AP Lit Exam

I had a good morning in Larisa. I woke up early and had breakfast at the hotel. The old man running the dining room was really sweet—I was the only one in there that early and we started talking. I apparently have a very good accent when I speak Greek, and whenever I start trying to use Greek on people they always think I speak it much better than I actually do, which is flattering but confusing when they start rattling off words. We actually had a really nice talk in Greek—I love it when I’m able to have real conversations with people; it makes me feel like I’m actually learning stuff!

I got a bit worried when none of the taxi drivers seemed to have heard of the school but eventually I was able to describe where it was. The school is really interesting; it looks to be a fairly large building complex, but the student population, ages K-12, numbers about 50 kids. I was talking to the lady proctoring my exam and she said that they have about 9 kids in the eighth grade, while grades 7 and 9 figure in at one student. The school has something to do with both NATO and the newly formed Balkan army that has a base near by, and the students are either the children of NATO diplomats, Balkan soldiers, or local families of mixed marriages. I was the only one taking AP Lit but they did proctor other exams to other students; some kids from the school took AB Calc (seems they speak that international language much better than I do), and on Saturday they’re also proctoring the SATs to kids from the school and to kids like me who live farther away, like Volos.

It was the best AP test I’ve ever taken. Since I was the only student, she didn’t have to read through all that crap about filling out the forms wait tons of time for me to complete it and make sure I was writing in the right spot, I just filled it out. Which is amazing, because my biggest pet peeve with these things is how long everything takes because of the carefully choreographed circus you must go through. And, when I finished early with time left over, we were done and could move on to the next section; I didn’t have to sit it out and wait for everyone else. She was very impressed with me, considering I finished both sections with at least a half hour to spare, and I think was pretty excited that she got that much of her day back. I also got to sit in a really comfy, plushy desk chair and got hot chocolate while I took my test. I was taken care of!

The school was right by the Tyrnavos bus station so my proctor drove me there (it was raining—they really were great to me at this school!) and I took the bus back to Larisa. When I was packing I made a snap decision to throw in a sundress and see if maybe I wanted to go to Meteora after to see the monasteries. I haven’t seen them and they are apparently amazing, and I’m running out of time. My Friday class is canceled and I figured it would be a perfect opportunity if I could get there from Larisa. I checked, but I’d have to transfer somewhere, and the weather forecast changed from when I check in Thess—I would be hiking up a mountain while it’s pouring, so I just bought a ticket back home. Of course, I got a call that I’d left my dress in the closet (I didn’t want it to get wrinkled) twenty minutes before my bus was to leave. I sprinted down, grabbed it, and sprinted back right as the bus was starting to pull away. I chased it down and banged on the door—the bus driver was annoyed but they let me on!

I got back to Thessaloniki in time for Thursday cooking club; we made some kind of green chicken curry that was delicious but so spicy I thought I was going to die, and bagels from scratch for the whole building to enjoy. (Did you know you have to boil bagels before you bake them?) We made plain, sesame, and cinnamon-sugar, although we underestimated the demand for the sweet ones. Other than that, a quiet night in.