Sophie and I are officially looking for a new apartment. We met Irish girls who are also staying for the season who stayed in the room next to us for a couple of nights. They found a place for one more euro a night with a kitchen and access to a hotel pool. Ours overlooks a pool that we were explicitly forbidden from using the minute we moved in. So as much as I love living in the slave's quarters, we're gonna keep looking.
I did a big job search yesterday and went to about ten different places asking for work. I got the typical come back next week thing, which is pretty depressing, but later I found out that the "tax man" will be leaving in five days which made me feel a lot more confident about getting a job. The tax man is reviewing the legitimate employment of all the restaurants to ensure that the wages earned here are kept within Greece's economy...I think... So once Big Brother gets off my back, I can finally get some good, honest, under the table illegal employment.
Breaking news, my book is FINALLY getting interesting. I broke the 100 page mark which i haven't done in a long, long time. I flipped back through the book to congratulate my progress so far, and every other page has been dog eared at least once. That means that up until now, I've been averaging about two pages at a time. But I'm past the set up of the plot, so it's getting more and more interesting by the second.
Sophie had her first day of work yesterday from 10-6, and after my fruitless job search I went down to visit her. The past couple of days, she'd had to get shots and tests to make sure she was healthy and to make sure she's not serving tuberculosis salads. So I get to the bar where she and the staff are shooting the shit because no customers are there. I walk up and Sophie looks at me completely straight faced.
Sophie: One of those tests was for AIDS.
I nearly died.
Sophie: I'm negative.
So that's something to celebrate, people, if you're looking for a reason. Sophie is AIDS free. Boo ya.
When Sophie got out of work we finally got to hit the beach. I was super excited because I decided to buy a volley ball that day so we could frolick in the water and get exercise. We lasted about ten minutes. We were two of the five people on the beach so we threw in the towel and caught the the bus home. This doesn't actually apply, as Sophie and I don't own towels to throw in, but it's just a saying so imma use it anyway. Also, the bus driver tried to leave without us when we were only three yards away. There was legitimately no other possible destination we could have been headed for BUT the bus, but he started to drive away anyway. So I went all Tiananmen Square on his ass, and made him stop for us.
It's opening ceremonies for the World Cup tonight, and the first match is tomorrow. I'm wicked pumped because since we're in Europe, we get to watch the games on time and not worry about Eastern/Central time blah, blah, blah. And we're also in a place which gives half a shit about soccer, so that's a plus.
Thing's I've Noticed:
1. If you call it Soccer, you will be mercilessly tooled on.
2. In Ios, if you don't have a tattoo, you are unique. There are stands by the beach set up like your average Rogan Slush Stand with tatted up guys just waitin' to ink ya.
3. Aussie slang is way more creative than ours. Cocksucker < Cocksmoker.
4. Malaka = Asshole in Greek. They use it a lot. Like a lot, a lot.
Right now I'm waiting for Carmen to get up so that she'll come apartment hunting with me because she's super friendly and I'm about as outgoing as a corpse compared to her. I did take an Adderall, though, so I might just hit the road solo. Our roommate Carmen may be the peppiest human on planet Earth. She's wicked outgoing to everyone she meets, even inanimate objects. She may not be the brightest bulb, but she is the friendliest bulb. Her theme song is ''Tik Tok" by Ke$ha. I say that not because she claims it, but because yesterday morning her headphones were up all the way and over the course of an hour and a half, Tik Tok was played five times. No exaggeration. I'm gonna try and sneak a peak at her iPod. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't the only song on there. Seriously.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Pam and Ma STILL do Ios!
Hey everybody! Pam and Ma are here still woo! Our second night we were all exhuasted and when one of us suggested we stay in, we all jumped at the chace. We took Pam's laptop to the resort we'd stayed at which has free wireless. Our plan was to download a movie to watch that night from iTunes, but when we got to the hotel, Mike told us that he'd give us a bunch of movies off his harddrive. We were thrilled and after a half an hour of transferring files, etc., we took the laptop back to the apartment to settle in for our movie night. Only when we put the crib together, changed out of our suites and into pajamas and double clicked to watch that new romantic comedy, The Hurt Locker, did we realize our horrible mistake. We had decided against renting a movie from iTunes as well because we had the ones from Mike, which was another thing we put on our bad decisions list. Windows Media Player opened and the visualiser started, set to the audio of The Hurt Locker. The other file that came with it was a frame by frame picture of the movie. Like photosohop. The other three movies were the same. So that sucked.
Last night Sophie and I sadly put Pam and Ma on the bus down to the port so they could leave Ios and begin their journies back to Massachusetts. The village is midway between the beach and the port, and Sophie and I hugged goodbye as the bus pulled up packed with people coming up from the beach to go to the bars. We had brough our trash down to look for public barrels to throw them in, and the four bags sat beside us as we watched our friends board the bus. People getting off kept tripping over our waste and making comments about it, so we edged away from our spot on the stone wall and refused to claim the 10 lbs. of trash until the crowd completely dispersed. Embarassing.
At 1:00 a.m. our two friends rolled back in. Their ferry had been at 7:30, not midnight. Better luck next time, ladies.
Things I've noticed:
1. Our maid defines cleaning the bathroom as spraying the whole roomdown with the hose from our showerhead, and closing the door to let the dungeon ventilate our of a 1' x 1' window.
2. If you order fries at Pleasure, the local gyro place, the bowls they come in make for perfect cereal bowls. So far I've made off with three. I wonder what the employees think when they come to clear the table and there's nothing to clear...
Some Homeless Tendencies We've Developed:
1. Using rinsed out deodorant cups as shot glasses.
2. Using french fry holders as cereal bowls and chaser cups.
4. Taking our morning showers in the mediterranean.
5. Rinsing clothes in our sink. Getting ready makes me feel like Charlize Theron in the beginning of Monster. Only I'm not lesbian serial murderer. Not yet...
6. Freebasing cocaine and battling addictions to Methamphetamines.
The last one is a joke. Or is it? It is.
Last night Sophie and I sadly put Pam and Ma on the bus down to the port so they could leave Ios and begin their journies back to Massachusetts. The village is midway between the beach and the port, and Sophie and I hugged goodbye as the bus pulled up packed with people coming up from the beach to go to the bars. We had brough our trash down to look for public barrels to throw them in, and the four bags sat beside us as we watched our friends board the bus. People getting off kept tripping over our waste and making comments about it, so we edged away from our spot on the stone wall and refused to claim the 10 lbs. of trash until the crowd completely dispersed. Embarassing.
At 1:00 a.m. our two friends rolled back in. Their ferry had been at 7:30, not midnight. Better luck next time, ladies.
Things I've noticed:
1. Our maid defines cleaning the bathroom as spraying the whole roomdown with the hose from our showerhead, and closing the door to let the dungeon ventilate our of a 1' x 1' window.
2. If you order fries at Pleasure, the local gyro place, the bowls they come in make for perfect cereal bowls. So far I've made off with three. I wonder what the employees think when they come to clear the table and there's nothing to clear...
Some Homeless Tendencies We've Developed:
1. Using rinsed out deodorant cups as shot glasses.
2. Using french fry holders as cereal bowls and chaser cups.
4. Taking our morning showers in the mediterranean.
5. Rinsing clothes in our sink. Getting ready makes me feel like Charlize Theron in the beginning of Monster. Only I'm not lesbian serial murderer. Not yet...
6. Freebasing cocaine and battling addictions to Methamphetamines.
The last one is a joke. Or is it? It is.
PAM AND MA DO IOS
Pam and Margot are here! For those of you unfortunate enough not to know who these peeps are, they are our friends from high school, and they arrived the same day we moved into our apartment. This wasn't an issue, except that our landlord had to approach Carmen (his employee who got us the apartment in the first place) and clarify that there were only four, and not six of us living in the apartment. It's kind of funny because five out of the six people staying in the room are illegal immigrants cramped into a small room looking for work in a foreign country. Sound familiar?
I don't blame our landlord for asking, considering this aparmtment is in NO way capable of housing six people in its one room. There is no stove and no microwave (despite the fact that it was advertised to have both.) Behind the bathroom door are two steps that lead down to the shithole we like to refer to as the dungeon. It has one tiny window placed up high like it's a prison cell except that it doesn't close. The bathroom's position is underneath a set of outdoor stairs, so that there is a nook where Harry Potter could have been raised, or brooms could be kept. Instead it's where our toilet, shower and sink are. There's only one closet and three lights in the room. Only one of these lights works. There's one window in the main room above the only door which I swear to god is some secret portal that only giant disgusting moths can find. I'm not sure how the tarantulas get in though...We may be getting a hot plate, but we have to bring outselves to drop 67 Euro all at once, so that's gonna be tough. Also, our fridge is the size of a mini fridge you are typically given freshman year of college...And our game plan is to buy groceries...yeah...
Pam and Margot are here for five days, so we pushed our beds together and it actually makes for a pretty cuddly crib (Wurd to my Ireland peeps) but it's kind of a hassle having to dissasemble it every morning so our landlord Frankie doesn't catch us riding dirty.
Advantages to Pam and Ma being here:
1. Pam brought her computer. Pam has two seasons of The Office.
2. Pam brought her computer. Pam has two seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
3. Pam brought her computer. Pam has Solitaire (which my Dad somehow removed from my computer when he wiped it for viruses. Love you, Dad.)
4. Pam brought her computer. Pam has Snood.
5. Pam and Ma are at the end of their travels, so we get all the stuff they're trying to jettison to make their bags lighter that we were too cheap to buy. These include one towel, 2,132,456,456 tampons and Ma's dank European blowdryer.
6. We get to remenisce CONSTANTLY about highschool and we have been. We've already pretty accurately equated B**S****** (name changed to protect identity) to Stephen Glandsberg and talked about how we can't wait for our five year reunion. Huge nostalgia trip, it's been wicked sweet.
7. Now that we're two more people, all our meals and alcohol are divided by four, which is much lighter on the wallet. Although we order twice as much food as when there's two of us...But i'm gonna just choose not to figure that equation. Since they've been here, the weather has been sort of iffy. This means 80 with a chilly (pleasant) wind (breeze) and not sunny (1-3 clouds in the sky.) Yesterday we were reading on the beach, and the weather got a little discouraging which means that I was covered in goosebumps which is just not cute. At this point we decided to go (Sophie had read thirty pages, I'd gotten through 9) and have a nice little lunch at this beachside restaurant. We ate bruschetta, hummus and a small pizza to split and then splurged on a hookah for the table. We ordered peach, but accidentally got brought "grandma's basement" flavor. It wasn't so bad though, and since we were so exhausted we got pretty giggly off of it. It was so relaxing getting to sit in hammocks with blankets given to us by the restaurant and smokin some hookah with my ladies. Pam claims it was "the chillest i've eva been."
Our first night out, we were pregaming in our room when a new friend (the term for stranger in Ios) named Eddie came in and we chatted. Then some stuff happened.
Some stuff that happened:
1. Eddie asks us where we're from. The next ten minutes (no exagerration) is spent all trying to do the best Boston accent. When he tries his words are absolutely incoherent. At THIS point, we should have registered that he was relatively intoxicated.
2. Eddie spends the next ten minutes talking about what can only be described as nothing. Then the conversation slows.
3. Eddie asks where we are from. AT THIS POINT we start to realize he is extremely intoxicated.
4. Eddie says something that is probably in Elvish or some shit. No nationally recognized language anyways, and looks expectantly for a response from anyone. None come.
5. Eddie asks Sophie for a cuddle, and gets up to sit behind her. Sophie just looks around.
6. Commence 15 minute backrub for Sophie from Eddie. He asks for one in return. Sophie refuses. It was a gift, Eddie.
7. We decide to leave and Eddie think she's leading us to the club he works at called Pegasus. In reality he just happens to be in front because he's walking the fastest.
8. We arrive at Pegasus. Eddie's hands are up in the air like a triumphant bastart and he hops up the steps to the club. When he turns around, we are all gone.
We ended up seeing him two days later and calling him out. He remembered nothing.
I've been informed that Michael O'Neill now has the link to this blog. I love you Dad. I'm being safer than it seems here in this blog. Much more safe. I promise.
I don't blame our landlord for asking, considering this aparmtment is in NO way capable of housing six people in its one room. There is no stove and no microwave (despite the fact that it was advertised to have both.) Behind the bathroom door are two steps that lead down to the shithole we like to refer to as the dungeon. It has one tiny window placed up high like it's a prison cell except that it doesn't close. The bathroom's position is underneath a set of outdoor stairs, so that there is a nook where Harry Potter could have been raised, or brooms could be kept. Instead it's where our toilet, shower and sink are. There's only one closet and three lights in the room. Only one of these lights works. There's one window in the main room above the only door which I swear to god is some secret portal that only giant disgusting moths can find. I'm not sure how the tarantulas get in though...We may be getting a hot plate, but we have to bring outselves to drop 67 Euro all at once, so that's gonna be tough. Also, our fridge is the size of a mini fridge you are typically given freshman year of college...And our game plan is to buy groceries...yeah...
Pam and Margot are here for five days, so we pushed our beds together and it actually makes for a pretty cuddly crib (Wurd to my Ireland peeps) but it's kind of a hassle having to dissasemble it every morning so our landlord Frankie doesn't catch us riding dirty.
Advantages to Pam and Ma being here:
1. Pam brought her computer. Pam has two seasons of The Office.
2. Pam brought her computer. Pam has two seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
3. Pam brought her computer. Pam has Solitaire (which my Dad somehow removed from my computer when he wiped it for viruses. Love you, Dad.)
4. Pam brought her computer. Pam has Snood.
5. Pam and Ma are at the end of their travels, so we get all the stuff they're trying to jettison to make their bags lighter that we were too cheap to buy. These include one towel, 2,132,456,456 tampons and Ma's dank European blowdryer.
6. We get to remenisce CONSTANTLY about highschool and we have been. We've already pretty accurately equated B**S****** (name changed to protect identity) to Stephen Glandsberg and talked about how we can't wait for our five year reunion. Huge nostalgia trip, it's been wicked sweet.
7. Now that we're two more people, all our meals and alcohol are divided by four, which is much lighter on the wallet. Although we order twice as much food as when there's two of us...But i'm gonna just choose not to figure that equation. Since they've been here, the weather has been sort of iffy. This means 80 with a chilly (pleasant) wind (breeze) and not sunny (1-3 clouds in the sky.) Yesterday we were reading on the beach, and the weather got a little discouraging which means that I was covered in goosebumps which is just not cute. At this point we decided to go (Sophie had read thirty pages, I'd gotten through 9) and have a nice little lunch at this beachside restaurant. We ate bruschetta, hummus and a small pizza to split and then splurged on a hookah for the table. We ordered peach, but accidentally got brought "grandma's basement" flavor. It wasn't so bad though, and since we were so exhausted we got pretty giggly off of it. It was so relaxing getting to sit in hammocks with blankets given to us by the restaurant and smokin some hookah with my ladies. Pam claims it was "the chillest i've eva been."
Our first night out, we were pregaming in our room when a new friend (the term for stranger in Ios) named Eddie came in and we chatted. Then some stuff happened.
Some stuff that happened:
1. Eddie asks us where we're from. The next ten minutes (no exagerration) is spent all trying to do the best Boston accent. When he tries his words are absolutely incoherent. At THIS point, we should have registered that he was relatively intoxicated.
2. Eddie spends the next ten minutes talking about what can only be described as nothing. Then the conversation slows.
3. Eddie asks where we are from. AT THIS POINT we start to realize he is extremely intoxicated.
4. Eddie says something that is probably in Elvish or some shit. No nationally recognized language anyways, and looks expectantly for a response from anyone. None come.
5. Eddie asks Sophie for a cuddle, and gets up to sit behind her. Sophie just looks around.
6. Commence 15 minute backrub for Sophie from Eddie. He asks for one in return. Sophie refuses. It was a gift, Eddie.
7. We decide to leave and Eddie think she's leading us to the club he works at called Pegasus. In reality he just happens to be in front because he's walking the fastest.
8. We arrive at Pegasus. Eddie's hands are up in the air like a triumphant bastart and he hops up the steps to the club. When he turns around, we are all gone.
We ended up seeing him two days later and calling him out. He remembered nothing.
I've been informed that Michael O'Neill now has the link to this blog. I love you Dad. I'm being safer than it seems here in this blog. Much more safe. I promise.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
It's boring, but it's a part of my life...
I am officially getting sick of writing this blog. This doesn't mean I'm going to stop, but I'm going to complain about it. It's mostly because I bought a journal before I came here. It has the Asian wave on it. Not a bunch of Asians doing the wave, but "The Great Wave," by Hokusai. It's not really me, but it was in the bargain bin at Barnes & Noble so whatevaaaz. I got it so I'd be encouraged to write, since it's what I want to do with my life, and I love it except that since I have this journal I have to write everything by hand first and it sucks to actually write. It's like writing an in class essay every day. Also, when we live in our apartment we won't have internet so easily available, but don't worry I am going to do the best I can to keep this thing going!
Our friends from Florida left. They hung by the pool with us after they checked out, as their ferry didn't leave until after dinner time. Sophie and I went inside for a bit to check Facebook and whatnot and when we came back out our friends who were still there asked us if we'd gotten said goodbye to the Florida guys. Oops. See you never.
Here there are little gypsies that go around selling 10 cent glow sticks for a Euro to all the party people. Sophie is pretty much best friends with this one girl selling them. I try to get them to like me, but kids have never really been my thing. Especially these ones who I try and make adult conversation with even though they don't exactly (at all) speak English. I won't give up! There is one who I've made pretty good head way with. She smiles a lot, but she keeps motioning to my jewelry. The jewelry that I wear every day that was my mom's and/or great aunt's. I made the mistake of trading these brand new, 20 Euro earrings, for a glow stick. Which means I paid 19 Euro for a 10 cent bracelet that breaks after one night. I won't be doing that again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me out of precious jewelry, I'm a fucking idiot.
Tomorrow, we move into our apartment and i am DETERMINED to keep it clean. Right now Sophie and I have unpacked...unloaded all our clothes and things in our hotel room. The floor literally has a rug made out of our clothes. New apartment = New leaf. It's the Alaskan's last night tonight, which is so depressing considering they are all so, so hilarious. We'll be celebrating tonight. This will be tough for Sophie, who was struggling against pure exhaustion this morning. I woke up and was absolutely parched, so I asked for the big bottle of water we'd bought in anticipation of our morning desert-mouths. Looking for it, Sophie says "Oh yeah, I chuuugged that last night," just as she finds it. Folks, there was half an inch missing, tops. These are the same big water bottles that we drank in Ireland. They're 1.5 Liters - no I can't convert that - and since everything in Europe is portioned smaller, it's the equivalent of a gallon of water in the states. So we'd always buy them, and bring them to class and get the same looks that an American would get if they were casually sippin' on a gallon jug in global.
Back to Greece. Last night was for some reason the most giddy night every. I laughed until my abs ached, minus the twenty minutes where we compared horror stories. Not like ghost stories, but like mass/fucked up murder/suicide stories about people we knew. One of our Alaskan friends was in the shower for this serious talk, so the soundtrack to the whole conversation was him singing "Empire State of Mind."
The night progressed and we got to the bars around 2:30 (Asian dentist appointment) and I have a nice little chat with a potential employer while Sophie climbed a tree in the middle of the square and then couldn't get down. She kept asking for help, but no one seemed to notice until this local actually climbed up the tree to help her down. I was oblivious to all of this.
We got pretty obnoxiously American with the Alaskans, and gave up going into bars in favor of sitting in the middle of the square just having good old fashioned conversation (shouting to try and talk over the four different club songs blasting all around us.)
Just as Sophie and I climbed into bed, our friend knocked on the door, having been sexiled. The two beds in our hotel room are pushed together (so there's more room for activities) so we took the heap of our belongings that had accumulated between us and just swept them onto the floor to make room for him. He started to thank us, to which Sophie immediately responded, "If you're gonna stay in here, shut the fuck up and fall asleep already." She's a gem.
Now we're napping before dinner time, and Sophie showed me this SNL short that is absolutely hilarious. It's about coke or drugs or something, I'm not quite sure but it's pants crapping funny and you should all watch it. She showed it to me on her iTouch, which takes forever to load because of the poor internet connection, and we had to try six billion times before it worked. On the 5,999,999,999th try, Sophie handed it to me, showing me how far we'd come (about 3/4 of the way.) I laid one finger on the screen and I froze the iPod. Very discouraging. This story pretty accurately characterizes my experiences with Sophie's iTouch so far. I'm thinking about breaking it in half.
I miss all of you! If you read this message me about your lives!
Our friends from Florida left. They hung by the pool with us after they checked out, as their ferry didn't leave until after dinner time. Sophie and I went inside for a bit to check Facebook and whatnot and when we came back out our friends who were still there asked us if we'd gotten said goodbye to the Florida guys. Oops. See you never.
Here there are little gypsies that go around selling 10 cent glow sticks for a Euro to all the party people. Sophie is pretty much best friends with this one girl selling them. I try to get them to like me, but kids have never really been my thing. Especially these ones who I try and make adult conversation with even though they don't exactly (at all) speak English. I won't give up! There is one who I've made pretty good head way with. She smiles a lot, but she keeps motioning to my jewelry. The jewelry that I wear every day that was my mom's and/or great aunt's. I made the mistake of trading these brand new, 20 Euro earrings, for a glow stick. Which means I paid 19 Euro for a 10 cent bracelet that breaks after one night. I won't be doing that again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me out of precious jewelry, I'm a fucking idiot.
Tomorrow, we move into our apartment and i am DETERMINED to keep it clean. Right now Sophie and I have unpacked...unloaded all our clothes and things in our hotel room. The floor literally has a rug made out of our clothes. New apartment = New leaf. It's the Alaskan's last night tonight, which is so depressing considering they are all so, so hilarious. We'll be celebrating tonight. This will be tough for Sophie, who was struggling against pure exhaustion this morning. I woke up and was absolutely parched, so I asked for the big bottle of water we'd bought in anticipation of our morning desert-mouths. Looking for it, Sophie says "Oh yeah, I chuuugged that last night," just as she finds it. Folks, there was half an inch missing, tops. These are the same big water bottles that we drank in Ireland. They're 1.5 Liters - no I can't convert that - and since everything in Europe is portioned smaller, it's the equivalent of a gallon of water in the states. So we'd always buy them, and bring them to class and get the same looks that an American would get if they were casually sippin' on a gallon jug in global.
Back to Greece. Last night was for some reason the most giddy night every. I laughed until my abs ached, minus the twenty minutes where we compared horror stories. Not like ghost stories, but like mass/fucked up murder/suicide stories about people we knew. One of our Alaskan friends was in the shower for this serious talk, so the soundtrack to the whole conversation was him singing "Empire State of Mind."
The night progressed and we got to the bars around 2:30 (Asian dentist appointment) and I have a nice little chat with a potential employer while Sophie climbed a tree in the middle of the square and then couldn't get down. She kept asking for help, but no one seemed to notice until this local actually climbed up the tree to help her down. I was oblivious to all of this.
We got pretty obnoxiously American with the Alaskans, and gave up going into bars in favor of sitting in the middle of the square just having good old fashioned conversation (shouting to try and talk over the four different club songs blasting all around us.)
Just as Sophie and I climbed into bed, our friend knocked on the door, having been sexiled. The two beds in our hotel room are pushed together (so there's more room for activities) so we took the heap of our belongings that had accumulated between us and just swept them onto the floor to make room for him. He started to thank us, to which Sophie immediately responded, "If you're gonna stay in here, shut the fuck up and fall asleep already." She's a gem.
Now we're napping before dinner time, and Sophie showed me this SNL short that is absolutely hilarious. It's about coke or drugs or something, I'm not quite sure but it's pants crapping funny and you should all watch it. She showed it to me on her iTouch, which takes forever to load because of the poor internet connection, and we had to try six billion times before it worked. On the 5,999,999,999th try, Sophie handed it to me, showing me how far we'd come (about 3/4 of the way.) I laid one finger on the screen and I froze the iPod. Very discouraging. This story pretty accurately characterizes my experiences with Sophie's iTouch so far. I'm thinking about breaking it in half.
I miss all of you! If you read this message me about your lives!
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Today, we work.
We did not work today. But we did accomplish something, which is a lot considering all we've done (slash all anyone ever wants to do on Ios) is eat, drink and lay on the beach. But today we went around asking for jobs at restaurants and we've both already gotten a bite. Sophie has a European passport which is like gold over here, because most people are employed under the table and the chance to have a legitimate employee is rare. I got one from a restaurant which hasn't opened yet, but the man with the raspiest voice on planet earth with no shirt on and gray hair on his chest and stomach (and probably ass) told me to come back in a few days followed by swatting a fly off his moob. Still not sure though, as the high season hasn't started yet.
We DID however find an apartment! We will be living with our friend Carmen and her roommate Erica for nine Euro a night and it comes with air conditioning! This is completely necessary right now, and it's only going to get hotter from here on out so this shit is a BIG DEAL.
The only difference between out and inside seems to be the lack of sunlight in our rooms, which keeps them dark all day. I could use this as an explanation for why Sophie and I slept until two p.m. today, but I wouldn't lie to you people. We slept until two p.m. because of how completely obliterated we (and everyone we were with) got last night. I thought I had a pretty good grasp on what happened, but the more we talk with people, the more things seems to crawl out of the woodwork.
Things that have Crawled out of the Woodwork (a.k.a. Apparently...):
1. Sophie and I got gyros with our friend Sam while the rest of the people went to a different bar and continued to dance the night away. We fed a stray cat which was purrin' up a storm, and pretty much right when the 3,289,574 year old man behind the counter handed Sam his gyro, Sophie and I decided to call it a night and bounced, leaving him with a snack and a cat.
2. We watched a fire show at a bar called Circus. Actually what happened was I made Sophie cry while we were waiting for it, and she only stopped (abruptly and completely) when Sam reminded us that the bartender was about to juggle bottles that were on fire. Fire = Enchanting.
3. After we left, our Alaskan friends found one of our Floridian friends passed out and alone and brought him home. In their words "There was a strobe light so everyone kept moving and dancing with every flash except this one mass, face down in the corner." Way to be good friends, fellas.
4. Sophie broke her toe on the walk home somehow, and my response to her compaints (pun) was, "I believe you that it hurts, but I still think you're being a little BITCH." I'm gonna go a head and classify myself as a good friend.
Trends I've Noticed:
1. Everyday on the beach, Sophie and I HOUSE a bag of pita chips and dank cheese dip that we're pretty sure contains the same amount of calories as straight up lard, but we can't read the Greek nutrition facts, so it's not really an issue.
2. Sophie and I come back to our room at least once a night to get money. Not for alcohol, but for fries or gyros.
3. Every morning, I wake up first and Sophie is wearing whatever outfit she was wearing last night.
4. Every morning, I wake up first and I am wearing nothing.
Also, last night we visited Carmen at work and got drinks. She ordered us beers and brought out a bowl of chips which were gone in no less than 7.56 seconds. We asked for seconds (not allowed). We had met two girls from Toronto that night at the pregame by the pool at the hotel and they came and sat when they spotted us. These girls are in their mid twenties and were exponentially less drunk than we were because they are mature. When their bowl of chips came, we beat our record. I'm not even sure if they got a chip, and they dip-set pretty quick after. I think our appetite frightened them. We are nomsters.
Also, I got a book from Barnes & Nobles before coming here because I'm determined to finish a book this summer. When I actually bought it, my friend Nate was working the register. The last time I'd seen him was six months earlier when I'd come in to buy a book to finish. I had to admit to Nate that I hadn't even gotten four chapters into that book and had given up. I still haven't gotten past page 30 of my book. Sophie started a book yesterday and is already one third of the way done with David Beckham's 380 page autobiography (yes, David Beckham has a 380-page-long life.) I know it's not a race...but it kind of is.
We DID however find an apartment! We will be living with our friend Carmen and her roommate Erica for nine Euro a night and it comes with air conditioning! This is completely necessary right now, and it's only going to get hotter from here on out so this shit is a BIG DEAL.
The only difference between out and inside seems to be the lack of sunlight in our rooms, which keeps them dark all day. I could use this as an explanation for why Sophie and I slept until two p.m. today, but I wouldn't lie to you people. We slept until two p.m. because of how completely obliterated we (and everyone we were with) got last night. I thought I had a pretty good grasp on what happened, but the more we talk with people, the more things seems to crawl out of the woodwork.
Things that have Crawled out of the Woodwork (a.k.a. Apparently...):
1. Sophie and I got gyros with our friend Sam while the rest of the people went to a different bar and continued to dance the night away. We fed a stray cat which was purrin' up a storm, and pretty much right when the 3,289,574 year old man behind the counter handed Sam his gyro, Sophie and I decided to call it a night and bounced, leaving him with a snack and a cat.
2. We watched a fire show at a bar called Circus. Actually what happened was I made Sophie cry while we were waiting for it, and she only stopped (abruptly and completely) when Sam reminded us that the bartender was about to juggle bottles that were on fire. Fire = Enchanting.
3. After we left, our Alaskan friends found one of our Floridian friends passed out and alone and brought him home. In their words "There was a strobe light so everyone kept moving and dancing with every flash except this one mass, face down in the corner." Way to be good friends, fellas.
4. Sophie broke her toe on the walk home somehow, and my response to her compaints (pun) was, "I believe you that it hurts, but I still think you're being a little BITCH." I'm gonna go a head and classify myself as a good friend.
Trends I've Noticed:
1. Everyday on the beach, Sophie and I HOUSE a bag of pita chips and dank cheese dip that we're pretty sure contains the same amount of calories as straight up lard, but we can't read the Greek nutrition facts, so it's not really an issue.
2. Sophie and I come back to our room at least once a night to get money. Not for alcohol, but for fries or gyros.
3. Every morning, I wake up first and Sophie is wearing whatever outfit she was wearing last night.
4. Every morning, I wake up first and I am wearing nothing.
Also, last night we visited Carmen at work and got drinks. She ordered us beers and brought out a bowl of chips which were gone in no less than 7.56 seconds. We asked for seconds (not allowed). We had met two girls from Toronto that night at the pregame by the pool at the hotel and they came and sat when they spotted us. These girls are in their mid twenties and were exponentially less drunk than we were because they are mature. When their bowl of chips came, we beat our record. I'm not even sure if they got a chip, and they dip-set pretty quick after. I think our appetite frightened them. We are nomsters.
Also, I got a book from Barnes & Nobles before coming here because I'm determined to finish a book this summer. When I actually bought it, my friend Nate was working the register. The last time I'd seen him was six months earlier when I'd come in to buy a book to finish. I had to admit to Nate that I hadn't even gotten four chapters into that book and had given up. I still haven't gotten past page 30 of my book. Sophie started a book yesterday and is already one third of the way done with David Beckham's 380 page autobiography (yes, David Beckham has a 380-page-long life.) I know it's not a race...but it kind of is.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Herro from Ios!
The good news is, we made it to Ios. The bad news is, it's 9:30 a.m. and I'm already awake. I'm going to blame Jayne on this one, who has never let me sleep past this time in my whole life. Not to mention that Sophie doesn't typically wake up until lunch time, so I'm stuck in our room, chugging the last inch of water and periodically looking over the balcony at the pool, searching for signs of life.
The signs of life would come from our new Calgarian (Canadian), Alaskan and Floridian friends. Lat night was this chick's 19th birthday, and we spent the pregame learning games unique to our respective regions. Naturally, everyone sucked at each other's games. Except for Fuck The Dealer, which for some reason everyone was extremely good at. The dealer was consistently fucked.
It was a pretty solid first night out on the island, which we definitely deserved after the dismal finale to our time in Athens. On a train we took two days ago (still in Athens), we met guys staying at our hostel and also who were travelling to Ios in three days time. They are Austrailan and bar non THE most boring humans ever to walk gods green earth (this is about to get mean, so if this sounds like you so far, stop reading.) They're built like brick shithouses and as our friend said, put together they have about the personality of a goldfish. I'd wager that goldfish is dead and has been for weeks now. To give you an idea of how boring they are...Within the first ten minutes of meeting them, Sophie and I were making some jokes about missing the ferry, blah, blah, blah. We got nothing but crickets on all of them. Every time they just stared at us while we laughed and it got so awkward that Sophie and I actually turned away, assuming the conversation was dead and burried. But they kept pursuing the conversation, asking questions like, "Is it true you can't drink the water on the islands?" to which we responded yes, and that an Austrailian girl we befriended last year had accidentally drank a glass of it and ended up in the hospital for three days. One of them sort of cocked his head to the side and asked if the girl's name was Mary (it was.) This happened to be his ex girlfriend, an AMAZING fact which he delivered as if he were telling us our toast had just popped. And then he just changed the subject. What kind of person doesn't think finding a mutual friend between an Austrailian and two Americans and finding this out within the first ten minutes of knowing each other is astounding? Who can't sustain a conversation about that?
Aaaanyway, enough about them. I could probably say a lot more, but I read it over and I already feel pretty mean. I feel like if they die in the near future I'll be implicated in their murder.
Other interesting things that happend before just now:
1. An adorable blonde girl no older than five sat two rows away from us on the ferry. Fifteen minutes into the ride, I was actually woken up from sleep by this girl literally wailing. Not just crying - this chick was miz. This persisted until we docked on Ios.
2. We napped for a casual five and a half hours right when we got to our hotel, and woke up to a wedding reception going on at the pool bar, where our friend from last year was so fucked up that he couldn't hoist himself out of the pool.
3. The hotel owner/our boi, Mike, may have found us a job at the beach club called Far Out. The uniform is bikinis.
4. We're cliff diving today with our new Alaskan friends. I'll be doing my own version of it, which is more like small rock diving, since I'm way to afraid of heights.
5. Gary Coleman died. Whatchu talkin' bout, God?!
Also, we should probably start looking for an apartment today. I'm horrible with rejection, so if shit goes sour, I might just cliff dive into an empty pool. (It's a joke, mom, relax.)
xoxo Gossip Gurl
The signs of life would come from our new Calgarian (Canadian), Alaskan and Floridian friends. Lat night was this chick's 19th birthday, and we spent the pregame learning games unique to our respective regions. Naturally, everyone sucked at each other's games. Except for Fuck The Dealer, which for some reason everyone was extremely good at. The dealer was consistently fucked.
It was a pretty solid first night out on the island, which we definitely deserved after the dismal finale to our time in Athens. On a train we took two days ago (still in Athens), we met guys staying at our hostel and also who were travelling to Ios in three days time. They are Austrailan and bar non THE most boring humans ever to walk gods green earth (this is about to get mean, so if this sounds like you so far, stop reading.) They're built like brick shithouses and as our friend said, put together they have about the personality of a goldfish. I'd wager that goldfish is dead and has been for weeks now. To give you an idea of how boring they are...Within the first ten minutes of meeting them, Sophie and I were making some jokes about missing the ferry, blah, blah, blah. We got nothing but crickets on all of them. Every time they just stared at us while we laughed and it got so awkward that Sophie and I actually turned away, assuming the conversation was dead and burried. But they kept pursuing the conversation, asking questions like, "Is it true you can't drink the water on the islands?" to which we responded yes, and that an Austrailian girl we befriended last year had accidentally drank a glass of it and ended up in the hospital for three days. One of them sort of cocked his head to the side and asked if the girl's name was Mary (it was.) This happened to be his ex girlfriend, an AMAZING fact which he delivered as if he were telling us our toast had just popped. And then he just changed the subject. What kind of person doesn't think finding a mutual friend between an Austrailian and two Americans and finding this out within the first ten minutes of knowing each other is astounding? Who can't sustain a conversation about that?
Aaaanyway, enough about them. I could probably say a lot more, but I read it over and I already feel pretty mean. I feel like if they die in the near future I'll be implicated in their murder.
Other interesting things that happend before just now:
1. An adorable blonde girl no older than five sat two rows away from us on the ferry. Fifteen minutes into the ride, I was actually woken up from sleep by this girl literally wailing. Not just crying - this chick was miz. This persisted until we docked on Ios.
2. We napped for a casual five and a half hours right when we got to our hotel, and woke up to a wedding reception going on at the pool bar, where our friend from last year was so fucked up that he couldn't hoist himself out of the pool.
3. The hotel owner/our boi, Mike, may have found us a job at the beach club called Far Out. The uniform is bikinis.
4. We're cliff diving today with our new Alaskan friends. I'll be doing my own version of it, which is more like small rock diving, since I'm way to afraid of heights.
5. Gary Coleman died. Whatchu talkin' bout, God?!
Also, we should probably start looking for an apartment today. I'm horrible with rejection, so if shit goes sour, I might just cliff dive into an empty pool. (It's a joke, mom, relax.)
xoxo Gossip Gurl
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Herro From Athens!
Hey everbody! I'm making a blog. If you're thinking to yourself, she's doing this because she watched Julie & Julia, you are right. Eventually this should become a movie in which I will be portrayed by Meryl Streep. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Sophie and I arrived in Athens yesterday and have already fucked up. Right now we should be on the island Ios, but we are sort of incompetent so we won't be arriving until tomorrow. Nothing very interesting happened on the flight here, except that we spent 25 dollars on salads at Houlihan's in Logan airport and I sat next to a woman so old and wrinkly that she was either Mother Time or a Sharpei animorph. I'll never know.
We checked into our hostel yesterday around 3:20 and took the impossibly small elevator to our room on the second floor. Sophie set her alarm so we could take an hour long nap. Exactly four hours later we woke up and explored until dinner time. Out of the six beds in our room, two were taken by our newest Asian friends, Betsy and The-One-That-Talked. They came from Malaysia which honest to god was a fictional country created for the movie Zoolander until they told us. They speak perfect Engrish and their native language is about as commonly used in their country as Gaelic is in Ireland (that is the first of a few Ireland references I'll be dropping cause I lived there for four months and I want everyone to know it.) So, no real language + citizens with no personalities = fictional country. I don't know why I'm still talking about them considering we only saw them twice, but there you have it.
The rooftop of our hostel has a bar on top of it that has awesome views of the Acropolis, Parthenon and other stuff. We arrived there two minutes after happy hour ended, but sucked it up and dropped a few extra Euro for our drinks. We met the bartenders, one of which is from Tazmania while the other is from England. We also met Americans from California, Colorado, Indiana (huge tools), and Virginia and got to know them over a beer or six or seven. AT THIS POINT we had no intentions of going out because we had to get to a ferry port we didn't know how to get to and get tickets for a boat at 6 a.m. the next morning.
At around sometime o'clock, the bardenters gave the last call, saying they'd meet everyone in the lounge after they closed up the bar. The question was posed again of whether or not we'd be joining everyone. "My mind is telling me no, but my body's telling me yes." - R. Kelly. I looked over at my conscience (Sophie) and she nodded. Commence bad decision #2 (the first being the 25$ salads.)
Long story short, we went out with the rationalization that we should stay up all night and sleep on the 8 hour ferry ride to Ios the next morning (this is obviously absurd, but peer pressure is my Kryptonite.) Plus, everyone was doing it.
Interesting things that happened when we were out:
1. Our 5' nothing navy friend punching a local so hard that a witness called the police, who detained him probably until he flexed and they released him.
2. Finding out that one of the bartenders was actually a lead role in Tazmania's version of High School Musical.
Then we missed our ferry and were woken up at 1 p.m. by the maid trying to remake our beds for the next people staying in them that night. So Sophie booked us both the last two beds in the place in separate rooms while I watched Sonya strip our beds and tried not to projectile vomit on her.
We have high hopes for tomorrow. I stopped booting around two after chugging what I'm pretty sure was cream (I asked for milk) at lunch. We took a half hour subway to Pireaus port and booked our ferry tickets. Nothing motivates us to follow through with something like money, so we'll be taking it easy tonight.
Island tomorrow! We booked the hotel we stayed at last year for a week or so. Still no permanent place to stay. Still no jobs.
Miss you all! sort of...
JUST KIDDING. love you
Sophie and I arrived in Athens yesterday and have already fucked up. Right now we should be on the island Ios, but we are sort of incompetent so we won't be arriving until tomorrow. Nothing very interesting happened on the flight here, except that we spent 25 dollars on salads at Houlihan's in Logan airport and I sat next to a woman so old and wrinkly that she was either Mother Time or a Sharpei animorph. I'll never know.
We checked into our hostel yesterday around 3:20 and took the impossibly small elevator to our room on the second floor. Sophie set her alarm so we could take an hour long nap. Exactly four hours later we woke up and explored until dinner time. Out of the six beds in our room, two were taken by our newest Asian friends, Betsy and The-One-That-Talked. They came from Malaysia which honest to god was a fictional country created for the movie Zoolander until they told us. They speak perfect Engrish and their native language is about as commonly used in their country as Gaelic is in Ireland (that is the first of a few Ireland references I'll be dropping cause I lived there for four months and I want everyone to know it.) So, no real language + citizens with no personalities = fictional country. I don't know why I'm still talking about them considering we only saw them twice, but there you have it.
The rooftop of our hostel has a bar on top of it that has awesome views of the Acropolis, Parthenon and other stuff. We arrived there two minutes after happy hour ended, but sucked it up and dropped a few extra Euro for our drinks. We met the bartenders, one of which is from Tazmania while the other is from England. We also met Americans from California, Colorado, Indiana (huge tools), and Virginia and got to know them over a beer or six or seven. AT THIS POINT we had no intentions of going out because we had to get to a ferry port we didn't know how to get to and get tickets for a boat at 6 a.m. the next morning.
At around sometime o'clock, the bardenters gave the last call, saying they'd meet everyone in the lounge after they closed up the bar. The question was posed again of whether or not we'd be joining everyone. "My mind is telling me no, but my body's telling me yes." - R. Kelly. I looked over at my conscience (Sophie) and she nodded. Commence bad decision #2 (the first being the 25$ salads.)
Long story short, we went out with the rationalization that we should stay up all night and sleep on the 8 hour ferry ride to Ios the next morning (this is obviously absurd, but peer pressure is my Kryptonite.) Plus, everyone was doing it.
Interesting things that happened when we were out:
1. Our 5' nothing navy friend punching a local so hard that a witness called the police, who detained him probably until he flexed and they released him.
2. Finding out that one of the bartenders was actually a lead role in Tazmania's version of High School Musical.
Then we missed our ferry and were woken up at 1 p.m. by the maid trying to remake our beds for the next people staying in them that night. So Sophie booked us both the last two beds in the place in separate rooms while I watched Sonya strip our beds and tried not to projectile vomit on her.
We have high hopes for tomorrow. I stopped booting around two after chugging what I'm pretty sure was cream (I asked for milk) at lunch. We took a half hour subway to Pireaus port and booked our ferry tickets. Nothing motivates us to follow through with something like money, so we'll be taking it easy tonight.
Island tomorrow! We booked the hotel we stayed at last year for a week or so. Still no permanent place to stay. Still no jobs.
Miss you all! sort of...
JUST KIDDING. love you
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