Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog! I have been in Athens, Greece, for a few weeks now and I’m loving every second of it. When I first arrived, I needed to participate in the mandatory 7-day quarantine, and I was super anxious to explore. Since the end of my quarantine, I have been all over the city exploring both by myself and with my class, Anthropology of the City: Modern Athens. Perhaps my favorite thing so far has been exploring the incredible variety of food here (like an authentic Greek gyro seen below). Other highlights have been a local falafel shop and an amazing Afghan restaurant on the other side of town.
My regular semester starts on Monday, February 8th, but I have been taking an early class since my arrival. For the first week of class, I was in quarantine, but once that ended we were able to do class outside. Since my class is field-based, we do about 3 hours of walking/lecturing each day. With COVID, my College Year in Athens program has greatly reduced its numbers, I am told around 30 students will be participating this semester. For the time being though, there are only 2 students in my class, just me and my roommate. I think that with the challenges following COVID, this has been a silver lining. A small program size has helped everything feel very much at home even from so far away. I already have really close relationships with professors and the administrators of my program. My program center is located right next to the Panathenaic Olympic Stadium, and my apartment is right around the corner so I already feel confident in knowing where I am in the city after having done so much walking. Overall, I am super excited to be here and I already feel at home.