Monday's Aren't So Bad

It's a little ridiculous how excited we all get on Market Day! Knowing that it's Market Day makes Monday's a lot more bearable. Especially a Monday that you have a mid-term (yes, we actually are doing work over here).

I love furthering my friendships with my favorite vendors each week and today I asked how are you, what's your name and said nice to meet you all in Greek...and then shortly forgot his name as soon as I walked away. Today's purchases included: apples, bananas, peaches, lemons, a honeydew melon and zucchini. Today's free produce (curtsy of my two main farmers) included 2 plums, 4 apricots, a carrot and 2 peaches. Getting free fruit is the highlight of my every Monday!

After our midterm (which went pretty well I think!), we all began figuring out what to make for the pot luck. Every single week we set a time to have dinner ready...and every single week we are late with dinner (ahem, boys). But the good news is we are on Greek time, where there is no particular rush and no one has a deadline to meet. Finding a recipe (or just winging it) and cooking up a storm with each other is one of the best parts of each week. The girls generally play music, dance around and our small kitchen soon gets over-crowded. But hey, the more the merrier! Once again, this week's pot luck didn't disappoint and we all walked away with full bellies.

Spinach and gouda stuffed in a pastry dough, curry, sauteed veggies and chicken, potatoes, and vegetarian moussaka (a traditional Greek food)

Saganaki (fried cheese), homemade salsa, tzatziki, paninis, apple turnovers and steamed snap peas.

We also had homemade cherry lemonade, made with fresh cherries and lemons from the market! I made the apple turnovers and helped with the salsa. I have to say, I think I've been bitten by the cooking bug! I'm saving all of the recipes that turn out amazing (which includes almost everything we've made) so hopefully I can spoil my friends and family when I get back to the States. Although be warned, nothing will taste as good without the fresh produce found here in Greece.

After dinner, we enjoyed the beautiful crisp evening outside in our small backyard. The girls laid down in the grass playing the "Ha Ha" game until we were giggling so hard I couldn't breath. It's times like this that we just enjoy each others company....until our good vibe got killed by an RA who came to yell at us.
A female RA came storming out to the yard, fuming and ready to yell at whoever she saw, which unfortunately was us. Apparently, someone used the phone at the RA front desk to call the front gate of Deree. This may not seem like a big deal, calling the gate of a college, but I guess it's the equivalent to calling 911 because she said that the cops, firetrucks and coast guard were about 3 minutes away from all coming to our aid at the dorms...except nothing was wrong. I can see why she was upset, this is a big deal and not a funny joke. However, I did not appreciate her instantly throwing all of the blame on our group, saying that we were the ones who had called the gate. She didn't even stop for 5 seconds to even ask if any of us had done it, or if we saw anyone who had done it. We weren't even inside for heaven's sake! It's one thing to be upset, it's another thing to blame an entire group of people who are completely innocent. No one from our group had even been inside in the last 30 minutes. And we are all in Honors, unlike the rest of the students here so we have a little bit higher standards to live up too and we have a professor to be accountable too. It really frustrated me that she wouldn't even stop and listen to us. We were all so baffled and shocked that we were being attacked, because she came off as super angry and annoyed. But that made us annoyed because if it happens again, she will most likely think it's us again.

Even though a few of us tried to cut in and gently tell her it wasn't us, there was no getting through to her. She clearly had her mind made up that it was us, and that made me really frustrated and a little angry. Whenever she finally left, our happy vibe was definitely gone. Collectively, we were all frustrated with the situation and decided to retire up to our dorms for the night before we got blamed for anything else.