busy day

Today we had our second to last class in Greek. We went over our final and our teacher was not terribly happy with our performance but I still feel like I did pretty well. Then she totally shifted gears and got very happy and asked us what we like best about Greece and the people and the sites.
After, we had dance class, during which we went over every dance we've learned (I was surprised at how many we've done). Meanwhile, Taso videotaped the whole performance, with many close-up shots of our faces, which was slightly awkward. Everyone was exhausted so I'm pretty sure we all look either angry or zoned out. I enjoyed it though; I feel like we made some progress in the general area of traditional Greek dances.
I spent the afternoon doing research for my paper. The UW library online database/subscriptions are quite amazing.
In Greek/Albanian class, we are now up to the 1980s. He did two lectures in one since yesterday was canceled, and we have one more to make up so we have class at noon on Saturday... Not too excited about that one, but all I'll be doing this weekend is homework anyway, so it's not too big of a problem.
Slight history lesson, so the next story will make sense... There is Greece, and there is Albania, as you probably know. However, the southern part of Albania is also called Northern Epirus. This area is mostly filled with people who are ethnically Greek. It's a highly contested place, and is currently a part of Albania, although in the past and to an extent today, people have believed/do believe that it should be part of Greece.

So, with that in mind, class ended 30 minutes early (we went at 2x light speed today...) and we all went into town to the Institute for Research of Northern Epirus. There were two members there, who were both precious old men who didn't speak any English, so Professor Skoulidas translated. There was a lot lost in translation when we asked questions in English and I don't think the man who presented really grasped our questions, but it was interesting nonetheless. I felt like I was at a secret men's society. This is what the front of the main room looked like. It seemed rather like a shrine to me.



After, most of us went to dinner, which was delicous as always. Then we wandered around town for a bit and then headed back to campus. A few of us decided to go see if another concert was happening, since we'd heard there was, so we walked over to the place we went last night. There was another one, with a ton of people. The band wasn't as good though so we didn't stay too long, but it was neat. I brought my camara also, and I'm really pleased with how well it handled the low light.



Also, luckily the school decided to only fumigate the rooms that had major bug bite problems, so I'm able to stay here in the dorm!

Bed time!
Love Alex