Athens Day two

Things I'm learning in Greek:

ya sas-- hello and goodbye
efkaristo--thank you
parakalo--your welcome

Don't sit on statues in the national park, people will yell "don't sit!"

Gypsies will pickpocket you if you aren't careful.

Don't wear shorts to a Greek Orthodox Church.

Ouzo tastes like black licorice, which is disgusting.

Riots are scheduled.

Greek children seem to think that American dancing involves hoola hoops, triangles, globes, and the splits, to Greek music.

According to a woman who works in a bookstore, her priest told her that she should only read the New Testament, because the Old Testament would just confuse her.

Today we woke up at 4.30 am and could not go back to sleep. So I skyped Nick, and then we watched an episode of True Blood on my laptop. We had a nice free breakfast at 8.30, and then did a little shopping around the hotel. There is a cathedral a couple of blocks from our hotel that we wanted to go in yesterday, but a sign in the front advises people to not go inside with shorts on. And of course everyone was wearing shorts because its hot and humid! Fran forgot to bring pants, so we got some and then headed to the Cathedral, which was gorgeous inside. It was really hard for me to date the church, but if I had to guess maybe 16th-18th century? Every corner was decorated with icons and other orthodoxy things. When a Greek person would come in, the crossed themselves twice and kissed the icons.

We came back to the hotel to nap, and then we met with the whole group. We walked over the the Hellenic Education and Research Center (HERC) for an introductory meeting and pizza. We then walked next door to an elementary school, where the children were celebrating the end of the school year with dancing.