ranting and loving

I CANNOT believe the misfortunes Ive had with shoes....or in understanding shoes (and dress) in Greece. First, let me tragically say that my flip flop broke the second day here!!! And it has been mayhem and pain ever since. I didn't bring a second pair of flip flops, and the cute dress shoes are cutting up my heals like crazy. So Im left to wear my rain boots or my sneakers. Mind you, wearing sneakers makes me a social outcast. Women here, no matter what there size, always look amazing. They are always dressed up, and look like theyre going somewhere important. Its fun to try to pretend like I fit, but we all know I can't wait to go home and throw on an ol' tshirt and shorts. What I don't understand is how people look comfortable in jeans and a black shirt on a HOT day like today. I was literally sweating buckets...

Anyways, back to the shoes. You would think that buying flip flops would be easy seeing how there are shoe stores and athletic stores everywhere downtown. FALSE. I must have gone to a thousand stores without finding a single flip flop. Well, actually the few flip flops I found were 50 EUROS (75 DOLLARS). And even worse, every other shoe I saw was painfully made out of wood, a high heel, or hurt the already numb and peeling part of my ankle. Apparently eurpean women not only always look cute, but they do so walking in the most unbearable shoes. Or maybe they just don't walk at all...they don't seem to eat either (maybe they just smoke and drink coffee) So what did I do? I found some shoes in a PHARMACY that are pretend cute but actually feel somewhat comfortable. somewhat.

Anyways, Im done ranting. Heres what I DO LOVE about my new life:
-Watching the sunset over the Sea
-Swim practice with Greeks
-The olive, fig, and almond trees on campus
-My balcony
-Walking around downtown, feeling overwhelmed at it all, then hiding back in my room in the city
-Open air markets

Tonight Calvin and I went out for dinner (we had gyros)! We both dressed up, so an American might think we were on a date. But we were in fact just trying to both assimilate, order some good food off Greek menus, and enjoy the fact that we are two Grinnellians who never hung out together at school and now are each other's closet connection to home. For the weekend, we are traveling to Halkididah.....

Love,
allie