Watch out for that tree!

Yah-sas! So today we went on a tour of the college that we are going to be studying at (Deree) and boy, there are a ton of hills, I’m gonna have some killer calves when I get back! Besides the incline, the campus is really pretty. They have a bunch of sports amenities that we can use, including an Olympic size pool that Michael Phelps trained in before the 2004 Summer Olympics! But you can only swim in it if you wear a swim cap, kinda weird huh? They even have a Starbucks on campus to accommodate late night study sessions, but hopefully we won’t have any of those this summer!

On our walk back from campus, I was winding through the trees in the side walk... Yes, that’s right, trees right smack dab in the middle of the side walk! After a few days of being distracted by other components of the neighborhood, like the apartment style homes, and where all the yummy bakeries are located, I pondered the purpose of the obscure trees.

In Greece there isn’t a lot of parking available, and anything that you can possibly need at home is located within your neighborhood. So it makes sense that the common way of traveling is walking. And the sidewalks are narrow enough as it is, so why plant trees in the middle? I have a few hypotheses…

Here in Athens it can get unpleasantly warm during the day, and during the summer it’s mainly clear skies (or from what I’ve seen so far). So maybe, just maybe, it could be a way to provide shade to for the people walking. Or! The shade could be an added bonus and the real reason might be an extra preventative so that people don’t park on the sidewalks. I can completely understand this reasoning, traffic is crazy here. But as you see in the first picture there is already posts on the sidewalk, so maybe it's a Greek way of landscaping...nahhh. One of the cool things about the trees in the sidewalk is that the majority of them bear fruit! I've seen a lot of orange trees around town (I'm on the search for a good one to pick for myself) and also some plum trees! Now, I don't think that these trees in particular are used for the production and selling of fruits, but with the limited land here in Greece, who knows, maybe they are (I highly doubt it though). Why do you think Greeks plant trees in the middle of the sidewalk?

To finish off the day Angela and I went during happy hour to get some gelato (I told you I would!). I tried straciatella for the first time and it was good, not amazing, but you can't go wrong with ice cream. After that we further explored the local neighborhood shops that are conveniently located on the  same street. Before the night ended we decided to join some friends and a bar to watch the soccer game (Greek vs. Germany). It's time to hit the sack here, we've got to get up bright and early tomorrow and head to Deplhi, and see the Delphic oracle a major part of Greek mythology, I'm exicted!

Kalispera :)

(Goodnight)