This morning, I was treated to a walking tour of the city by Owen, a young, visiting adjunct professor from the Indy campus who studied here and knows Athens well. He was patient with me and stood on the sidewalk and tilted the map demonstrating where I live in comparison to the various sites we visited. I think I may have reminded him of his mother. I felt almost oriented for the first time. We enjoyed a custard/cheese/cinnamon breakfast pie (the single best thing I’ve tasted since I arrived) while walking early in the morning and later, he showed me the best place to buy a gyros for lunch.

At the pie place, he demonstrated the proper way to order: go to the cash register first, order and pay, take the receipt to the counter and hand it to them where I’d be handed the goods. Of course, I’ve been doing it backwards, throwing off the flow of the little bakeries and shops. No wonder they seem slightly irritated with me most of the time. Now, I just have to learn the Greek words for my favorite foods so I can order without pointing, but I’m still working on thank-you. I learned much from him. It was a true gift.

For class, we met at the UIndy Cultural Center, which I proudly found all by myself: go out my door and turn right. Right at the butcher shop and walk to the funny shaped, corner jewelry shop, turn right, left at the sandals and up the hill. Found it! Some people use street names, I have to use landmarks. I always ask Mary before I leave the apartment, “now do I go toward the little church or the meat market?” That’s left and right.

We walked, as a class, to tour the tiny Museum of Instruments. Our musician/professor is Russian and started the class by passing out chocolates. He said in broken English: “Not in syllabus, but nice.” We didn’t complain. The undergrads have a quiz over the history of musical intruments next class; grad students just write papers. That works for me!

I came back to the apartment after class just in time to Skype with BF. With seven hours difference in time, his schedule and mine, this is the first time we’ve managed to catch each other. Perfect end to a wonderful day.

Mary and I are going to dinner tonight with the campus computer person. Let’s just say–we owe her. She’s been here twice. She finally told me yesterday to stop using the land-line phone because it was messing up the internet for us and the tenant upstairs. Ooops! No one told me. Evidentally, they came here one day while we were gone and unplugged the phone cord and attached it to the router or modum or whatever, which I though was odd, and promptly unplugged it and placed it back into the phone to call BF, rendering everyone without internet. Oh well, now I know. I guess in buildings this old, one has to choose, phone or internet. Skype it is.

Time to get cleaned up for dinner. I’m a sweaty mess. It’s hot and I’ve been walking about all day. the adventure continues.