Day 20: Athens and the Downpour

This was our last day abroad. I’m honestly very sad to be coming home, even though a big part of me is more than ready to see everyone again.

we had an early start to a very busy day. chelsea and her mom (lisa) were going to skip out on the tours because they had to pick up the rest of chelsea's things, so the rest of us got onto a small bus to tour athens. we drove around while the tour guide pointed areas out like the two main squares, the library, the ruins of the temple of zues, and hadrian's arch. since our bus was smaller than most tour buses, we got to drive past the presidential palace and the most expensive neighborhood in athens that surrounds the palace. we stopped at the ancient olympic stadium, panathinaiko stadium, where the olympic torch is brought before each olympic games. we could only take pictures from outside because they were busy putting in ramps so that they could hold the special olympics there later in june.

we drove up part of the hill to the acropolis and walked the rest of the way up. even though it's eroding, the ground was made up of a lot of marble, so it was pretty chunky and slippery in spots. the entrance gate was huge, but the parthenon was even bigger. it was under construction, but it didn't really take too much away from the image. the most amazing thing was the view of athens from the acropolis. i didn't realize how big the city is until i had seen it stretching from the aegean sea up toward the mountains, completely filling the valley below the acropolis. and what trip to the parthenon would be complete without a group photo?

after we came down from the acropolis, john took jacee and eddie back to the hotel because jacee wasn't feeling well while the rest of us went into the museum. it was really neat because they are excavating more ruins directly underneath the museum. the floor is clear so you can look down and see the site two stories beneath your feet! the marble slabs that circled the top of the parthenon were wrapped around the middle of the top floor of the museum, and the walls there were completely glass so there was a great view of the acropolis.

after the museum, our tour guide took shannon and avis back to the hotel via the metro, while the rest of us stayed in the plaka. our bus was supposed to pick us up and take us back to the hotel, but it wasn't worth it because there was a protest that went from omonoia square to syntagma square. the protestors march down the only major north-south street in downtown, so it would be impossible to drive back to our hotel, which was only two blocks from omonoia square.

the plaka is a tourist shop area at the base of the acropolis, but chelsea told me that the shops were cheaper at monastiraki. we went to the atm and then had a quick lunch before consulting our map and walking toward monastiraki. once finding it, we all agreed to meet back at a certain shop in an hour before splitting up to get our shopping done. i bought lots of presents for people as well as a dress and necklace for myself. we ran into chelsea just as we were meeting back up to head back to the hotel. i wasn't ready to go yet because i needed to go to one more store, but it was about to rain and it was supposed to take an hour to walk back to the hotel.

since chelsea knew her way around athens and knew where the metro was, she came with matt, jenna, colleen, and me to the store i needed to go to. everyone else started walking back. after we left the store, it started raining a little. we picked up our pace, but then it started pouring. we stopped under an awning for a minute to decide what we wanted to do. we decided to run for it and stop every time we were covered. chelsea had just bought a suitcase to help her get all of her stuff back, so we put our purses in there and gave it to matt.

first we ran across a huge square made of slippery marble. there was a covering at the corner, so we all stopped there before taking on the next street block. chelsea and i were running in front, followed by matt, jenna, and colleen. matt completely wiped out on the sidewalk and the suitcase went flying. shop owners were standing in their doorways cheering us on and clapping at matt's dramatic fall. we had to wait under the next covering a little longer because we were laughing so hard - matt's entire side was soaked from where he had landed on the ground. he got cut on his arm, but he's a trooper. so we started running the next block, but jenna ran into a metal drainpipe and cut part of her toenail off. we stopped to laugh at that, and a taxi sped by and drenched us all with gutter water. it was one of those moments that everyone stops laughing and is in shock for about three seconds before cracking up again.

this was when we decided that we didn't care about being covered, so we just walked quickly the rest of the way. right before going into the metro station, we walked through a marble square. there were protest posters and tarps and tents everywhere. people were huddled together under tarps strung between trees trying to stay dry. we were some of the few people out in the rain. vendors would run up to us to try to sell us umbrellas, but umbrellas weren't going to help us at that point. i really wanted my camera to take pictures of the protestors and their signs covering the square, but it was keeping dry in my bag in the suitcase.

we took the subway back to the area near our hotel and walked past some neo-classical buildings (one was the library) that don't blend in with the rest of modern athens. once back at the hotel, we dried off and went to class in the hallway to hear the last of the presentations.

we all got ready for dinner before leaving the hotel. a few people went to the left, but there wasn't anything down there. the only place open to the right was the same place we had gone the night before. everyone wanted to keep going that direction, but at that point we were only a block away from omonoia square, which is one of the most dangerous places in the city. it's the place where the prostitutes and drug dealers hang out. i refused to go, and everyone else was convinced when a guy ran past us with blood down his arm and a needle in his hand. scariest thing i've ever seen. needless to say, we just stuck with the same place as the night before, where i tried octopus! it was chewy, but not in a bad rubbery way. and it wasn't super fishy like you might think.

we walked quickly back to the hotel after dinner, and i bought a small suitcase at a stand outside so that i could carry all of souvenirs with me in case my checked back got sent to the wrong place.

Day 19: The Really Long Ferry Ride

We got another late start this morning, thankfully. We were all exhausted after yesterday. I almost didn’t make breakfast because I was talking to jenna’s boyfriend on skype. She just walked out of my room while working on her project and I thought she as coming back, so I answered when he called. And then she never came back. but we bonded over our mutual love of jenna for half an hour, so it was nice.

i borrowed one of erica's tube tops to wear today because my shoulders were just a little too burned to wear a normal shirt. i figured that it would heal faster the less i irritated it, which is also why i carried my backpack around like it was my baby for the rest of the day.

after a quick breakfast, we had a pretty long class on the porch of the resort's main building. it was a beautiful setting for the rest of the presentations. after we finished those up, i ran to the lobby bathroom to brush my teeth because i hadn't gotten the chance to do that yet. whoops. then we loaded up the bus and drove down to the port. we had a few hours to wait so we all left our stuff on benches and walked around. there really wasn't much to see. no shops or anything. this is why i didn't get any postcards from mykonos. we were all pretty hungry, and all there was was a little tarp stand with various chips and candy. they also had a tomato and cheese panini, so we pretty much cleaned them out of those.

after waiting and listening to music and talking and reading and waiting some more, our GIANT ferry arrived. it's one of those million-story ferries. not really, but it was big for a ferry. we grabbed a bunch of seats at tables near the fast food restaurant. at some point, about three soccer teams worth of 8 year old boys sat in the same area. they would come over and stare at meghan doodling and yell and were all sorts of annoying. it didn't help that the majority of them had mullets or rat tails. not cute, little boys.

this was a super long ferry ride - around 5 hours. we were all getting pretty hungry, so i tried to order a mr. chicky sandwich (yeah, i did feel ridiculous saying that out loud), but they were out of chicken. fast food burgers are yucky, so i just got fries and frowned a lot.

oh and every time this ferry turned to pull into a port, it would shake like something that shakes really badly. (best analogy ever!) the ceiling would visibly bounce and the lights would rattle and i just felt like we were going to sink and all die. every time. but we didn't, thankfully!

we got into athens pretty late in the evening... well past dinner time. we got on the tiniest bus of the entire trip so far to take us to the hotel. my chair was broken and couldn't stay upright, so i was basically laying in jacee's lap. but it was a short, graffitied trip to the hotel, which was beautiful and right in the heart of athens. the majority of us went to dinner at a restaurant a block away from the hotel. they brought us bread with this pink paste to spread on it. looked weird, but tasted amazing. garlicky, vinegary, potato-y... no idea what it was or if any of those things were in it.

we had a quick, slightly terrifying walk back to the hotel before going to bed.

Day 18: Delos

there were only three people in our group who didn't want to go on the tour of the sacred island of delios. the rest of us took the hotel bus down to the port where we got on a boat to take us to the islane. Meghan, Jenna, Brooke, and I sat outside in the front of the boat on a bench. There was a man who worked on the boat who had a unicorn tattoo on his bicep… it was pretty strange. It was warm out there, but the breeze was very cool once we started moving. Brooke and I took pictures a la titanic at the bow.

Once we arrived at delios, we had to meet up with our tour guide. it was a little crazy because we were once again in cruise ship crowds. we only made up about half of our tour group - the rest was mostly other people from the states. there was a family from new york that was very hippie. the mom and dad gave their kindergartener an ipod with blaring rap music. he was cute at first, but then his parents tried to make him turn it down and he yelled that he didn't want to turn it down so they just let him be. good parenting. their other kid was probably about 9 and he said a few things that stunned me... hippies.

Delos is unique because no one is allowed to be born or die on the island. The only people who live there are archeologists who had to apply for it. It is the island where Apollo, the sun god, and his twin sister Artemis were born. There was an ancient civilization on the island, and their elderly and pregnant women had to live on the adjacent island that they now call big delios. We toured the ruins on delios, and I know we all really appreciated the originality of the ruins – they weren’t a recreation. Walking the tiny streets really makes you understand where the greeks get it from! It was really neat to look around the ruins because marble columns stood randomly throughout it, signaling the location of a richer family’s house.

the temple of apollo on the island was interesting because there wasn't anything left but slabs of rock with holes in them where the feet of statues used to be. a lot of the statues now reside in the museum on the island. there is also a street leading up to the main temple with marble lions along it. they've been worn down pretty badly, but it's still impressive to see them lined up down the road.

i really loved how mykonos, the biggest party island in the mediterranean and the gay capital of the world, was right next to such a sacred island. it was just interesting to see two extremes positioned next to each other like that.

We stayed inside on the boat back to Mykonos, and were all pretty frustrated to find out that we had to walk back to the hotel. We didn’t have a map and didn’t know how to get back. On top of that, we were all extremely hot and starting to get burned. We really just wanted some shade and air conditioning and food. We picked a direction and started walking up and up and up and up and up. Mykonos is nothing but uphill. I don’t know how it manages to do that, but it does. thankfully, we had picked the right direction. after about 15 minutes of burning calves, we found perfecto, the restaurant with the waffle. We said hi to the owner and told him we’d be back for dinner before eating lunch at a nearby restaurant. After yummy pita gyros, I got a chocolate crepe. Expensive, but delicious and well deserved.

We hurried back to the hotel to find that most of us were pretty crispy and struggling from heat-related issues. After lots of water and cool rooms with beds, we were ready for dinner. i wore jeans for some reason, and had to walk like a robot to the restaurant because my donkey cut on the back of my knee got sunburned. pants didn't feel good on that. We went back to perfecto as promised, and it was perfect. (Did you expect anything less?) by the way, i definitely had another waffle. the owner was genuinely concerned for our safety in athens and told us to be very careful, especially with all the protests going on.

i hung out with brooke and erica in there room for a little bit before heading down the hill to my room and my bed.

Day 17: Arrival in Mykonos and the Free Waffle

we woke up early to have another hour of class before heading back down the switchbacks to new port. we sat there for a while before grabbing some gyros to-go and getting on our ferry to mykonos, which is the gay capital of the world and THE party island.

arriving in mykonos meant another charter bus that was driven through more streets that were entirely too small. it also meant another beautiful hotel with a gorgeous view, with white and blue houses everywhere.

after doing a bunch of laundry and hanging it out to dry, we walked down to town and had dinner at a restaurant called perfecto. we all ordered some amazing pasta. after dinner, the guy brought us a free waffle with nutella, strawberries, and ice cream. even though we were all stuffed after eating more than one serving of pasta each and multiple slices of bread, we devoured the waffle. we're pretty sure it was a magical waffle because the second it appeared on our table, we forgot that we had eaten. ever.

we walked back to our hotel in a great mood. again, we attribute this to the magical, free waffle. i was still exhausted after volcano hiking the previous day, so i went to bed pretty early. it was a pretty uneventful day in greece!

Day 16: The Volcano

we had class this morning from 9 to about 1045, where we learned all about the santorini volcano. essentially, this thing was huge. it violently blew up in the second century BC, and its debris reached 75 miles into the air. it was bordering space. it completely blew off its top, and the mediterranean rushed in. this is what formed santorini as we see it today, as a crescent island with another small one across the caldera. the very middle is home to two small lava islands.

meghan and i decided to do a tour of the volcano and hot springs - the two tiny islands in the middle of the caldera. we bought our tickets at a tour agency in downtown fira after class. the plan was to go to the black beach first and then the volcano, but i had some atm problems and we missed the bus to the black beach. so we just went back to the hotel for a little bit, where we recruited avis to come with us. we got her a ticket and then took our time walking through fira to the stairs down to old port. we grabbed some gyros to-go and hit the stairs.

these steps were INSANE. it was about 9 or 10 switchbacks down the cliffs, and the steps were about 3 or 4 steps apart. on top of that, you had to walk at a steep decline between steps and the rocks were slick in places. my legs were jello two switchbacks in. i stopped to eat the rest of my gyro because i couldn't walk and eat at the same time. it was crazy. on the way down, i almost got run off the cliff by a couple of donkeys. it was traumatizing.

once we got to the bottom, we hung out at old port until it was time to go. we found the girl we were supposed to meet, and everyone tried to get on this really cool looking ship called the jason (because that was the name that the agency told us). the lady in charge of that boat started screaming, "sofia! get your people off my boat!" at the girl from the agency. wrong boat named jason. so we went to a much more boring boat to take us to the volcano.

we sat on the top level in the sun, but it got pretty chilly when we started moving. it was about a ten minute ride to the volcano. as we were passing closer to the island that was formed by the cooled lava, we got to see these strangely smooth and black rocks that didn't even look like rocks. meghan said, "i feel like we're landing on mars." it really did feel like we were - the landscape was like nothing i've ever seen. once we got there, we had an hour until the boat was going to leave. the three of us started to climb.

the first thing i noticed was that the path, which was crushed lava rock, was really sharp. it was like walking through sand while wearing sandals, but more painful. the sandy lava rock would easily get under my feet but then couldn't get out because my chacos are strapped on pretty tight. the volcano was an incredibly steep climb. overall, it took about half an hour for meghan and i to make it to the very top. the view from there was absolutely amazing. it's one thing to stand on the edge of the island (the rim of the volcano) and look around, but it's a completely new experience to stand at the top of the very center. it looks even more massive. it really was breathtaking.

we booked it back down just to make sure we made the boat, which we did in plenty of time. we then went to another small island just behind the volcano, also in the center of the caldera. this was where the hot springs were. we were getting close to land when we suddenly stopped and they told us to get out because we had to swim 50 feet to the hot springs. definitely not what we were expecting. so meghan and i got into our swimsuits and jumped ship. we swam through pretty cold water to the shallow area where it wasn't any warmer. every once in a while you would catch a warm spot, but if you tried to stop and hover in it, it would disappear. it was actually a little gross because it reminded me of the warm spots in a pool and the negative connotations that come along with that... i think you know what i mean.

we had to swim back to the boat against the current, which was workout number three for our poor legs. they were jelly after 1/8 of the staircase! i have no idea how i also made it up and down an entire volcano and then back 50 feet against the current.

the boat ride back was relaxing and way too short. once off the boat, we had to find a way back up the staircase that took us so long to get down. our options were:

1. climb

2. take the gondola

3. take a donkey

if anyone thinks we did number 1... you haven't been paying attention to my poor legs this whole blog. number 2 was a neat idea, but i've ridden a gondola before. donkeys it was! meghan got on her donkey and then i got on mine and they took off! and then mine stopped. i only got two switchbacks up when my donkey decided he would be sneaky and get in line with the donkeys who had just finished coming down the stairs. so i sat there for 5 minutes. there were a few people who tried giving me advice like, "kick him! pull him!" yeah, because i didn't already try those things. i even had one man try to pull him for me. just a note, donkeys really are as stubborn as everyone says.

i was about to get off, walk back down, and demand my money back when a guy who works for the donkey people came riding up and scared my donkey halfway to china. the guy rode behind me the rest of the way to motivate my poor donkey. i caught up to a big group of asians on donkeys, and that's when it became a donkey free-for-all. everyone wanted to be first. donkeys would squish between other donkeys and walls without regard for the human legs sticking out on their sides. my right leg fell victim to another donkey who was making his move for the front, and i now have a bruise on the inside of my leg and a giant scrape on the outside of it. oh and the stairs are just as slippery for donkeys. i also nearly ran about 15 people off the cliff, just like someone did to me on my way down. there just really isn't much you can do. i was so traumatized that i had to have the guy who was whipping my donkey help me down. then i ran past all the other donkeys so i could just get out of there. never again.

i decided that i deserved some gelato after that, so i got lemon and cantaloupe. they were a lot sweeter than i was hoping for - i really wanted something citrusy - but it was still yummy. we went straight from the stairs to the other side of fira where the bus station is. we got on the bus to kamari, and were there ten minutes later. from there we walked to the black beach. we were hoping for sand, but got rocks. some spots had really really small rocks, so they didn't really hurt. we met a lady who teaches at mizzou and had actually just finished studying the mediterranean diet with a group of students. they went home from athens and she came to santorini. we told her about our amazing day and gave her our brochures so she could do the same thing the next day (minus the donkey ride!). we also took her back to fira with us and told her how to get to oia so she could see the sunset. then we went back to the hotel.

we were exhausted, and so were the people who took more expensive tours, so we decided to eat at the hotel restaurant. when i got down there, erica, jenna, and brooke were excited about the buffet that was 7.50 euro. after everyone had their plates, we got the bill. all three of them heard wrong, and we all owed 17 euro for our mediocre food. it was a little disppointing, but was pretty funny in hindsight. and i learned a lesson: never listen to my friends.

Day 15: Arrival in Santorini and Oia

We got up pretty early this morning to take a shuttle bus to the harbor, where we got on a bigger ferry than last time. The ride to santorini lasted about two hours, and I slept for most of it. Once off the ferry, we climbed on a bus and went up a bunch of switchbacks to the top of the volcano’s rim, where most towns are located. We’re staying at another resort and it’s absolutely beautiful (google el greco on santorini!). We’re only a five minute walk from santorini’s capital, fira. We had a short class to listen to two presentations before leaving to check out our rooms.

A bunch of us met to walk for lunch, but I went back to the hotel shortly after getting to restaurant. My stomach hurt and it was really hot and fragrant in the restaurant. Not a good combination.

After a small nap, i met up with erica, jenna, matt, meghan, and brooke and we all took the bus to Oia (pronounced eeyuh, like i used to call andrea), which is the city in the sisterhood of the traveling pants. the city is adorable - the roads are tiny and winding and full of shops. we took a bunch of pictures with amazing views, and i bought a present for mandi. we were going to watch the sunset there, but we were getting really hungry. so hungry, in fact, that we bought gyros at the bus station instead of waiting to get back to fira. let me just say that actual greek gyros are about 10 million times better than american gyros.

we've all been sitting in the lobby on our computers (except for me because i didn't bring mine) and talking since we got back.

Tomorrow is completely free here, but I’m not really very happy with the choices of things to do. There are only two package deals being offered to us, and they’re both pretty expensive. I wouldn’t mind spending the money, but I have two things that I really want to do and one tour does one while the other tour does the other. Both are then filled with things that I’m not too interested in paying for. So I’m one of three people going off alone. I think Meghan is going to come with me, so hopefully we'll be able to find the individual things we want to do. goodnight from santorini!

Day 14: Knossos Castle

We all met in the morning in the lobby, where lisa and john distributed our bus tickets for the day. It took us as a group to Knossos castle, which was slightly disappointing because the majority of it was reconstruction based on one man’s interpretation of what he thought a minoan castle would look like. It was interesting though because the castle’s first floor, which is believed to be relatively accurate, is completely crazy. Hallways seem to be placed at random. This was the supposed labyrinth of crete that housed the minotaur. It was also impressive to see the ruins of a castle that spanned 22,000 square meters. Just a side note: I think we’ve pretty much used every form of transportation at this point. Big plane, little plane, ferry, charter bus, public bus. There haven’t been any taxis or subways though.

We took the bus back to the circle where our hotel is, and walked straight to the archeological museum around the corner. It was under renovation so the exhibit was pretty small, but it was still pretty interesting. The pottery was surprisingly different from everything else we’ve seen – a lot of it had shapes protruding from the main piece. For example, there was a pot with flowers sticking out of the sides. My favorite part was at the very end – there were a bunch of marble statues. That’s nothing too special, considering the number of statues we’ve seen on this trip, but there were two next to each other that really impressed me. The first was a statue from the first century BC and the second was from the second century AD. The older one was a block of rough stone with a relief of a profile view of a person. The second was the kind of statue you expect to see – fully body, amazing detail, and doesn’t even look like rock. The juxtaposition of these two dramatically different examples of minoan sculptures was just really interesting to me.

After the museum, we had class in the lobby before splitting up for lunch. I went with a larger group, but jenna and I ended up breaking away from them and going by ourselves. we saw a lot of greek hippies who were camped out under the protest banners. we were at the same restaurant as the night before and, as we left, our waiter told us that if we came back for dinner he would give our whole table freak rocky. NO THANKS. But we went back anyway haha. After lunch, we got some gelato and went into a bunch of shops.

We met up with Erica, brooke, Meghan, and matt and all walked down to the harbor. We walked along a VERY long pier. We walked for about twenty minutes before getting to what we thought was the end. But surprise, it kept going around the corner. We decided to turn back because we were getting a little hungry for dinner. While we were on the pier we made a friend – a german shepherd who we named zeus. He would walk ahead of us and then stop and turn around and wait for us. It was really cute. We shopped on the way back from the hotel and I bought a rug since I didn’t get one in turkey. It isn’t Persian, but it’s hand-embroidered silk. It’s beautiful.

When we got back to the circle, the crowd was intense for the protest, which was gearing up again. We went back to the same restaurant an met Chelsea, lisa, and john there. John convinced the waiter to bring us free mythos (greek beer) instead of rocky, so I didn’t need to buy a drink! We watched the protesters while we ate, and they were much louder than last night. It was pretty cool to be a part of it.

I met jenna’s boyfriend aaron on skype before going to bed. He accidentally called me sally. Who names their kid sally anymore? I also met her dogs louie and buster. She was more excited to see them than aaron.

I need to do laundry pretty badly again… but tomorrow morning we leave for santorini so it will have to wait. I can’t believe this is the last week!