striking greeks, stray dogs, and the Arrrrgolid

so this morning my Sites and Monuments of Athens class had to be altered quite a bit due to nagging, striking Greeks who work at all the museums and sites of Athens. apparently they strike in turns or rotation between the places they work and so today: the Agora was closed, which our class was supposed to go into. boo on them! so we had to climb an extraordinary hill to get a view over the fence. hey, we always need some exercise, right?
class proceeded as normal, until this one Alpha Male stray dog followed us and tried to guard us like a shepard, like it did last time we were at the Agora. yep, it BIT 2 different guys as they were walking though our group!!! crazy!! it was really hard to get through class worrying about this dog, having class on some random street where cars kept coming through but was supposed to be a pedestrian walkway- stupid cars... stupid dogs.... stupid striking Greeks. all i can say is: my poor teacher who had to deal and manage through it all, and i would say, fairly successfully taught a little class in between. 3 cheers for her. really!

this weekend is the class trip to the Argolid, the peninsula across the lil sea from Athens/Piraeus, before the Pelopenessos (going West from Athens, Attica region). check out a map! We're going through Corinth, and to Tyrins, and Argos, etc etc.!!! gonna be awesome!! we may even get to go swimming sometime too, which is always nice- even if the weather all of a sudden turned into 'almost sweatshirt' weather pretty much overnight this week. it thunderstormed 2 nights ago and downpoured rain all night; the the humidity was gone, and somehow the wonderful athens warmth decided to follow suit. boo.... :(
i will be rooming w/ppl i know this time: tessa and jen. so it should be fun and rowdy as usual, with lots of activity...and sites and museums.....etc etc. always fine by me- i LOVE this stuff.
should be alot less bus riding than in Crete, (which is FINE by me!- hopefully NO half-backs! ahhhh!!!), so the travel will be less tiring too, with more site-seeing instead. i mean, it's only a weekend, not a whole week. it's Mycenaean citidel weekend kids!!!! (hahahaha....) :) :) :)

in other news around here, there have been some protests in front of public and official buildings of town, some even with music that's not old greek nastiness style- but modern and rockish; so i cant say that i would complain toooo much. the protests have been very peaceful and the Greeks are so lazy, that often times ppl dont notice them when they walk by cuz all their signs are plastered to the rails and sometiems fall down, and the Greeks dont hold them like in the States. they sit around drinking Frappe and wonder if their benefits will go up.

i often walk by the prime minister's house and the parliment building, cuz it's either that street or one other to go home from school: so i figure, if any interesting will go on, it'll prolly be by the DC of Greece, not Rizari Street. all the funny national guard guys (kinda like the British Royal Guards in red suits and tall black fuzzy hats), are fun to watch too: they have beige baggy shirts with decorations and beige matching skirts and tall black stalkings, with HUGE black shoes with tap-dancer soles, and a black bunny tail ball on the tip like a demonic BOBO the clown. oh, yeah, they carry some type of rifle w/a dagger on the end. they look at you when you walk by but they never move, except when moving from post to post or marching or whatever. it gets really annoying when these HUGE mobs of old American grannies or hords of Japanese tourists get dropped by the busloads in front of the long street to stare and take pictures of these guys. it's weird cuz this is my road to school, but whatever. sometimes i stop and watch the guards' special movements when theyre showing off for the tourists. it's just funny and/or annoying when some some grannie jumps in front of you and screams with camera in hand, "THAT'S THE SHOT! GOOD JOB GERTRUDE!!" hehehehhe..........

well, i must go do hw b4 the weekend and pack for tomorrow.
take care till monday kids :)