The title to this post couldn’t explain the past couple of weeks any better. For those of you who don’t know, the program that I chose took me and the others that signed up for my specific program to three different countries in ten days. The first country was...GREECE! Here’s a recap of my time there.
September 16th:
At the lovely time of 4:45am, my alarm went off (although I hit snooze once or twice, so I didn’t wake up until more around 5:00...), I had a little bit of time to get ready before we were supposed to be downstairs, and then we left for the airport and checked in. Random sidenote: before we got to security, I saw a sign that illustrated that you couldn’t have turkeys (?) with you (imagine an illustration of a cooked turkey like you’d have at Thanksgiving with a red circle with a slash through it). I thought it was really funny, and I wished I would have gotten a pic of it. Anyway, when I was going through passport control, the man that I gave my passport to kept asking me if I was from St. Paul (since he saw that I was from Minnesota). He kept saying “St. Paul? St. Paul?” For some reason, I took this as “It’s cold? It’s cold?” And of course, I responded “Yes, it gets cold!” When I finally realized what he was saying, I felt kind of stupid...haha. He was really nice about it though. After my friends and I got through security, we went and grabbed some breakfast. I got the most AMAZING chocolate croissant that I have ever had. Oh. My. Gosh. So good. We finally boarded the plane around 8:30; I sat in a row with my friends Faith and Asha. I got a window seat, and it was great! We had an actual breakfast too, so that was nice. When we arrived in Athens, we hopped on a bus and were transported to our hotel which was located in the heart of the city. We checked in and they only had a couple of rooms ready; luckily, mine was one of them. :) So, my roommate (Kayla, one of my roommates back in Cyprus) and I put our stuff in our room, and headed back downstairs and met up with some of the others in our group. We had the rest of the day free, so a bunch of us decided to explore Athens. My group went to a square in the city where there was a couple of streets that were like a bazaar/flea market. I had a wonderful time there. We found a great place to eat, and I ended up making some purchases while I was there. After we got back to the hotel, we decided to try to go out to a famous site in Greece called the Temple of Poseidon. However, we got delayed and didn’t know where we were going, so we gave up. The group split up after that, and the group that I went with ended up exploring the city a little more and finding an amazing little restaurant for dinner (and we got a free dessert out of it too). :) After, we walked back to the hotel and I just called it a night.
September 17th:
To start off the day, we had breakfast on the top floor of our hotel...where we had a gorgeous view of the city and the Acropolis. It was so beautiful! After breakfast, we headed over to the National Archaeological Museum where we had a tour. It was very big, and we didn’t get through all of it, but I saw some amazing things there. After the museum visit, we headed over to the Acropolis. Here, we had a tour of the entire site; it was so cool to see the Parthenon in person! We learned that it’s an optical illusion of sorts; the structure looks like it has very straight lines, but really, none of the lines are straight and the columns are slightly curved out. Those ancient Greeks sure were clever, weren’t they? After spending a good deal of time at the Acropolis, a group of us went to find lunch. On the way, we stopped outside the new museum by the Acropolis; here, we were able to walk on and look through a glass floor and see an excavated part of the old city of Athens. It was pretty neat! :) After that, we stopped for lunch and then went back to the hotel. The majority of the group decided to re-try going to Poseidon's Temple. This time, we had more of an idea of where we needed to go and when, so we were able to get there this time. We walked to a specific bus stop where we hopped on a coach bus that took us on a two-hour bus ride. Along the way, we saw so many picturesque things; the water, the costal towns, a beautiful all-white church...Greece is beautiful, and I hope I can go back again someday to explore the country more. After our bus-ride, we finally reached the temple. The temple itself wasn’t the most spectacular (kind of like a smaller structure we saw at the Acropolis), but then I found out why it is rated as one of the top three things see while in Greece: the sunset. The sunset was absolutely gorgeous, and we had the best view you could imagine. After the sunset, the bus returned and we hopped back on. When we got to Athens, a bunch of us decided that we wanted to have a night out on the town. We were all starving since we didn't eat dinner, so we got dressed up and ended up going to a restaurant where we were able to sit on the rooftop. It was beautiful, and you could see part of the Acropolis. At the restaurant, I ended up ordering an amazing chocolate and banana crepe. It was heavenly. :) After enjoying my crepe, I headed back to the hotel and turned in for the night.
September 18th:
On this day, we were given a free-day in Athens. So, after eating a quick breakfast, my friends Kayla, Ben, Faith, Leah, and I made our way to one of the major ports in the city where we caught a ferry. Now, we had planned to go to the island of Hydra for our free day, so we were frantically trying to find a ferry to take us there. We saw this huge ferry and there was a man who was hurrying some other people on the boat. Kayla asked him if it was going to Hydra, and he replied with a “yes, yes!” So, since the boat was untied and leaving, we ran and jumped on the boat just as it was pretty much pulling away. When we got on, we asked some of the crew members, and they said that the ferry was indeed NOT going to the island of Hydra but rather the island of Poros. Yeah, okay. It ended up only costing 13 Euros, which isn’t that bad in my opinion considering that it was a three-hour ferry ride. After stopping at two other islands on the way, we finally reached Poros. As disappointed as I was at first that we weren't able to get to Hydra, that disappointment quickly diminished once we reached our destination; the island was exquisite. We didn’t see any beaches, but we stopped in a small shop and quickly got directions to a beach. When we got there, I could not believe what I saw. It was sooooo beautiful; we were in a small cove of sorts with a wonderful view of a village on the hillside and the sea. We set up our stuff on the beach and all hopped in the water. Let me tell you, the Mediterranean is SALTY. Thankfully, I didn’t get a mouthful of it, but I sure got a taste. Oh my. I seriously forgot about that little pointer...ha. After a while, we decided to get lunch. A cute little boy, maybe around ten years old, helped serve us; he was so great. There were a few cats roaming around too, so I really liked that restaurant. ;) The rest of the day, we just swam some more and laid out on the beach. I also gathered a lot of rocks and such because the beach was scattered with some amazing rocks, sea glass, and shards of pottery. UGH! It was so great there. I forgot to mention--there were virtually NO tourists either. There weren’t many people people on the beach, and there were mainly locals around, so it was a great experience. After our day in paradise, we bought a returning ticket and hopped back on the ferry. When we got back to the hotel, I just showered, relaxed and packed for my next stop...ITALY!
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