Day 12: Old Town Rhodes

we got to sleep in this morning! but erica's alarm had the wrong time so she called me at 8:30 anways. our conversation went like this:

erica: "is this stephanie?"

me: "nnnngggg YUH."

erica: "are you awake?"

me: "no."

erica: "okay bye."

me: "bye."

i got up five minutes later and showered and went down to breakfast.

we had class after breakfast, where we found out what we would be doing for the day. we don't have any more tour guides, so it's all on us from here on out.

i got with jenna, erica, brooke, meghan, and kate and we all walked to old town rhodes after stopping at a few banks. old town rhodes is completely walled in from medieval times, and has a few gate entrances. the bank quest caused us to go in through the wrong gate, and we wound up in the moat of the castle. not even kidding. we were stuck down there for half an hour and couldn't find our way out. but we saw pretty much a 360 view of the castle, which was one building we were required to see. we finally got out, but old town and its maps are super confusing. we got lost so many times trying to find the museum. after asking lots of people who all pointed us in opposite directions, we found it. we walked the museum and met a guy from new york named noah. we ended up walking around with him and going to lunch with him after touring old town.

after lunch we all went to the hotel to get towels and then headed for the beach. i don't know what's up with these rock beaches, but they need to stop. it really hurts my feet. we met jacee and eddie down there and they gave up the snorkeling gear they had just bought, so i ran back up to the hotel to put my contacts in so i could snorkel.

the water was a little chilly, but not too bad. meghan, brooke, and i walked down the beach to the large rocks and snorkeled around there. we stalked schools of fish and jumped off of tall rocks. it was tons of fun, but i did freak out a little the first few times i tried snorkeling. i just couldn't get used to breathing through that tiny tube. but stalking the fish helped. my breathing sounded like darth vader so i just imagined him stalking a bunch of oblivious fish and i was fine.

after swimming in the sea i bought some sun glasses since my non-prescription ones broke in my bag. then we went to the hotel to rinse off and get ready for dinner. we all met downstairs and a big group of us went to a place called chicken mike's. it was run by two old men who were ADORABLE and kept bringing us free wine. after a few hours, the wedding party that was there left and they gave us their leftover champagne! needless to say, we all have fun tonight.

tomorrow is another partial free day in rhodes before we fly to crete at night. noah is actually going to be on our plane, which is strangely coincidental. it's funny how many people you meet from the states and how comfortable you immediately feel around them just because you speak the same language and can relate to one another.

i'm really sleepy now and actually paying for this internet. hopefully crete will be free. goodnight from rhodes!