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.