wonderful, wonderful day

Today was such a wonderful day for so many small, beautiful reasons. I woke up and had a nice, long, hot  shower. I ate a nice bowl of cereal and had time to get ready slowly. Classes went well minus the fact I didn't realize I had to memorize the spelling of four Greek words for a quiz in Greek class (whoops!) but we had a little oral-quiz-of-sorts and I aced that. Speaking is unbelievably easier for me than writing. I just want to communicate! I don't really care about being able to spell things, as long as I can talk to people I'm happy.

At break time, I went to the library to make photo copies of this book for my religions course I didn't want to purchase. The lovely women at the front desk actually had a spare copy which they said they would lend me all semester for free! What fabulous luck! Then, I spent the rest of lunch chatting with my American friends and talking with some of my new Greek friends: George, Alexandria, Alex, Melina, Marina, and Thenassis. They were teaching me phrases in Greek and I was teaching them some English colloquisms like "Schwasty" and other fun words like that.

my delish dinner

my cute little kitchen area

After school, I made a oh-so-wonderfullllll dinner of sausage and fried rice. I could not have been more impressed with my cooking skills. Seriously. I mentally gave myself quite a few high-fives. It was delicious!! I cooked the sausage first and then added rice, onion, egg (which I had prepared earlier) and  steamed carrots, peas, and corn. Then, of course, soy sauce. It was RIDIC how good it was. My home-girl Riley kept me company whilst cooking and played some rap and we goofed off. She has the same goofy, out there characteristics that I do but she is wayyyyy funnier than me. She's basically my soul-mate. And we take the best photographs. Here's a cute little example.

After dinner and hanging out with Riley, me and a few girls headed off to the costume shop. Tomorrow is TSIKNOPEMPTI which is Greece's version of Halloween. Instead of costumes like pirates or ninjas OR VIKINGS, people generally wear masquerade masks. Stephanie, Kelsey, Sarom, Colleen, and I all got matching masks but in different colors and we're all planning on wearing black dresses out tomorrow. I can't wait to post up photos of that! At the costume store, I bumped into Niko, Alex, and Marina from school! I'd seen Alex downtown at the center at Berksha yesterday so I course asked him if he was stalking me. Alex, if you don't remember, is Prince Eric from the Little Mermaid. It was such a pleasant surprise to bump into them. I feel like I only know a handful of Greek people so to actually bump into someone two days in a row or even just once feels like a huge deal for me!

When I bought the mask, I chatted with the cashier and he was an older man who spoke English decently. I was speaking mainly Greek to him and he was uber impressed with my Greek skills. He asked how long I have been here and I said 14 days and he said how long will you stay and I said 4 months and then he laughed and said, you should stay here. It was sweet. I loveee Greece.

After the costume shop I went out and got little delicious cookies which made me love my life even more! Then Sarom, Colleen, Stephanie and I all did a workout video which made us all feel super out-of-shape. We used blankets as mats and water bottles as weights and we were still panting and sweating. Now, I'm trying to head off to bed early so I can get plenty of rest in preparation for Tsiknopempti!

What a wonderful, wonderful day.