As for the laundry recent laundry debacle, a happy compromise was reached. I was not in my room when the woman who washed the clothing came by to negotiate her initial €25 charge, so she left me a note: "I wash the clothes, you pay what you want." With that pitiful message, I decided to pay €8. I still overpayed, but it's what I paid in Athens for my laundry so I felt it was a fair price based in some precedent. Fortunately the laundry saga has ended.

Because it doesn't to me, and I'm about to barter to the best of my ability to get down the price of my already-cleaned clothes. The lesson from this experience: make sure you know the price of laundry before passing off a large-ish pile of dirty clothing to the woman who runs your dormatia. 

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I think it is important that the world know that two nights ago I did something momentous, something that is key to growing up and key to surviving in the wild: I cooked my own dinner. For many a night I have consumed Greek salads, or maybe grilled chicken, but that’s pretty much it --all else pushes the bounds of my stipend. So when I realized that my dormatia had a kitchen and a grocery store next door, I was all over.

Only problem: as embarrassing as it is, until this point in life I have relied entirely on those in my house and the staff of my school’s dining services and the career cooks at restaurants to handle the hot water and oil and raw meat. I’ve cooked a few pies, I know how to grill (that’s a three step process: meat/veggies on, wait, meat/veggies off), and I can handle salads and the like. But actually being alone in the kitchen is something I had never yet attempted.

When dinnertime approached, I confidently walked into the grocery store (Dios Discount is the name), and after a second in the store, I nearly spun around and left. I hadn’t made a list of what to buy, and now I realize why people need them. There are too many options. So I took a deep breath, thought about what I could actually prepare–-pasta and veggies, because even if something goes wrong I won’t get sick from eating it–-and took a basket.

An eggplant, an onion, a zuccini, a tomato, a box of pasta, some oil, and some sliced cheese found their way into a plastic bag that I subsequently put down on the counter beside my dormatia’s stove. I opened the kitchen window–-again, in case something went wrong–-boiled some water, cut the veggies, added the pasta to the water, put the cut veggies and some oil in a pan, set my iTunes to James Taylor, and stirred. A little bit later, the pasta was cooked, so I drained it; the veggies were cooked, so I turned off the burner. I put the pasta on the plate, I ripped some cheese and put the veggies on top, and amazingly, I had a meal in front of me! I don’t know that I have ever been so proud of myself. The chance of my becoming a stay-at-home-mom/chef are basically nil, but there was something incredibly satisfying about having cooked my own dinner. And it tasted good, too. Maybe next time I’ll try chicken.

... buy goggles! They've been my best purchase yet, though I've received no Greek comments on what they look like on me. Regardless, these goggles helped me find nemo.

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