What an awesome week!  My two besties, Lindsay and Emily, came on Sunday and left on Sunday, which means that this is the perfect forum to discuss all the amazing things we did together.

In general, there was a lot of eating and drinking and talking.  In particular, I had such a good time being with people who know me at a deep level.  I was just talking to Anthi an hour ago about how hard it can be to spend time with family and friends from your childhood because they see you as the person you used to be.  I feel really lucky because Emily and Lindsay knew teenage self-conscious and self-righteous Tricia, but they’ve somehow allowed me to grow up and treat me as the person I have become.  It’s the perfect comforting relationship, and I’m really grateful for both of them.

I’m also grateful for our mutual agreement on what constitutes a good time.  For instance, on Tuesday, we listened through the entire Hamilton soundtrack while cutting each other’s hair in my living room.  And any time someone suggested that we not do the thing we had planned on doing…everyone else said YES MORE SWEATPANTS TIME.  I love my socially lazy friends.  Continue reading →

This week was all over the place, so we’re going to go day by day.

SUNDAY

After the service, there was a church lunch at Cosmovision.  In the sanctuary, I found myself with a couple other ex-pats saying, “Are you going?” “I dunno, are you?” “I guess.”  “I guess I will too, then.”  This level of enthusiasm continued throughout the entire experience.

I don’t blame the Greek church for doing Greek things, but it does make me wonder why they are so keen on ex-pats joining in.  It’s funny, the little things that make you feel like an outsider.  We arrived early and chose to sit by the windows for the view.  Someone came by to tell us that they were going to close the windows soon, and we were all basically a shrug emoji.  It turned out they were closing the windows because the old people like to sit without a breeze, so soon we were surrounded by all the oldest members of the church who, coincidentally, are the ones least likely to speak English.

Before the food was even served, I leaned over to Mercy and said, “I’m ready to go home.”  “Me too,” she agreed, and then we tried to eat our feelings of loneliness with lots of rice, potatoes, and bread.

It got a little better two hours later when I found Dawn and Kendra, ex-pats that I am friendlier with, and we kind of rolled our eyes at each other at all the Greek in-jokes and anyway, it was super nice to get home after FOUR HOURS of introvert hell.

MONDAY Continue reading →

This week has been so great!  Mostly because I have new roommates, and I loooove them.  Luciana and her husband Giorgos moved into my second bedroom on Tuesday, and it has been so much fun.  Let’s relive each moment, shall we?

NEW ROOMMATES

Our mutual friend Janet also came over on Tuesday to help them move in.  We quickly got distracted by ordering tons of Chinese food and then playing Black Stories late into the night.  Luciana had a bad day on Wednesday, and she requested that we all drink cider together that night.  Giorgos was late coming home, so Luciana and I compared our Enneagram types (4 and 8 – the most passionate pairing that is most likely to end up in physical violence!).  On Thursday we all stayed up talking, and Giorgos said, “I want to play a computer game and empty my head,” and I said, “YES PLEASE.”  So they introduced me to Deus Ex, and we all sat on the couch making moral decisions. (Me: What happens if you kill that person?  Luciana:  We’re not killing people!  Giorgos:  Okay, honey, I’ll stun him.)

On Friday, Continue reading →

I’m super behind on this, so it’ll be quick(er than usual)!

Last week was pretty great!  I had my regular Greek lessons.  I considered cancelling my Thursday lesson to have the evening to clean and get ready for Sarah’s visit, but then Anthi told me that my teacher LOVES me and that I’m so hardworking she’s willing to keep teaching me even though she doesn’t really have time to do it. I respond VERY well to effusive praise, so I kept the lesson but asked to do it earlier.

On Tuesday at HD we had a lesson about creating happiness, and I said that I missed binge-watching TV shows with friends.  Wonderfully coincidental, on Tuesday evening, I went to visit Kendra.  As “repayment” for catsitting for her a while ago, she bought us a bottle of wine and we hiked up a hill to watch the sun set over the sea.  We went back to her place and made barbeque chicken sandwiches and watched the first episode of This Is Us.  It felt really great to have a friend who I feel comfortable enough with that a two-hour planned hangout could extend to 11:00 pm.

I went back to her apartment on Wednesday for Bible study.  For the first time, it hit me how strange it is to have a Bible study that lasts 2.5 hours and only ends because it’s 11:00 pm and people need to get home before midnight.

Life at HD continues to be good.  I started up my regular counseling sessions with each participant, with our newest woman for the first time.  She was reluctant at first, which was slightly panicky for me because I don’t get to use my counseling skills enough to feel truly confident, but then she opened up about current worries, and by the end she leaned back into the cushions and said, “I feel so much better.”  Yay!

Sarah came on Friday, and we caught up and made pizza and packed for our weekend in Meteora…which I will talk about in a separate blog post!

This week has got me thinking that a LOT of my mental downswing the past couple months was because everyone was right:  summer in Athens sucks!

Now that people are returning from holidays, life is going back to normal and I’m feeling so much busier and happier.

HD NEWS

We had our fourth Celebration Week, and as always, it was pretty great.  Well, wait, no.  Holy cow, this week has been long!  Monday was chaotic, and everyone had something awful going on in their private lives.  Our schedule was therefore out of whack, but I felt like I got to step into my unofficial counseling shoes and help people talk about the things that were hurting them.  That part, at least, was nice.

But later in the week, we had more fun times together.  “A” always talks about this souvlaki place she loves, so we all went there on Thursday.  The food WAS amazing, but more importantly, it was FUN.  We talked about all sorts of things, laughed a lot, and bonded more as peers.

On Friday, Dina returned to the office after doing fundraising in the States for six weeks.  After the Celebration Week presentations, we all sat around and ate and listened to her stories.  It sounds like a lot of people are getting really excited to partner with HD, which is exciting!  I can’t wait to see where this all goes.

GREEK LESSONS

I’m starting Greek lessons again (I was off for August).  One of Anthi’s friends wanted to offer her services to HD for free, and I’m the only one who took her up on the deal.  She’s a much more structured teacher, which is great, but the first lesson was humiliating.  We basically went back to the very beginning of everything, and although now (after two lessons) I’m catching back up to at least the middle of my old lessons, it’s just.  AGH.  I have so little motivation for learning Greek except for “I feel like I ought to.”  It’s never going to get better unless I can find a better reason to do it.

FRIENDS

The best part!  I’ve discovered that I really like having people stay at my apartment.  This is weird, because I’ve never thought of myself as hospitable, and I’m a terrible hostess.  But I love having a place where people come and go or crash for a couple nights.  I don’t want to take CARE of other people, but I’m happy to let them be in my space.

Luciana came over at 11:00 p.m. on Tuesday night rather than drive all the way to the other side of Athens that late.  We stayed up a couple hours talking about feminism and literature: two of my favorite sleepover topics!

Natasha came at 11:00 p.m. on Friday night (she flew in late) and stayed for two nights.  She is scared of Hans Harrison, so I gave her my room and slept on the couch.  That is where Hans Harrison often sleeps, so I woke up in the middle of the night to him settling down heavily across my neck.  It was uncomfortable but so cute, so I let him stay.

But before that, I went out to dinner with Kendra to celebrate her recent engagement.  We talked for hours and hours, and I’m so glad to have an American friend in Greece.  We talked about how there are these concentric circles of walls between ourselves and other people, and it’s such a slow, exhausting process to take them down.  One of the walls is between ourselves and people from other countries, so being with Kendra means one less wall to take down.  It’s nice.

On Saturday, I met Maria and her husband John for lunch.  Just two Greeks and an American eating Persian food while discussing their recent trips to Sweden and Slovenia!  I like having couple-friends, and I like that Maria can be both my Greek teacher (when I’m not taking free lessons) AND a friend.

On Saturday night, the Holargos girls (me, Tatiana, Natasha) wandered the neighborhood to find somewhere to eat.  We wound up at a creperie, where we each got savery crepes before splitting a crepe with CHOCOLATE, BOUGATSA CREAM, and CRUMBLED COOKIES.  Omg.

And then on Sunday, I actually went to church!  Woo hoo!  I still sat by myself, but afterwards there were many more people there that I knew, returned from summer holidays.  Bible study is starting up this next Wednesday, so hopefully I can deepen some relationships and feel more at home at church.  We will see!