Make up-update

Ok. So as the time goes on, it gets harder and harder for me to write things and be marveled as all of the cool things that amazed me in the beginning have just become a part of my everyday life here. That's such an amazing thing too. I do have many good things to write about, but almost all of my time is sucked into art projects that you will see when I come home. So, I'm going to have to find new things to focus on!

On Thursday, I went to my mosaic class again. The woman is absolutely wonderful, and I officially started to work on my mosaic. I laid about 10 stones in the two hours that I was there! I am told that it is a hard thing at first, and I also chose the most difficult part of the mosaic to start on. It is in the shape of a fish, and it is about the size of A 4 paper. That's pretty cool. I think I'm going to use the colors pink, green and stark white. It is definitely a beautiful art form. I am going to have to show you pictures of some of the mosaics that I've fallen in love with throughout the Christian world!

Then I went to my drawing class. I left early though because I had set up a personal appointment to go out with my photo instructor to find what holes were stopping me from creating the best photos possible. It was a really good experience though because I now have a good understanding of what I was doing wrong in many areas. She showed me some cool places and we took some photos of them. I'm starting to get the hang of black and white photography again, and I'm very glad that we went out and did that. She bought me a cup of tea and we talked about how photography has shaped our world, and I see how I can get some work as a photographer when I come back to the States!

After lunch, I went to painting. I was getting the idea that I wasn't ever going to be able to master the art, and I was totally ready to give up, but I took my painting (that no one could make any sense of) and I went to my studio and mixed the colors and really dug in. When I emerged back from my painting trance, I realized that I actually did know how to paint, and it was wonderful. Jane (the painting instructor) came down and was completely amazed at how much progress I had made. She showed me some techniques I could use to make the painting better, and we applied them as much as we could, until the painting as too wet to do anything else with. Then I got really brave
and started to fix many errors that I saw in the second painting I had done here. I got a really good idea of how to get them fixed, and I put the first layer on them to fix them. I may be able to complete that painting totally by Tuesday! That will mean that I have two paintings totally done! Even after that, I got the sketches done and on the canvas of the next painting that I am going to start. It is a totally abstract piece, but I love it, and I think that with some work it is going to turn out to be OK!

Then I went to writing, but I have nothing exciting to report there, as I didn't write anything for the class!

Yesterday was Friday. We usually go on hikes on Fridays, but the weather here is very terrible. Not just some clouds and chill, but we went from having warm south winds from the Sahara desert to chilly cold winds from the north. I KNOW I'm going to be using my jacket when I get to Prague! I was wearing shorts and skirts, and now I have two jackets on with insulated pants and leg warmers. BUURRRRRR. I can understand the trials that the ancient Greeks had with sailing and the winds. The wind here isn't just a slight blow that goes one direction or another. Sometimes it is like that, but many times it blows very hard. The reason I didn't get back to write an email again last
night was because after I was walking back from our after dinner chat the wind was so heavy that I almost wasn't able to use my entire body force against it. I almost couldn't get home. And today, as I walked pretty far in the rain to get some groceries, my clothes wouldn't stay on. Not in the cheesy, romantic way, but that the wind was actually blowing so hard that my jacket was coming undone and trying to fly away. It was kind of fun!

I woke up yesterday and worked on a piece of art that I've been contemplating. It will have to be a secret until I come home, but I know that it will be well liked! Then I went out in my garden and picked a calla lily. They grow wild here, and I was so excited to see that they are coming into bloom. One of the things that I have always wanted to do was to take photos of them, but I was never able to. I picked one and went and set up the whole lighting set-up in the studio and took photos of this beautiful flower against a black cloth. It was soooo cool. When I was done with that, I was going to give the lily to someone, but I thought that it was so beautiful that I
had to incorporate it into another art. I ended up grabbing another canvas and I sketched it on there for a drawing. I spent a couple of hours then actually starting the painting. It is so beautiful. I took the lily home and it is now in a water bottle (for lack of a vase) on my table. I love it.

A funny anecdote that goes along with that was that I was walking down the street with this flower, and these two men came walking toward me. I looked at them and intended to say hello to them in Greek, but then in English one of them stopped me and said, "Thank you, lady for the flower." I looked at him very confused and just said, "No, Okhi," and turned around and walked off. It was pretty odd. I told my friends about it later, and they told me that I had to turn it into a painting as it was a "mythical moment" as we have been discussing in painting. I may just have to do it, as the thought of me looking blankly at an Albanian and saying "NO!" is pretty hilarious!

We went out to dinner last night. Dinner here is much different that at home. Usually they start at about 10:00 and sometimes even start as late as midnight. We went early. We ordered some appetizers. 1 baked mountain greens (they literally pick plants from the countryside and bake them (it wasn't very good)) 1 Greek salad (full of things I don't eat, basically only tomatoes and onions) 2 cheese saganaki (this is where they take cheese and fry it with lemon, it is the best thing you will ever taste) 1 feta saganaki (fried feta, damn good stuff), 1 plate of fried calamari (squid, yes, but excellent stuff), 1 plate of chicken (just a plain old meal). 1 plate of fried mushrooms (takes just like steak) and the best of all, a plate of musaka. I have always wanted to try musaka, and I finally did last night. I was so excited about it, it really was incredible. I am now going to learn how to make it because it is just excellent.

After that, we went out and had coffee/hot chocolate. Nice night other than the fact that I almost couldn't make it home!

Today I read some of the Odyssey, which I am getting close to finishing. I'll probably be done with it tomorrow. I'm very excited about that. Then I went shopping, which was badly needed. I now have a ton of food. After I write this email, I am going to go and clean the mosaic studio, as the woman is very nice and is letting us use her studio, so we decided to keep it very tidy for her. I'll probably work on my mosaic some. Then I'm going to go eat dinner. After dinner, there is a talk here by a very incredible man named Peter Abbs. Look him up on the Internet. He is a professor at the University of Sussex, but he feels that education is going in the wrong direction, and he is here checking out the program. He thinks that we are doing education here the right way. He's a cool guy, and we're going to listen to him read his poetry, and then we are going to talk about aesthetic education. When that is all over, I am going to finally and at last come and work on some more photography that I have done over the last week. I'm very excited!

So that's what's up with me!

Time for me to go…

Chris