Pesach Break Part 2- Greece

Thursday April 9

• in trying to get a cheap flight to Greece for vacation, I ended up booking a flight that had a layover in Riga, LATVIA! (not really realizing how far out of the way that was) so I now have a stamp in my passport saying I went to Latvia!
• arrived in Greece...for some reason without getting a stamp in my passport :( and met up with my friends who were already in Greece
• grabbed an evening ferry to the island of Santorini where we were picked up by the people who ran the hostel we were staying in called Manos Villas, which was very nice (the pickup service and the hostel)

Friday April 10

• after getting a recommendation from Ali about seeing a volcano, and hearing from other people too, we decided to wanted to check out this volcano on a small island off of Santorini called Nea Kameni. In order to get to it, we had to catch a bus from our hostel, take a cable car down to the port, and then hop on a boat going to the island! All very exciting though!
• We were guided around the volcano by the tourguide of the group, and got to hear about how it's still an active volcano and for only something like 1 million US dollars, you can actually buy this volcano!
• After wandering around the volcano for awhile, we hopped back on the boat so they could take us nearby to some hot springs, where we could get out and swim around if we wanted, which of course some of our group wanted to do. We jumped into the Aegean Sea (which was freeeeeezing) and swam to the hot springs, but because it was only April, the hot springs weren't actually hot, but it was still fun.
• that night we went to a late dinner and then out on the town to check out the scene, and it was very touristy was still fun

Saturday April 11

• rented 2 ATVs to share among the 4 of us because we were told it was the best way to get around the island to see all the things we wanted to see
• drove to a black sand beach called Kamari beach and then drove to another beach (with white sand) called Perissa...sadly we ran out of time to see the red sand beach
• grabbed an afternoon ferry to Crete. It was rough seas but we made it pretty quickly because we took a ferry that was a hi-speed Cat.
• arrived at the main port of Crete called Iraklio but we were staying in a city called Rethymno, so we took a bus over there which was 1.5 hrs away and checked into our very crappy but very cheap youth hostel

Sunday April 12

• took a bus back to Iraklio in order to go see this ancient palace called Knossos which was built by the Minoans, where we met up with 2 of our other friends from Israel...we saw lots of ancient ruins, but because so many of the ruins were falling apart so badly, the guy who did lots of the excavations of the site built replicas in its place, so much of what we were seeing were replicas of what he thought the palace used to look like
• then we decided to go see the CretAquarium, which pales in comparison to the New England Aquarium in Boston, but it was still fun to see all the underwater animals

Monday April 13

• the plan for the day was the beach, but the wind was killer, so we decided to visit the Fortezza in Rethymno which was built by the Venetians relatively recently (in the 1500s) to protect against the Turkish threat
• met up with our 2 friends again in Iraklio where we went to the Archaeological Museum, but didn't stay there long because it was terrible and small. It's under many renovations and they are very strict, unlike many museums in the US, about visitors being inside, so it wasn't really pleasant to stay there
• hopped on a 9 pm ferry back to Athens

Tuesday April 14

• grabbed a 730 am ferry back out to Mykonos (I know, going back to Athens was out of the way, but it saved us some money)...and at this point in time, it was now my friend Larissa and I traveling together because our other 2 friends traveled to London for the remainder of the trip
• arrived on Mykonos around 130 pm and was picked up by the place we were staying with (we were staying in a little studio called Studio Eleni, a little 3 person room with only the 2 of us, on a roof, very nice and quaint and relaxing)
• Larissa and I wandered around the city of Chora, where we were staying, for the afternoon and then called it an early night since we were exhausted from not sleeping on the ferries

Wednesday April 15

• went to a small island right off the coast of Mykonos called Delos, where basically the whole island is an archaelogical site/ruins of a city and walked all over the island and up the mountain on the island until the early afternoon
• after cleaning up, Larissa and I went to a local bar on the water in the city/area called Alefkandra to watch the legendary sunset on Mykonos, which was absolutely beautiful and then spent the night dancing away at the clubs together

Thursday April 16

• sat in the sun on the rooftop of our studio since we were leaving relatively early to head back to Athen, leaving on the day that supposedly 10,000 people were arriving to Mykonos
• arrived in the evening to Athens where we checked into a wonderful hostel called Easy Access. It wasn't located in the best part of town, but it was a great hostel otherwise. We met some people in the lounge who showed us to a great place to get gyros right around the corner, and since I finally could eat bread and break Pesach, I was super excited to have my first gyro!
• later that night we met other people, and went out with them to this area called Psiri, which is always cool to learn about other people's stories (we hung out with one of our roommates, a girl from Scotland)

Friday April 17

• One of my favorite days of vacation began with a cheese/cracker lunch in Syntagma Square in Athens, near the Parliament building. Today, if any of you know what the Freedom Trail of Boston is, Larissa and I did the same type of walking trail around Athens. We had a great walking Athens in 1 day book that took us all over the city to see the sites.
• We watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which happens on the hour every hour. It's a very ornate process, but very cool to watch
• Then we walked through the National Gardens, which are very beautiful and made me miss my mom, as she really loves botanical gardens
• We passed by the Panathenaic Stadium, which is built of white marble and used to hold some of the athletic portions of the Olympic Games in ancient times, and in the 2004 Athens games, held the archery competition
• Next we walked through the small streets of an area called Plaka, which is very cute and full of little shops and cafes
• Continuing on, we walked through parts of the ancient agora and saw the Roman Agora and Library of Hadrian
• After that we continued our walking tour by the Temple of Olympian Zeus (well the ruins of it) and by Hadrian's Arch/Gate, which was pretty cool, but it looked out of place standing next to telephone poles
• Finally, we got to the the Acropolis! We saw lots of ancient Greek buildings such as the Dionysos Ancient Theater (which wasn't on the top of the Acropolis but on the slope of it). On the top we saw: the Propylaea which is a gateway to the rest of the buildings, the Temple of Athena Nike, the Parthenon (and from this spot you could also see the St. Georges Church on the Lycavittos hill and the Fetchigie Mosque)...sorry I'm throwing out all these names, I just jotted them down as we went, and you'll see the pictures of them in my slideshow
• Went back to Plaka for dinner and this is where I had my ill-fated accident with my camera and accidentally lost ALL my pictures (and for those of you who missed out on my hysterical email, I did eventually get most of them back, but some I lost to file corruption)
• For our last night in Greece, we met a group of kids from Wake Forrest who were on their break from studying abroad as well, who pulled us into their group and we all went to this really cool ice bar. You couldn't stay in the bar long because it was so cold (they gave us parkas and gloves to wear inside) but then came out and just danced to the great music that was playing. It was really fun to be able to sit on couchs completely made of ice!!

Saturday April 18

• trying to kill some time before going to the airport, Larissa and I went to the big archaelogical museum, where many of the actual statues and paintings of the sites we had been seeing (and seeing the replicas) were.
• also checked out Monastiraki Square, which is a big public area and on Saturdays I guess, they sell lots of cheese!
• finally checked out and went to the airport for a very long trip home (through Latvia again)

And that, folks, is my trip to Greece in a quick nutshell... I know, it doesn't seem like a short blog to you, but let me tell you, I cut out details so as to fit it all here. Here are some other observations I made while traveling abroad:

• Traveling in Europe, or at least on the Euro, is expensive!
• Keeping kosher for Pesach and not eating bread makes it even more expensive because you can't eat the cheap street food
• Greek men are VERY aggressive and slightly creepy
• there is nothing to see or do in the Latvia airport, don't ever go there :)
• Greece is very touristy and loves to play to tourists' expectations, but it's also very pretty if you go for relaxing vacation and for the beaches

Ok ok, I'm done with the typing. Stay tuned for the photo slideshow!!