Although we had some pretty bad travel conditions, it was so worth it for the trip.
We left last Friday morning at 6:00 AM for the airport to head out. And by "we left" I mean "I left" because the rest of my group overslept. I tried calling them and BBMing them for about 45 minutes before they finally woke up and miraculously made it on the plane at the last minute. I have to say that it was one of the most stressful 45 minutes ever not knowing how to get them up but not wanting to miss the flight myself! But we finally flew out of Barcelona and made it to Prague where we had a TWELVE hour layover until we left for Athens! It was quite an experience in the Prague airport. We all got a little bit crazy by the end when our flight was delayed for an hour and a half, which made it actually a 13 1/2 hour layover. So finally we made it to Athens and got to our hostel at about 4 AM. We slept for just a few hours and woke up early to explore Athens. We were able to see the Acropolis, the Parthenon, and the Olympic stadium, which was all cool to see because I had heard so much about them in the past.
Although that was all cool to see, I have to admit that Athens was not my favorite city. It was actually pretty run down. A lot of the people, the buildings, and the streets were all dirty. In our first hour of being out of the hostel, we stopped to get a bite to eat at an outdoor restaurant and a Gypsy came up begging us for money and food (this happens about 20 times a day in every city in Europe) but this girl took it a step too far. After we shook our heads no and turned away, she reached down and grabbed Julia's sandwich and ate it in front of us! We didn't really know how to react- I think we all just stared with our jaws wide open until she left and we realized what happened. At that point we just started laughing until our sides hurt. It was so bizarre.
After exploring a little bit, we went to a sandal store called "The Poet". The Poet is actually pretty famous. He hand makes Greek leather sandals. John Lennon has a pair, Jackie O, Barbara Striesand ... just to name a few... The shoes are so cool and his store is too. The walls are filled with leather shoes, bags, and small things like bracelets.
We all got a pair and have been wearing them nonstop since we bought them. The store was so busy but "The Poet" was the nicest man and gave everyone individual attention. It was such a great experience.
We tried to call it an early night because we had people picking us up at 6:00 AM the next day to catch our Ferry to Mykonos, but there was a Discoteca down the street and the music was so loud that it sounded like we were in the club ourselves. So night 3 of no sleep for us! But nothing was going to stop us from going to Mykanos the next morning.
Like I said we left at 6:00 and headed to the port to get on the ferry. The ferry wasn't what I was expecting. It was like airplane seating inside but a little bit bigger seats and more comfortable, and you could walk around a lot more easily. There were restaurants and you could sit at tables and eat if you wanted. This was a 4 hour ride, so it wasn't too bad, but we finally made it to Mykanos!
We had vans from our hotel waiting for us to take us to check in. The people at Hotel Aeolos were so nice! If anyone ever plans to go to Mykanos I would definitely recommend this hotel. We were so blown away by the people here. We got all settled in our rooms and went out to check out the city. Unfortunately the weather was rainy, cold, and windy. One of the reasons we wanted to go to Greece was for the weather and we were hoping to spend a lot of time on the beaches, but as 73,097,422 people told us, we came the one week that there was bad weather. Just our luck! But we made the best of it and still enjoyed every minute. Mykanos was a pretty little town. All of the buildings were bright white with blue doors and windows. We practically walked in peoples' houses walking down to the city center.
I always thought I loved Greek food from eating at CHOPS (Camden House of Pizza and Subs)... which now that I typed it out doesn't sound Greek at all but besides the pizza and subs they have gyros, greek salads, and all the typical Americanized Greek food... haha... but REAL Greek food is something else! I fell in love with tzatziki, which is like a greek yogurt and cucumber dip, which we had with pita every meal. We ate lots of gyros, suvlaki, greek salads, and I can't even begin to tell what else. It was all so good and I think our days revolved around eating.
Oh yeah, the best part- one day we rented a car! It was only 8 euros per person to rent the Hyundai i10, an itsy bitsy car with red accented interior. It was hilarious to try to fit all 5 of us in it, and to try to drive it. I had my drivers license stolen so I wasn't eligible (thank goodness- I haven't driven in four months so Lord knows how that would have gone!) but Julia and Ellen both took turns driving us around the island to the beaches.
The next day we headed out to Santorini. It was another 4 hour ferry ride, but again we slept most of the way.
We had a bus pick us up from the port and take us to our hotel in Fira. They put us in what seemed like a dungeon, but our rooms were right next to each other unlike in Mykanos and they were huge! Our room had three beds so we pushed them all together to make one megabed and all 5 of us piled in from time to time to hang out, but clearly we all like our space when we sleep because everyone always ended up back in separate beds when it was time to actually sleep. Anyway, that made it sound like we stayed in bed all week- which we didn't do!
Santorini was where the movie Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was filmed- so it was really cool to see the places where the scenes were shot.
Here are some pretty pictures of Santorini:
One day we rode donkeys. You may not believe me, but it was one of the most frightening things I have ever done. We all got on donkeys attached by a rope and we had a man leading us. We rode the donkeys down the hill, but looking back we think we would have been better off to ride them up! They were "fighty" as Julia said and clearly didn't like us riding on them. They would try to get off track but couldn't because they were all hooked together. They would kick the donkey behind it and when we would go around curves, they would get so close to the edge that I was convinced I would go flying off and end up at the bottom of the mountain. Even though we were scared out of our minds we couldn't stop laughing the whole way down. When the man asked us if we wanted to take a ride back up, we didn't hesitate before saying "NO!". Although it was pretty frightening, I am so glad we did it! I will never forget riding donkeys in Santorini.
Anyway again in Santorini we ate twice our weight in Greek food and gelato and loved every bite.
Our trip back to Barcelona took a total of 24 hours from the time we left the hotel in Santorini to the time we landed in Barcelona. That's a lot of traveling! We had a bus ride, an 8 hour ferry ride back to Athens, a 6 hour wait in the Athens airport, a 2 1/2 hour flight to Prague, a 4 hour layover in Prague, and a 2 1/2 hour flight back to Barcelona. That was exhausting but one cool part was that we were in the taxi on the way to the Athens airport as it turned midnight and we were able to see several churches setting off fireworks to celebrate Easter Sunday. Our day was so consumed with traveling that it was hard to recognize that it was Easter, but this was a cool way to recognize the holiday.
I feel like I left out so much, but my brain is so full right now that I can't really remember anything else.
I have a week left in Barcelona- actually in exactly one week to the minute I will be landing in Columbia! Ahh that is so weird- such a strange feeling! I am so so so excited to get back and see my family and friends, but honestly I don't want to leave Barcelona! This is the least stressed I have ever been in college exam-wise: I have 3 take home exams (what?!?) and only one difficult exam to take as opposed to 5 difficult exams at Wofford. Needless to say, I think I'll be all right my last week. I am really trying to take advantage of all that I can do here in my last days- taking walks around the city between classes and enjoying the Spanish culture. Barcelona really is an amazing city and it is so weird not knowing when I will come back to the city that has given me so much in the past four months. I hope it will be soon, but who knows? Maybe I'll be sending my own children to study abroad in Barcelona before I can visit again. I'm hoping it won't be that long though!
I'll try and do one more blog before I leave next week to wrap it all up, but I can't make any promises- but I guess it will be so soon that I will be seeing all of y'all that I can tell you in person!
Until then,
Adios!
No comments:
Post a Comment