My mom left on Saturday morning, which was way, way more sad than leaving her & my dad in the airport. I cried the whole taxi ride home, which was probably very awkward for the driver. We went to the beach down the street from my house, into Rhodes city and Old Town and found the doe and the buck at the entrance of mandraki harbor, drove around the island and stopped at tsambika beach and lindos so she could jump off the little cliff, and watched all 4 Harry Potters. An excellent visit, in my opinion.

Her leaving definitely made me a bit homesick. It's gotten a little worse because the stupid time difference makes it really difficult to talk to people when I'm not really tired & they're not at work & whatnot. Only 66 more days. Margot and Jenna left for Thessaloniki today which was really sad. It's definitely going to be a lot quieter/slightly more boring without them around. The boys and Joanna left Saturday afternoon. We're already planning for them to come back for a weekend in the beginning of November, and Charlotte and I are going to Thessaloniki the first weekend in December for her & Jenna's birthday.

The semester has officially started. I'm taking Rhodes of the Hellenistic Period, Minoan and Mycenaean History and Modern Greek 1. My schedule is
Monday: Rhodes of the Hellenistic Period 9-10:30, Modern Greek 1 5-7
Wednesday: Minoan and Mycenaean History 9-12
At some point during the week I'll have another 2 hour Modern Greek class, but it will probably change week to week.
So now I'll have more time to be on-line to talk/Skype if anyone wants to. Monday nights [afternoons for you guys] would be good for me, I can stay in the internet room late since I don't have class on Tuesday. Or Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday nights.

Charlotte and I have plans for pretty much every weekend. This weekend we're taking a ferry to Kos where we'll stay overnight, and then take a day trip to Bodrum, Turkey. Lauren, Erin, Megan, Nick, and April went to Marmaris, Turkey a few days ago, they had a decent time. Next weekend we're going to Santorini with Erin. The first or second weekend in November, Margot and Jenna will be visiting, and whatever weekend they don't come we're going to visit Rome and Florence. The next two weekends Charlottes sister will be visiting, and the first weekend in December we'll be in Thessaloniki. Then we're going to Paris to stay with Casey Sullivan, and then it's the last weekend before we come home! Thinking of it like this helps me not be so homesick.

We've been getting text messages from Athena, our roomate who is now in Athens for the semester and the news has not been pretty. Her and Kerri got there Saturday morning to an apartment that was filthy, had no beds, no furniture, no silverware, and Joanna's room wasn't even built yet [Kerri, Athena, Michelle, Lena, and Joanna were planning to live in 1 three bedroom apartment]. Thankfully, three of the girls have family in Athens and they stayed with them the first night. Kerri and Athena slept on the floor of the apartment the second night and ate food Kerri's grandmother had sent with them. Last night after 11pm, they finally got beds. There's no internet, they aren't getting bus passes even though the have to take a 25 minute bus ride to get to and from their classes. Their cafeteria where they're supposed to eat is in a sketchy neighborhood and has terrible food. The representative for Paideia Athens wasn't even in Athens the weekend they got there.

Margot, Jenna, John, Carolyn, and Sondra were all planning on leaving today and taking the ferry/plane to Thessaloniki. Elias had known their plans for at least a week, but he e-mailed them all on Friday and said they needed to drive back into Rhodes city to try and get a refund [on their non-refundable tickets], buy plane tickets for a flight to Athens that leaves the next day and be in Thessaloniki by Sunday. Un-freaking-believeable. None of them did it [as nothing he said to do was even possible]. He said they couldn't miss that much class. He seems to be forgetting that Margot and Jenna don't HAVE any classes, because they're not offering the classes they were told they could take and now have to take classes directly through Aristotle University. Elias didn't sign them up for any, so they have to show up there [with no idea of where to go], try they get into classes they need, and then pray they're taught in English.

Kosta, Elias's 28 year old son, our "representative" [a pretty pathetic one who, for the first three weeks, constantly ditched us because he was dating one of the 18 year old girls in the program] also forgot to take the boys to the airport on Saturday and they would have missed their flight if one of the other boys hadn't still had his rental car.

This entire program is just so disorganized and ridiculous. I have to go to the hospital for a tuberculosis test and chest x-ray, and pay 150 euro [a little over $200] so I can renew my visa and actually leave the country.

Needless to say, I am counting the days until I come home right now. I miss you all very very very VERY much. See you in 66 days!

Charlotte's making me risotto right now and if I'm not back soon she won't give me any, so this will be short. I can't figure out why I can't seem to post pictures now. This site is annoying. It actually rained today! For about 20 minutes. Mostly it was just a lot of thunder, but now it's sunny again. I hate 8am classes. Mom comes Saturday :)

Today was one the best days I've had in Greece. We all piled in the van and Kosta [Elias's son] drove us an hour away to Lindos. Lindos is a little tourist-y, as are most beautiful places in Greece. The beach was packed; for some reason we see German tourists everywhere, and a few of the people who taught us in Dion studied German in college. I was unaware of the Greece/Germany relation. I wonder if there are a lot of Greek tourists in Germany? Perhaps.



Anyway, we walked past the beaches to the area with the cliffs and went cliff jumping. Well, I jumped off the tiny one, it was only about 15 feet. There was a 20 or 30 foot one, and 4 of the boys jumped off the 70 foot one. THAT was cool to watch, but a little scary when one of the boys jumped and didn't stay together, he just sort of flailed around. We had sandwiches with BACON for lunch [bacon as Americans know it is impossible to find here. They just cut ham into the shape of bacon].



We spent all day swimming and jumping and taking pictures. The water wasn't like the water in the Carribbean, it was this unreal blue-green. You could see straight down, probably like 20 feet to the bottom. Amazing. I'm going to sleep so hard tonight, I can't wait.



Charlotte, Lauren, Margot, Jenna, Athena and I went into Rhodes city the other day to get laundry done & explore. It reminded me a little bit of Newport; cleaner than the other cities I've seen, not as insane, but still somewhat tourist-y. We looked around the shops a bit before they closed at 2 [siesta is turning out to be really annoying] and then had pizza and sangria at Pizza Hut, which was a HECK of a lot more expensive than it is in the states. We racked up a 54 euro bill, which is...I don't know, probably something like $70 or $80. Ridiculous. But tasty.



So now there's 3 cats who roam around our house and as of recently, a rottweiler & something mutt.



Oh and I finally have my address! In case anyone wants to send me letters. Or American magazines [Jane or Bust, preferably]. Or my Harry Potter 7. Or peanut butter. Or Corn Pops. Or a movie [Almost Famous, any Harry Potter, Monty Python's the Meaning of Life, etc.], Or anything, really. I love mail.



Maggie Sullivan

Soroni Apartments
Paideia Program
care of: Maria Tomazos

Demos-Kamirov

Soroni, Rhodes, Greece
TK 85106



Right now I'm sitting with Allen and we're listening to Usher because the other boys are gone so they won't make fun of him.


I was going to post pictures but it doesn't seem to be working. Another time. I should probably go to bed soon because I have the torture that is 8am Byzantine Art History. Intro to Greek Mythology is excellent though. Send me mail!

from Rhode Island to Rhodes Island

We're finally here. Our apartment/room is nice enough. We have a balcony, a tiny bathroom and a little kitchen area, but no oven so we're a little limited as to what we can cook. They give us groceries once a week of bread, meat, cheese, cups, cereal, milk, juice, and a giant jar of nutella, naturally.

We have internet, but it's two blocks away in a room. It's literally just a room on the street with tables and chairs and a wireless connection. Strange.

It's so nice to not be living out of a suitcase.

A bunch of us went to the beach today. It's rocky, but really nice, and literally about 2 minutes from our house.

I'm sort of sick right now, but Tylenol cold & sinus is keeping me functioning.

I thought I had time to write a longer entry, but I just realized I should be eating dinner in about 4 minutes, so I guess not.

sketchville, gr. population: me

Sadly, none of our hotels have been as nice as Delphi was. Our hotel in Olympia was semi-sketchy and not very appealing. There was a pool on the roof that looked like it was last cleaned on the 17th of never. We were only there for one night though, so that wasn't too bad.

We were supposed to be in Sparta for 2 nights, and Athens for one but they switched it around. Our hotel in Sparta was really nice, I slept like a rock [finally] which was strange considering the bed was wood, concrete, wood, matteress.

Today we left Sparta early to go to Mycenae, Nemea, and...some place else with a huge theatre that I can't remember the name of. Very hot, and lots of travelling. We also saw the oldest structure in Europe, the Lion Gate at Mycenae.

We're now in Athens, and it's living up to the title of "Dirtiest city in Europe." It's dirty, sketchy and hotel is gross. It looks over a bunch of trash and other cement buildings. Here's part of a review of our hotel I found online.

This is a poor excuse for a hotel. Small, cramped rooms...the furniture, carpeting and walls were well worn and dirty. For the most part it was easier to walk the seven floors than to take a chance on the elevator that seldom, if ever, worked. Lots of drugs being dealt in the open around the front of the hotel with dazed teens slumping against the wall or laying on the sidwalk. The staff was surly and unhelpful and could care less if they waited on you or not.

Welcome to La Mirage. Apparently the mirage is a decent hotel. Another one said that others they stayed with got itchy from the dusty blankets & assumed dust mites. Gross. I want to sleep on my luggage.

We can't wait to get to Rhodes. They bring us to the airport 6pm Friday night. It's supposed to be rainy while we're here, but the forecast in Rhodes is 70-80 and sunny every day. It's weird to think that on Tuesday we'll have been here for a month.

Anyway, here's some pictures. Sorry if they're screwed up, I'm not entirely sure how to post them on here.
They are: a room in the Rotunda of Gregory in Thessaloniki, sunset over the Dungeon, graveyard next to our Dion apartments [Danielle just informed me that Greeks consider picture taking disrespectful to their dead. Whoops.], Dougie! the stray dog we adopted, and the view from a restaurant at some beach near Dion.

Oh wireless, I hardly knew ye

I have no idea what town I'm in and I've spent 9 hours of my day on a bus but I don't care because our hotel has WIRELESS IN THE LOBBYYYYY. Praise Zeus. We left our "apartments" in Dion this morning around 6:30am. Dragged all our luggage down the street to the bus stop, intending to take a bus from Dion to Katerini, and another from Katerini to Athens. The bus driver, upon seeing 12 kids with at least 2 bags each, chose not to stop for us. We had to call 2 different taxi drivers to send 4 taxis. One taxi driver actually took 3 people to the bus stop in Katerini. The other driver charged each of us 20 euro for a 5 minute drive to another random bus stop on the side of the highway, saying he didn't have enough time to take us to Katerini.

Foreign taxi drivers will be sentenced to the sixth circle of hell, because they are sneaking, lying, THEIVES.

So we get on the 5 and 1/2 hour bus to Athens. We get glared at and snapped at by stupid old Greeks to take our feet off the seats. We feign American ignorance and put them on the seats anyway. We get to the Athens bus stop and meet Prof. Tomazos who FINALLY did something for us-met us at the station with another bus so we didn't have to meet at a hotel we didn't know the address of and weren't actually that sure of the name. We get on this bus for a 3 hour ride to wherever-we-are-now. It becomes a 4 hour ride because a gas truck turned over and they made the highway a 1 lane road. Arrgg. But I don't care because we have wireless, and a TUB and a TOILET WITH A REAL SEAT. There are so many squatty-potties [a toilet with no seat. Makes no difference to dudes, but it's a bit uncomfortable for us ladies] here, but I just put toilet paper down and sit on them anyway because I know the second I try to squat my thigh muscles will give out and I will crash through the door and pee all over myself.

We met a few new kids. Not much to comment on, they seem nice.

Greeks are so strange. They will sit at a bar or a cafe for hours and hours with one drink, but on the highway they all drive like the blessed Apocalypse is coming. They overtake each other constantly, it's like a big death race. And they always honk at each other, as a hello. Only one honk though, which is usually "watch out" for Americans. It's like the whole country knows each other. And they have no regard for pedestrian’s at all-they'll drive full speed right at you.

Danielle told me I'd lose weight in Europe because the food was so much better. Let me break down the greek food pyramid for you. Bread, meat, cheese, french fries, nutella. That's it. So much for weight loss.

We hiked around Mt. Olympus on Monday. That was BEAUTIFUL but the hike was poorly orchestrated. Our teacher told us we were walking an hour downhill to a monastery. We hiked uphill and downhill for 2 and a half hours, only stopping once to look at a church. She didn't make sure everyone had sneakers or water. Half of us were in flip flops and nearly everyone was dehydrated by the end of it.

I'm uploading pictures now so you'll be able to see those soon. I'm starving and would like to look around the town, but the urge for the internet is trumping both those desires currently.

This place looks like the Greece I picutred. We have a balcony that looks over a mountain range and a huge valley. There's actually vegetation here, a nice change since all I've seen is land that resembled a desert.

PS. This just in. We're in Delphi.

camera help

The other day I was taking pictures in our little common room & all of a sudden my camera lens started zooming in and out, but wouldn't go fully in [like it does when I turn it off]. Now here's what happens: I turn the camera on. The lens zooms in and out but won't fully go in. The screen is black and says Access. After the lens zooms in and out a bit, it says "Turn the power off, then on again." I do that, but it doesn't help. The screen stays black and the lens won't go in completely. I thought it was because the battery was dead but it's not. I can look at pictures already on my camera and put them on my computer but I can't take any pictures and pushing any of the other buttons doesn't do anything. I have a Sony Cybershot, 8.1 megapixels but I can't remember anything else about it because I don't have it with me.

Can anyone tell me how I might fix this?