Orientation Day 1

First day of orientation. After 5 hours of sleep, I got up at 8:00 to get on a bus to the school. I’ll take pictures tomorrow to send you, but the campus is really small. It’s in a nice area on the outskirts of the city, with lots of hills and trees all around. The campus itself is tiny—the school Anatolia College has grades K-grad, but the area designed the American College of Thessaloniki is only two buildings, the biggest English library in Greece and the building with all the classes, the bookstore, and a small cafeteria. It’s really nice outside though, and will be a great place to chill/study when it gets a little warmer. If you go across the street and up the hill there are more buildings, dorms, a gym, a bigger cafeteria, another library, and the high school and elementary school.

We spent a lot of time being talked at today, and it was a really long day. Most everything we went over we already knew from e-mails or our intro packets. I got to talk to the Greek teacher though, and I think I will be staying in Greek 104—there are only three other kids in the class, and I would rather have to work harder to catch up than have it be too easy and learn nothing.

We went to IKEA this afternoon too and I went a little overboard with things to organize my room, hold all my junk. My roommate probably thinks I’m crazy, but I have to be organized! She was really cool with it though. I have a few hours tomorrow when I’m going to set it all up, I’m too exhausted tonight.

I was going to go to bed early but the college took us out to this coffee place to have Greek coffee and have the grounds read. I planned to stay only an hour, but ended up there for two and a half! That’s Greek time for you, already I’m learning nothing happens as quickly as Americans expect. It was fun, a middle-aged Greek woman sat there chain smoking, making faces and reading your cup while a student from the school translated. The atmosphere was perfect, a haze from the smoke obscuring even the other end of the table and making it more mystic and mysterious. My fortune: I had a huge fight with someone I care a lot about before I left and it upset me a lot at the time, but now that I’m in Greece I’m completely fine and it has totally blown away. Someone who cares about me a lot but who I don’t expect is sending me something in the mail that will some how much they care (let’s keep an eye on the post for the next few weeks…. ;D). I will love my time in Greece, and everything will fall into place—I will never have to try but everything will work out perfectly and fall right into my lap. Sounds good, no?

Sorry for the quick and probably error-filled post, I’m super tired and going to bed right after this. I promise to upload pictures of the school tomorrow.

Also, my roommate and I got a router so we can both be on the internet at the same time without it affecting the speed, so I think I should finally be able to talk to everyone! Looking forward to that in the next couple days. Love you all, and miss you!