had semi-long conversations with is Christina haha. There was this one girl that kept talking to me. I was thinking that she liked me. I wasn't interested in her. At one point, John made a toast and said something touching. I didn't hear the touching part but the girl that I think liked me said, "Oh no, some people are crying. Don't want to be near that." I don't know why this was my response but I said it: "I'm crying from my armpits." She looked at me like I was crazy and asked me what I meant. I said, "Well, I'm really hot. I'm sweating. That was kind of gross, wasn't it?" She said, "Yeah, there's really not a way to get out of that one." It was slightly embarrassing but I didn't really care.

A while ago, John said that his wife, Amy really liked my "Omorfia Mou" song that I put on YouTube and would ask John to sing it to her in the morning. Before we got into the party, John said he wanted me to sing it to her when I saw her. Less than 15 minutes into the party, Amy came up to me and said, "I showed your song to my sister and her response was, 'I want to put him in my pocket.'" An hour later, John passed me, now even more "tired" as we'll put it in this blog, and pointed at me.

"Go sing to my wife, NOW. Come with me." So I had to do it. Cody walked by me soon after and asked me what was going on. Once he heard the news, he seemed thrilled and pulled me forward to the kitchen where John's wife was. I was a little scared, mostly because I wasn't sure if I'd remember all the lyrics and I didn't have a piano to accompany myself with but I was more excited than nervous. Ricky, standing beside me, asked me if I wanted him to provide the backbeat. I thought that was a great idea. Ricky started clapping and I think Cody did some beat boxing. John was standing in the kitchen a little ways away and Amy was leaning against the door frame, too embarrassed to look at me. First of all, I started the song in a much higher key than I wanted to so I had to hit some of the chorus notes in the falsetto. Second of all, I didn't miss a note, my voice was surprisingly clear and full and I didn't forget one lyric. On the last chorus, John joined in between words. I would sing, "Omorfia mou!" and he'd add, "Omorfia" in a voice that I dare say was not very good. It was a very cool moment for me. I looked over and people had gathered around me. Keep in mind, this apartment is like a maze. It zig zags a lot so people didn't have a much space in which to surround me so it was like three stooges in how some were peaking out over others, creating the three hovering heads effect. I mostly noticed all the girls looking at me :). I guess I kind of forgot one lyric. I was going to the end the last chorus early but John egged me on, singing, "Eisai Telia!" so I joined him cause those are the last words of the song.

Afterwards, a lot of people told me that I had a really nice voice. This girl came up to me and said that she really enjoyed my voice. She also told me that she spoke Greek and that it was nice to hear a line in my song that was common in the language. The line she was referencing was "To perimeno pos kai pos," which means "I'm looking forward to it." It's so ironic cause I wrote that song two weeks after I got to Greece. I had had only like one Greek class by then! So naturally, I used my lonely planet phrase book to write it haha. Kind of cheating but hey, what the hell. From then on, I gotta say, the land of conversation was fertile. Does that make sense? In other words, I was talking to these two girls for a while. Michael told me today that while I was singing, a girl said, "OH MY GOD is that him singing? He's even cuter when he sings!" Mmm smile on my face. It was funny cause later in the night, someone brought up my singing and this guy said, "You were singing? I heard that but didn't see who was doing it! You have a good voice." I laughed and said that I wasn't aware how much my voice carried. Everyone must have heard it in the apartment haha. Awesome. Great beginning of the night.

I asked John's wife if there was anymore wine. She just told me to have some beer from the fridge. I guess her friend recently bought some. Ricky asked me where I got the beer. He was nervous to ask if he could have some from the fridge too so he decided to ask indirectly. He went up to Amy and said, "Hey, so where's the nearest place where I can get beer?" I totally relate to Ricky cause I can see doing that. The outcome wasn't the best though. She took him completely seriously and had her friend, the same one that bought the beer for the fridge, help her tell him where the nearest kiosk was. I gave him a smile when he looked back in the middle of being told directions. I told him I'd go with him. We walked out and ended up finding only one kiosk that was closed. Fail. So we walked back and started singing together. This was a very revealing moment for us. We got lost. The closed kiosk was less than a minute away. We started cracking up and getting scared at the same time. Ricky said, "You were just telling me how you get lost when you sing! That's why we shouldn't go together but we should at the same time!" It was funny. We asked these Greek people where the street was that we were looking for but Ricky kept messing up the name and I had trouble too. It was a disaster. They had no idea what we were talking about. Finally, we saw a mattress on the sidewalk and Ricky yelled, "I REMEMBER THIS!" and started kind of dancing while running. I ran with him and cheered. We found our way back and laughed about how much longer it took to get back when we were SO close before. At some point in the night Ricky told me that he needs people like me to get him going. It was nice. I said it reminded me of my brother, how I would make up the weird things and he would add on.

I was talking to this one girl when Michael (my roommate) walked near me, chatting with someone. First he said, "Stoddy's a good guy. Just thought you should know." Then he walked away and said, louder than I desired it to be, "Let's go guys. We need to give Stoddy some 'space'". Hahaha, that made it a little awkward cause honestly, I wasn't trying to hook up with her. I was just having a fun conversation with her. It was ok. We carried on. Then Cody came. Later he told me that he thought I was "workin' my game" and walked away. "But then you went to get something," he also told me later. Ok, so that was the cue to take the girl I was "hitting on"? I guess. Yes, he made out with her outside the apartment. Haha, I don't care at all. I just find it funny. Unfortunately "his game" was destroyed when the girl's friends went and found her, supposedly screaming, "THERE YOU ARE!!! OH MY GOD! WE'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU EVERYWHERE! Oh my god, get away from that guy! HE'S BAD!" They didn't know him at all haha. Well that's probably why they saw him as bad, right? So they took her away. I guess she was just visiting the girls for a few days. It was funny cause Cody was talking about how the girl was kissing normally at first but then suddenly opened her mouth up unnaturally big and "ate his face." Hilarious. I don't know why he would be so pissed about the game-over if he was being eaten but whatever.

Before Cody started his "game", he did the Jimmy character the South Park, the crutches guy. He is so good at that. That's where I first saw him. He was acting as Jimmy at the South Park musical at Berklee. He also did Cartman. Eat-face girl was going, "Woow!" all impressed with the Cartman voice.

Another great part of the night was when James (a guy we met that was cool and said he smoked pot all day, every day haha), Cody, Ricky and I went to a pool hall. It was right near John's place. We were going to go straight home but ended up staying there for about an hour and a half. We played two games and I lost both of them. I was SOOOO pissed. It sucked cause on the first game when I was on Cody's team, I got too shots that were so incredible. They were slops but still amazing. That's why losing sucked the first time. The second time, now on the team with James, I ended up sinking the white ball in when all we had was the 8 ball to hit in. I wanted to break the stick. To keep it fun, we all decided to keep playing even though James and I lost. But guess what? I sank the white ball AGAIN. Hahahaha, double lose. So really, I lost three times in two games. That's rarely done, let alone NEVER. You have to believe me though. I did play pretty damn well. I just made some very stupid shots also. Ok, maybe that's loser talk.

After the games, Cody talked to the bar owners for a long time but I was happy about that because I suddenly could not find my credit card in my wallet. I remembered that earlier in the night, at the party, a felt a card come out of my wallet in my pocket and I just shoved it down into the wallet so I was thinking that it never really clung to it and ended up falling out. I rummaged through it for a while, freaking out in my corner of the pool hall and crawling around. Luckily, I don't think anyone saw me. THEN I FOUND IT. It was shoved down in an unlikely crevice. I was so happy, I lifted it up to my face and almost tasted its beauty. Luckily, no one saw that event as well.

Another ironic thing about the night: Cody lost his wallet! Yeah, I felt so bad. Funny since I had just thought I lost my credit card. Well, funny in the dark humor sense. He called me in the middle of night, at about 4:30. At first I kept hanging up the phone cause I was half asleep. Finally, I picked it up and Cody told me the situation. So I stayed up for a while looking for it in my room but found nothing. We're thinking that he left it in the taxi. And Cody left the taxi cursing about the taxi driver to us cause he left the meter running during our minute of discussing how to pay. He was so pissed about that. If he did leave his wallet in the taxi, he is NOT getting it back cause I'm sure the guy didn't have a very high opinion of Cody. It sucks so much.

Today we had an unusual day. We had class! We never have class on Fridays. It's a special week cause next week is my Greek test, on MONDAY! The class ran from 12 to 2 like usual. Then from 2 to 6:40 or so, Petros had us rehearse our song for the Greek Crossroads class. We actually might perform some songs including mine on Tuesday for Berklee faculty and others. I'm excited! Man, the practice was long though. I was getting so tired but it felt good. It was the longest school day I've had here, in the terms of nonstop class. I actually got pretty upset when Petros asked Ricky to show us the song he had just written so we could rehearse it. Before even hearing the FIRST verse, Petros stopped him and started to suggest changes. He did that the whole time. He didn't even let Ricky play the whole thing through, once. I was looking at Cody, showing him with my eyes how pissed I was. Cody kept saying, "Chill, man, chill."

I said, "Shut up, what the fuck?" to Cody today! YES! It was great cause it really worked. I didn't understand something he was saying and he looked at Michael with a "what the hell" face and started telling me how he was not going to repeat it cause I never get anything. Something like that. So I said "Shut up, what the fuck?" and he said, "I'm just messin' with you Stoddy," and answered my question. So there! I've found out it works to tell him shut up. I've seen Sadayah do it. It reminds me of Brandon with Whit.

71

I've written 70 blogs since I came here. This is the 71st. Not really a special number per se but that's a lot. Wow. Today I played Stuttering Jones again, perfected some things and my teacher told Ricky and me about his experience in Barcelona. He said that there was a place to see "live sex!" as he put it. He said you could look through these peep holesand you would be facing the "beautiful woman" while a couple had sex. Hahaha ok.

I ate lunch with Ricky at the gyro place we all occasionally go to. I got chicken souvlaki and he got some kind of beef thing with cheese in the middle. We talked about childhood. He mentioned a story about throwing a snowball at a bus and I told him of the time Whit and I got yelled at by our horse owning neighbor for lighting off fireworks. The waiter said I should have had what Ricky got, the beef dish, in broken English. I said, "Yes! Proti Fora, I will have it," haha my Greek was very broken. Proti fora (accent on the 'a') means next time. So Ricky and I walked and took the train home together. It was raining moderately.

I don't know why this blog is getting all messed up. The lines are differently distanced from each other. Oh well. Later in this blog, you will see first blog I wrote when I got here. Keep in mind, I was scared out of my mind when I wrote it. I also had Greek coffee soon after this and I never drink coffee. So that was a huge jolt of energy for a very tired mind. In addition to that, I had some cough medicine before bed because I had been having coughing fits at night for the last week or so before I came to Greece and I wanted to have a nice sleep after traveling for so long. Obviously that did not help me.

I woke up in the middle of the night, petrified to go back to sleep. I was dreaming about the word, "Efharisto", which means "Thank You." The Greek spelling of that is "Euxapisto." In my dream I imagined I was eating the 'u' (Ipsilon) and it made me feel so sick. I know, it's silly but it wasn't funny to me. Later it reminded me of the sponge dream I had when I was little, a sick dream. But the Ipsilon dream made me so sick that I thought I had a deathly fever (and I don't doubt the extreme caffeine mixing with no sleep and my first cup of coffee didn't help one bit). It was about 2 in the morning and I was so afraid of being on or near my bed at all cause it made me think of that terrible dream. I went into the bathroom and looked at myself. I kept getting stabbed with the pang of fear in my stomach and I remember this one moment, looking into my drooping, helpless eyes and thinking, "I might possibly die tonight." I kept thinking about my family and what they would think when they heard that I died on the first night here. On that note, I ran downstairs to the front desk and asked the guy behind the counter. He is a strange man that I still see once and a while and remember this terrible night. This strange man looks at you like he doesn't give a shit and blinks probably thirty times a minute more than he should. First I asked him for a thermometer. They only had the ones that aren't electronic. I suck at reading those. That made me even more agitated. I went into the halfway floor bathroom and left the thing in my mouth for probably four minutes. When I took it out, I didn't see any sign of my temperature, no red line, nothing. I tried it again, waiting longer this time but once again, failure.

Returning to the front desk, even more frazzled and desperate than before, I gave back the thermometer to the same twitchy faced guy and said, "I could not figure out how to work the thermometer. I couldn't see the red line. Do you know what hospitals are the closest to here?" I can't remember what he told me but I don't think it pleased me. If he listed some places, they were either far away or I realized, I can't go to hospital. I went back up to my room, which seemed like the loneliest, scariest, darkest, most unfamiliar place I had ever been in. The only thing I could think of was to call my brother and my parents. I did that. Whit said, "You are not deathly sick. You don't look sick at all. Stoddard, I can tell," and laughed at me. That helped a lot. Then my parents basically said, "'Get sleep' and 'Go to bed thinking of something that makes you happy to get rid of that bad thought'," so I watched the clip on youtube of "13 Going on 30" where Jenny says, "Razzle red," to the grown up Matt and then immediately following that, I cracked my first smile, while alone, that night at the clip where Jenny and Matt kiss near the swing set. I went to bed saying "Razzle red" to myself multiple times. It's amazing. It actually helped a lot. And I'm proud of it! Hahaha, I know silly once again. Talking to my family helped me immensely. I knew once I saw their faces that most of my sickness was caused by missing home.

So finally, here is the blog that I wrote before meeting everyone in the study abroad group down in the lobby and having my first cup of coffee. On the lighter side of things, the coffee was actually the best coffee I have ever had. That's why I was able to finish it. Granted, it was a tiny mg.

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Arrived in Greece!

I'm so tired. I've been up for 24 hours and that includes 12 hours of traveling...to GREECE! I'm here and the first thing I noticed was that the mountains were amazing! So high and beautiful. The city looks as if a random jumble of buildings were scattered on top of each other by a child at playtime. Oh man I'm so so so tired I can't think and my head hurts. Met my roommate, Michael! We went and got a big jug of water and some snacks. After I get some sleep I'll tell more about my travels.

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It's funny how I went from seriously thinking I was going to die to now, a comfortable moment, typing on my laptop in my rancid bathroom and reflecting about my epically eventful trip. Once again, I do not know why my bathroom smells this way. Also, I am in the bathroom because Michael went to bed and when he goes to bed, I need to either go to halfway floor or my bathroom-office. I'm never too happy about it but oh well, living with someone is never roses and cherry cakes. The other funny thing is, that first blog doesn't seem sad at all but that's because I was trying to enjoy it as much as I could. And the fear really didn't settle in fully until that dream.

Guilty

I studied more Greek today. I also had a medium thin crust cheese pizza at pizza hut. It was one of the cheapest there but still, I feel guilty. And a big reason I didn't want to do it was because I knew I would have to blog it later. So my hunger trapped me. Does it help to say it was unbelievably good? So much better than the last time I went there? I hope, cause it was stellar.

Halfway through Greek Crossroads of Rhythm and Sound, we all went down to the basement and felt each other. Not really. What we ACTUALLY did was play through some of our songs for the recording. Since recently, it was decided that we are also preforming our songs after a faculty concert on the 9th. Some Berklee teachers are coming to Nakas to give some of us proficiencies and to play a concert while they are here. By the way, I guess the teachers here haven't been great about preparing some of the study abroad students with the proficiencies. Luckily I'm not taking a test because I'm done with all of those already. I actually suggested to one of the guys in the office at Nakas if all the students could play at the faculty concert. He said that since we all have a class together and we are preparing songs, we could do that. He told me he'd ask Petros about it. Magically the next day, Petros is talking about having us all perform like he thought of it. Hmmm I wonder if I had anything to do with it. Let's just say I did. Anyway, today went really well. I felt good about how I led my friends. Petros kept getting all stressed out and opinionated about my song and I listened to him but once he says one of his ideas, he rambles on like we didn't understand him. I told the band what he wanted for "Poor Stuttering Jones" and started it up: "Ok, from the bridge, 1, 2, 3, 4-". I definitely learned a lot from leading a band extracurricularly back at Berklee. I'm glad I did that.

Some other students here don't have their pieces totally prepared yet and some said they don't want to perform theirs but I'm so happy to be doing it! I hope I get a video of it too. It will be great to watch it later and to put on my portfolio.

Just recently, I went and got some yogurt so I can eat it for a midnight snack and/or breakfast and also a tall can of beer. I drank the beer while studying Greek. Ricky sat down a little ways from me, doing his own homework for our Mediterranean percussion class. We laughed when a guy came into the room for a second, looked around, made a little sound, turned around and walked out again. Hahaha. We always share laughs about little things like that. It reminded both of us of this last Monday in Greek class. I don't remember exactly what lead up to this event but some weird things were culminating, including the fact that our teacher had really tight pants that day, and Sadayah randomly interrupted the class, tilted her head and sang two words, "This Christmas" from the song with the same name. Ricky and I bursted into laughter. Oh and we both put our heads back when we laugh. Hahaha I noticed that today.

Side note: I ate the whole medium pizza (keep in mind it was thin crust!) at around 4 o'clock today. At 8, I ate a slab of fish, french fries, lettuce and tomatoes and bread with butter on it. And then I go and get yogurt for later?! What is wrong with me?

Breather

Dear Evan,

Here are some other things I forgot to mention about the trip:

On Saturday before going out to the parties, Paula and I went to a "World Press '09" exhibition which has a collection of press photos from the year. There are 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners for the photographers who captured the best pictures of important events. It was much better than I would expect it to be. One of my favorites was a picture of eyes, each of a very different animal, to show how varied eyes are depending on the environment and habits of the animal. My other favorite was a before and after photo of boxers on the night of a fight. It's enticingly disturbing how drastically different their faces looked.

Paula taught me how to yodel. I guess that's common in Austria.

Paula knows "The Puppy Song" by Harry Nilsson! No one ever knows about him! We sang the part, "Dreams are nothing more than wishes and a wish is just a dream" together a lot.

One of the first things Paula said to me was that he had always thought my dad was going to become the next Dan Brown!

Yesterday I got back from the airport then pretty much struggled over Greek homework, practiced some piano, realized I should have learned a Charlie Parker song for my piano lesson the next day, had dinner with everyone except Cody cause he was still in the UK, did a little bit more Greek, got fed up with it and watched most of "Risky Business".

Today, I had 40 minutes before my piano lesson after my Greek class ended so I learned "Confirmation", one of my favorite Charlie Parker tunes. I played it in my lesson and he said he liked what I did with it. I was pleased about that haha! After my lesson I had three hours until my History of Music Class and instead of goofing off like most other weeks I told myself to crack down on practicing. I practiced the Toubeleki and the Req for my Mediterranean ensemble, warmed up my voice the way my teacher taught me and then worked on a funny song for Whit that I might finish if I find the time and the motivation. When I got home, I watched some more of Risky Business before dinner. At dinner, Cody talked about his crazy experiences around the UK. He went to Dublin and London as far as I know.

I recorded a piano part for Zoe's Crossroads of Rhythm and Sound piece that she is going to enter into the "Women's Musician Network" competition. She recorded her part first and I gotta say, listening to her play the flute was thrilling. The best parts were the quick gasps of air she took between notes. I've never stood so near a flute player before and it was cool. I told her I might want to write a flute piece sometime and that I might want her to play for me in the future.

I studied a lot of Greek tonight because most of today's class was too ahead of me and I felt uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that when it was time for us to take a break in the middle of the class, I bolted out, ran down the stairs and took a breather outside. I was sick of it. So about two hours ago I wrote out all the past and future conjugations for about 20 verbs then I studied one of the pages in the book that she suggested to look over. Our final test is next Monday. We have two more classes before that. I'm determined to get a better score on the final than I did on my midterm (I got a B).

Y.

Finally

Paula and I went out to two parties.

1st Party -

It was a French Skii party. There were skiis leaning on the door frames and some guests even went as far as wearing skii boots. A French guy went up to me and said he was from a place I had never heard of. I told him my name and said I was from Minnesota. He then explained to me he was joking and that the place he said he was from was a famous Skii resort in France. I said, "Oh, haha ok," but before I could think of a skii resort in Minnesota, he said, "You could say you're from a famous skiing city in the U.S. Like Aspen." So I said, "Yeah, Aspen. That's where I'm from," but he just turned away from me. Ok...

After that I had trouble getting into conversations cause everybody was, well, speaking French. Paula speaks a little French cause she spent some months there for school. She left a crowd of people she was talking to and came over to me. She said, "You gotta follow me around and get to know people that way instead of standing alone." I said ok but we ended up talking just to each other for the rest of the time was stayed at the party. Then I confessed. I brought up childhood and the opportunity presented itself. I told her about the time I sat by her on the risers (which was actually before a recorder concert I think) and that I remembered she was wearing a red dress. I confessed about the note I wrote about her after that night; I told her about how I wrote about her red hair and thought she was pretty. Paula thought the story was cute. After telling her that I liked her, she said she knew from the start. I laughed. Then she reminded me of a letter Michael sent to her. At the bottom of the letter was, "P.S. Stoddy likes you too." I actually think I remember being there, writing it with him. I'm sure we did. Then Paula confessed that she and Michael were sort of an item, in the elementary school sense ("He likes me, I like him. And he gives me heart erasers."). I was a little bummed cause she didn't say she ever liked me that way but I was relieved that after all those years, she finally heard it from me. She said that Michael brought her a red, heart shaped eraser once and then turned red and ran away. That made me miss Michael.

Then something broke my heart. She said when she came back to visit two years later, Michael never got to see her. I vaguely remembered that. After she left, Michael apparently called her and asked her why she never told him she was coming back. That changed my idea of bragging about seeing Paula. Instead, I'm going to email Michael and apologize for never telling him about Paula coming to visit. I could have easily called him but I know I was jealous so I'm sure that caused me to "forget" to tell him. I brought up to Paula the possibility that Michael was mad at me for a while because of this. Anyway, she lifted her glass and said, "To our past." It was a good sewing up moment.

2nd party -

We got there and the cops had just been there because of a noise complaint. The host of the party kicked everyone out. Paula and I then met a guy waiting for a cab and he hit on Paula after she offered for the three of us to share a cab. He asked us to go to a party with him. Coincidentally, Paula ended up knowing the host of that party too and she recognized most of the people at it as the friends of her younger brother. That was strange.

We got back and had cereal together. Throughout the trip, Paula and I shared a lot of interesting conversations about religion, civil rights and politics but most of all, joked around a lot. It ended up being very fun. I'm so glad I went to Vienna.

Vienna Bobanna Feefanna

YESTERDAY

-Yesterday I took a tour with Paula in this big mansion, "Schonbrunn" and I stood in the room where Mozart played his first concert. WOWZA. The rooms were filled with chandeliers, golden decorations and paintings of those who lived in the masion.

-I went to the MOMUK museum which is a modern art museum. It was incredibly weird. There was an exhibition on gender studies and I saw some crazy art pieces. There were tons of videos, one of them featuring two clothed women humping each other without barely ever touching and another video where a woman said, "Art must be beautiful, artist must be beautiful" over and over again while violently combing her hair with a comb and a brush.

-I met Paula and her engaged friends. I liked them. But...the guy said he thinks gay people can't have the same quality of love as straight people. And that's of course a load of buuuuuuullSHIT.

-I went out to a bar where we saw a Hungarian band play. I hung out with Paula and met some of her other friends. The first friend I met walked with us to the bar and he was really cool. We hung out more than I hung out with Paula by the end of the night and he bought me a drink. Then during the last band that played, a good looking girl from the audience got up and danced. She was great. The guy that came with Paula and me to the bar said to me about the last song, "I really like this...but it's NOT about of the girl." Hahaha it struck me funny. I started answering, "It IS about-" then I stopped cause I realized maybe my opinion was better left unsaid.

Before I talk about what I did today, I remembered something that happened on the train coming to Vienna from the airport on Wednesday. I was sitting, minding my own business when I heard people kissing behind me. I thought it was funny that I happened to be back to back with lovers, separated only by my seat. Then one of them talked. It was the girl. I didn't understand it because it was in German. Then the other one talked. Another girl? Yep, I was an inch away from lesbians making out during the entire train ride.

TODAY

-I went ice-skating with Paula and her younger brother Filippo! And I tried orange punch. They went back on the ice rink as I was finishing up my punch. I took some pictures of them when they passed by. I was taking forever to drink it so I decided to sacrifice the last ten sips for more skating time since we had to leave soon for lunch. When I went back on the ice, I noticed a girl ahead of me, waving her hips as she skated and to be honest, my eyes were fixed on her. I started to skate past her, turing my head and focusing my eyes to see if I was attracted to her face, which would make me feel even better about her ass. Then suddenly I heard my name being called by Paula and Filippo: "Stoddy!" I was caught! I quickly turned and said, "Hey!" louder than I anticipated, scared that they might have noticed me checking out the girl. They asked me, "Were you looking for us?" They must have seen me turning my head, assuming I was scoping out the skating crowd and trying to find them. I'm sad to say I told a little white lie at the heat of the moment. "Yeah, there you are!" I answered. I laughed at myself.

-I had lunch with Paula's parents and grandmother and ate an Austrian meatloaf dish that was decent. I like Wienerschnitzel better. For dessert, I had a dish with pancakes cut up into pieces, surrounding some kind of cream. It was also pretty good. I said it reminded me of a dessert version of shellfish because the pancake acted as a shell around the mooshier insides.

-Tonight I'm going to a French party and then a German party with Paula. She was invited to both by two different friends.

AAAAAAAAAH!

I just lost my whole blog entry cause the damn ethernet cable came out of my computer again. Paula's cable doesn't snap in correctly in the computer. This entry will not be as long. Tomorrow I'll touch on more.

1. Got lost today more than I wanted to. Even couldn't remember which apartment Paula lived in. Luckily there is only one apartment on the first floor. There's only one other door and it's a psychotherapist's office. At least I think so.

2. Saw museums today. Seeing Klimt's "The Kiss" in person was better than I thought. Stunning.

3. Ate at Tex Mex with Paula. That was my Thanksgiving lunch.

4. My Thanksgiving dinner was at a restaurant near the concert hall where later saw a Haydn concert. At the restaurant, I had Weiner Schnitzel which was delectable. It's like chicken fingers but more tender, like fish.

5. I thought the concert was at 7:30 but it was at 7:00! So I was late and had to wait outside the auditorium for 40 minutes with some other outcasts until the first big applause happened.

6. The first thing I did today was get tickets at the same concert hall for the show later, and go to a church/museum where I got to go to the top. There was an astonishingly elaborate baroque design on the main wall of the church of little baby angles in a cloud with golden rods of sunlight everywhere.

7. The second museum I went to today was the best. There was this one point where I was looking at a painting and I heard two people scream at the top of their lungs, a woman and a man. Then I heard an evil monster-like sound come from the same room and looked over. The lights were flickering. I almost hoped there was a dragon. Or at least a fake one. I walked into the room and there was a sign saying, "Yell as loud as you can, now!" So after I yelled for the first time, nothing happened and couple laughed at me. Another guy yelled and somehow it triggered something, making the lights flicker again. Then this loud noise dominated the room that sounded like king kong breathing in your ear and with every evil breath of this invisible creature, the lights flickered on and off! It was like the room was alive! I yelled after him even louder and the room did the same thing. I had no idea why this was happening in such a garish museum with old paintings and sculptures.

Vienna

1. I arrived in Vienna. I met Paula. She's still a cutey pie, with her red hair and nice smile. The signature aspect of her face are her dimples. So I asked her how she was doing. We talked, ignoring the fact that we hadn't seen each other in ten years for a little bit, then mentioned it and things eased up a little. I joked with her about how in this case, it's not like, "So...how was your weekend? It's more like, how was your ten years?" We went to her apartment, put stuff down and then walked to a traditional Austrian place to eat. I had this pasta dish with slices of ham, parsley (I think) and really good cheese. Oh my god!!! SO GOOD.

2. We went back to her apartment (which I'm staying in) then went for a long walk with her mom and dad's two small dogs, saw two Christmas markets, the parliament, the emperor's abode and lots of other pretty buildings. When we stopped at his very gaudy coffee shop, with a ceiling that looked like a warped spider web, the dogs were so riled up that Paula kept stopping to reprimand them in German. It shocked me each time, juxtaposing with our jokes and polite conversation.

3. After stopping at the apartment again, we went out to get supplies for a balsamic vinaigrette salad. The best ingredient we put in it was feta cheese with bacon wrapped around them, cooked in a pan of honey and walnuts. KILL ME it was delicious. I had to do one of those stop, close my eyes and process beauty faces. She thought I didn't like it at first haha.

4. I saw Filippo, Paula's younger brother by two years, that I haven't seen in 12 or 13 years! So crazy. A friend of Paula's also came over. Her name is Helena. She is definitely cute. Dimples as well! We hung out. I showed them "Refresh Button" from my album and the youtube video of "Hot Dam Got a Woman". Filippo and Paula said they both have the old version of "Refresh Button" on their iPods. The three of them kept talking in German and I was so lost for a while. Paula kept filling me in but then they watched this comedy clip and it struck me so funny looking at this guy speaking in gibberish (to me), waving his hands and using his fingers as a puppet, lowering his voice, squeaking and getting everyone to laugh. I couldn't believe people understood it haha.

5. Paula walked Helena home and came back to help set up my bed. I'm lying on the fold out couch right now. Tomorrow I'm waking up at 7:30, having breakfast with Paula, then we're going to town and she's going to study for a while until lunchtime. I will walk around for that period of time, going to museums and things like that. I'm VERY much looking forward to that. We're meeting up again for lunch and then coming back. After she goes to work at five, I'm gonna go out and see a concert, probably a Haydn concert at a place that is supposed to be the most beautiful concert hall. That will be nice.

I like Vienna a lot. It's clean and happenin'.

Until tomorrow. I think tomorrow I'll feel more comfortable. I'm still getting used to the whole idea that I never really knew Paula well and now, ten years later, I'm staying in her city, her fold out couch, meeting her friends and this time being the foreigner. For me, travel is always hard at the beginning. But I think I'm starting to get the hang of new thing after new thing by realizing that so many of those "things", wherever I go, are similar to "things" I already know or have seen before.

Y.

Paula

The following segment is something I wrote earlier today, at around 4:30 or so on a scrap of notebook paper:

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I'm jotting my feelings down cause I just can't stand to wait. I'm so excited. Can't hold it. Guess where I am right now? All my readers (I have a LOT of readers, like two to four or something) will be, or might be slightly disappointed in me. I am in PIZZA HUT AND BABYLON by DAVID GRAY just came on. That makes it even better. But anyway, I'm getting a medium pan pizza with extra cheese (SALIVA!), pepperoni, onions and chile (jalepenos!). I'm so damn excited. I know I'm in Greece + I should be excited by a Greek monument or something but who gives a damn. I'm happy. My readers will like this: It will be a taste of home. What I meant by "Saliva" was that I wanted to drool thinking about extra cheese.

Oh and I got a sprite too! Realize I did not order Coke or Pepsi. No, most of my caffein from now on is coming from tea. That way I won't have soda as much. It's ok sometimes but while I'm here, it's just tea and non-caff. soda from time to time.

Tomorrow I'm meeting Paula at the University metro stop in VIENNA at around 1. I will be staying in her apartment which is in the same complex as her parents' place I guess. She'll be staying up with her parents. I'm thrilled to see her and honestly, I'm at pizza hut partly cause I was so excited + kind of nervous about meeting her. It's been ten years! It's funny I'm most worried about - wait, a woman just teased me! She brought my sprite while holding a dif. person's pizza! FAKE PLAY! - I'm most worried about pronouncing her name. I've been practicing it: "Paoula, Paaoula, no PAoula." I"m sure it'll be fine. There has to be a reason why she was pretty much my first crush ever. Well, she + Amy Deeg. God, I still remember that day when I wouldn't trade seats with someone else in children's choir (music class with Danielson) so I could sit next to Paula. She was wearing a red dress I believe. I remember that beig my first real experience with a little bit of lust. I had experienced crushes before but this had a tinge of "want" in it. To a kid, "lust" really is just wanting to kiss someone. I remember this one time at her house we were jumping on mattresses, I think on the floor + I was hoping by some miracle occurrence that we would run into each other at the lips + "accidentally" kiss. Haha, so cute.

Then I remember her leaving. The last thing I remember is reaching in the cupboard to the left of the fridge, playing with the loads of Tupperware for some reason w/ her. Then her dad came + I watched her being driven away up our driveway while I stood on our Minnesota lawn, mourningly.

MY PIZZA SHOULD BE HERE SOON! The party is SOON to start!!! :))).

Back to Paula, I remember my dad dropping me off at her house once (across Pat Lake which was so crazy!) and I "accidentally" fell out of the car + into the snow. For some reason I thought that was cute, you know "clumsy for you" kind of deal. My dad thought I made a mystake + helped me up quickly, haha.

Then later, in the snow, playing, Paula asked me, "Do you think Michael likes me?" - HEARTBREAK. I old the truth, "Yes," and pretended nothing hurt. And boy did it hurt.

Michael, time to get you back! Nothing against you. You'll always be a huge part of my life but this weekend, I WILL BE IN VIENNA WITH NO OTHER THAN PAULA THUN!

I WIN!

The pizza got her but it had the wrong toppings! Another fake play!

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End of segment

Keep in mind, on the notebook paper, "I WIN!" was underlined four times. So the pizza was good. It tasted a little smokey but it was tasty. The crust was the best part like always. Ahhh pan pizza. I gave in. I was going to wait til Maine to have pizza hut - won't stop me from wanting it again ha!

So everything was chaotic after I finished eating. Before I start, pre-pizza hut I walked to Syntagma from the school's stop, Penipistimio to look around and possibly eat somewhere. Then I remembered Sadayah telling me about a Pizza Hut in Penepistimio. So I got a cup of tea at Syntagma and walked back to Penepistimio. After eating there, I left the place and realized I left my sweatshirt in Pizza Hut (which looked different by the way - lots of green vegetables and wicker baskets painted on the wall for some odd reason) so I went back and my waitress had kept it for me. That was good. I started my walk home, passed a throng of protesters at Penepistimio and the usual street salesmen selling clothing, purses, scarves, electronics and my favorite, dancing stuffed animal toys and remote control cars that always get in the way, driving right in front of you while you're trying to maneuver your way through the crowd. And keep in mind, these salesmen always have straight faces on. There's always one standing by this weird gangly coyote stuffed animal that just swings its head back and forth, crazily dancing and the guy looks up at you pleadingly in a business manner. Cracks me up. Today, there was something new among the salesmen and flyer hander-outers. There was a woman handing out free promotional yogurt and plastic forks. I said no. Reaching Syntagma again, I remembered, "OH, didn't get my passport from Maria," and since I need my passport to travel, that really wouldn't be good. She had my passport because she needed to take it in to extend my visa. So I started freaking out cause I knew she probably left for the day and I wasn't sure if she kept the passports in her office. While running back to the school from Syntagma which is about a ten minute trek, I realized I also had not gotten my laundry from the laundry place and I was afraid it was closed. So here I was, running through the crazy stuffed animal dancer salesmen, dodging another remote control car that can flip upside down and drive again, wondering if I would have to go to Vienna without clothes. The woman offered me yogurt again. I just ran by her. Finally arriving at the school, I asked the guy who works next to Maria if she was there. He said she left about an hour before. I told him I needed my passport and he asked me if I could come in the morning. They open at 10. My flight is at 10:15. Yeah, not gonna work. I told him that and he reached around her desk and took my passport from the drawer she kept it in. Allowed? I don't know. But thank you sir!

Next step. I ran to the laundry place and luckily they were still open. It was around 6 now. I said Kalispera and walked out. I was so relieved it was all solved and looked over to see a little convenient store. "Ok," I thought and got a small can of Amstel beer. Walking home with my backpack, big wheeley travel pack filled with clothes and my can of beer, I was almost calm again. I had to text Cody and some others to make sure that it was ok I took the passport. Mia said she didn't know if Cody got his passport (I thought if he got his back from Maria, that would mean she was done with them), Courtney said, "I believe he did," but that wasn't good enough for me to finally be relaxed. Arriving at Syntagma, this time a little closer to home, I heard my phone do it's text jingle. It said I had two messages. One of them was from Cody, "Yes sir." YES, he got the passport. I was all set. The other text was in Greek. It was from Vodaphone. That reminded me. "Oh YEAH, I need to put minutes on my phone cause Paula might need to contact me tomorrow. Ok, that means I have to walk back to Penepistimio again or find a Vodaphone anywhere on the way!" But I didn't find one on the way. Once again, I passed the yogurt lady, the crazy stuffed animal guy, the annoying remote control flipper lights-up-its-wheels car and had to shimmy my way through the crowd once more. I got to the store and everything was solved. I added the minutes and I was finally done. This time I was not going to walk home and decided to take the metro. So for the LAST time I squeezed through the Penepistimio crowd, by the stuffed animal santa riding a reindeer, the crazy dancer, purses, scarves, remote control car that drove right in front of me this time (I swear I wanted to smash it like a bug) and the normal, business "what's so weird about me" faces of salesmen. Then the yogurt lady. This time I said yes. I took the double yogurt thingy from her. I like to think that the whole point of it all was for the yogurt. To do the right thing and accept it! Haha. It's on my bed and I'm afraid it's filled with poison. But that comes from hearing when I was a kid that people on halloween put razors in candy.

I won't even get into how the metro was filled with people today. Well, it always is, no matter when you use it.

Insane day. Tomorrow will be a completely different animal.

Blogland Revisited!

Dear Scone,

I had to wake up earlier today than on usual Mondays. Not that bad (9:00 haha). The other 7 and I had to meet Maria (one of the head secretaries of the boss at Nakas) to go to the visa office. We are all staying here 10 days longer than is required in a visiting visa so we had to extend it. Maria took care of it though so I we all just had to sit there for an hour or so, waiting. I wrote, thought and did some hilmwork (homework). After that, I practiced the flute and piano piece that Zoe wrote for our Crossroads of Rhythm and Sound class. Our teacher (the guy who loves the movie "La Vita e Bella" or "Life is Beautiful" and who is always funny and hyper) suddenly got the idea on one class that he wanted to record all of our odd meter songs that we wrote for the class. My song is "Poor Stuttering Jones" in 7/8.

My piano lesson was cool. He taught me some more cool progressions. Each lesson is anything I want it to be. It just helps to come with questions or an idea of what I want him to show me. Most of the time I think of these questions on the spot haha. But it felt good to show him a song I just wrote "You Always Can Count on a Song" that had two things in it that he had shown me; in the bridge, I use chords that come from basically splitting the octave into three equal major thirds (Bb -> Gb -> D -> Bb) which sounds fantastic for the song, and I also used a phrygian 5 chord instead of a normal one. The notes from bottom to top are F (bass), Gb, Bb, C, Eb, F.

I always have time on Mondays between my piano lesson and Music History 2 class. So I walked towards Syntagma, talked to Ricky on the way (he was heading home) and he noticed I had a chocolate donut in my hand which he thought was funny cause he always sees me with different sweet things, then headed straight to "Public", the video game/book store place. I went to other floors for a little this time. I thought that I saw a sign for music books. The sign said, "Biblia Paithia" which I though might mean kid books but I thought, "Oh that means play cause kids play and that must translate to music playing" so I went up there to look for a Sondheim music book I wanted cause I want to sing "All I Ask of You" for my voice lesson. It reminds me of Luke too. He sang it last 4th of July when I was at Jaimie's family party. His voice sounded so incredible under Jaimie's while I played badminton with Althea and fireworks flew up from behind the hill and into the sky. That was a gooood moment. I hugged Luke after that and told him "thank you" for giving me such an amazing moment. Something like that. But anyway, I got up to the 4th floor and it was a children's floor. Just kid's toys and books.

So I went back down, searched around the bookstore for a while and then went down to the GAME ZONE! Best name ever. There's this escalator that goes through this black archway with that title written above it and mario is greeting you at the top along with some other characters, all lit up with bright, close to neon colors. Mario stands out for me. Every time I say "Ahhhh best place ever." There's even a tunnel lined with pictures of different video games like you enter an ancient video game castle. And in different rooms are all sorts of games you can try on different systems. There are also fun hands on things you can try like today there was a racing car in the Wii room that you could sit in. I sat in it, put my hands on the steering wheel and pointed the controller, which was stuck in the steering wheel to the screen. And it didn't work. Only some of the buttons worked. Then it ran out of batteries. Haha. So I went over to another machine and chose to play a Wolverine game. I don't know, looked fun. He's my favorite X-men character. It ended up just being a demo video. I walked away muttering, "I don't wanna watch a dumb video game movie. I wanna play the damn thing." Hahaha. I wasn't upset, just frustrated. It is ALWAYS a disappointment for gamers all over the world when he encounters a dud (a video in place of an actual interactive demo - Dumb (f)Uck Demo)

After the video game store, which was worth it even though there was a dud cause it's always worth it to be in that castle, I walked back to the school, had my History of Music lesson. I, for some reason, was fighting to even start THINKING about falling asleep. Usually in class you get the nods but this class is ONE on ONE. Just the teacher and me so I couldn't even flinch an eye. So I had to press my eyes open solely with my mind and think to myself, "You even close them for a second and nod your head a CENTIMETER, you are DEAD," so I made it. My head just got a little hot and I daydreamed a couple times. Besides that the class was good! I only missed some small things.

I wrote a song for you today ("you" as in Scone - remember, this letter is addressed to him)! Well, it's actually supposed to be a song "written" by you. I was getting so loud singing as you that our neighbors knocked. Well, they knocked one time when my head was simply against the wall and I laughed once at a movie I was watching. I didn't know my laugh was THAT loud. But since they knocked tonight, I had to go in the bathroom on the floor halfway between the first and the zero floor which is never occupied by anyone at night (or any other time that I've tried) and record in there!

HAPPY D-DAY SCONE!

I love you. You are so much a part of me it's insane.

Stoddy.

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Back on Saturday, I remember that I sat by the fountain which is in a square right near my hotel. That's the "other Momus", meaning that's the other place I like to sit and write. I wanted to add that cause I wasn't sure if I ever mentioned that area before. The high reaching fountain that turns off and on from time to time for no reason (on them it turned off right at the moment that a little kid touched the side of it so he tried to turn it on again right after - it was hilarious) in the square that Cody, Ricky and I hang out in, either on the benches with cheap beers (we don't sit on actual outside restaurant chairs cause we'd have to buy something from the restaurant) or go in the bar called "Sutsu" which is our most frequented place. The first bar we ever went to was "Palacio", which is owned by a moderately overweight Greek man that was expecting a baby "any day now" when we talked to him last. We'll see him again I'm sure and we'll hear all about the baby. I haven't gone in his place for about a month and a half.

That paragraph was confusing with all its parenthesis.

Dead

I finished watching Dead Poet's Society. It hit me hard. I almost cried and I realized why after I thought about it.

I was at dinner earlier tonight before finishing the movie and someone mentioned that Jason (one of the guys who works at the international program) will be coming to check up on us and take us out to dinner. I had possibly heard of this happening at the beginning of the semester but I had forgotten about it. So I spoke up, "Really?!" cause I love when people come to visit us. It's happened two times before here: different people from Berklee come and check up on us, either for video documenting reasons, scheduling reasons or for other reasons. Right after that, Mia said "Stoddy, where have you BEEN?" in a way that to me, and possibly only to me, seemed quite hostile. I couldn't think of anything else to say but, "Did he send an email or something?" I guess he sent something about two weeks ago. I said I must have forgotten. I kicked myself for not standing up for myself just a little at dinner. I should have said, "I've been writing a musical." So seeing Dead Poet's really hit me cause of the "Captian, my captain" scene. Sorry Mia, just documenting what happened. This is an opinion article haha.

But hey, dinner was great. Mia leaned over to pick something up at one point and fell off her chair while holding a butter knife which almost hit Zoe. It was funny. We were all laughing and after Sadayah made fun of the sound she made, I said, "Onomonomia."

VIENNA ON WEDNESDAY!

To Clarify

Socrates supposedly taught students between the ages of 12 to 16 to question tradition and to always think for themselves. But I guess he, along with other teachers, also taught his students other "things" about life. Like sexual things. And I think most of them were boys.

Today is half over but so far I have had fun. I had two gyros at the place called "Pita Pan" (such an awesome name), hid my watch in my pocket so I could ask a random passerby on the street "Ti ora einai;" or "What time is it?", then walked down to the Monastiraki area, found what I wanted then sat in a random restaurant and had a Sprite while a greek band played. It was really good. There was a male and female singer, a guitar and bass I think. I sat there and these girls in front of me, four Greek girls, kept sneaking looks at me and laughing when I would yell, "Wooh!" at the music. Especially when my wooh was too late at one point, after all the clapping had finished. That was the extent of my interaction with them. The Sprite was 3.50 but I considered it paying for watching the band too. It was well worth it, being there for a hour and a half.

I then had a crepe that was good with cinnamon and cream in it.

So I did something Greek today.

Agora

Saw the ancient Agora today for the first time. Pretty much the birthplace of democracy! Yeah. And I saw the prison that Socrates died in. Cool! Sad. And found out Socrates was kind of a teacher AND a pedophile at the same time! Not cool at all. Sad.

Also walked through the Acropolis museum. John, our Greek civ teacher, took us to these places.

I wrote more of my story/musical and then hung out with Cody, Ricky and Michael again. We watched Eurotrip. Some really stupid parts. Some really funny parts.

Y.