lesson on how life is hit or miss, greek-cafeteria-style

Yesterday was a pretty normal Tuesday. In our culture lecture, we learned everything about the Byzantine Empire in a two hour lecture by a blind professor who spoke great English and had everything memorized, which was really impressive. Since he covered a HUGE time span, our notes only touch on the very major aspects, but it was interesting.
We also went into town for Ethnography interviews, part 2. It was nicer today so we tried just approaching people walking in the street. We had a number of people who said they didn't speak Greek or who didn't have time to talk to us, but we had three good interviews with people who all said pretty different things. In response to questions about Albanians and immigration, though, two of the interview-ees made the point that "We're all people!" and nationality shouldn't matter in your opinions of others. We also had another delicious dinner at our typical restaurant, although I think we're going to try somewhere else next time.
On the walk back to the bus, we saw a huge group of riot police and just up the road, a huge group of people just milling about and partially standing in the street. There was going to be a demonstration of some sort, but it hadn't started yet and I didn't really want to get caught up in that so we continued on home.

Today, we had more Greek class and then right after we went to the Ancient Theatre of Dodoni, which is only about 20 minutes away. It's a huge auditorium built into a hillside which can seat 18,000 people. This was also a sanctuary with an oracle and the Temple of Zeus.



It's also a pretty incredible location:


We came back to the BEST lunch we've had so far. There was green salad with tomatoes, cucumbers and feta cheese and eggplant with sweet, cooked onions on top, which is delicious. This was a meal I legitimately would have ordered in a restaurant, so I was very satisfied.

I spent part of the afternoon reading on the roof, which was really nice. The emergency exits on either end of the building go all the way up, so I just grabbed my yoga mat and "Dear John" (I'm glad it's an easy read, because I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time reading it...) and soaked up some sun.

Albanian class was really long since I was tired, but he did talk a little bit more slowly, which was definitely an improvement.

After, Michelle and I ran to the track, were we were informed by another exerciser that that Track Coordinator had said they use pesticides on the grass, so we stopped stretching on it. Why they would use pesticides on a University field which has plenty of soccer players on it and runners next to it, I don't know. It also amazes me that the gate is perpetually locked and that lock is perpetually ignored. They really should just keep the gate open since I'm sure at least 50 people a day hope the fence, if not more.

We walked up to dinner after, which was unfortunately the worst meal we've had there yet haha. The entree options were either mystery soup with meatballs (although I don't know what kind of meat they were) or meat-stuffed cucumbers, which we had at dinner last night, and they weren't good then, so I certainly wasn't going to try these. There was also feta cheese, custard, and of course apples and bread.
Jenny and I ate apples, bread and water. Michelle, who can't eat wheat, had apples and water. I was so entertained by how horrible dinner was that I didn't mind too much, as long as that doesn't repeat itself too often.