greece!!
For my first free travel I went to Greece. We left in the afternoon, after class and took a train to Milan, where it was raining very heavily. We tried to find a cheap hostel/hotel but there was nothing to be found because there was a conference in Milan, and so we just decided to chance it and take the hour bus ride to the airport, hoping that there was something there or that we could stay in the airport. As we found, when we got there, the Airport doesn't close and so we got to spend a very long, very frustrating night there. We were sitting on metal chairs, and it was a bit cold because the doors kept on opening but the most frustrating part was at about 11 o'clock a family of one man, two women and 4 children showed up and they stayed all night as well with all the kids not going to bed at all and screaming and misbehaving all night long.. it was a long night to say the least.
The next day we took a plane to Athens and got in around 4-5 and then took an hour long train/metro ride to our hostel. We stayed in Athens at the hostel, Athens Backpackers. So much fun! We all 7 stayed in one hostel room, with a balcony, little kitchenette, and a bathroom. It was so nice. The first night we went out and got 2 euro gyros (SO GOOD!!) and then went to bed super early! It was so nice to catch up on all of that sleep!
The next day we just toured Athens, we went to the Plaka (market) the Acropolis, the Parthenon, the ancient Agora, (needless to say we saw a lot of ancient ruins).. then that afternoon we met some girls from the HUG program, I knew one of them, Amanda Abla, and they took us to get sandals from the Poet Sandal Maker, I got the style, John Lennon which is a design that he made just for him... pretty cool huh? then they took us to their favorite greek restaurant Zabbos and then we dropped them off at their metro stop in front of the parliament building where we got to see our first protest.. We don't know what it was for because all of their signs were in Greek but it was still prettty cool. On the way back it was kinda late and we were walking back down a few shady places but when we were going past the acropolis a dog kinda scared us but he walked us down all the unlit streets until we got to our lit street and barked at all the scary men that we past, it was great! We named him Hercules, Herk for short.
The next day was a little intense. We walked about 2 minutes away and went to a few sites in Athens and then went to find the archeological museum. Then we walked, quite a ways, to a stop to find the metro to get to Pireus Port. From there we got a boat/ferry ticket to Aegina Island. There we took about an hour ferry ride to a GREEK ISLAND! When we got there we saw this really cool ancient monument in the distance and we decided we needed to go.. So we got to the gate and it looked really closed so we decided to walk up the street and see if we could find a better view.. As we were walking we saw this wall with stones and I decided that I could totally climb it. So me, Abby and Kelsi were climbing over rocks trying to get to the monument and we realized that the rocks looked suspiciously like ruins.. and so I climbed over to a plaque and read it and apparently we were climbing through a 1800 BC year old village... YIKES.. so i stole a rock for my g-ma's rock garden :P definitely one of my favorite memories of this trip. After that little excitement we went into town, and did a little tourist shopping and then went and ate at a seafood restaurant. I got octopus and Tyler got squid and we halfed it so we both had both. It was delicious, and really filling. while we were eating it started pouring, I don't mean raining, I mean pouring. So we ran to our boat, only to find that it was still not there so we huddled under the ticket stand and made a break for it when the ferry came. We made it back safe from the port but we got in pretty late that night.
The next day we went with our hostel and took a tour of Delphi. It was about a 2.5 hour bus trip both ways so it was a pretty long day. We met some really nice people though! And got to see the temple of Athena, the stadium, and the Delphi Oracle. It was pretty cool.
The next day we went to the ancient city of Corinth. And let me tell ya, this was an adventure. We took a bus to the "main bus station" which was TOTALLY shady, and then took a bus to Corinth, but we didn't get off the right stop and we were dropped off in the MODERN city of Corinth. That wouldn't have been such a big deal if it wasn't Sunday and thus the buses weren't running. And so we had to pay for 2 taxis (there were 5 of us) to take us 7km up the road to the ancient city. Luckily some man heard us asking someone if they spoke English and he helped us secure a taxi and told them to take us to exactly where we wanted to go since none of us speak a word of Greek. He was so sweet and was definitely an angel in disguise! We got to the city and it was Sunday so it was free admission and we had communion (it was Sunday) and a little church service in Corinth. We read a lot in the book 1 Corinthians and it was really cool to think of the people that Paul wrote to living where we were! After that we went to a Greek restaurant I had really good Greek pasta dish. We got back without too much trouble.
And the next day we went to the airport to fly back "home" to Florence. With a little mishap about having to go back 1 hour to get a girl's left eurail (valued at 800 euros) everything went smoothly. We got back 2 days ago and leave tomorrow for Rome!
The next day we took a plane to Athens and got in around 4-5 and then took an hour long train/metro ride to our hostel. We stayed in Athens at the hostel, Athens Backpackers. So much fun! We all 7 stayed in one hostel room, with a balcony, little kitchenette, and a bathroom. It was so nice. The first night we went out and got 2 euro gyros (SO GOOD!!) and then went to bed super early! It was so nice to catch up on all of that sleep!
The next day we just toured Athens, we went to the Plaka (market) the Acropolis, the Parthenon, the ancient Agora, (needless to say we saw a lot of ancient ruins).. then that afternoon we met some girls from the HUG program, I knew one of them, Amanda Abla, and they took us to get sandals from the Poet Sandal Maker, I got the style, John Lennon which is a design that he made just for him... pretty cool huh? then they took us to their favorite greek restaurant Zabbos and then we dropped them off at their metro stop in front of the parliament building where we got to see our first protest.. We don't know what it was for because all of their signs were in Greek but it was still prettty cool. On the way back it was kinda late and we were walking back down a few shady places but when we were going past the acropolis a dog kinda scared us but he walked us down all the unlit streets until we got to our lit street and barked at all the scary men that we past, it was great! We named him Hercules, Herk for short.
The next day was a little intense. We walked about 2 minutes away and went to a few sites in Athens and then went to find the archeological museum. Then we walked, quite a ways, to a stop to find the metro to get to Pireus Port. From there we got a boat/ferry ticket to Aegina Island. There we took about an hour ferry ride to a GREEK ISLAND! When we got there we saw this really cool ancient monument in the distance and we decided we needed to go.. So we got to the gate and it looked really closed so we decided to walk up the street and see if we could find a better view.. As we were walking we saw this wall with stones and I decided that I could totally climb it. So me, Abby and Kelsi were climbing over rocks trying to get to the monument and we realized that the rocks looked suspiciously like ruins.. and so I climbed over to a plaque and read it and apparently we were climbing through a 1800 BC year old village... YIKES.. so i stole a rock for my g-ma's rock garden :P definitely one of my favorite memories of this trip. After that little excitement we went into town, and did a little tourist shopping and then went and ate at a seafood restaurant. I got octopus and Tyler got squid and we halfed it so we both had both. It was delicious, and really filling. while we were eating it started pouring, I don't mean raining, I mean pouring. So we ran to our boat, only to find that it was still not there so we huddled under the ticket stand and made a break for it when the ferry came. We made it back safe from the port but we got in pretty late that night.
The next day we went with our hostel and took a tour of Delphi. It was about a 2.5 hour bus trip both ways so it was a pretty long day. We met some really nice people though! And got to see the temple of Athena, the stadium, and the Delphi Oracle. It was pretty cool.
The next day we went to the ancient city of Corinth. And let me tell ya, this was an adventure. We took a bus to the "main bus station" which was TOTALLY shady, and then took a bus to Corinth, but we didn't get off the right stop and we were dropped off in the MODERN city of Corinth. That wouldn't have been such a big deal if it wasn't Sunday and thus the buses weren't running. And so we had to pay for 2 taxis (there were 5 of us) to take us 7km up the road to the ancient city. Luckily some man heard us asking someone if they spoke English and he helped us secure a taxi and told them to take us to exactly where we wanted to go since none of us speak a word of Greek. He was so sweet and was definitely an angel in disguise! We got to the city and it was Sunday so it was free admission and we had communion (it was Sunday) and a little church service in Corinth. We read a lot in the book 1 Corinthians and it was really cool to think of the people that Paul wrote to living where we were! After that we went to a Greek restaurant I had really good Greek pasta dish. We got back without too much trouble.
And the next day we went to the airport to fly back "home" to Florence. With a little mishap about having to go back 1 hour to get a girl's left eurail (valued at 800 euros) everything went smoothly. We got back 2 days ago and leave tomorrow for Rome!
Comments
Post a Comment