On the first full day, we had in Greece our Professor’s cousin who is actually Greek showed us how to use the metro and downtown Athens. This was very helpful because downtown Athens is about a 30-minute drive from our dorms, so taking a Taxi every time would be very expensive. Also, there’s technically no Uber but the Uber app will call you a Taxi, so this is a way to use your card instead of cash. The metro was actually pretty easy to understand even though most of it is in Greek. We did some shopping in a flea market where surprisingly most workers spoke English, and then we went to the Acropolis.

      The Acropolis was really cool! Growing up I had always seen pictures of these structures but seeing them in person was a very different experience. There were also a lot of tourists at the Acropolis, which made me feel better. It’s pretty obvious that we’re American so fitting in was nice. One thing you learn very quickly in Greece is some places are very windy, the Acropolis is one of those places. You want to be careful if you decide to wear a skirt or dress because if you go to an area that’s windy it’s so strong it’ll blow your skirt up. One thing that did shock me about the Acropolis is downtown Athens surrounds it. So, when you’re shopping you can look over and BAM Acropolis.

     But during this day I think I experienced the biggest culture shock I’ve had here. I quickly learned that a lot of people smoke cigarettes in Greece. In the States, you’ll see people smoke here and there but it is mostly vaping and e-cigarettes, but in Greece everyone smokes. It’s also not just older people who smoke as they do in the States, you see young people smoking too. Which really shocked me.