Pharmakeio

Between midterms, the changing of seasons, and everyone else getting sick, it was inevitable that I would get sick, too. It's nothing serious, just a small cold, but all the walking I do on a daily basis has made things a little tough. In Athens, the pharmacies are stand alone stores - you walk in, tell the pharmacist what's wrong with you, and then they prescribe something. They're everywhere, and are marked by a green plus sign outside. I went it, pointed to my throat and said "ponolemo," which is Greek for "sore throat." She nodded and handed me something called "Lysopaine," which my Greek teacher had told me earlier was what Greeks take for a sore throat. It's kind of like a cough drop and cough surpressent rolled into one tablet that you dissolve in your mouth every few hours. So far I think it's working... We don't have a kettle so I have to boil water in a pot to make tea, which is a pain. On the plus side, though, lunch in the cafeteria today was the Greek version of chicken noodle soup, which is a lemon chicken with rice in broth. Yum. Just what I needed!

Tonight I also had a tutoring session with the Greek family, and made an interesting discovery. While helping Kostis with his homework, he put on the English tape that goes with his book. When the dialogue started, the characters were all British! I was not expecting that at all, and then I felt awful that I had just assumed that they would be American. Kostis and I also discovered that we both liked the movie "Ratatouille," which I think was an important step forward in getting him to like me.

Tomorrow the program is taking us to Argolid, which is a site containing Mycenaean palaces, which should be great. It's supposed to be rainy, though, which is bad for us, but GREAT for Athens, which hasn't had rain once since I've been here. Pictures and more on Argolid to come after the weekend...