Reporting In

Hi all,

I have made it to Greece all safe and sound, although we spent 30 odd hours in transit and we were all feeling trashed by the time we got to the hotel yesterday morning. Driving in to Athens was awesome - it's a white city with the hills covered with greygreen olive trees. Right up close the buildings show up more as slightly grey or slightly brown, and the district we're in is fairly seedy with very narrow streets. This is a city of tenement buildings, usually 4 to 6 stories, and also of dogs, randomly mooching around or curled up on the middle of the footpath catching a nap. Nobody has gardens as such, but there are trees, sometimes citrus, planted on a lot of the streets, and potted bushes on balconies are very common. Marble is a very common building material here. It's not as ubiquitous as concrete, but they'll use it for doorstops and balconies and other commonplace objects that we wouldn't because, well, it's marble. Yesterday was our jetlag day and we mostly spent it walking around Athens and having impromptu room parties trying to stay awake until 7 o'clock. This morning, however, we went up to the Acropolis and it was absolutely amazingly cool. The weather is quite warm without being excessively hot. It's autumn, though, and we stand out from all the locals who are wandering around in thick jerseys and heavy coats. Everything you've heard about smog here is true, the air is a visible haze and yesterday I had a scarybad asthma attack having tried to walk up a hill at the same pace as our group leader who always hurries everywhere. From now on I intend to be unstaunch and amble and suspect I will find life a lot easier. It's also a city full of cigarette smoke, everywhere you go there is an undertone smell of petrol and nicotine, such as the internet cafe where I am which is also full of young Greek men playing first person shoot'em ups. We've been doing lots of walking this past two days, but tomorrow we get to hang out at a nice quiet library and do research, which will be good for our feet.

Take care everyone,

Stephanie