Thanksgiving in Madrid!

For Thanksgiving we decided to go to Madrid. "We" being my flatmates (Hannah, Kathy, Marti, and Clara) as well as our friends Ali, Alice, and Alison (apparently these names were popular the year we were born). We left Wednesday afternoon at about 4:50 and after a three or four hour flight, we got to Madrid at about 9. On the plane for some reason they had me down as needing a kosher meal, which everyone except the flight attendants found hilarious. It was delicious and included apple sauce, which was wonderful. It took us a while to check in, and we ended up going to bed pretty early because traveling really tires me out at least. A note about where we were staying. It was in an excellent location, very close to everything. The Plaza Mayor just a few blocks away in one direction, and the Prado not that much further in the other direction. The rooms that we stayed in though, was a shared room of 14. Staying with 10 people you don't know is an experience. They were nice for the most part (in fact we made a friend from New Zealand who was in our room!) but 14 people is a lot, and when people snore it makes it difficult for people (like me) to sleep. We got breakfast at the hostel though on the plus side!

Thursday morning we decided to go visit the Palacio Real (the Royal Palace). Unfortunately, we could not take photos inside of the palace. It was really a shame because the palace was such a cool place. Every room was distinct and exquisite. I'm sure that just the carpet in each room cost more than all four years of my college education put together. And there were quite a few rooms. The Palace was first lived in by King Carlos III, and he had a room for everything. Including the room that he would eat lunch in. Why you would waste a whole room just to be used to eat lunch in is beyond me, but that room I'm pretty sure is about the size of our apartment. After we left the Palacio Real we went to get a lunch of Churros con chocolate which is basically a huge plate full of churros and a mug of melted chocolate. We poured powered sugar on them and dipped them in the chocolate. It was delicious, but afterward, I'm pretty sure that everyone had a stomach ache. We walked around a bit after that and found this little market that sold interesting foods. It was a little overpriced, but all the food that we had there was delicious. After the market, we went to go find the soccer stadiums and see if there were any games in the next few days that we could go to. First we went to the Athletico Madrid stadium, there was a game on Saturday night, but they weren't selling tickets yet though, so we left and went to the Real Madrid stadium (Real here means Royal, not like the actual Madrid team). If anyone knows anything about Spanish soccer you would know that the Real Madrid team is the bigger team that the superstars are on. They did not have a game coming up, except the game versus Barcelona, which would not only be huge and therefore expensive, but it was also on Monday night, 2 nights after we would leave (update: Real Madrid lost 5-0). We checked out the store and some of the girls I was with were fans, so they bought stuff. We headed back to the hostel, noticing on the way that there was a flyer from TGIFridays that they were having a Thanksgiving dinner. A couple of us got really excited. When we got back to the hostel it was naptime, or for me, researching where we could have a Thanksgiving dinner. When I was looking up things, somehow I found a thread on like Yahoo Answers in which someone was criticizing people who were looking for Thanksgiving dinners in countries that are not the United States.

As a sidenote/tirade, I think that is a bit unfair. We have been out of the countries for months and are getting to that point where we are getting ready to go home, and this meal is usually spent with family. I understand kinda where they are coming from, but every once in a while one just needs a little bit of comfort, especially for a holiday that usually is steeped in family tradition, and knowing that everyone we love is together, we wanted to feel still apart of that tradition, and even though we were in Spain, we would be there for several more days, in which we would have plenty of time to eat traditional Spanish food.

Tirade over. Clara and I decided to go to find a TGIFridays to find some pumpkin pie and possibly some turkey. We had a lovely walk around Madrid on our way to find one. We wandered all over the city and got to know charming side-streets (in other words, we had no idea where we were going). We eventually found the restaurant, but there was a half hour wait, and the turkey looked kinda gross, so we asked if they could just give us some pumpkin pie to go. No go. So we headed up the street and found a KFC where we had chicken and pretended it was turkey, and some mashed potatoes. For desert, we got Ben and Jerry's ice cream. It was delicious. We went back to the hostel, watched a movie, and went to bed.

Friday morning we woke up, had breakfast, and headed to the Prado. The Prado, for all who don't know, is a huge art museum that houses several famous pieces of artwork. We saw some Goya art, including a piece that we have seen in like every class here of Kronos eating his children. It was lovely. After several wonderful hours we left and found this really good restaurant that served sandwiches for super cheap. After this delicious lunch we went to the hostel to drop off our shopping bags and look up directions to a cable-car that Kathy had heard about from a friend who is studying abroad in Madrid. We found out where it is, and we went. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived it was closed. We walked a couple blocks down to an Egyptian temple that the Egyptian government moved to Spain to thank them for something that they did once. So, there is just an Egyptian temple in the middle of Madrid. It was really cool. We could go inside of it and take pictures and touch the wall inscriptions. It was awesome. We got there around sunset, which is the time that all the guide books say to go. The sun was setting over a valley and we could see the Palacio Real and it was beautiful. We headed back to the hostel and met up with the rest of the group as we had split up because going around with 8 or 9 girls is kinda too big of a group. We went out for dinner at around 8:30, and it was lovely and a lengthy affair. By the time we got back it was getting late, so Clara and I watched Monsters Inc and fell asleep.

The next morning Clara, Kathy, and I had planned out hour for hour what we would be doing and surprisingly we stayed exactly on time and had a wonderful day. We woke up and by 10 we were at the Reina Sofia which is the biggest modern art museum in Madrid. We saw lots of Picasso and Dali. It was so cool to see some of the work that I have only seen in pictures my whole life. For example, we saw that really famous Picasso, the one that shows the Spanish Civil war and it's impacts with people cut in half, women crying, and half a cow. You would know what I'm talking about if you saw it. After we left the Reina Sofia we went to the Naval museum to meet up with the rest of the group. Mom had recommended this museum highly and so I decided to check it out, and the rest of the group decided that it sounded like the most interesting museum in Madrid. It was pretty interesting. I don't know that much about the Spanish Navy, so it was kinda difficult to understand who all the men in the paintings were, but I still really enjoyed the museum. It was very well done. We spent about an hour there in total, which still kept us exactly on our schedule. Everyone had finished at the museum by the time Kathy, Clara, and I got there, so they went to lunch. We decided that we would meet them at the Crystal Palace that is in the middle of Retiro Park, which was only a couple blocks from the museum. On the way there we passed beautiful sights such as a lake that people we paddling in. I feel this is an appropriate time to mention the weather. The weather was... colder than Athens. That isn't saying much, as Athens still gets up to 75 everyday. I am glad I brought my coat and my hat to Madrid because it was cold. It felt like fall, and going through the park, it really felt like Thanksgiving. We found the Crystal Palace was easy to find, and there wasn't much to see. It was beautiful, but there was nothing inside and it was kinda just a conservatory. So we finished with that pretty quickly and were waiting for the others and we noticed another palace looking thing not that far from the Crystal Palace, so we decided to check it out. It was an exhibition of photos that a man took of birds. It was really well done. I know it sounds like "Oh. Birds... cool." But I can't even describe what this guy did. We like somehow had two separate focuses in the photos, the bird, and usually something in the distance like mountains. Like I said, I can't even describe it. We left the exhibition, but there was still no sign of them, so we called them and they hadn't even gotten their check for their lunch, so they told us just to go on without them. We walked to a metro station and came across a bakery that we picked our lunch up at. It was good. We then took the metro to the cable-car that we couldn't get to the day before. Success this time! We bought a round trip ticket and enjoyed the view. The cable-car went over a park and you could see mountains in the distance as well as the old city of Madrid. It was really nice. There was a commentary but it was in Spanish, so we didn't pay attention. When we reached the other side we told them that we wanted a round trip, and we didn't want to get out. Kathy handed the attendant a receipt to a ham sandwich, to the hilarity of all. We went back the way we came, and this time the commentary was in English. It was super bizarre. It must have been aimed at children as it was completely in the first person. We enjoyed the ride and the commentary, and then took a metro back to the center of town to do some souvenir shopping, which we had neglected the whole trip, and as we were leaving early the next morning, we did our needed shopping, and more, and went back through the plaza Mayor and saw the Christmas village all lit up at night with Christmas lights. It was lovely. One may think that this is the end of my day. Not at all. At 8, we went to dinner at a pretty nice restaurant for Hannah's birthday. The food was really good and pretty cheap, especially because it was a Tapas, but the waiter that we had was not very nice. Moving on, the food was cheap! Hannah, Kathy, and I split 5 appetizers for dinner and we each had to pay only $7.60. That included desert as well! After we finished up dinner and figured out the bill we had yet another thing to do that evening even though by this time it was after 10. We were going to a Spanish soccer game! We went to the above stated Athletico Madrid game. They were facing Espanol. They lost. It was fun to be there though and see how seriously everyone took it. I guess it is pretty comparable to how seriously I take baseball. It was fun. I stayed warm as I had 5 long sleeved shirts, sweaters, and jackets on, as well as a hat. Everyone else by the time we left were Popsicles, but I was fine. Also, unfortunately, my camera battery died at this point so no more pictures after this point. We got back to the hostel at 12:30 and were the first people back in out 14 person room, so we finished Monster's Inc and fell asleep before anyone got back.

The next morning our plane left at 11:40. Even though we would have to leave the hostel at about 9 in order to get to the airport on time Kathy, Ali, and I decided to go to a flea market that we have heard lots of good things about that opened at 8:30 and we figured that if we left it at 9, we could still get to the airport on time. The flea market was interesting. It reminded me of the flea market that we went to last summer in Okoboji, only since this one was just opening, it was smaller, and nothing interesting had been brought out yet. It was still worth going to, because I figure that if I didn't go I would forever regret not checking it out. We went back to the hostel to gran our bags and made our way to the airport. We got to the airport at 11 and the line for security was huge. We were sweating a little bit, so after security we ran all the way to our gate as walking it would take 10 minutes. By the time we got there... they weren't even loading. Then I felt like a jerk for pushing past all those people on the moving sidewalk. Oops! We got on the plane, I got my kosher meal, and we got back to Athens just as the sun was setting. Overall, a very good trip.

Sorry this post was so long! There was just so much to write about!

Thessaloniki

A week ago, a group of students (including myself) and two awesome professors went up north to the city of Thessaloniki, which is about seven hours away by sweaty bus ride. We left early Friday morning and made it to our first site of the day of Dion. This was an epic fail. We got there at about 2:30 and the people running the site and decided to shut down at 3. They didn't let us in. So we continued on to the city. Running late. Even though we didn't visit this site. We took a walking tour of the city, and by this time it was already late. So after the tour, we just ate dinner, and went to bed. A truly eventful day.

Saturday we woke up early again. We spent the morning at the ancient city of Pella, which was the ancient capital of Macedonia, where Phillip II and his son Alexander the Great were from. The site was huge and beautiful. The current Archaeologist was there, and my professor happened to know him, so he told us all about the site. Which was really cool. After that we went to the museum. Which was very nice. After the museum we went to a couple ancient tombs. These too were very cool. It was beautiful there. With the leaves changing colors, apple orchards, and mountains in the distance. The tombs were beautiful too. Plaster was still on them, with columns. Unfortunately, we couldn't take photos, so I can't even describe it. The next place we went is disputably the site of Aristotle's school when he taught Alexander the Great. It was ridiculously beautiful there. We ran around exploring the caves that Alexander the Great at age 11 would have visited and had lessons in. How he could pay attention in such a beautiful place was beyond me, but oh well. We went out to eat "lunch" at about 3:30-4, and then we went to the hotel. Others went out to eat, but we had just eaten, so we decided to wait until like 8:30. By that time we were about to fall asleep. So we did.

Sunday we woke up early again. We had a handful of sites to see, as well as a seven hour bus ride to look forward to. Because we got in so late the night before we didn't have time to visit the Roman ruins that the city was built on then, so this morning we got to walk around the city and see the ruins of the Roman palace. Also we went to this museum that was in what was called the White Tower, it was one of the coolest museums I have ever seen. Too bad it was completely in Greek. I still had fun exploring. Next we went to the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki. It was a very well done museum, but since we had so much to do still we only got like a half hour, which was not enough time. It was still very worthwhile. We drove next to the Archaeological site of Vergina, which had several ancient tombs including the one most likely dedicated to Phillip the Second and Alexander the Great's son. Achilles's shield was there, which was very very cool, and the set up the the tombs and the museum were very cool. Basically, a huge mound of dirt, was built around the tombs, and the museum was built inside, so that it was basically a hollow hill filled with museum and tomb-y goodness. After Vergina, we ate lunch in the town around the site, and had some more gyros. Gyros were another theme of this trip. That was at least my third one of the weekend. After lunch, we still had 7 hours to drive and Thermopylae to see the memorial of the 300 Spartans and maybe make it back by 8. (Obviously we didn't make it back by 8). We got to Thermopylae at about 7, and by then it was dark, but the moon was huge and bright, so it gave the site a really cool feel about it. One of the professors talked about the site for a while, and then we got back on the bus, and made it back to Athens at about 10:30. It was a good trip.

Jeanmarie comes to visit!

This latest weekend my dear friend Jeanmarie came to visit. She got here Thursday afternoon, which is cool because I don't have class on Friday, but I do have class Thursday afternoon, so I went to go pick her up at the airport at about 1 with about 3 hours to spare until my 3:50. We found each other really quickly and we got on the metro to get back to my apartment so we could grab a bite to eat before my class. We had made it a good 10-15 minutes on the metro when Jeanmarie got a phone call from her mother, which is strange because it was like 5 am there. Someone had called Jeanmarie's home phone to alert someone that she had picked up the wrong suitcase from the airport, so we jumped off at the next stop and got back to the airport. It took a while to get through reverse security to get her bag back, and then we waited to get the next metro back into the city. We had just missed one, and the next one didn't leave for another half hour, so we waited. It was now about 2, and since it takes about an hour to get from the airport to my apartment, as well as a good 15 minutes to get from my apartment to school, I was getting a little nervous about making it to my class. I did make it back in time, but just. That night since she had spent 12 hours traveling and I was exhausted we watched Kung Fu Panda and I fell asleep.

Friday I had plans to go to the fresh fruit market, Lykkivetos hill, lunch, the acropolis, the agora, some museums, and laundry, but when we woke up it was raining. We walked up the hill past the fresh fruit market, but didn't stop. We made it to the top still relatively dry, and we could see the sea, something that it pretty spectacular as usually it is too smoggy to see anything. We could also see a huge rain cloud coming our direction, so we decided to go down. We didn't even make it half way down the first part before it started absolutely pouring. By the time we got to the bottom, even with my umbrella it looked like I had just taken a shower in my clothes. So discouraged, we decided to go to the acropolis, the agora, and do laundry on Sunday. Instead we went to a museum, talked about going to another museum, but didn't get our act together in time, and just spent the rest of the day relaxing and planning what we should do with the rest of the weekend.

We decided that on Saturday we would go to Delphi. I had already been to Delphi twice previously, but I thought it was a good representation of Greece outside of Athens, as well as being a easy place to get to and bring a beautiful place. We woke up at about 5:30, left the apartment at 6, and made it to the bus station by 7, in time to catch our 7:30 bus. We got to Delphi at 10:30 and bought our return tickets for 4, giving ourselves ample time to explore. Probably more I thought as it was cloudy and had rained on our way there. We walked through the adorable town of Delphi and I gave half of my granola bar to the gods as a votive offering for good weather. It worked. The rest of the day was beautiful. It did not get too hot or too cold, and the sun was out the whole time. I gave Jeanmarie the tour of the site, and gave her my camera as she didn't have one, and I had 2 sets of pictures from Delphi already. She went crazy and took like 250 in the time we were there. We ended up just sitting on top of the theater for like 30 minutes just people watching and enjoying the view. We got to know an absolutely adorable kitten that followed us from the bottom of the theater up to the stadium. I tried feeding it half of my other granola bar, but it wouldn't eat anything. After we finished with the upper part of the site, we went down to the gymnasium and temple to Athena. I did not fall and scrape up my hand this time which was good. After that we went to the museum and took our time. Then we went to lunch, recommended by Rick Steves, at this beautiful restaurant on top of the town overlooking the valley. The food wasn't half bad either (in fact it too was wonderful). We looked into a couple tourist shops and realized how fast the time had flown by, as it was already a quarter to 4. We walked back to the bus stop, got on the bus and made our way back to Athens. I fell asleep on the bus. When we got back Jeanmarie, Hannah, and I went to Crepa-Crepa and ate delicious Crepes. Then we got back to the apartment and I fell asleep.

Sunday we had lots to do before about 3:30, which is when Jeanmarie had to leave for the airport. We looked around for a laundromat, but apearently everyone in Greece has their own washers and dryer, because there are no laundromats in all of Athens, except like 2 that were closed for the elections. We went over to the Acropolis museum before lunch, and explored. It was a pretty cool museum. I hadn't been there before, and it was cool to see. Then we walked over to the Acropolis. It was closed for the elections too. So we sat on the hill next to it and looked at it. Then we decided to find somewhere for lunch, and just got some pies at a shop near the acropolis metro stop. Then we went tourist shopping. We both bought lots of slippers. After we had spent entirely too much money on slippers, we went to get another type of shoe, some sandals by the Poet for Jeanmarie. In case I haven't explained the Poet before, he is now an 80 year old man who had been making sandals his entire life and sold shoes to people like John Lennon and Jackie O and Becca LaFoy and Jeanmarie Youngblood, also he writes poetry and gives some of his work to everyone who buys sandals from him. He is now retired, and now his son is in charge, and a young man who is probably his son. After Jeanmarie got sandals fit to her feet, we walked back to the apartment, Jeanmarie realized that she had bought way too much and had to repack everything. I saw her off at the metro station at about 4:15.

Rome

Sorry for the several days delay. I had to study for a Greek test for approximately 100 hours and I'm still pretty sure I failed. Along with the rest of the class. We can't all fail though can we?

Anyways. Rome. Rome was great. There is really no other word for it. It was absolutely amazing.

I left on Monday afternoon and got into Rome at about sunset. I took a bus from the airport to the center of town, and walked to where we stayed. I ran into Papa who was outside to meet me. It was sooo nice to see him again. I really miss everyone. After I dropped all of my stuff off and I showed him my pictures of the Peloponnese and he showed me some pictures of home and many more from his earlier trip to Florence. We went to dinner at a restaurant that was a block or so from where we were and I got a delicious calzone with ham, mozzerella, and ricotta. It was sooo good. We went back to the room, and I fell asleep (again you will find that this is a theme for this trip as well.)

The first real day in Rome we woke up ate cold pizza for breakfast, and went to the Colosseum. The line to get into the Colosseum was very long, but once we got in, it was amazing. It is hard to imagine Gladiator battles in there, along with like mock sea battles, and fighting lions, and so much else. Now it easy to see how many people could have been in the audience. Why you would want to be in the audience of a Gladiator battle is beyond me, but times have changed. After the Colosseum we went to the neighboring Roman Forum, where Romans used to meet to talk and gossip and make huge decisions. Whatever. We saw the grave of Julius Ceaser, and learned that people still put flowers on his grave. Thank you Rick Steves. After seeing the extensive forum we wandered over Palatine hill, which had palaces and a huge stadium. After wandering around here for a while we realized that it was already 4, we hadn't had lunch, we still wanted to visit the Pantheon and the Trevi fountain, and we were going to meet my roommates for dinner at 7. So we left and wandered over to the Pantheon and grabbed a sandwich on the way. The Pantheon is also very cool. It is amazing that it is like 200o years old and still in the amazing shape that it is in. The Trevi fountain is also very cool, but there were lots of people trying to throw in coins and taking pictures. We headed back to drop off some things and grab some other things, and found my roommates hostel, Clara and her parents were there already. We went to this very good little family restaurant, and it was really nice to see everyone and I think Papa appreciated meeting them. We headed back to our room and fell asleep.

The next day, we got to see the Pope!!! We got to the Vatican to like 10:15 for a 10:30 general assembly that the Pope was going to show his face at. Yeah. He was late. Also, he drove by in his Popemobile like 15 feet away from me. No big deal. After that, we found out that St. Peter's doesn't open until like 1 on days that the Pope was going to be there. So we went to this awesome museum by the Forum instead. It was a very cool museum. It had so much stuff. It was great. After that we went back to St. Peter, and looked at the seemingly never ending line and got in it. It circled almost all the way around the square, but it actually didn't take that long. And before we knew it we were in the church. It was pretty cool. There were lots of tourists there. After we went on our Rick Steves audio tour, we went to the top of the dome. That was fun. And once we got there we had an amazing view of the city. We then went to dinner, and then got deserts with my roommates Brynn and Pat. Then I fell asleep.

Thursday we went to Naples to see Pompeii and Herculaneum. We left at 8 in the morning to catch a 8:27 train to Naples. The trip was long. Once we finally got to Naples (which is a very ugly city) we took a (gross old smelly) train to Pompeii. Pompeii is huge. You could spend all day there and still not even be half way through the site. Papa and I, however, and bought a joint ticket with Herculaneum, so we were forced to leave Pompeii and get back on the (gross smelly old) train. Once we got to Herculaneum, it was suddenly worth it. It is comparable to Pompeii, in that it is extremely well preserved, but Herculaneum is smaller, less touristy, and has even more preserved than Pompeii. You could see the upper stories here, whereas in Pompeii, most of the upper stories had been destroyed in the Volcano. It was cool to see all the wall-paintings and mosaics that were still at these places. After a while there, it was getting late, so we got some gelato and got on the (gross old smelly) train, back to the train station, back onto another train like 3 and a half hours later (it was an even longer trip back) we got back. We ate some pizza and fell asleep (told you it would become a theme).

The next day we had another early day. We woke up and went to the Borgeses galleries, where we spent a good couple hours. It was a cool museum. They didn't let people take pictures. By the time we left, it was lunch time, so we went to the Spanish steps and ate a sandwich. After that we made our way back to where we were staying. We then got some gelato. I sat in gum. One of my three pairs of pants that I brought to Greece were basically out of commission. Great. At 7 we had reservations at the Vatican museum, so we waved to everyone who was waiting in line, and went inside. The Vatican museum is a very cool museum. I know they got everything from basically killing their original owners, just plain stealing, or buying them on the black market with money that should have been spent on poor people, but the Vatican museum was a very cool museum. They did a very good job with it. We ate dinner, and we went back and I fell asleep.

The last day we began with a trip to Ostica Antiqua, which was the port of ancient Rome. It was comparable to Pompeii and Herculaneum, but in some ways it was even better preserved or reconstructed. You could walk up several flights of stairs in an apartment building, but it was not very touristy. It was very cool. I could have spent all day there, but we wanted to get to a museum that was near where we were staying. So left not completely finished with the site, but then we went to that museum. I like museums. It was a decent museum. Then we went another place, but I don't really remember because I was so exhausted from the earlier part of the trip.

The next morning we woke up at like 5 to catch our planes. I had a terrible headache and was super cranky. I caught my plane and made it back to good old Athens. It was a very good week.

Peloponnese

Dear readers,

I apologize profusely for not posting for like a month. The reason for this is because, literally, nothing happened. Well, not literally, figuratively, and then I went to the Peloponnese and Rome (which will be in the next blog). Seriously all I did was study for midterms and write papers for a good two weeks though. Except, the night we left for the Peloponnese I went to someones birthday party at Applebee's.

After those two awful weeks were over, we went on a school field trip to the Peloponnese. We left the morning of Tuesday October 19th. The first thing we did was make a stop at the Isthmus at Corinth and took pictures of the canal that they have been trying to make since the Hellenistic period and just finished in like the 80's. That was pretty cool. But also kinda lame. The next place we went was to Ancient Corinth and the museum there. Out of all the ruins that we saw, it was pretty typical, but had a great view of the sea and Acrocorinth, which was our next stop! Acrocorinth was the ancient acropolis on a mountain behind Corinth. We had a picnic lunch with a sweeping view of Corinth, fields, the sea, and the mountains. It was absolutely stunning from up there. I could have spent at least another hour there, but we had to get to our hotel in Nauplion. Lastly, before we got to our hotel, we went to Epidaurus which was a temple to a man who was a doctor in life and after he died Apollo claimed him as his son, so he was deified. This site was fantastic and had an amazing theater, where one could drop a penny on the stage and it could be heard from the last row. We tried it. We had a walking tour of the old city, and they showed us a "world famous gelato place," which was decent (after Rome all gelato places are just decent).

On Wednesday we left early for Mycenae. This was the center for the Mycenaean period a couple thousand years ago. It was a huge city between two large hills/mountains. There are a couple very famous parts of Mycenae, including "Grave Circle B," and the lion gate. Also, there were huge Tholos tombs, which you can see how huge they are from this picture. After Mycenae we went to a smaller Mycenaean city of Tiryns. This is another site that was just typical. After Tiryns we went to the fortress of Palamidi above the city of Nauplion. This was the site of huge battles and Nauplion was almost the capital of Greece because of its importance. We got done early and spent the rest of the day exploring the city some more.

Thursday was a day that I had already lived through earlier this summer. We returned to Mystra and Sparta. I already knew a lot more about Mystra before I came this time, and so it was much more impressive, knowing that the last emperor of the Byzantine empire was crowned at that very place, and that it was the third largest city in Byzantium after Constantinople and Thessaloniki, which is incredible. After that we had a couple hours before they brought us to ancient Sparta, where everyone was extremely disappointed. I had dinner and went to bed.

We did a lot of driving on Friday and drove several hours to have a picnic lunch outside of the city Messene. This was a huge Roman era city with a wonderful stadium I really liked this site. It was a beautiful day, and a beautiful location, so maybe that influenced my liking of this city. Then we drove for a couple more hours and made it to the castle of Methone, which was right on the sea and we were there just as the sun was setting and it was just lovely. It was a very good day, but not much happened because we were driving a lot.

Saturday morning we work up early, and because we got into the city of Pylos that we stayed at so late they gave us a small talk about the city, which usually comes in the evening, so they can show us the site, but we were all tired after the previous day. This city and the bay that it lies on was the site of a couple decisive battles in different time periods, Sphacteria in the Roman period, and Navarino in one of the World Wars. After the short talk we got on the bus and drove to an early Mycenaean palace called the Palace of Nestor. The one thing I really remember about the site was not the actual site (it was forgettable) but the smell and the air. I don't know if it was because they were harvesting olives, or what, but the air up there was so fresh and clean it made me feel really good. The second stop we made was at Olympia, a site where I had been earlier this summer, but having a guide like my professor who knows so much about all the sites really made it interesting, and I feel like I know so much more about the site now than when I did this summer. After this we drove until like 9 in the evening to get to Delphi, where we met up with a couple other buses from our program and had dinner with some friends. Then I fell asleep. I was exhausted, can you really blame me?

Sunday we got to sleep in a while because our professors felt bad that we had the longest bus ride ever the day before, and then we went to Delphi. I also went here this summer but again this time it was much more interesting with a professor who knows what they are talking about. And no family, we did not have any people in our group ask if the earthquakes happened in like 300 BCE or AD. Also of note is that the stadium that we walked up to this summer was blocked off because of a rock fall. If you have been there, you know that something like that is probably inevitable. We went to the museum, and then left for lunch in the next city over called Arachova. We ate at a restaurant that had a picture of the Beatles with the owner. That was cool. The food was good too. We then headed back to Athens. In the morning I went to Rome. Which is a whole other blog post.

Love,
Becca

Mount Olympus

This last weekend the Jens and I had previously signed up to climb up Mount Olympus. We left early Saturday morning and got back at like midnight Sunday night. It was an amazing trip. We didn't have anything to do on Friday though.

A quick note on Friday. We got sandals by this really famous sandal maker. He has sold sandals to people like John Lennon, Kate Moss, Jackie O., and Lily Tomlin. So we had to go there and get sandals from him. Lots of people from our program had already gone, and they were not expensive, and handmade. So, on Friday afternoon we walked over to Monstraki and found his little shop. It was covered in many different sandals and funky art. We got to try on different styles named after famous people who had bought the same pair. I tried on the John Lennon, but didn't end up getting them. I did get a pair though that wasn't named after anyone famous, but I am quite happy with my purchase. Once you bought them they fit them to your feet too, so they fit extremely well. That was my Friday.

We left for Mount Olympus, like I said early Saturday morning and we were prepared for what we were told a "5 hour bus ride." Yeah. It was closer to 7 hours. I ran out of reading material pretty quickly. Anyways, we got to where the bus dropped us off and began our "3 hour hike" (closer to 4 hours, but maybe that had to do with the fact that every 5 minutes or so we all stopped to take pictures, because it was sooooo beautiful). It rained on us for like 10 minutes when we happened to be stopped for a break, but otherwise the weather was fine. It was a little chilly, but it warmed up once we were walking, and we didn't see the sun until we were out from under the cloud cover. We got to the "Refuge" where we would be spending the night like a half hour before it got dark, and there we had a delicious warm dinner and some hot chocolate. The room where we stayed was basically 2 walls cover in a very, very wide bunk bed. We fit 5 people on our bunk, meant for 4 people. It was freezing cold at the refuge because it was such a high elevation and the Jens and I covered our selves with 7 blankets and fell asleep by 10.

Sunday morning we woke up at about 7:50 and we had to be out of our little rooms by 8, so we hurried up and got ready and then ate a nice long breakfast as we weren't going to leave for the summit until 9. We left at about 9:20. One thing about Greeks is that they have a different sense of time than we Americans do. When we say we will leave at 9, we mean like 9-9:05, the Greeks mean at least 1.6 times that amount (we calculated that based on the fact that Nadia told us it would take us 10 minutes to get to school from our apartment, but in reality it makes us 16 minutes if we catch every crosswalk, and we walk really fast). Anyways, we left and walked up the very steep, very rocky, treeless path for about an hour and a half and stopped at the "summit" at a very beautiful place, which wasn't exactly the top of any mountain, but I think our guides could tell that we were struggling with the lack of oxygen, and lack of food, and lack of sleep, as well as poor Jen G. having a terrible cold. So we stopped and us really dorky people gave offerings to the gods in the forms of half a granola bar, and some bread. They obviously accepted our offerings because the sun came out and the wind stopped almost as soon as we had dropped our food on the mountain. We hung out up there for a while taking pictures and such, until we started getting super cold. So our guides took pity on us again and we walked back to the refuge to get lunch. We were going to have a half hour break for lunch (1 hour) and then we headed back down the mountain to our bus. We got down to the bottom of the mountain at about 4, and our guides showed us a mountain runoff stream and little lake. Some crazy kinds (myself included) decided that a mountain runoff stream would be a great place to go swimming. It kinda felt like jumping in the lake on Easter. Very cold. But at least we didn't have to wade out that far to go under, unlike dear old WBL, as the little lake got deep pretty fast. We then got on the bus and headed home. After a couple short breaks we got home at about midnight, and I fell asleep almost immediately.

Sounion

On Sunday was Clara's birthday! To celebrate we went to what is supposedly the most romantic place on earth, Sounion, which is 2 hours away by bus.

We woke up and rushed to find the bus stop which was near Syntagma square, which is 10 minutes away from our apartment. We couldn't find the stop, and we thought that it would be there every hour on the half hour, so we were running around. We eventually found the stop like 5 minutes after we thought the bus would get there, but there were people there, so we hadn't missed it. It came like 10 minutes later. Apparently, it leaves it's original stop at every hour on the half hour so we rushed there for no reason. We got on the bus and it took us along a beautiful route along the sea. A couple hours later it dropped us off at Sounion, which is a Greek temple to Poseidon. It was stunning. It was on a peninsula of sorts overlooking the sea on 3 sides, and on the fourth side there was a stunning view of some mountains. We wandered around the site for a while and then decided it was time to go swimming, so we walked down the mountain and stopped at a beach where we spent the next hour or so. We then walked back up the mountain and ate at a cafe there and waited for the bus to take us home.

It wasn't a very exciting day, but it was beautiful. I also don't know if I would classify it as the most romantic place on earth. We didn't stay for the sunset though because we all had homework that we still had to do, and supposedly that is what really makes it romantic.

KPHTH or, in English, Crete!

Sorry I haven't posted in several days. I have been completely off the grid in Crete. Well, not completely off the grid, just without a computer and therefore my blog. Crete was absolutely amazing, as my family knows. The ferry rides there and back are not so amazing (however the ride is much less painful when you have cabins and sleep the whole way there and back). Here is a picture of said cabin with my lovely Vanna's Jen and Pink who shared the cabin with me as we all have last names close to each other.

Once we got to Crete on Tuesday, we got on the bus with our preassigned groups and our group left for Malia, which is a ruin of a Minoan palace from thousands of years ago. Now it is kinda a ruin, but you can still wander and get lost in the surrounding town ruins. The next place we went was Gournia, which was also a ruin of an ancient palace from the Minoan period. Good thing I have been learning about the Minoan period for about a month straight, so I know plenty. We adventured around here for a while. Here is a picture of Jennifer adventuring. After that I found where I want to work when I grow up. It is an American archaeological center where they clean and put together pottery and it has an amazing view of mountains and the Aegean. After that we stopped for lunch on this beautiful seaside town. After lunch we drove to our hotel in Agios Nikolaos went swimming in the ocean, then went out for dinner. All in all a good day.

Wednesday was a very good day. We had to wake up super early, like 6:30 (gasp!) but we ate breakfast in our hotel which had a view of the sea and we saw the sun come up and the breakfast was amazing. A wonderful beginning to a wonderful day. We got on the bus at 8 and stopped at this Byzantine church which was beautiful, but after Turkey, nothing really compares, we got back on the bus and drove to our next stop, which was this absolutely amazing ruined city called Lato. The city was between two mountains and you could see the sea in the distance, and the mountains in the other direction. There was no bad view from anywhere. I really liked this place. Here is another picture of Jennifer adventuring up our first mountain of the day.

After Lato we sat in the bus for a while then got to out next site which is Psychro Cave. Remember my last post about climbing up all the stairs last weekend? Yeah. That was nothing compared to what we had to climb to get up this mountain. Once we got up to the cave, we had to go down stairs to get into the cave, and then back up more stairs to get out of the cave. There wasn't really anything in the cave. After some of the caves that I have been in in my life, this one really doesn't compare. It was beautiful, but after climbing a mountain to get there I was expecting more. Here is a picture of the cave. I still had a wonderful time here. After we got down from the cave we stopped for lunch in the touristy area that was at the bottom of the stairs to get there. Lunch was delicious. Then we got back on the bus for a couple hours and got to our hotel in Heraklion. After we got settled our professor (who was leading our group) showed us around the old town of Heraklion. We wandered around for a while and then got a delicious dinner of Crapes. After dinner I ran into a couple of my roommates who I had been separated from for days and we had a lovely reunion watching Ghost Whisperer in their room.

The next morning, Thursday, was the day that I had been waiting for. We were going to go to Knossos! Finally! (Hey, Parents remember when you wouldn't take me there?) It was huge and there was so much to see! Unfortunately, there was a ridiculous number of tourists who had the same idea, and they took over. You may say "Becca! You are a tourist, in a group from a bus. What makes you different from all those tourists from buses?" To that I would have to reply that I am not a tourist, I am a traveler with lots of prior knowledge to this exact site, and therefore would get more out of the experience. There were entirely too many tourists there to fully enjoy myself or take loads of beautiful pictures. You will have to imagine from this photo. It was beautiful, and restored quite nicely to give a good idea of how it once may have looked which was really a cool thing to see. After spending 3 hours at Knossos, we left for lunch. The random little town that we stopped at for lunch was known for producing pottery, so after lunch we wandered around, watched some masters at work, and we found this awesome shop where everything was super cheap. I bought a tea cup, a vase, and a turtle, all of really good quality for less than 10 euro. It was amazing. After we loaded back on the bus we stopped at a monastery that was known for its history in the 1866 war on Crete. The monks and people from the surrounding areas all holed up inside of the monastery and then, once the opposing side threatened to finish them off they set all the powder from canons off killing all the people inside as well as much of the opposing side, which was really interesting. That said, the monastery was really beautiful and still inhabited. After the monastery we went to our final hotel in Chania, which made me kinda homesick, as we had spent time there this summer. We met with all the other kids in the program and their professors and the professors let us know that we weren't going on a 15 km hike that we had planned on going on the next day. Instead we had a tour of the city at 11, and then free time until 9. After that we all went out to dinner on the harbor. I ate some octopus for the first time, which is surprisingly good. After that we watched some more Ghost Whisperer and then I went to bed.

The next morning I woke up and ate breakfast at a decent hour (not before 9!) and met at 11 for our tour. Our first stop on our tour was at this fascinating Synagogue in the old city where the curator told us the history of it, which is extremely interesting but long, so I won't post it. He went on for a very long time and although it was extremely interesting I was not very comfortable on the wooden bench. After like an hour, we left and our professor showed us some smaller sites, bought us coffee (and orange juice for me), and let us run loose. I spent the rest of the day with Clara and Jennifer shopping. We stopped at the delicious gelato shop that we stopped at last time we were in Chania, and generally did an excellent time of wasting time, including spending too much money and eating a hot dog. At 9, we went back to the hotel, got on a bus and got on the boat at about 10:30. We got another cabin and I went straight to sleep and slept until 6 when we arrived back in Athens.

You may think that that is the end of this extremely long post, but you are mistaken. When we got off the boat at 6 it was POURING RAIN. Walking to the bus from the boat, I got soaked. And of course when I left Crete it was beautiful out so I had packed my raincoat and umbrella and raincoat way on the bottom. They then proceeded to drop everyone off at the school. which is great for everyone who lives in that neighborhood, but they must have forgotten the smaller number of us who had to walk 20 minutes uphill in the pouring rain to get home. Luckily it wasn't raining that hard when we got off the bus so we decided just to walk because no taxis were stopping and there was quite a line of people hoping to get a taxi. I really wish they would have thought that one ahead and provided like one bus to go to our neighborhood so we wouldn't have had to walk in the rain at 7 in the morning when there are approximately no taxis picking anyone up. Mr. Stevens my band instructor in high school always used to tell us that it is always the last note that people remember when they remember a song, and I think this could be applicable here as it kinda ruined the trip, just as a bad last note would ruin a good song. I still had a great time. Don't worry.

Markets and Mountain Climbing

This weekend, we decided not to go anywhere to save a little money, and as we are going on a class trip Monday night to Crete, we figured we didn't have to visit anywhere really cool. It was kinda a quiet weekend, but it for sure had it's highlights.

Since we don't have class on Fridays a couple of my roommates and I went to the Fresh Fruit market to pick up lots of fruit for this coming week and snacks for Crete. It was really nice and cheap. We got lots of fruit and it should last us for a while. The fruit here is generally delicious especially the watermelons and the grapes, so we got plenty of both, as well as apples, nectarines, and peaches. We also got carrots, tomatoes, peppers, and snap peas to cook with dinner. For dinner we made a delicious stir-fry that had some fresh garlic as well as peppers, shrimp, and peas. That night instead of going out, I walked 15 minutes to Crepa-Crepa which has the most delicious crapes, and I foresee most of my money disappearing there this semester. It is totally worth it though. So delicious. I got a nutella, caramel, graham cracker crape that night. Sooo good. I want another one right now.

Saturday we decided that we would climb up a large hill behind us. It was like 90 degrees and about 10,000 stairs with no shade and very little wind. All in all, very hot, but once we got to the top we could look down on the entire city (as this hill is conveniently close to the center of the city), and had a spectacular view of the Parthenon. It took surprisingly little time to get to the top, as our apartment is already part way up the hill, and then we had most of the afternoon to waste, so we went to a department-type store and bought nail polish, went back to the apartment, invited some friends over and had a girly afternoon painting our toenails, and watching Clueless. For dinner we baked a chicken with all the spices in our kitchen, some juice, carrots, and more peas. It was sooo good, but we had a lot left over (we actually mostly finished it for lunch today). That is something we will for sure try again.

After dinner for desert we took a couple people who have never had Crepa-Crepa and showed them what they were missing in their lives. It was the second journey for a couple people in 24 hours, and for a couple others for the weekend, and the first for a couple other people. I want to go back again right now, but three times in the same weekend would be a bad idea, but oh so delicious. After Crepa-Crepa, we went back to the apartment, I skyped Jeanmarie (that reminds me! Everyone needs to become a follower of my blog!) and my roommates, a couple neighbors, and I watched Saved! and went to bed.

This morning we decided to go to the Athens Flea Market, which is about 2 kilometers away. After walking that far, in the morning, it was kinda a disappointment. It seemed that everything was overpriced junk. Not exactly worth it. Whatever, where we were had a good view of the Parthenon, and had lots of random Byzantine churches. Not that I could tell you anything about the Byzantines. Maybe that is my cue to get some work done this weekend.

My next post will in either in or after Crete! (Unless something really exciting happens, like a riot.)

I have a feeling I'm not in Minnesota anymore....

Since coming back from Mykonos, my life has been very quiet. I have gone to class, I have come home from class. I have done work, I have gone to bed, and the cycle continued. Except for a brief interlude yesterday when I went to Heinrich Schliemann's house for a field trip yesterday! I have such a love/hate relationship with him. As in I love to hate him. Here are a couple pictures of his house! Isn't it pretty?

Today however, I decided that I needed to do laundry to add a little spice in my life, as well as a clean towel and clothes. By the time my last class had ended though I wasn't done and decided to throw my stuff in the dryer and hang out at the Academic Center for my clothes to be dry, while going over there though, I noticed a larger number of people in front of the Olympic Stadium than there usually are, I assumed that there were lots of tourists or something, so I went in and started drying my clothes and then I sat on the top floor of the Academic Center which has a great view of the Parthenon, and the Olympic Stadium. Someone mentioned that there was a soccer game tonight Croatia vs. Greece and for some reason the Croatian soccer fans decided to meet in front of the Olympic Stadium. Only they were all quite drunk, and soon the police were called in. And then the riot police. I could feel the tension rising, so I went out on the balcony and watched what was happening. At first, not much. And then, as more and more soccer fans came, it slowly went out of control, and the police were forced to use smoke bombs, and there were people throwing chairs and beer bottles, and a lucky few people got arrested. Luckily I had decided to throw my camera into my bag before I left for my afternoon classes, and so I was able to snap a couple pictures. Feast your eyes on these beauties! Yeah. I'm for sure not in Minnesota anymore.

Mykenos!

Last night at like 2 in the morning I returned from my weekend trip to Mykenos, which is an island several hours away from Athens by ferry. My roommates, Ali, Alice, and Jen (all of whom live in the apartment building next to ours) all shared an apartment meant for 6 people, and all of us except for Jen left at 6 in the morning on Friday to get there as there are no classes on Friday (Jen had to have an appointment to get her visa extension), and so we got there at like one in the afternoon with the rest of the day to do whatever we felt like doing. The island was absolutely beautiful with super picturesque white houses and dark mountains. We ended up going to the beach, which was like 100 meters from the place we were staying, and we spent all afternoon there reading and doing homework. At about 5 o'clock Jen arrived, and we made dinner, and ate it out on our porch with a fantastic view of the mountains and goats. After dinner most of the girls napped, or went to get a coffee. After a while the rest of the girls started getting ready to go out for the evening. I was exhausted so instead of going out I watched the Bourne Identity (the final scene of which was totally filmed on Mykenos!!) and feel asleep at like midnight. I slept in until like 11 with the rest of the girls who had been out later. One thing about Greece is that the hours of everything are completely different than hours in the United States. If you are going out late in the United States, you get there at like 11. Here nothing gets started until well after 2, and you are early for dinner if you get there before 9.

That morning Hannah, Clara, and I went out to the downtown area to see the area and go shopping for souvenirs. It is the cutest downtown I have ever seen in my life. All the houses were white, and the roofs were all blue, the streets were too narrow for even a moped to get through, and you could get lost in all the beautiful winding alleys. I bought some postcards, and a dress. We got back in the afternoon and went back down to the beach to do some more reading. I sat in the shade but still managed to get some sun. I had promised the night before that I would go out that night, so I put on my new dress and we went downtown to get dinner and wait for the nightlife to get started. I ate a delicious crape, and then we went to a club that was free (and kinda sketchy) and we spent the night dancing and having a good time. We got back at about 3, jumped in the Aegean and went to bed.

The next day we had to check out at noon, so we were all up by 10:30 packing up and deciding what we wanted to do. One of the other girls and I really wanted to go to the Archaeological Museum (does that surprise anyone out there?) but it closed early so we wanted to get there soon, but we didn't want to spend the money to get an extra taxi, so we left our bags at home for people to bring later, and we went back downtown and spent the whole day there as our ferry wasn't supposed to leave until like 7:30, so we wandered around the streets, ate lunch on the sea, wrote out postcards, and at like 6, we walked to the ferry. It decided to start raining right as we started out. And lets be frank, the ferry wasn't exactly close. So we bought a warm scarf and walked though the drizzle. We got on the ferry a little late, and we got back to Athens. Overall a very nice vacation with equal amounts of sightseeing, relaxing, and dancing.