This morning we had orientation at the University (which happens to be about two blocks away from our apartments) at 10 am. I'm not really sure why we had orientation... It wasn't orientation for the University, it was simply another study abroad orientation. I attended a mandatory one of those in April at UT, then we had a brief orientation last Thursday after we arrived. So this marked orientation number three. And we learned nothing new, haha. Except some horror stories about student behaviors on their respective study abroad programs.
I still haven't really managed to get my thoughts organized or create any sort of schedule because we never know what we're doing more than a day or two in advance, which is kind of driving me crazy. For example, tomorrow we have "class" at 10 am, then there's a cooking class at 2 pm. That's all we have planned as far as I'm aware. I know that Tuesday is supposed to be our first filming day (we are filming a lady who makes bread from scratch, as part of our documentary), but where, when and how long is still unbeknownst to me.
So after orientation ended around 2 pm, Kendra and I wandered down to this coffee shop we noticed last night (on our way back from a horrible dinner experience in which the food was good but took over 2 hours to receive). For the record, a Frappe in Cyprus is NOT the same as a Frappe in America. When an American thinks of a Frappe, I'm fairly certain that a frozen, blended coffee drink comes to mind. Here, it's more like an iced coffee. And you can get whole milk, half milk or little milk (that's an amount, not a percentage of skim/fat), and you can get it sweet, medium or not. And there's foam. lots of foam. But I got mine with caramel flavor (which wasn't very strong) so it was fairly decent.
I decided on the way back to the apartment though that I would take a nap. This nap still hasn't happened.
Instead, I went over to the girls' apartment down the hall to upload yesterday's blog onto our class's wordpress blog since my computer apparently doesn't want me posting on that website for some strange reason. So I got the blog uploaded and decided to come take a nap.
Instead, I decided to mop the entire apartment (which has a tile floor throughout every room). You know, I've decided that they didn't actually clean these apartments before we got here. First I swept, and the amount of dust I swept up was ridiculous. This dust is more like a mixture of dust and sand (because the weather is so dry here, there's a lot of sand and dust...). I swept and mopped my room after we moved the furniture around on Friday, but I went ahead and mopped it again today. Then I hand washed the bowls my roommate had used and left in the sink, as well as a glass I'd used. And now I'm attempting to do laundry. In a tiny washing machine that has pictures, no words, and no operating manual. Here's hoping I am not ruining half of my clothes...
And apparently it's strange that we would need an iron. Even though we have to hang dry all of our clothes, which will naturally leave them excessively wrinkly.
I'm still not accustomed to disposing of used toilet paper in a wastebasket next to the toilet instead of flushing it. I'm not sure I'll EVER get accustomed to that...
But Constantia (one of the female study abroad coordinators) taught me how to say a few words in Greek such as hello/goodbye, I'm sorry, and thank you. I figure those are the phrases I'll be using most often. And while I can say them (probably butchering them in the process), don't ask me to spell them. hahaha
I suppose that's all I'll write for now. We are being treated to a buffet for dinner by the University at a nice restaurant here. We even have to dress in business casual. Why would it be strange for me to want an iron, so that I might iron a shirt or pants? I still don't get it....
I also haven't taken a lot of pictures yet, but I'll try to include at least one with each blog. Random pictures around and about Cyprus. This bike was parked next to a little shop that looked kind of fun! I think I'll go in it the next time I'm in the Old City part of Nicosia...
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