Monkeying Around Town

I may be digging a ditch for myself when I say this...but today was absolutely one of my favorite days in Greece so far. In between Athens and the beach and the Greek food and the soccer kids and the Peloponnese and skiing these past 2 and a half weeks it's a little bit hard to narrow it down or even think about choosing a favorite, but today was just so wonderful that it's definitely near the top. Top 5, let's say.

It started out like any normal day. Class at 8:15 (starting with a Greek quiz on common words...I know hello, good bye, good morning, good night, thank you, and how to ask for one gyro on pita with potatoes, please. I'm a real Greek now.) After Greek is chapel and then Photography, a class I simply adore because Dr. J is well, one of the most inspiring and knowledgeable person on cameras I've ever met in my life (besides dear Sandy Sawyer from high school) He won my approval when we covered aperture, ISO, and shutter speed within the first class. Definitely my pace :)

Anyways! For international studies class after that we took a special field trip to the market! Every Friday in the next town over from Porto Rafti called Markopoulo the people gather all their fruits and vegetables, clothes, goods, and other things and sell them to the local people. It was just amazing. We were given money and a certain item to find and buy in the market as a class assignment, and then given the rest of the time to look around and buy things. Cori and I were supposed to find two paring knives, which we found pretty quickly and bought from a friend of the James'. He had lived in Canada for 5 years so he spoke better English than I've heard some Americans speak haha. He quizzed us on our Greek alphabet, which we stumbled through reciting to him, and he told us to keep practicing, laughing all the while.

And then we explored.

Hayley, a girl in my group, found a great vendor for scarves -- for only 2 EURO. I couldn't help myself, I bought 6. It was too good to pass up :P I also found a cardi (with FROCKETS!) for 7 euro. Most everything in the market is super cheap to encourage the locals to come and buy things. The Greeks, like I may have mentioned before, are loud and don't lollygag around. They will push past you to get what they want. It's not a rude culture, but a blunt one. We had a great time though, wandering the long street the market made up, smelling the yummy meats they were cooking and warily eyeing the tables of cold fish laid out.

I wasn't joking! Haha there were several tables like this.

In case you wanted an up close view ;)

SO MANY OLIVES

Gettin creative with the macro

A cute old woman looking at all the nuts and candies.

More vegetables. I just love the bright colors and arrangements

The people walking the market street

Strawberries!

Rugs. Lots of em.

My friends digging for scarves!

Tons and tons of sweaters. 3 euro. For real.

The whole market place was like a scene out of Aladdin. If I spoke Greek I'm sure it would sound like the merchants there. "Sugar dates! Sugar dates and figs! Sugar dates and pistachios!" or "Would the lady like a pretty necklace? A pretty necklace for a pretty lady!" and especially "Fish, FISH! We catch em you buy em!" (watch the first part of this video to get what I'm talking about http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW5n4sIOj9s)

So the first part was spectacular. And THEN, after lunch we went to THE ZOO. Now, I love the zoo at home. Love being outside, love taking pictures, really really love the animals. So when a group was formed to go to the Athens zoo, of course I had to go.

The zoo in Athens was immensely different than any zoo I've been to in the US. The pens are open, with minimal glass and enclosures. Like, the animals are pretty much in wooden fences. Which was great, because we got to see them much closer and interact with them better. (My friend reached over the fence and touched a penguin. That would never happen in America.)

the sweetest little thing with a slightly creepy  but adorable smile

Kaleb taking on the lion

And the best part...the MONKEY PLAY PEN!!! You enter this caged area and you're just in there, hanging out with a bunch of lemurs. They run around on ropes and wooden fences, swinging and jumping and climbing everywhere. And by everywhere I mean all over you. (We caught them when they were slightly sleepy, which was the perfect time so they weren't running around all crazy but they weren't too lazy to play either.) It was AMAZING.

Cori had FIVE on her at once (there's one hidden I couldn't see because there was one on my back when I took this!)

This was too precious to not make my new profile pic.

So that was my fantastic day monkeying around with the lemurs. Their curiosity and friendliness (and cuddliness!) has me convinced that I want one. I hope you're reading this mom and dad I want a pet monkey.

love, rachel.

PS Funniest part of the day? They had a cow at the zoo. They seriously had a cow in a pen and an icon on the map and everything for it. We southerners laughed and made dumb jokes like, "Woah! What is this? I've never seen THIS before!" It was great.