Today was a typical work day. I woke up early, grouched a bit, went to get coffee and then headed up to the school by 9:00 am. Once I arrived at school, I went around to inquire what everyone planned to do today. The video team (Thomas, Andy, Jiachi, Sheheryar, and Osvaldo) were busy editing A roll, working on obtaining b roll and working with the research team (Julia, Ashley, and Cynthia) who were developing a script for one of the raw video edits. The 3D team (Sarah, Mandy, Riley, and I) were either rendering or insuring that our work would be renderable by the end of the day. And so we worked.
Pictured is the terracotta statue that I’ve been working on for the last few weeks with the original 
in the left hand corner. He/She (the archeologist is not sure if it Apollo or his sister Artemis) is finally ready for rendering.
Once the school day ended, several of us went out to interview a local restaurant owner, Dimitris, we’ve grown fond of.
I left, with Cynthia, while they were setting up to go and visit another one of our favorite people here on Paros, Dimitr
a. I was hoping to interview her and we made plans to shoot tomorrow night. I took some B roll while I was there and also had my ear pierced. Fun. Fun.
Today I’ve decided to discuss some of the differences between the US and Greece or Indiana and Paros. When I stop to contemplate the differences and similarities between Paros and Indiana, most are visually apparent such as architecture or landscape. For some reason, I never felt as if I was in a new foreign county. The area in which my group is staying has high tourist traffic. Because of this, I feel that a lot of the natural Greek culture is diluted. It’s harder to find differences within the culture on a personal level because they are trying to cater to those of us from a different culture.
Hospitality/Mom and Pops – At many of the restaurants, the owners are always standing by the entrance to entice individuals to try their food or helping to serve guests. In Indiana Mom and Pop restaurants are dwindling and we have lost that “personal” touch.
Siesta/Relaxed lifestyle – everything shuts down from 4ish to 6ish. There is a relaxed feel to daily activities on Paros. For exam
ple, foodservice is much slower and they do not expect you to jump up and leave as soon as you are finished.
Toilets – instead of disposing of toilet paper in the toilet, you must throw it in the trash can next to the toilet. Probably the very first difference I noticed was the toilets. There are no handles to use while flushing. Most of the commodes require you to push a button of some type. Almost all of the facilities are shaped slightly different with different mechanisms to flush. The feature toilet, which resides in my hotel room, is one of the easier ones to flush.
Also, you do not flush toilet paper in the toilet but instead deposit it into the trash can next to it. This is a very important rule to follow while staying in Greece.
Credit Cards – very few places accept credit cards. Most of the restaurants, thrift stores, mini marts, clothing stores and accessory stores only accept Euros as a form of payment.
Tomorrow most of the group is going to Mykonos for a three day break from school work. Unfortunately I will not be able to go but I am still looking forward to my three days of rest. – Wen