SNOW!!

It is snowing in Athens! All day it was deathly cold and partly sunny with little flurries floating around.  We had our second day of classes, so now I have officially seen every class I'm enrolled in, and so far so good.  My Culture and History of Modern Athens class sounds like it's going to be fascinating, but quite depressing, as it is all about the development of Athens as a capital city from the late 1800s to present day.  This includes social activism as seen in demonstrations, riots, graffiti, and art around the city.  My teacher is very passionate; she got her degree from NYU and is half Indonesian, half Athenian, so she has a very unique perspective on the culture and city.  My other class today was Ancient Architecture.  I absolutely loved it!  I can already tell that it will mostly be over my head since I've never taken an official architecture class before, but I'm hoping that I inherited some of the engineering genes which are so abundant on the Polvi side of my family.  We immediately delved into drawing the two main orders of columns from the time period we're studying, Doric and Ionic, and so far it's really fun!  I've never been much of an artist, but I think I'll be able to handle this because they're mostly just sections stacked up and semi-straight lines. The professor is great, he is kind of soft spoken with a very thick Greek accent, but seems to really love architecture.  He also gave us every term first in English, and then in Greek, following the English term with "--which comes from the Greek word...", immediately reminding me of the father from My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  A very entertaining way to pass the time when the lecture gets a little monotonous.  I just can't wait to get on-site!  He mentioned touching the ruins and going up on scaffolding to see all of the angles, which means that the rumors that I heard are true.  I just wish it would stop snowing and get warm already, because as long as we have record lows, my Athenian teachers will never take us outside, they think it's the end of the world when it's 35 degrees!  I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with my amount of homework from only two days of class, but I just have to remember why I'm here and try to get the most out of the whole experience.  I also think that once I get the hang of the classes, it won't be as hard as Willamette.  Until then, off to finish my Homer translation for the night!