so it's been about a month since i've updated this thing, and for good reason- i've been traveling and quite a busy bee!
my spring break consisted of athens, santorini, rome, florence, and then i ended in venice. one day after getting home from spring break i then scampered off to london for a 5 day royal wedding celebration- but don't let me get ahead of myself. this post (part one of SB 2011) will consist of my greek adventures and post #2 will consist of italy fun...while hopefully london will be blogged about sometime as well. london was...unreal. so here goes with spring break 2011 blogging. it's been several weeks so let me try and remember as much as possible :)
ATHENS! after midterms we all headed to the airport giddy with excitement- we landed in athens in the evening after a three hour flight and found our somewhat sketchy hostel. although it was in a convenient location, hanna, colleen and i were a bit weirded out by the guy at the front desk. then we ventured into the neighborhood we were in, and we were encountered by a few gypsies-colleen's favorite. later, we met up with lamia's friend who was studying abroad in athens at an authentic greek restaurant. all of us 6 girls enjoyed the wonderful food and company of two wonderful greek men who played and sung music to us all evening. we tried our first drink of ouzo...i had to at least try it. but let me just say: EW! i'm not a fan of things that are black licorice flavored, it was definitely not my taste. but the greek food was just my style. i think its is my favorite kind of food in the world. yum yum yum yum. lamb, tsiziki, greek salads, all amazing. the people that waited on us at every place we went were all so kind too! the waiter at the end of the night also taught us how to dance greek which was hysterical considering our coordination.
the following day we woke up and headed to the acropolis which was about a 10 minute walk from or hostel. there were a few stairs to climb- but the view and the ruins were absolutely mind-blowing. i can't believe how old they are, and how much history took place there. athens definitely exceeded my expectations at this point, even when there was still more to come.
my spring break consisted of athens, santorini, rome, florence, and then i ended in venice. one day after getting home from spring break i then scampered off to london for a 5 day royal wedding celebration- but don't let me get ahead of myself. this post (part one of SB 2011) will consist of my greek adventures and post #2 will consist of italy fun...while hopefully london will be blogged about sometime as well. london was...unreal. so here goes with spring break 2011 blogging. it's been several weeks so let me try and remember as much as possible :)
ATHENS! after midterms we all headed to the airport giddy with excitement- we landed in athens in the evening after a three hour flight and found our somewhat sketchy hostel. although it was in a convenient location, hanna, colleen and i were a bit weirded out by the guy at the front desk. then we ventured into the neighborhood we were in, and we were encountered by a few gypsies-colleen's favorite. later, we met up with lamia's friend who was studying abroad in athens at an authentic greek restaurant. all of us 6 girls enjoyed the wonderful food and company of two wonderful greek men who played and sung music to us all evening. we tried our first drink of ouzo...i had to at least try it. but let me just say: EW! i'm not a fan of things that are black licorice flavored, it was definitely not my taste. but the greek food was just my style. i think its is my favorite kind of food in the world. yum yum yum yum. lamb, tsiziki, greek salads, all amazing. the people that waited on us at every place we went were all so kind too! the waiter at the end of the night also taught us how to dance greek which was hysterical considering our coordination.
the following day we woke up and headed to the acropolis which was about a 10 minute walk from or hostel. there were a few stairs to climb- but the view and the ruins were absolutely mind-blowing. i can't believe how old they are, and how much history took place there. athens definitely exceeded my expectations at this point, even when there was still more to come.
athens from the top of the city
on top of the world jump :)
later in the afternoon we spent a ton of time down by the greek market, i bought some old greek coins, a gold cuff, and old love letters. long story, but basically there was old mail for sale and i bought some letters from the 70's...i felt like i was intruding on their sentimental words and memories, but it was special to feel like i got to see a part of their relationship and the love they shared :) i wonder where they are today...
later we made our way to zeus' temple. very cool. wildflowers everywhere. athens had so much natural beauty in such a large city, i was honestly surprised. here are temple of zeus pics:
after doing the touristy business, we headed back to the market area, and seated ourselves down at a restaurant for a while, played some cards, and drank a few beers since it was such a beautiful day outside! then commenced my most awkward moment in greece. let me just give you a heads up...greek men (in my opinion) are probably the most handsome in the world. they have light eyes, dark skin, and their faces look like they were carved by angels. oh and they are extremely charming and nice. so we're sitting at the restaurant and i'm looking at the menu and everyone orders, and i look up about to order and blush profusely and start babbling jibberish to this beautiful, greek waiter who looks at me dumbfounded. my friends had to tell him to come back later for my order because i literally could not speak english. i was actually stunned by his handsomeness. the girls laughed at me and asked me if i was okay, and i just laughed for a few minutes at myself and my disbelief. can you say awkward? lovely. anyways, we had a fun afternoon and played BS for awhile in the sun before heading to the acropolis for the sunset and then home to catch a ferry to santorini super early the following day. ah greece i love you.
maxin and relaxin
mmmm tsiziki my favorite
goodbye athens
so we woke up super early to catch the ferry to santorini- about a 7 hour trip. pretty grueling, especially because we sat outside (bad choice) and it was extremely windy and cold. we tried to make the best of it but were beyond happy when we arrived ( i still felt like i was on a boat for about a day afterwards ah!) another sidenote: colleen and i are in sororities at marquette and we realized that while we were in greece over spring break that back at marquette it was greek week! (ironic?!) greek week is like a friendly competition between all the sororities and frats on campus and there are games, competitions, "olympics" etc. so colleen and i decided to make up our own greek week events and document them via photo. although diving is not a greek week event...we made it one in greece. are we nerds? were we missing our sororities? yes to both i believe. either way, we got a kick out of it!
diving off a ferry: greek week event #3
so basically the first day we arrived in santorini we got off the ferry and were greeted by our soon to be greek father: stavros. the owner of the family run hostel we were staying at. he gave us all hugs and spoke to us in broken english and about 12 of us piled into a somewhat questionably functioning van. we arrived to the hostel and were so happy with our place- we had an ocean view, our own kitchen, and so much space and everyone was so nice! we went grocery shopping for the next couple of days, and then had a girls dinner and wine night where we actually had a few mature/grown-up conversations ha! it was super fun, and in the morning we decided to have a beach day and just relax and get some sun. it was only about a 20 minute walk to the beach and there were some awesome mini cliffs too:
sweet disposition
after laying out on the beach all day we showered up and decided to go out for my birthday! we hadn't done any celebration so it was fun to wander into town, get some dinner and meet the locals :) unfortunately i don't have any pictures from this and the one's colleen took she doesn't have right now so the description will just have to do justice. we wandered into a quiet looking bar for happy hour- had a drink talked to the beautiful greek bartender man, and then found out that they were celebrating the opening of the season for the bar and that it was the owner's birthday celebration night too...of course we needed to come back after dinner :) so we ate a lovely dinner up in a quaint little restaurant in fira, and then we made our way to this scottish bar that was apparently famous for fun nightlife in santorini. who knew that the nightlife would be so fun? the music was bumping...i almost proceeded to cry they played my favorite song (yeah 3x definitely a sign) and the girls were so nice they all bought me some birthday drinks...had to celebrate the 21st properly! after awhile, we made it back to the other bar and it wasn't so quiet anymore, it was crowded and loud- we were welcomed back, given free birthday drinks and were dancing all night long and met so many fun people. one person in particular was alan. alan's name was not alan, however he looked like alan from the hangover in every way possible. a big beard, belly, tight shirt, and was embarrassingly dancing like a fool. of course we befriended him...and his WIFE! haha they were on their honeymoon! hilarious. but we also met some nice canadian men. who were all wearing plaid. yes all of them. we left around 3 am and were walking home and then all of a sudden this cute little dog started following us. we decided to call him nacho and then asked him if he wanted to join our wolfpack. he then followed us back to our hostel! he must have really loved us...we also befriended a donkey on the side of the road. oh santorini, it was definitely a night i'll never forget!
in the morning we woke up and decided to ATV most of the island and do some real exploring. we were atving to the red beach and had a pit stop along the way: we stumbled upon an actual fairytale land.
pure bliss
the wolfpack (minus aboo taking the pic)
after our surreal moment, we kept driving towards the red beach and stumbled upon something else pretty cool- a door with windows leading down the side of the mountain to a hotel. it was soooo pretty i became obsessed. (pic below) eventually we pulled up on our atvs to the beach. when we got off, we noticed someone was waving to us. no it couldn't be. yup it was the bartender from the night before!! we were so surprised...it really was a small island i suppose. we made friendly conversation and headed down to the beach and chilled there for awhile, exploring and playing on the rocks. we took some of the sand to and put it in ouzo bottles.
red beach time
we then left the beach and ATVed our way back. a few awkward moments: 1) when colleen went down a one way street and almost got hit by a semi-truck. knowing colleen...that would happen to her. a great driver she is. 2) hanna and i were wondering why our ATV was going so slow up the mountain. it must be broken we thought...nope emergency break was on. definitely a smart moment. so we ATVed into Oia- the famously beautiful part of santorini- who am i kidding the entire island was beautiful- but this is where sisterhood of the traveling pants was famously filmed. we dinked around for awhile, and decided to watch the sunset over the ocean. we sat up on the cliff for about an hour, or course all of us laughing, and having a grand ole carefree time. we made jokes about falling to our deaths by singing "on the way down" by ryan cabrera #throwbackjamz. eventually after the sunset we made it to Candouni the famous restaurant where they filmed part of sisterhood of the traveling pants (recommended by a certain ya boy). the food was super delicious too and we were waited on by probably the most handsome man on the island *swoon* this time no awkward moments. practice makes perfect. we spent about 2 or 3 hours at dinner. probably one of my favorite parts about being abroad- not worrying about the time and not having any specific plans. after having a lovely evening we headed back home on our ATVs on the dark (with some difficulty of getting them started again since the sun had gone down and it was cold outside). we finally made it home to our warm beds, content with our daily adventures :)
dinner time
about to watch the sunset
how to describe the beauty of santorini? i love you lamia :)
the following day it was raining and cloudy but we decided to venture to the volcano on the island anyways on the big sailboat and so some exploring. so we took some donkeys down the old port stairs which was probably the most frightening thing of my life. it was rainy and hence slippery, therefore the donkeys were mis-stepping and scaring us half to death since we were hanging over the edge!!!
finally when we got on the boat we were a bit more calm and then when we got to the island, we hiked about 20 minutes to the top of the mountain and there was a beautiful view, and we had fun pretending (like freaks as usual) that we were from lord of the rings, making our way up the volcano to throw the ring into the fireeeee. after our journey (which by the way the volcano is the oldest active volcano in thew world...guay), we headed back onto the boat and then over to the "hot" springs. when i say hot i mean it was probably 50 degrees. so we jumped into the FREEZING COLD ocean to swim to the hot springs, never have i ever felt to awake and cold in my life! when we got to the hot springs it was okay, but the red consistency was a bit odd and we headed back soon after...going from semi-warm to freezing temperature was miserable! we got back on the boat and everyone looked at us like heroes...there were only a few of us courageous enough to brave the waters. we headed back to land soon after and then said our goodbyes to our friends we made in our hostel and to our greek father stavros :( another weird run-in story. we sat down at a cafe waiting for our ferry to arrive and who is right next to us? our waiter from the night before in Oia! we made small talk, and said goodbye, but seriously it was weird how small that island was. then we spent a miserable 7 hours on the ferry, although it was a little more bearable this time since we were indoors. then unfortunately we spent the night at the athens airport since our flight was extremely early in the morning it just made sense for us to stay there. it was just about time to get out of athens when i realized i booked my ticket for the wrong day-so that was fun to deal with...buying a new and costly ticket and all. it was definitely time to get out of greece and to rome after a few dramatic tears were shed!
don't die don't die don't die don't die don't die don't die
volcano with a trixi
finally when we got on the boat we were a bit more calm and then when we got to the island, we hiked about 20 minutes to the top of the mountain and there was a beautiful view, and we had fun pretending (like freaks as usual) that we were from lord of the rings, making our way up the volcano to throw the ring into the fireeeee. after our journey (which by the way the volcano is the oldest active volcano in thew world...guay), we headed back onto the boat and then over to the "hot" springs. when i say hot i mean it was probably 50 degrees. so we jumped into the FREEZING COLD ocean to swim to the hot springs, never have i ever felt to awake and cold in my life! when we got to the hot springs it was okay, but the red consistency was a bit odd and we headed back soon after...going from semi-warm to freezing temperature was miserable! we got back on the boat and everyone looked at us like heroes...there were only a few of us courageous enough to brave the waters. we headed back to land soon after and then said our goodbyes to our friends we made in our hostel and to our greek father stavros :( another weird run-in story. we sat down at a cafe waiting for our ferry to arrive and who is right next to us? our waiter from the night before in Oia! we made small talk, and said goodbye, but seriously it was weird how small that island was. then we spent a miserable 7 hours on the ferry, although it was a little more bearable this time since we were indoors. then unfortunately we spent the night at the athens airport since our flight was extremely early in the morning it just made sense for us to stay there. it was just about time to get out of athens when i realized i booked my ticket for the wrong day-so that was fun to deal with...buying a new and costly ticket and all. it was definitely time to get out of greece and to rome after a few dramatic tears were shed!
greece was definitely the best country in terms of relaxing, food, and people. i can't wait to go back someday and explore even more. who want's in?
i'll try and write my italy blog promptly. hope you enjoyed this one :)
also i have been corrected on many spelling errors in this blog i will have you all know that i am having difficulty typing and speaking english these days! ha please pardon my mishaps (KIDDING not kissing mom) :)
also i have been corrected on many spelling errors in this blog i will have you all know that i am having difficulty typing and speaking english these days! ha please pardon my mishaps (KIDDING not kissing mom) :)
your grecian girl
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