After much planning and preparation from the people at Hellenic American University we set out on Saturday morning for a scavenger hunt of sorts. We were split up into groups of about five or six, given a bag of tasks and clues, and set free to roam around the city in a swift frenzy of riddle solving and picture taking.
Many of the groups were organized in a way that mixed our Franklin Pierce Students with Greek, HAU students. My group consisted of five Greek students and myself. I was the only American in the group. I was very excited about this; I could meet new people, mingle with the Greeks, and all of that good, fun stuff. This excited notion wasn’t completely accurate because, though when around a majority of Americans the Greek students speak English, they speak very little when around only one. This made it difficult for me to be included at first. I was fumbling through their sentences trying to understand some of what they were saying. To my surprise I could understand more Greek than I could before our adventure began in September, but still not enough to feel comfortable understanding entire conversations.
About a half of an hour into the scavenger hunt some questions appeared that were catered toward common American knowledge and not Greek, and the Greek students turned to me for help with these ones. Now the English was coming out and the day began to get more fun.
After answering a bunch of trivia questions and taking pictures of landmarks around the university we set out into the greater city to complete our list. This was a storm of fast walking and chaotic picture taking, but we made it to our end point on time.
At the end we all met at a taverna in the Plaka area and had a late lunch. We talked about the scavenger hunt and determined the winners. Unfortunately my team got second place, losing by only two points. All in all the day was a blast for the participants and a success, I would say, for the individuals who put together and hosted the event.
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