Spring Break was a WHIRLWIND. It was completely just unreal and beautiful and amazing. We spent 9 days on 3 different islands and soaked up a lot of sun.
MILOS
We went there first for 4 days and this place was just gorgeous. I didn't have any expectations for Milos because it was small and not as popular as some of the other Cyclades. All the hotels were white with blue shutters and we had our own little suite with a balcony. They SAID their hotel was 90m from the port and the water...they lied. We later find out that all of our hotels lied haha ESPECIALLY the one in santorini. So we rented a little car and drove around the island exploring different beaches and caves. The island was tiny and you could go from coast to coast in 15 minutes. The water was incredible! It was so clear and blue and you could go swimming because the water was pretty calm and you could still see your toes eve when you were waist deep in the water. We went to this one beach and the water was literally turquoise. I feel so lucky to have been to these places. The weather was great, the sand was fine, and there was no one else on the beach except us 4. The last night Jess and I went to Plaka and climbed to the church on the highest hilltop to watch the sunset. It was soo windy but so beautiful. The view was breathtaking.
Paros
Paros was a bit of a disappointment. I mean, we didn't do much because the weather wasn't too good the first da we were there. We took a bus through the island and ended up in Golden Beach. One of the beachside restaurants reoepened for the first day for the season and their patio area was right on the sand and we relaxed in the evening sun eating a Greek Salad with some Giant Beans.
Santorini
Santorini was beautiful. Of course. Our ferry there got delayed so we didn't get in until late Friday afternoon. First impression: wow there are alot of cliffs and windy roads you have to drive to get to the top of that cliff. We made it to our hotel, which was on Perissa beach (the opposite side of the island from where the port was). Right outside our hotel was the black sand of the beach with little umbrella huts. We signed up for a boat tour for the next day. I also had the best dinner that night! We made friends with the restaurant owners (a couple by the name of Liza and Kosta). We practiced our Greek with them and they were all very impressed haha. Liza is actually an American who met Kosta and they dated and did the long distance relationship over the phone while she learned Greek over audio cassettes. Eventually she moved to Grece I guess and they opened up their restaurant NTOMATINI. We had the best zucchini rissoles (fried zucchini deliciousness) and pasta.
The next day we got up to take our boat tour. We rode a traditional sailboat to the volcano and we hiked up that. It was pretty cool seeing as how this volcano sand half of the island when it erupted thousands of years ago. This is also the place that the lost city of Atlantis is said to be. We spend about an hour on the volcano, got back on the boat and went to the hot springs by the volcano! They were NOT hot. The boat couldn't get too close to the hot springs because there were too many rocks in the shallow water by the shore so we had to jump off the boat and swim to the springs. It was a COLD jump and the water wasn't too warm (who knows why) but it's supposed to get pretty hot in the summer. The water was orange from all the sulfur from the volcano. The swim back to the boat was pretty bad because the water felt so cold in contrast to the warm water from the springs. We climbed back aboard and sailed to Fira, this old little town with traditional houses. We climbed up a huge cliff of just switchback roads and enjoyed a light lunch at a cafe built right at the edge of the cliff overlooking the water. On our way day me Jess and Bella almost got trampled to death by donkeys. They have donkeys that you can ride up and they were coming back down and their owners couldn't control them and we could hear them running down the path getting faster and closer so we ran down that path in about 5 minutes. The same path that took us about 20 minutes to climb up. After Fira we sailed to Oia to watch the sunset. This time we took donkeys up and dear god I thought I was going to die. After I got on my donkey, he just decided to take off and not wait for the others. It was so scary at first because I thought I was going to fall off as he made his way up the stairs of the cliff. The only image in my head was of Lena falling off her donkey in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I could feel tears forming in my eyes from sheer terror. He was walking so close to the edge too I thought he was suicidal. Then bella's donkey walked along side me and my donkey was a little guy and bella's was bigger and mine just kept trying to race with bella's up the hill. It was scary at first but pretty cool. the beginning was harder because it was a lot steeper so the donkeys had to work harder. I feel really bad for them because they get treated so badly and I would hate to have to carry people up and down the same cliff everyday for the rest of my life. We found a nice little restaurant that overlooked the water to ready ourselves for the sunset. Oia was simply breathtaking. It's everything I ever imagined it to be. The stark white houses contrasted against the blue shudders and domes and blue blue water. I thought I was dreaming. The sunset was gorgeous. The orange and pink that the sun reflected into the sky and off the white houses. It is something I will never forget.
We made it home Sunday night after 7 hours on a ferry. And now I'm sitting back at school typing this. There are only 3 weeks left in this program and it felt like just yesterday that I was panicking about coming here and leaving home for so long. I've grown to love Athens and Greece and just the Greek culture, but I think when the time comes I will be ready to come home to the good ole US of A. It's hard because I want to go home to see my parents and friends but I don't want to leave Athens because I don't know when I will come back again and even if I do it won't be the same. I feel like another chapter in my life is closing. I've had the great chance to meet a group of wonderful people that are now some really close friends, that I otherwise probably would not have met.
I'm ready to go home, but I am definitely going to enjoy and make the most of my last 3 weeks here. Appreciate the city and stay in Athens for the weekend and not travel anywhere.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Fuimos a Espana
Wednesday
Our flight leaves Athens at 3am and we arrive in Barcelona at 6:30am. We get there as the sun is rising and the city is just beautiful. We take the bus and get off at Placa de Catalunya. The city isn't awake yet so the streets are pretty empty and the air is fresh. And guess what? THE STREETS ARE BIG! and there's actually sidewalks made for people to walk on! So we roam around the streets until we find our hostel Sant Jordi Alberg. We buzz the hostel, but no one answers, so we find this little breakfast place and sit down, dump all of our luggage in this tiny cafe and get us some coffee and breakfast EMPANADAS! :) they're were delicious. So at 8am we try the hostel again and this time someone buzzes us in. So we check in, but our room isn't ready yet, so we store our luggage and then we all just fall asleep on the couches. It was perfect because we took a 4 hour nap and when we woke up it was only noon and our rooms were ready :) We got an 8 bed mixed room so we dominated the room basically. We put down our stuff, put our sheets on our beds and headed out to explore the city! This time, when we walk out, the city is hustling and bustling with people, buses, cars, and mopeds. So we take our map and head out to Passig de Garcia, where we got dropped off by the bus from the airport. This is a main street on Barcelona so we headed back there and started walking toward La Rumbla, which is also a central city with lots of cafes and restaurants. Along the way we found this really good sandwich place called El Mo's and they had the best tuna sandwiches. The spanish are a fan of tuna let me tell ya. So we grab food there and continue on our way toward La Rumbla. When we get there we spot a fruit market! Our favorite! So we go in and this place is just massive. They have the best fresh fruit juice too for only a euro. So we buy a cup of that and we just explore. It's a fruit, meat, and seafood market with random little restaurants in the middle. Our group gets split up while we're in the fresh fruit market, so me, jess, and liz go our own way. We continue down La Rumbla and there's is just so much stuff. There's a block of fresh flowers, then random people selling rabbits, ferrets, chicken, etc. There were also lots of people dressed up as leprachuans..gargoyles, vampires, taking pictures with people.
We decide to head towards the Picasso Museum. It was really cool. It didn't contain a lot of his famous work because this museum was special because it was created when he was still alive. CRAZY! His friend created it for him and he donated a lot of his works to it. That's why there are a bunch of sketches that he made of people and just random doodlings that he did. that was pretty cool because you never really get to see that stuff from artists. We weren't allowed to take pictures though :(
Then we got lost on the process of getting back and we ended up at the arch (i forgot the name of it :(). But it was pretty cool. We basically just explored the city that first day, getting lost and just appreciating the beautiful architecture EVERYWHERE.
Then we finally got back to our hostel and just crashed for another 4 hours.
Thursday
Today we headed to Park Guel, which also had the Gaudi Museum. It was a huge hike. The hill we had to climb to get up was super steep, but it was cool because there were escalators built into 2 sections of the street to transport people up. It was beautiful. This man was a genius. This entire park was composed of mosaics just everywhere. You have to see it to fully appreciate and understand it. It felt like Disneyland, but in a Dr. Seuss world. It was awesome. His house was also there and was changed into a museum. It didn't have much, just showed the different rooms of his house. He was also the first person to customize furniture to a person. Made chairs to fit individual people. Genius.
Then when we left the park, we went to this little figurine museum that people at our hostel said they had gone to. It's basically run by a Spanish war veteran in his garage. It was a little mysterious going into it, but he just had THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS but little figurines. Toy soldiers to pretty much all the disney characters, the simpsons, pirates, indians, cars. He told us a story and was really interactive. There was a firecracker that scared the living daylights out of us too. At the end of the story we each went through an initiation with a flag. It was...pretttyy interesting.
After that museum, we just wandered our way home seeing the city and just where we'd end up.
Friday
WE WENT TO THE BEACH! It was sunny and warm, but really windy so it was actually pretty cold. I started getting sick so I didn't feel too well. I took a nice little nap on the beach :) It felt good. It was also weird though because people would walk around offering people massages. Literally every 5 minutes someone would walk by offering a massage. There were also people selling henna tattoos, beer, etc. It was kind of annoying really. NO, I DONT want a massage. Just leave me alone. But it was a pretty day :) Very relaxing. Jess and I ended up playing some volleyball with these Portugese guys.
Saturday
I think Saturday was my favorite day. We went to the La Sagrada Familia, which is this enormous church designed by none other than Gaudi himself :) I don't have pictures of that right now because I forgot my camera that day..I know retarded but I will be getting them from a friend soon :) It was really cool because there was an exhibit talking about Gaudi and the designs he used to build the church and everything was pretty much modeled after nature from the shapes of the columns used and the intricate designs on the outside of the church. It had a very gothic feel to it. I loved it :) Then we proceeded to get lost some more, had an unsuccessful shopping evening, but it was fun nonetheless :)
Sunday
I pretty much was really sick Saturday night to Sunday. So we checked out of our hostel, got breakfast...then Jess and I went back to the hostel and just vegetated on the couch for the rest of the day. We talked to the Prague kids that were going back to Prague. Then we watched Black Hawk Down (forgot how good that movie was) and made friends with some Aussies. We left the hostel at around 830pm for the airport and didn't get back into Athens until about 4am :( It was pretty tiring.
I was surprised because as much as I liked Barcelona, I started to miss Athens. I liked the beauty and the open space, but I missed the crowded streets of Athens. I missed hearing Greek everywhere and having people be so friendly. I didn't think I was going to miss Athens. I was afraid I was going to miss Barcelona when I got back to Athens, but surprisingly I don't.
But the trip was really fun overall. I also loved the hostel we stayed out. The people were really nice and hospitable and the hostel was very clean overall. They were very accommodating especially the day we got there and the day we were supposed to leave when we didn't have anywhere else to go. First time at a hostel and a very successful one at that :)
Our flight leaves Athens at 3am and we arrive in Barcelona at 6:30am. We get there as the sun is rising and the city is just beautiful. We take the bus and get off at Placa de Catalunya. The city isn't awake yet so the streets are pretty empty and the air is fresh. And guess what? THE STREETS ARE BIG! and there's actually sidewalks made for people to walk on! So we roam around the streets until we find our hostel Sant Jordi Alberg. We buzz the hostel, but no one answers, so we find this little breakfast place and sit down, dump all of our luggage in this tiny cafe and get us some coffee and breakfast EMPANADAS! :) they're were delicious. So at 8am we try the hostel again and this time someone buzzes us in. So we check in, but our room isn't ready yet, so we store our luggage and then we all just fall asleep on the couches. It was perfect because we took a 4 hour nap and when we woke up it was only noon and our rooms were ready :) We got an 8 bed mixed room so we dominated the room basically. We put down our stuff, put our sheets on our beds and headed out to explore the city! This time, when we walk out, the city is hustling and bustling with people, buses, cars, and mopeds. So we take our map and head out to Passig de Garcia, where we got dropped off by the bus from the airport. This is a main street on Barcelona so we headed back there and started walking toward La Rumbla, which is also a central city with lots of cafes and restaurants. Along the way we found this really good sandwich place called El Mo's and they had the best tuna sandwiches. The spanish are a fan of tuna let me tell ya. So we grab food there and continue on our way toward La Rumbla. When we get there we spot a fruit market! Our favorite! So we go in and this place is just massive. They have the best fresh fruit juice too for only a euro. So we buy a cup of that and we just explore. It's a fruit, meat, and seafood market with random little restaurants in the middle. Our group gets split up while we're in the fresh fruit market, so me, jess, and liz go our own way. We continue down La Rumbla and there's is just so much stuff. There's a block of fresh flowers, then random people selling rabbits, ferrets, chicken, etc. There were also lots of people dressed up as leprachuans..gargoyles, vampires, taking pictures with people.
We decide to head towards the Picasso Museum. It was really cool. It didn't contain a lot of his famous work because this museum was special because it was created when he was still alive. CRAZY! His friend created it for him and he donated a lot of his works to it. That's why there are a bunch of sketches that he made of people and just random doodlings that he did. that was pretty cool because you never really get to see that stuff from artists. We weren't allowed to take pictures though :(
Then we got lost on the process of getting back and we ended up at the arch (i forgot the name of it :(). But it was pretty cool. We basically just explored the city that first day, getting lost and just appreciating the beautiful architecture EVERYWHERE.
Then we finally got back to our hostel and just crashed for another 4 hours.
Thursday
Today we headed to Park Guel, which also had the Gaudi Museum. It was a huge hike. The hill we had to climb to get up was super steep, but it was cool because there were escalators built into 2 sections of the street to transport people up. It was beautiful. This man was a genius. This entire park was composed of mosaics just everywhere. You have to see it to fully appreciate and understand it. It felt like Disneyland, but in a Dr. Seuss world. It was awesome. His house was also there and was changed into a museum. It didn't have much, just showed the different rooms of his house. He was also the first person to customize furniture to a person. Made chairs to fit individual people. Genius.
Then when we left the park, we went to this little figurine museum that people at our hostel said they had gone to. It's basically run by a Spanish war veteran in his garage. It was a little mysterious going into it, but he just had THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS but little figurines. Toy soldiers to pretty much all the disney characters, the simpsons, pirates, indians, cars. He told us a story and was really interactive. There was a firecracker that scared the living daylights out of us too. At the end of the story we each went through an initiation with a flag. It was...pretttyy interesting.
After that museum, we just wandered our way home seeing the city and just where we'd end up.
Friday
WE WENT TO THE BEACH! It was sunny and warm, but really windy so it was actually pretty cold. I started getting sick so I didn't feel too well. I took a nice little nap on the beach :) It felt good. It was also weird though because people would walk around offering people massages. Literally every 5 minutes someone would walk by offering a massage. There were also people selling henna tattoos, beer, etc. It was kind of annoying really. NO, I DONT want a massage. Just leave me alone. But it was a pretty day :) Very relaxing. Jess and I ended up playing some volleyball with these Portugese guys.
Saturday
I think Saturday was my favorite day. We went to the La Sagrada Familia, which is this enormous church designed by none other than Gaudi himself :) I don't have pictures of that right now because I forgot my camera that day..I know retarded but I will be getting them from a friend soon :) It was really cool because there was an exhibit talking about Gaudi and the designs he used to build the church and everything was pretty much modeled after nature from the shapes of the columns used and the intricate designs on the outside of the church. It had a very gothic feel to it. I loved it :) Then we proceeded to get lost some more, had an unsuccessful shopping evening, but it was fun nonetheless :)
Sunday
I pretty much was really sick Saturday night to Sunday. So we checked out of our hostel, got breakfast...then Jess and I went back to the hostel and just vegetated on the couch for the rest of the day. We talked to the Prague kids that were going back to Prague. Then we watched Black Hawk Down (forgot how good that movie was) and made friends with some Aussies. We left the hostel at around 830pm for the airport and didn't get back into Athens until about 4am :( It was pretty tiring.
I was surprised because as much as I liked Barcelona, I started to miss Athens. I liked the beauty and the open space, but I missed the crowded streets of Athens. I missed hearing Greek everywhere and having people be so friendly. I didn't think I was going to miss Athens. I was afraid I was going to miss Barcelona when I got back to Athens, but surprisingly I don't.
But the trip was really fun overall. I also loved the hostel we stayed out. The people were really nice and hospitable and the hostel was very clean overall. They were very accommodating especially the day we got there and the day we were supposed to leave when we didn't have anywhere else to go. First time at a hostel and a very successful one at that :)
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