Soup Kitchen

Today was my first day volunteering at the soup kitchen at a church near the school. I got up at 6:50 to be there by 8:00, and met two other girls from ACT there. There were two ladies, Katerina and Hannah, who were very cute and sweet but spoke very little English. They were still fun to be around, and collectively we knew enough/could gesture/sing Frankie Valli. We couldn’t actually help cook, which was really disappointing, because if we did something wrong the ladies would get in trouble, but we peeled potatoes, mixed cheese, washed dishes, and mopped the floor while they made delicious-looking pastitsiou. They also defended us when someone upstairs wanted us to wash the toilets, for which I was grateful….

I almost wish I had been the only American, because I think I would have tried to speak more Greek—one of the girls who was there with me is Greek Orthodox and can speak Greek pretty well, so I was a little too intimidated to try, or there was no need for me to stammer something out when she could just spit it out. I understood more of what they were saying than I thought I would be able to; the only problem is I’m at the point where I know the words, but have to think about it; by the time I listen, recognize a word, and then think of its translation, they’re a whole sentence away and I lose the flow.

I also had my first ACT test today, in Greek 104. It was difficult—I knew all the vocab but the grammar stuff, which made up most of the test, was really tricky. I don’t think I’ll ever get the hang of it. When I handed it in, the teacher glanced over it and then gave me a half-shrug, that could either mean, “Eh, not bad” or “Eh, so you fail the first one. There’s always the next one!”. I’m not really sure.

Here’s some more street scenes of Paris. I still haven’t gotten over the city.