It's about time!

Well, hello everyone! Or should I say, kalimera! Unfortunately, I have not yet figured out how to type in Greek yet on my computer. An adventure for another day, I suppose.

Since I feel like only my friends or family would be at all interested in reading this, introductions and explanations seem somewhat pointless, but here we go anyway. My name is Elora and I'm a 20 year old college student hailing from Sandusky, Ohio. I've lived in this small town on Lake Erie my entire life, and chose to go about an hour and a half away for school at the College of Wooster, a glorious liberal arts school smack dab in the middle of Amish country. Adjusting from one small town to the other was not particularly difficult, while adjusting to college life for me was probably about the same mix of struggles and joys that it is for anyone. When I got to Wooster, I discovered a love for classical literature and art history, and declared as an art history and classical language double major near the end of my freshman year.

I always knew I wanted to study abroad, but the question was where. Originally, I went to college with the intention of being a French major (that lasted for about three weeks) and was torn between studying in France or Morocco. Once I decided that being a French major would be a very, very bad idea and settled on a course of study, I was torn between Athens or Rome. Looking at the variety of study abroad programs Wooster offered, attending College Year in Athens seemed like a good fit. The breadth of art history classes they offered really sold me on CYA, as opposed to other more language based programs, and thus far, I definitely feel like I've made the right decision.

At this point, I've spent a little over a week in Athens and am slowly but surely adapting to a different, yet in many ways similar, lifestyle to what I had in the States. I've certainly had a few "culture shock" moments over the past few days (buying school supplies was a nightmare...), but I've tried to approach everything with as an open a mind as possible. More on those things at another time.

So I'll keep you updated on my random thoughts and various shenanigans. I'm a little photo happy, so at some point I have feeling this blog will devolve into "LOOK AT THIS AMAZING THING! ISN'T IT AWESOME/SIGNIFICANT/BEAUTIFUL???"

Like the picture above, for instance.