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.

Stranger

I played the piano track for Mia's song tonight, which is for our Greek music class. The class I wrote "Poor Stuttering Jones" for. After that, I played piano for one of Zoe's classes. I had to do a piano track for "All The Things You Are", the jazz standard. It was in 7. Then Zoe came to my room and I practiced with her (she plays flute) on the song that she wrote for our Greek music class. It was a big piano day! Felt good. Oh, then she asked to hear my finished "Poor Stuttering Jones". After that I offered to play her my "You Always Remember a Song" song. She said sure and I did! It was cool. She said she liked my lyrics. But then she asked how all the words related to the story. I told her that I wrote a lot of the song before I knew as much of the story that I know now. She seemed to really like my story idea though! I still have not unveiled the plot yet on the blog because I want it to be more figured out. You could say that my story started as a stranger, she is now an acquaintance and soon, hopefully she will be my BFF (butt f&*# friend).

I forgot to say in the earlier blog today that we went shopping at the Monastiraki metro stop area.

Tonight, Zoe, Michael, Cody and I watched "Stranger Than Fiction". Such a cool movie with its many layers. Mind bending. I like things like that.

Hthes

That means yesterday in Greek, phonetically (actual spelling is χθες). I sang my new song for my voice teacher yesterday. It went all right. When she heard the main melody of the chorus before I even sang it (I was playing it on the piano when she came in), she said, "Will you write for me? And will you remember your little teacher you had years ago when you have a musical?" It was cute haha. My favorite part was "little" teacher. The hell?

Last night, I watched, "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" which was entertaining then later went to the steam room with Ricky and Cody in the hotel that Ricky works out in. Cody was so drunk before we went out. He was chatting with Michael's boyfriend (on Michael's computer screen). It was funny. So we went to the steam room and drank beer in there. Not such a good idea? Yeah, it wasn't that pleasant cause your body gets rid of so much water and then beer takes its place. After the steam room, we went to Sutsu, a bar that we go to sometimes.

Today Zoe, Michael and I went Christmas shopping! Then we stopped and sat on a fountain while eating a sesame seed pretzel thing (I forget the greek name of it) which was not very good. I had some of Michael's cause he didn't finish it. Yeah, I ate it anyway.

Finished a song

Yes I did. It's called, "You Never Forget a Song." I like it a lot. It's for my musical. I also wrote on a verse of a song I'm working on with Zoe. She wanted to write a song for her sister who's moving to California and she asked me to cowrite it with her. I was pleased that she asked me. I'm thinking the title will be "California Julia". Not surprising right? It's about how Zoe wishes there were two of her sister so that she could spend time with her in Philidalphia while the other one lives in California - "I wish there were two of ya, Julia".

I just finished watching Good Will Hunting. Second time I've seen it. First time was at Ben Celletti's house. Damn good movie.

Man this bathroom smells sick. Sometimes it just smells absolutely rancid and I know it's coming from somewhere else. It's disgusting. So I'm going to get the hell out of here (I'm in here cause Michael went to sleep and the light of the computer keeps him up), get a spinakopita (spinich pie thing that's absolutely to die for every single time I have it), then come back, wash up and go to...BED!

Today was good.

Saturday and Sunday in Santorini

Saturday was a crazy day. Woke up at five, took a ferry at 7:25 which lasted 8 hours. I got to my hostel at 4 something and the guy who owns the hostel suggested that I rent a car. I declined and said I'd take the bus around. He said I should see the sunset. It was too late to take the 4 o'clock bus so I went to Perivalo beach which is the beach near where I stayed (Holiday Beach Resort). The sand was black and a lot less messy than normal sand. There were also little white rocks that reminded me of petrified styrofoam. Very cool. I kept a white rock.

I got back in time to take the 5:30 bus. But it didn't come. Ever. I waited until about 6:30 and by that time, the sunset had finished. Yeah, disappointing right? Supposed to be the highlight of Santorini. Well, I'll go back some day. But anyway, SOOO I rented a car! It was this nice, smooth little red guy that only had one fault. It would slow down slightly at random times. It made me kind of sick whenever it jolted like that. I drove up to town, ate at this souvlaki place which was all right, saw the Greek soccer game that was going on in Athens on the TV. My friends were at the game back in Athens which is cool! I got cold and felt like hanging out with people so I went back, hurrayed when I arrived at the hostel cause I did have a scary moment on the way to Fira (where I ate). I stopped abruptly at this one point cause I couldn't see that well and I was at this intersection and I thought I might have missed a stop sign. Sooo, I could have gotten in an accident but the guy behind me must have been watching closely and just went around me. Well, I guess he should have been looking anyway since it was an intersection. But we had the right of way. Doesn't matter. In the past. So I got back to the hostel, yelling with joy and then a little later, walked to the "Young Bar" that the guy told me about. He was so proud of his little bar haha. I got there and met a Romanian girl who told me not to speak Greek cause she doesn't like it. She told me to only speak English. She said it like she was accusing me of a crime. It was funny. She kept giving me and everyone else in the bar a free shot. I got like two free ones until these three Canadian kids invited me over to their table. They ordered a hookah. Tried hookah! Made me SOO light headed. It was crazy. I felt like I was getting really really drunk almost every time I smoked it and then I would go back to normal after it. I also had some beer that night too. So I drank and smoked. Not too much of a healthy night. And let's just say I payed for it a little when I got back to my hostel. Some ash even came out of my mouth. Sorry, disgusting I know. But I gotta document. Reporting isn't always fun.

In the bar, they had the game on. I'm pretty damn sure I saw Cody in the crowd! I wasn't surprised. He was probably attracting attention to himself cause he brought a drum to the game to play along with the other drummers and chanters.

On the way back to the hostel, before I was alone in my room (I had a single) one of the Canadian guys (not the one with an extra tooth above his tooth which was repulsive) said, "I'm ready to have another beer when I get back!" I replied immediately with, "I'm ready to stick two fingers in my throat when I get back!"

I went to sleep that night without brushing or dental flossing. I was out. Then in the middle of the night I brushed when I was more awake. Haha that sounds counterintuitive.

Sunday was a different story. I woke up at 8 and I was out driving by 8:15. I drove through Fira and all the way to Ia. I ended up at the Amoudi Bay. That was incredibly nice, sitting on small pebbles near a tall cliff. The rocks were once again mostly black. I thought of some cool story ideas when I was sitting there. That's what I meant by "enlightenment" in my last blog. So I drove back after that, went into this pretty cool ancient Greek art replicas place, then finally arrived at the red beach where I had to climb over this hill, ending up facing these humungous red rocks. Below them was a beach that I thought looked like Superman's beach cause the black rocks looked blue next to the red ones. Blue and red always reminds me of Superman. Or the two most common team colors on video games. I'm always red. Whit's always blue.

Before I returned my car, I had lunch at the end of Perivolo beach near a large cliff. I had cheese pie and this extremely cheesy Margarita pizza. I didn't feel too well for about half of the ferry ride home. After getting back to the hostel, I realized I hadn't tried food from the bakery near the hostel. I took the car for a quick spin over to the bakery, got this sweet, thin crust pastry thing but wasn't hungry at all so I waited til I wasn't feeling sick anymore in the ferry later to eat it. Along with my cheesy pizza leftovers, which was half the pizza haha. My eyes were too big when I ordered all the cheese in the world. My eyes are always too big.

So that's basically it in a nut shell. Didn't have much time there but I did it. When I got back to Athens, I went near the school and Skyped at an internet cafe with my fam. Then I walked home cause the metro closed. That wasn't bad. Only 4o minutes. I had to keep inventing ways to hold my bag.

Yesterday (Monday) I got bummed about the fact that I didn't see the sunset. Courtney reminded me that I missed the highlight (nothing against her, it just struck me) and these two Nakas Greek students said I should go back next weekend to catch the sunset. Haha, like I'm going back. Yeah right. So I was pissed and didn't come home for dinner. I felt like writing anyway. I went to Golden Chopsticks, this Chinese food restaurant. It was a beautiful change from the food in the hotel. I've eaten there before with Michael and Courtney about a month ago. I had gyoza and a spicy noodle dish with sweet and sour sauce on the side as I requested. Brilliant.

Today was a dangerous day so we all stayed in. I only went outside to get food. Speaking of food I'm starving after writing about the chinese food and the cheese world. Damnit. But yeah, today people were rioting and walking the streets, chanting things in Greek. So I guess this boy was shot last year and some other people were shot the year before. They were protesting about that and also because of some scandal. Not sure of the story. The rumor is that it's also anti-American day today. Not sure I believe that but on the one occasion that I did leave the hotel today, these three men looked at me and one of them pointed, muttering, "American." I looked at him and smiled, not sure what to do. I thought I'd just pass it off as a joke, "Yeah fun and games, I'm an American, you got me!" I didn't say that, I just said that with my face so he wouldn't see that I was scared.

Anyway, I wrote almost a whole song today and more of my story/musical that changes every day haha.

Yes

Santorini. Beach. Enlightenment! Hookah?

Santorini Tomorrow!

I saw the acropolis today! Walked around inside it, I mean. It was breathtaking seeing the Parthenon close up. Though there was scaffolding all over it due to repair and reconstruction that will take about 25 years I was told. So I'll go back when I'm 46 and hopefully it'll be scaffold free.

I have to go to bed really early today, at the latest 10 cause I have to get up at 5 tomorrow morning. I'm planning on ----

I stopped writing and now it is 12:02 am hahaha. Didn't adhere to my plan did I? Well I'll probably get to sleep around 1 now and get 4 hours. Whatever. I'll have an eight hour ferry.

Cody is playing Bohemian Rhapsody on the piano right now. Mike is getting ready to go to the steam room with Cody while Ricky works out. Cody's gonna drink in the steam room haha. And Mike's just gonna "chill" (Cody offered that proposition to him - "Mikey, you can just chill"). Cody kind of pressured him into going but they'll have fun. I'm jealous. I wanna go in the steam room! Shut up whiney Stoddy. You're going to...SANTORINI!

Y.

Can't Wait For Christmas!!!

Yesterday we all went out to dinner again with Scott Free after some of my friends had a recital. It was fun. I laughed a lot with Ricky and had some good talks with Courtney. Ricky gets funnier every day. He said something to me that made me really happy. We were talking about all the things you could do in different situations. Like weird things that would make people feel uncomfortable (my favorite kind of humor. Then he told me that in Greek class, he starts cracking up sometimes cause he thinks about what I could be thinking about. So awesome.

I had really good chicken at the restaurant. Everything was good there. I had this amazing chocolate cake slice there too. Scott Free's wife and I talked about musicals then Courtney, Scott wife and I talked about paradoxes and art. She (Scott's wife) said that science and art are actually incredibly related even though people think of them as separate things. I totally agreed and reminded her of how we, ourselves, are works of art and we walk around in this art piece every day. I brought up the golden ratio too.

Oh my god there was a funny moment down in the bathroom at the restaurant. I went down to pee and there was this picture of a boy holding his disgustingly dirty hands (looks like there is shit on his hands) and he is really smiling. Under the picture, it said, "There is an innovative germ ridding system in this bathroom!" I looked on the toilet seat near the back of the toilet and there was a little circle. Above it, it said, "Put your hand over this!" So I lowered my hand near the seat, unsure of what was going to happen. I figured that it would spray out a little cleaning fluid on my hand or something so I could wash them. But I was confused by it was on the toilet seat. SUDDENLY, this little contraption that looked like a plastic funnel tongue, shot out and pointed down into the toilet. I jumped back and yelled. THEN the toilet seat started turning! I yelled again and started laughing hysterically cause I was afraid I was going to be attacked by a toilet hahaha. The seat turned 360 degrees, stopped and then the tongue shot back up to it's original position. I was so confused with what the hell just happened and laughed even harder, looking in the mirror while I did it. I couldn't contain the rapid, slightly frightened and intrigued laugher that was coming out of my mouth. I held my stomach and saw my pathetic face in the mirror, almost defeated by a toilet. I found out later that the toilet seat turns and cleans itself while it does it. I didn't understand why it was turning AT ALL. I thought it was supposed to clean my hands or something, not clean itself. Oh my god. I went back up to the table and laughed to Ricky, telling him he HAD to check it out. He did and said he laughed.

The rest of the day before the dinner, I spent about three hours waiting for the recital looking at things I wanted for Christmas on the internet. It was successful. Well, not completely successful 'til later that night when I stayed up really late in the dark room. I haven't stayed up til 4am in so long and it felt so good last night. The thing is, Michael always goes to bed so early. Well, for a college kid. And I know he was annoyed by my computer light. I was trying to be quiet. But today I brought it up and asked him if I bothered him. He said it did in a nice way. So I'll have to either use the computer in the bathroom or down in the lobby if I want to stay up. Maybe I should get a book light.

It's weird. It really felt good to get like 5 hours of sleep yesterday. Surprisingly, I've been getting decent sleep lately, like 7 or more each night.

Today, I went and saw Scott Free do his music speech on stage. I really liked his piano composition. Before that I waited for about a half an hour to use the internet on the school computers while little kids played games on one and another guy never got off the other one. I saw him type an email and send it, then look at what he sent, read over it again and start another email. It was funny cause I always read over what I wrote right after I sent it.

The metro station was SO packed today. I was afraid I was gonna be late to class. I was late. 2 minutes. But everyone else was 10 minutes or more late hahaha. Cause of traffic. Something was going on. They all like to take the bus but I don't even have the pass for that cause I don't bother. Walking is so incredibly nice so I do that whenever I can. Why not get some extra exercise?

I just saw on Facebook that Sadayah had answered some Facebook question like, "If Stoddy Blackall had the chance to run a full marathon, what would stop him?" and she answered, "Nothing at all." That made me so happy.

37,

Stoddy.

P.S. That's how many days there are left til I see my fam fam.

Delivery Boy!

I walked in Kristina's today and she said, "Where were you?" I explained to her that I was in my Greek Crossroads of Rhythm and Sound class but then she looked at me from behind the sandwich counter and said....wait for it, "I need you."

Yeah, I was happy.

But to continue, she said, "I want you to hold the umbrella when I go to deliver those sandwiches." She had about three sandwich platters that she had to bring to some place and it was raining really hard. I of course was enthusiastically into doing that for her. She had to finish some things up before delivering them though so I had to sit and wait for a while. Even though I had to go all the way back home and then come to the school again for multiple reasons. But in this case, I was fine with waiting there. I got a sandwich (which she gave to me for free!) and then sat down. I was sitting, waiting for her to say the word and I said to myself, "Please please please don't die on me rain. Do not stop raining." Then the rain basically stopped except for some sprinkles. I was so sad cause I thought I wouldn't be needed anymore. Fortunately, I heard, "Stohdart," and I jumped up. She still had me bring one of the cases so I think she just wanted my company! I walked with her to the delivery place and it started pouring again but we were already halfway there without an umbrella haha. We stood next to a small river at one point (cause it was raining so hard) and I said, "It's an adventure" and she made this excited noise and jumped over the river. It was fun. So then I waited for her down in the lobby of this business place. Well, I awkwardly waited right next to the guard guy that sat there at the entrance desk. She finally came back down and we walked back. She told me about this coffee place that is really unpopular here but a huge chain in Australia. When I got back, we talked a little more and she asked me what else I did aside from Berklee. I told her about New York Film Academy. I then said I wanted a Fanta Lemonade and she said, "See you tomorrow!" I didn't get the hint. When I went up to the counter to pay, she corrected me - "No, I said, see you tomorrow. That means you don't have to pay." As I was walking out she then goes, "Don't catch a cold walking back!" I held up a closed fist and said, "I'll make sure I keep my hand closed so I don't catch one." Hahaha corny as hell but she smiled. It was fun. I love having a friend here.

I played my "Poor Stuttering Jones" song for my Greek Crossroads teacher and he liked it. Later, I went to the practice room that my friends and I share and Courtney played some classical piano and some of her piano/voice songs for Cody and me. Her piano/voice songs were very impressive but MY GOD, she is a voice principle and the classical music that she has memorized is AMAAAZING. I was trying to practice my drum for Mediterranean Percussion tomorrow and was having trouble focusing she is so good. I'm jealous.

After hearing Courtney play, I went to Momus and wrote some more. I added some cool elements to the Amazing Ray musical and now I'm back with the whole, Ray the lesbian idea. I finished a more specific, but rough plot line for Act I.

Stoddy.

Out to Dinner

A Berklee faculty member named Scott Free (I know, awesome name, right?) and his wife took us out to dinner tonight so we could get free food again! I was excited. I found out about it earlier today. I got Chicken Souvlaki, which is one of my favorite dishes here. It's basically just chicken kabob. Cody's parents were there too. The food was very good and we had some good conversations, especially the ones about scary movies. Courtney was wide-eyed when I said that my mom always says she loves, "Cut-em-up movies". Sorry mom.

Earlier today I played "Sweet Janine" for my piano teacher. It's the new version that I rewrote when I got here. All the verses have new lyrics and the chorus is slightly changed. My piano teacher said he thought it was a hit! He also said he thought it was the most poppy of my songs that he's heard. Interesting. I kind of agree. It really made me happy to hear that. It made me realize that now with the new lyrics, that song is really good and I want to enter it in Berklee competitions.

Before my piano lesson, I met up with Mia and helped her with the song she's writing for our class tomorrow (Greek Crossroads of Rhythm and Sound). We have to write a song with an odd time signature. I'm of course doing a voice piano song. It's called, "Poor Stuttering Jones." Hers sounds great! It's fun playing piano for her.

It's amazing. All my life I have found that I bond the most through music. Since she asked me to play piano for her and give her tips on the writing of the song, I've felt so much closer to her.

Y.

Why not Y? That's in my name so I thought I'd give it recognition for once rather than the letter S.

Delphi!

My Greek civ class took a trip to Delphi. We actually stayed in Arahovna which was a beautiful location. When we first arrived in the hotel on Friday, I escaped for about an hour because we had a while til we left for our Berklee dinner (Berklee pays for our dinners and it's great cause I could get anything I wanted for free!) I sat on a little hill beside the road and looked at mountain reaching above the clouds. For some reason it made me emotional looking at the mountains. I felt so high up, closer to the clouds than I'd ever been. Then I walked down to this bridge, climbed down a staircase and sat by the edge of the mountain. It wasn't a sudden drop off but if I fell, I would have died more than ten times. So if I were a cat, I still would have died. I was safely away from the edge though and was enjoying looking at the distant cars climbing the winding roads across the way. It was so cool to look at the little towns gripping to the mountain face like clinging fireflies. I took out my Greek phone at one point and thought, what the hell, and tried to text mom's cell phone to include my parents in the experience. I texted something like, "It's Stoddy! I'm looking at the most amazing mountain view in Delphi that I wish you could see too!" The text didn't work though. And I was actually in Arahovna at that point. But I think I could see part of Delphi from where I was sitting. So pretend I sent it mom and dad! I tried! So anyway, I climbed over the locked gate of a playground (I thought, why not?) and played on the swing for a while. I got as high as you possibly can go pretty quickly and it gave me more of thrill than I expected. Well, probably because my view was of the bad-ass Greek mountains (I got the phrase, "bad-ass" from Cody). I wanted to swing for a while cause I wanted to tie together my childhood with my adulthood (you know, cause I'm studying abroad I feel like this is a milestone of adulthood). But I'm sure, subconsciously, I wanted to prove to myself as well that I don't ever want to let the kid side die. Or plainly, I just fucking felt like swinging! GOOGOOGAGA!

We went to dinner and ate from shared plates like we did when we went to Nafplio about a month ago. Afterwards, Cody, Ricky, Michael, Zoe, Mia and I went to a bar where the cheapest beers were 4.50 (ugh). It was the cheapest place we could find though and finally settled on it. We had a good time except Cody and I had a little argument. He told me "Don't ever say that again" about something gross or weird I said. I asked him, "Do you really mean that or are you just saying it?" He told me he did. I then told him that I tend to say things that are more gross to him because of the way he reacts (or doesn't react) and he said, "Honestly Stoddy, you really gross me out sometimes." I reacted with, "Well, you're really mean sometimes." We stopped talking about it for a while and later I went up to him and said, "We cool?" He answered with, "We're clean," almost immediately as I finished uttering my words. It wasn't snappy, just direct and confident. Hmm, interesting. We've been a little tense for a while, just never this honest. Really, our only way of connecting is by jokingly saying mean things to each other. Like, he says to me, "I still hate you Stoddy," and I answer with, "Oh really? That's cool. Good. Cause the feeling's mutual." And we just go on and on. Hahaha.

On Saturday, our teacher showed us the upper section of Delphi where there were tons of Greek ruins and "I'm the shit" monuments. What I mean by that is a lot of the monuments were war related, built right across from another monument representing a nation that it beat. For example, Persians against Greeks. I saw the area where the Oracle predicted futures! Oh and there is also a long path that Oracle goers walked along to reach enlightenment. It wasn't only a come and go deal. It was more of a process. I forgot to ask the Oracle anything. I can't believe I didn't do that. But I did drink from the same natural water fountain (the magical spring!) that Oracle goers drank from and cleansed themselves with. Our teacher said it was fresh. So if that was considered magical, hopefully I got some of that magic in me. After that, a group of people went up with our teacher's wife (John, our teacher didn't feel like walking up) to see the area where the Delphic games were played. That was neat to see.

We had a lot of free time after eating lunch (we all ordered separately this time but it was still free!) Ricky, Michael, Zoe and I walked around the town, spotting a lot of wooden canes leaning up against shops and many fur coats and hats everywhere. We ended at a cafe and I got the best hot chocolate I've had this whole time since I've been away from home. I was restraining myself from making loud noises next to my friends. If Whit were with me, I would have let those noises go. But in other crowds, I have to watch what I do haha. In that case, I just said, "This is the most amazing hot chocolate ever," like one or two times and moaned a couple times. I told them about Cody and me and our little argument. Michael got up to go to the bathroom. I figure that he doesn't like gossip at all which I understand completely. The thing with Cody and me isn't big obviously. It's just a small thing that's hard to write about. It seems so miniscule in text but trust me, there's something going on. I think he might have a problem with me. I'm not sure why though. And I get so annoyed when he doesn't respond to me or when he tells me to shut up that I just get weirder around him.

After getting back from our walk around the town, Ricky, Michael and I played games including 20 questions, doodling and having the other person make a picture from it (childhood!), and hangman. It was wicked fun (Brecken!)

We had dinner again on Saturday night, which was pretty good. I had lamb with cheese stuffed in it and french fries. I wanted to try lamb cause I don't like it that much. Yeah, that's the way I've worked here some of the time. Mostly on these trips. In Nafplio I got this seafood dish with muscles, shrip and scallops. Keep in mind I like neither of those. And honestly, I wasn't too fond of it. The lamb was good though! Not great but good. I didn't eat too much of it. Later I said, "I could eat two slices of pizza right now." Of course I would say that, right? Haha.

Today, Sunday, we saw the lower part of Delphi where the training grounds were for the Delphic games. We went back in the bus to begin our trek home. We ate lunch at a rest area where we got to order for free again and spend Berklee's money (feels good) and I talked with John and Amy (my teacher and his wife). Oh and earlier in the trip, Amy told me about a film festival in Thessolaniki which is about two more hours north from Delphi. I might go there two weeks from this weekend. Anyway, driving back home in the bus, near the hotel, there was terrible traffic which sucked but we got back today around 4, which was when he said we'd get back so it was fine. It felt good to get out. I've been getting sick in buses lately. I don't know why. I think it's the fact that it gets so stuffy in there and whenever I start to work on something, it makes me sick. So I just have to sit there and listen to music. And think.

This weekend, on Friday, I'm going with my class to see the Acropolis close up. So it's not much of a field trip cause it's so close but it will be so nice to finally hear an expert talk about it. On Saturday, I'm planning to go to Santorini and stay one night. Everybody is saying that I maybe shouldn't go cause it's windy, cold and pretty much abandoned since the summer is over. My friends went there about two weeks ago and said there was nothing there. But I have to go there. I have to. Hell, I'll just sit by the ocean. That's good enough for me. It's supposed to be the most beautiful place in Greece. Well, most beautiful island according to John. The next weekend after this, I MIGHT go to Thessolaniki like I said. But before that, on Friday, I'm going with my Civ class to the Ancient Agora even though I've been there before. It will be completely different having a tour guide. If I do go to Thessolaniki, I would have to leave on Saturday which would not give me much time. Hmmm might have to go in December. The weekend after the possible Thessolaniki weekend is when I see PAULA! VIENNA! November 25th to the 29th! I just booked the flight.

Long blog, wow. Ughhh that took me more than an hour I think.

Stod.

P.S. I got a 80% on my first Greek language test. I'm not too happy with that score but hell, I tried. And the study sessions were fun with my friends. I'll do better on my next test.

Writing...

Wrote at Momus, the usual place across from the school with sandwiches, drinks, nice people and free magazines including nudy ones. Having a lot of trouble with the writing. Keep going back to the drawing board. Now I'm writing about a boy who shares his dreams (actual sleep dreams) with a girl across the street who has an abusive dad. It's interesting but no story seems to satisfy me. The story about the guy who has a sex change to win back his lesbian girlfriend was difficult cause I don't know anything about sex changes. Well, maybe by the end of writing all these story ideas, I'll have a lot to pick from and then maybe I can mix some of them together. I've already kind of tried doing that though. Like Zoe said today, I should keep them all cause later it will be fun to look back at them. I'll just keep writing. Keep doing it. I won't give up.

My voice lesson was pretty good today. The best was that my teacher said she missed me during my vacation. I like her. She's funny. She makes funny noises out of the blue.

I'm going to bed. Tomorrow is the Delphi trip. Oh yes I'm excited about that. When I get back, I have to buy my flight to Vienna for the end of November. I also have to go to Piraeus and buy my ferry tickets to Santorini and back. My friends here warned me that there is nothing at all going on there and a lot of places are closed. They seemed surprised that I'm going alone. The island is pretty much shutting down. And they got stranded there for a night last weekend cause the weather was bad. But I have to go. It's Santorini. In the words of "Risky Business," sometimes you gotta say "What the fuck." It's amazing how often I think about that.

RAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

Stoddy.

Family Guy

I wrote more today and hung out with Michael, Cody and Ricky. We watched Family Guy.

Studying

Yesterday the Greek lesson was taxing. She reminded us about the test we are having on Wednesday. That is basically what I did yesterday. I got stressed about the studying I would have to do and tried to get used to being at school again. Oh and now I have the itch to travel even more. I need to see more of mainland Greece and then I have to see Santorini. I'm going to Delphi with my friends this weekend for a school trip! Can't wait to do that.

Tonight a lot of us got together and studied Greek for about an hour and a half. It was actually really fun. Michael, Zoe, Cody, Michael and I studied and were laughing a lot. We decided we're gonna make it a drinking game once a week, studying Greek and drinking whenever we get questions right. Hahaha can't wait for that. Sounds fun. I doubt that we'll do it that often but I think it would be a fun way of studying. For the last hour, Michael and I have been studying even more Greek. It's actually been fun! Studying is fun! YAY! Haha.

October Break (Part 5)!

I did not go to the Marseille beach on Saturday morning. I ended up going to a halloween decorated coffee shop, waiting, checking out at the latest time, 11:00 and then waiting at the train station to go to Barcelona finally. The train ride was very long and there were these extremely annoying drunk guys at the other end of my car. There was really only one that was annoying though. He was so drunk and kept swearing really loudly, laughing obnoxiously and being plain rude. We were in France most of the time in the train and about a quarter the way through the ride, he brings up to his friends, "Oh, such people are such dicks! Remember that French FUCK that blah blah blah..." Hahahaha crazy kid. He was like a dumbass Jack Black mixed with a misunderstanding Frida Kahlo.

I got off the train in Barcelona and right beside me was Chris, the guy that sat next to me twice in Nice when I played piano. What a coincidence! He was going to the same place! He invited me to hang out with him and his brother that night, along with this other guy they met earlier. I abandoned the film festival, haha and hung out with them. Hell, I would have only been able to see one film by then cause of my train delay. So I decided to choose people over fake, projected people on a screen. We had fun, went to this bar that Mikel (the other guy they met at the hostel) told us about since he lived in Barcelona for a while before. It looked like a dungeon. A cool dungeon with lots of college kids in it. We played foosball at the end of the night when had thoroughly wet our whistles with four pitchers, two of them beer and two of them sangria. Wow, I know. The sangria was very sweet. It is fruit mixed with wine. I think Whit would like it. I bet he's had it. Chris and I lost against Sean (Chris's brother) and Mikel. It was still fun. And sitting around talking about music with Chris was interesting since he is going to live his dream and go to music school for singing even though he's now 24. I think he graduated from another college before. Anyway, there were some people on the streets dressed up in halloween costumes. Isn't that the coolest thing ever? I spent halloween in Barcelona, randomly. Hahaha. I'm so happy. And now I'm safe in my hotel room in Athens again. I got a text that some of the others are stuck on Santorini for the night. Oh man, hope they're ok. But that means I'll have this hotel room for myself tonight. It's nice and quiet. A good contrast to traveling almost every day for about a week and a half. Woooooow what an awesome trip. And what an experience.