My First Big Fat Greek Wedding

What a day! I went to a Greek wedding!

One of the main reasons I even came to Greece this summer was for my professor Taso's wedding. He met his bride/now-wife on our program last summer, and I've had the pleasure of getting to know both of them much better over the past year. Since I was already on my way to Marburg, Germany, for my Fulbright German language study course, I asked the Fulbright Commission if I could route my flight to Germany via Athens. Thankfully, they said yes, so that's why I get to be in Greece for two weeks to do follow up research, attend Taso's wedding, and help out with the UW Athens Program.

Today, a bunch of us got all dressed up and headed out for his evening wedding. Even as we got toward evening, it was plenty warm outside. I wore my full suit, so I was pretty sweaty. We had to take the Metro and transfer once before taking a taxi to get to the church out in the suburbs.

The Metro ride was just fine, but the taxis wouldn't take us because they said the church was so close. I think they were lazy because we were all dressed up and the walk was actually more like a mile. Check out pictures of the walk below.

The wedding itself was awesome. My friend, Georgina, had already given me the lowdown on traditional Greek weddings last night, so I had an idea of what to expect. Still, actually being at the church was an experience in itself.

Taso greeted us and then went to wait for the car to bring Nektaria, his bride.

When Nektaria arrived, she and Taso kissed and everyone followed them into the church.

When we arrived, I also saw many of Taso's family members whom I had gotten to meet in Vitalo last summer (Taso's home village in northeastern Greece). It took them a minute, but they remembered me after I told them I was here last year.

Inside the church, the vivid color of the walls was incredible. I got bad pictures, but it was just an extraordinary atmosphere. Giannis, Taso's nephew, waved me over to the open seat next to him, so I joined him and his friend. He and I had hung a bit in the village together last year and became good friends, so it was nice to see him again.

The church was a busy place though because there was another wedding scheduled only an hour later. That might've been the fastest wedding service I've ever been to, but it was awesome. At one point, they passed out rice so you could throw at the bride and groom to ward off any evil spirits. It was funny to watch Giannis throw little bits of rice at his mom two rows in front during the wedding service. I decided it'd probably be a good idea for me to just wait till everyone else threw their rice at Taso and Nektaria before I launched my pile of rice.

The rest of the night was eventful. At first, we didn't know if we'd be able to go to the reception due to limited space, so we decided to just head out to dinner ourselves so they wouldn't have to worry about us. Well, we walked all the way to the Metro station (about another mile) before I got a text message from Taso asking us to go back to the reception. Haha. So we convinced four taxis to take us.

Taso's niece, Arleta, met us at the church and took us to the reception area, which was an open terrace just below the hill where the church was. It was kind of funny how we didn't want to be a bother, and then when we showed up late, everyone looked at us as the servers set up another table for us. Haha. But, the next few hours were some of the best I've ever had in Greece.

We ate, we drank, we danced, we laughed, we sang, we sweated...and then did more of all that. Great night. It was great to see many of the folks I had met last year as well, so it was fun. The dancing was interesting too. Taso and Nektaria led a traditional Greek dance—the long line just like in the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. That was just awesome. I did not jump in since my dancing is not so good. I stuck with my own version of the Carlton dance (see: Fresh Prince of Bel Air). :)

Anyway, tonight was very memorable. Tomorrow, we move to our guesthouse (well, most of them are going to the Norwegian Institute guesthouse, and I will be at the Danish Institute guesthouse), so I have to pack all my stuff tomorrow morning. Fun...

Good night!

Sam

I Think I Fixed My Internet

I don't really know what I did, but I fiddled with my internet settings at the hotel and my 6 Euro internet is now working.

I have already lost track of how many days I've been in Greece, but it seems like we've done quite a bit of work already. Yesterday, four groups of four students each went out to do interviews in different neighborhoods of Athens. I headed to another neighborhood on my own to do my follow-up interviews on last year's research topic.

What a difference one year makes! The dirty, grungy neighborhood full of drug addicts, stumbling drunks, and otherwise shady characters had been transformed into a family-friendly square with a new playground set, see-saws, a foosball table, and a basketball hoop.

Since I had to interview people around the square, I struck up a conversation with a guy selling bootleg DVDs. During our twenty-minute conversation, I learned that he had come to Greece from Nigeria and spoke Greek fluently (funny that he said he really only speaks one language—Greek—since he doesn't believe the languages he grew up speaking count—English, pidgin English, and his tribal language). From him, I learned that apparently all the business owners and residents of the neighborhood came together about four months ago, tired of all the drugs, and "drove out the junkies."

I guess they haven't been back to stay since. The basketball hoop looked so new, the net seemed to have never been used. Maybe because the kids playing in the square were more interested in kicking around the soccer ball, I don't know. But some of the other students on the program and I want to go buy a basketball and shoot hoops in the square. :)

My day of interviewing didn't yield many results. It's a bit tougher, I think, trying to gather interviews on your own. Last year, I had a great partner who was very enthusiastic about talking with people, but this year, I have to work on this by myself (other than the few times Taso will come along). I wish I spoke Greek because then I think they'd be more open to chatting with me. Most of the folks I spoke with were very hesitant to speak at length in English, even though I could understand them just fine. I'm pretty sure the recorder is quite intimidating as well.

Today was supposed to be another day of interviewing, but one of the group's tape recorder broke. So I lent them my digital recorder and stayed at the hotel to transcribe the audio file from yesterday instead. Transcribing is one of the most tedious tasks I've ever had to do...as interesting as interviews can be, transcribing almost takes all the fun out of it. :) Funny how I proposed to do interviewing/transcribing for a full year during my Fulbright research.

This afternoon, the students have a seminar with Professor Ingebritsen at the Institute. I'm meeting at friend by the Olympic Stadium, so I'll miss that and possibly the group dinner too since the Metro station I have to get to is rather far, but we shall see. It's nice to visit friends I made last year. Always fun to hear the latest Greek gossip.

Tomorrow is Taso's wedding, so I'm gonna break out the suit and tie. I chose a blue tie and white shirt (Greek colors!). It's going to be about 95 degrees though, so I'm staying by the air conditioner as long as I can. I'll post any good pictures sometime next week. For now, here's a few from the last week:

I can see the Parthenon from my bed...pretty awesome view, I'd say. :)

The Parthenon and the rest of the Acropolis are always lit up at night.

Here's this year's Athens program group. What a fun bunch of people.

This is the top of the Propylea...the entrance to the Acropolis. The sun was already beating down at 10 AM.

Of course, gotta rep DP. :)

I haven't taken all that many pictures this week, so I'll try taking more next week to post online. It's 1 PM and I haven't eaten lunch, so I'm starving. I think I'm gonna go for my 5th gyro in Athens this week. :)

Sam

Aloha, Athens!

I've only been back in Athens for five hours, but I'm feeling right at home again.

My flight was more or less uneventful—I slept, watched some TV, and chatted it up with the passenger next to me. On my flight from Seattle to Newark, I sat next to a young university student from Rutgers who is majoring in education. Had a nice chat about Rutgers and Dream Project, naturally.

On my flight from Newark to Athens, I sat next to a gentleman who was from Florida and owned a steakhouse. He was pretty cool. He told me he had moved from Rhodes, Greece, to Florida with his family as a young teenager, and then moved up to New York City to see if he could make it on his own. His family was too poor to support him, so they sent him to work as a 17 year old in NYC. He worked his way from being a dishwasher to being a club manager to owning a restaurant. Pretty inspiring guy.

Anyway, Taso picked me up in Athens with his niece, Nina, and we picked up a couple of other students in our program. It's been fun so far. Thank goodness the Metro from the airport to the center of Athens is actually fixed. Last year was a big hassle to get to and from the airport.

I'm staying at a hotel with the rest of the students for now and then will move to a guesthouse for a few days. Should be a fun but busy two weeks. Taso's asked me to be a program assistant, so I'm doing my best to remember where everything is. So far, we've already hit up the bank, the grocery store, a gyro place, and a café with internet.

Actually, I'm chilling with two of the students at a café now. We're across from the New Acropolis Museum and enjoying an ice tea or two. I've already had one beer today...gotta save room for another later. The weather is hot, naturally. It's supposed to be in the mid 90s the rest of the week, but thankfully there's a nice breeze blowing right now, even at 3:45 PM.

I'll try posting pictures later this week. We have to pay for internet at the hotel, so that's lame. I'm already turning darker by the minute. Love it.

I will probably crash tonight, since I'm tired. But the group will be heading out for dinner and then might take everyone on a walk around Plaka. We'll see. Nina probably has ideas for tonight.

Ok, I've got one minute of power left on my laptop. Gotta go. Toodles!

Sam

Huskies in San Francisco

Time for another travel blog update! This time I am in San Francisco for a few days before heading to Spokane and then back to Seattle—all before I take off for Europe again on July 26th.

I arrived yesterday and got to spend a great weekend hanging out with my aunt. After arriving at SFO, I rode the BART for the first time. Reminded me of the wonderful U-Bahn in Berlin, so I had no problem buying my ticket or finding my train. Some folks ahead of me in the ticket line seemed to have a more frustrating experience as they had no clue how to work the automatic ticket machine...

Anyway, I met up with my aunt and ate some delicious ramen and other yummy Japanese food around Union Square. On our way back, we saw a very random person in a black gorilla suit. Must've been hot!

Nice quiet evening last night with more delectable food that my aunt made. The highlight so far though was going to the San Francisco Giants vs. Boston Red Sox baseball game at AT&T Park. One of my goals in life is to see a game at all 30 MLB ballparks, and before today, I'd only been to Safeco Field in Seattle and Coors Field in Denver.

Today's weather made for a perfect baseball game, and to top it all off, the pitching matchup today was one of the best in baseball this season—Tim Lincecum for the Giants and Jon Lester for the Red Sox.

I was particularly excited not only because these are two of the top pitchers in all of baseball but also because Tim Lincecum was drafted out of the University of Washington and Jon Lester is also a fellow Washingtonian who was born in Tacoma. I wore my UW Alum shirt just for this special occasion. I also wore my Mariners jacket, although it was almost 50-50 Red Sox and Giants fans. Red Sox Nation is nuts...

Although I've only been to three MLB ballparks now, I've always heard that AT&T Park is one of the nicest in baseball. I now know why. The weather was plenty warm, the views of the Bay were beautiful, the fans filled out the park, the food was good (cheaper than Safeco!), etc. Here are some pictures...

The Red Sox won. All the fans were happy, except the hardcore Giants fans. We came home and saw the sunset from my aunt's house. Very nice view!

That's all for now. I'm done blogging for now. More next time!

Sam

24 Hours in DC

It's been a while...but I'm back on the road, so blog time again. I arrived in DC almost two hours ago and fly out in less than 24 hours. I'm here for a one-day education symposium sponsored by McGraw-Hill Education and the Center for Digital Education.

After my trip to New York, I met someone from McGraw-Hill who connected me with the Center for Digital Education, and I was invited to come speak on a panel about "College and Career Readiness: Are Our Students Prepared?" Should be fascinating. I'm looking forward to sharing about the UW Dream Project and Scholarship Junkies as well as connecting with other people.

Tonight, though, I get to hang out in DC. The event folks put me up in a really nice hotel (I took pictures but I don't have my cable to upload pictures). It's pretty ridiculous, but hey, I'm not complaining.

I'm heading out in a bit to grab dinner with my friend and then probably come back to do some work. I was quite productive on the five-hour plane ride today...I finished my reading for the week AND wrote both my papers that are due on Friday. Surprising how much I can get done when I don't have email and ESPN.com to distract me...

I am trying to get the feel of blogging back so I can be ready for my Fulbright, but it's rather difficult. I only like blogs with lots of pictures, but I no longer have the urge to take pictures of everything like I used to. I imagine that won't change much when I head back to Berlin since I felt like that in Berlin the past two times I've been there as well. We shall see.

Until next time,

Sam