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.