Take me back to Greece.

THERE IT IS -------^

WARNING: Only read this if you have a large amount of time, as it is a very, very long post.

Well. I've been putting off this post. I need to write all about my Greece trip and I don't even know where to start. It was an amazing trip. Everything went so smoothly and the weather was pretty close to perfect.

We kept reminding ourselves throughout the trip that "we're in Greece", "this is the mediteranean"... We all couldn't quite believe we were there.

One of my flatmates is from Athens, so before I left for the trip I chatted with her and she wrote out all these places to go and see. There are a lot of Greek students studying here in Prague and when I would tell them I was going to Greece, they would tell me it's too early to go and I should go when it is warmer. Well, with the weather the way it had been in Prague, we were pretty sure the weather in Greece would feel amazing... even if the Greeks don't consider it hot.

I went with a group of 8 - four boys and four girls - which worked out very nicely. We could be evenly split in the hostels and we could break apart during the trip so boys could do boy things and the girls could do girl things. We all met at 9:00 in the lobby of our dorm and took off towards the airport. We bought our tickets through Olympic Airlines, but flew on Czech Airlines - I still don't quite understand that whole deal.. but it worked out. It's about a 2 1/2 hour flight to Athens, but apparently Czech Airlines always gives meals on the plane. We were flying over lunch time, so that worked out really great even though we weren't expecting it.

Once we got to Athens, we figured out how to get on the Metro (subway) and headed into the middle of the city, where our hostel was. As we approached our hostel, the street we were on looked straight towards the acropolis and there it was - high up in the middle of the city, so you can see it from many parts of city. It was awesome how close we were to it. With the time change (1 hour ahead of Prague), I think it was after 5 when we arrived at the hostel. So we took off exploring through the district, Plaka, which is a very cute, authentic Greek area kind of geared towards the tourists when its summer time. There were a lot of restaurants right by the hostel and we got a 10% discount at the one right next door. The experience of walking past the outdoor seating areas to the restaurants was a first for me. These men, who looked like the owners, would be standing out there and see you walk by and just come up to you. Basically, they would not let you pass them until you either gave in and ate there, told them you might come back (then they'd get out their card and hand it to you), or give them some kind of firm no. Of course, the last option - the firm no- is not my style, so usually I would have to say "okay, we might come back". Then they would offer free wine for the group. So we walked around a bit and decided to head back to that restaurant, where I had lamb.

And before I forget to mention this - I also wanted to say that I now understand the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding a little bit better. I heard the name or met so many Greeks with the name Nick or a variation of the name. I met a couple, but I feel like every time I walked past a group someone was yelling out to a Nick. I also saw a girl with the name Nikoleta on the back of her jacket. I met a guy named Nikos. (i'm not sure if that's spelled write)

Okay, moving on

Wednesday morning, Liz (one of the other girls on the trip) and I got up and went on a run around Athens. We had no idea where we would go, but we just took off. We ended up heading towards what we thought was the acropolis, because all we could see was a big hill between buildings. It turned out, it was one of the other major hills in the city. So we hiked around that. They had many paths around it that led to many other ruins.. the one I can remember at the moment is the Prison of Socrates. When we got to the top we could see the city of Athens all the way around us. It was amazing, to say the least. We went back and we talked to the travel agent that has an office at our hostel and she helped us set up our trip to the island Santorini. So after we got that all sorted, we kind of broke off into two groups. Myself and two other girls, Liz and Abby, walked around to find one of the fruit stands we had seen, tried on and bought floppy hats that we wanted to wear to the beach, and headed to the acropolis. Although the hill of the acropolis is basically at the end of the street we were on, the entrance was on the other side of the hill. We got in free and hiked up the hill. On the way up there are a whole bunch of ruins to see. There were a lot of school kids around the acropolis - it looked like maybe they were on school field trips. So it was a bit hectic on the way up because many of them were coming down. Also, that day there was a total eclipse, so people were out with those "eclipse glasses" looking at the sun. The weather was awesome that day as we were up on the acropolis and as we walked around we took a lot of time to just sit, look around and take it all in.
On the way down the acropolis there is a park/garden area with more ruins and buildings. This area was so green - I couldn't get over it. We walked down the Panathenaic way.
We were walking by an area with a lot of outdoor cafes and ran into the rest of the group, so we sat down for a meal. After that we all decided to head towards the Mediteranean. We just got off at the nearest metro stop and walked towards the water. The area we were in was not kept up very much at all and looked a bit sad. We walked around there, looked at the boats, and found a much nicer, swanky looking area.

The next morning we had to get up early to head for the ferry, which left at 7:40 am, so I don't think we did a whole lot the rest of the night. We watched TV (something we have not done at all in prague) and watched a movie they were showing in the courtyard of the hostel.

The next morning we were all up and ready to go at 5:30. We went to go check out, but somehow completely misplaced the key to our room.. woops! We still aren't sure if they ever found it.. we're guessing it had to have been somewhere in our room. We told them we would be gone for 2 nights, but would be back for one more night.
We made our way to the ferry, which we were surprised to see was a really large, nice boat. This was good because we weren't quite sure what to think of this 8 hour ferry ride that awaited us. We had seats inside, but there are decks all around the ferry and eating areas where people can hang out. We found a large table on the deck that we went back and forth on. It got a bit cold out on the deck, because it was windy out there.
The ride wasn't too bad. We docked in Santorini and we were picked up by the owner of the hostel. We jammed into his van and headed up the cliff and then back down to our hostel.

We got to the hostel and it was sooo nice! We were so surprised. They gave us two quad rooms. Each of the rooms had its own bathroom and kitchen area. There was even a refrigerator. They guys' room had a little balcony, too. We were on the second floor, so we had some really pretty views out to the cliff and the Mediteranean.

It was late afternoon and it was pretty hazey out, so it wasn't too warm. We walked around the small town for awhile. We went to the beach and walked along the road that went all the way down it. The street had tons of restaurants and bars with nice outdoor eating areas, but almost all of them were closed. They hadn't opened yet since it wasn't "high season". There were so many people out working on restaurants, stores, and their houses/rooms for rent. It was really cute to see them all preparing for the tourists. There were a few restaurants open, so after awhile we picked one. I really enjoyed how they treated tourists here, because basically all of their businesses depend on them, so they look forward to tourists and enjoy them... we're not quite used to that mentality in Prague. Later that night we went down to the beach, which was empty and the 8 of us hung out down there and listened to the sea.

The next day we headed up the cliff that backed up to our hostel, practically. We had seen a trail people were walking up the day before. So we took off, thinking it would be a nice little hike and then we'd come back down and lay on the beach. Well, the trail just kept going... all the way to the top of the cliff - it led us to the ruins of this ancient city. It was really cool - we'd been down below and had no idea there was an ancient city sitting at the top of the cliff. It was quite a hike, but we finally made it back down. Us girls decided to lay on the beach the rest of the afternoon, while the guys decided to rent 4-wheelers and drive around the island.

(Above: our hostel and the view of the church and Mediteranean in the background)

We went into the biggest city on the island, Fira, up on the cliff where they have good spots to watch the sunset. The other city on the end of the island is actually supposed to be "the spot" to watch the sunset, but Fira definitely put on a show. It was beautiful. We then decided on place to eat, which had to be away from the edge of the cliff because of prices, and we received more free wine with our meal. We headed back to Peresa (the city we stayed in) because one of the bars was having its opening night where we'd been invited multiple times to come. We had told the guys we'd meet them there. So we went back there for the rest of the night. They played some awesome American music that we definitely danced to. Our waitress was actually from Canada and her and her Canadian boyfriend just moved to Santorini.. pretty crazy. So we had a good time chatting with her and the other Greeks in the bar. I think they all enjoyed watching us sing and dance to the music.

Our last day in Santorini was very sad.. we did not want to leave.. and the weather was getting warmer and warmer. we didn't have to leave until about 2 pm, so we spent most of the day on the beach again and attempted to get into the really cold water. We then decided to head back to the restaurant we had gone to on the first day and get waffles because we had seen them making them last time. I got a waffle with fresh fruit.. it was very fancy and tasted soooo good. Then we thanked our hosts at the hostels and told them how awesome the place was. Its a husband and wife that own it and they built it themselves. The wife was really cute and was a little bit like a mom.. telling us to be careful and everything. She had cooked us breakfast in the morning, too.

Back on the ferry. This time we didn't get back to Athens until almost midnight, but enough before midnight that we caught the subway back to our hostel.

Our last day in Athens, Liz and I went on another run and we decided to head up the other hill in the city that had a church at the top. We made our way towards it and hiked up to the church, where we discovered they still hold services there - which was really cool. There was also a restaurant and a big amphitheater out there. On the way back we wanted to go to this Gardens area, I don't have the name right now, and it contained a lot of ruins as well, such as the Temple of the Olympian Zeus and Hadrian's Arch. Before we made it to that though, we got good and lost in Athens. We ended up probably running a lot that morning trying to figure out where we were going. We finally figured it out. After the run we headed back to check out of the hostel and then headed to the flea market. The big day is Sundays and it was Sunday. It was really cool and there were so many people out. It was a real-time flea market. People just spread out there stuff in this square area on the ground and it was just tons of old, old, cool items.

That's basically the whole trip! It was an awesome trip - no complaints except I wish we could have stayed longer. I really hope to go back someday!

Sorry this is a novel! I could go on... but congratulations on getting through it! Check out more of my pictures if you click on "my photos" on the right side, or on the flickr badge to the right that is showing my pictures.