I'm sorry I haven't written in awhile. I've been so sooo SO BUSY! These last two weeks in Barcelona are going to give me gray hair. Side note: I actually plucked a gray hair from my head the other morning...sweeeet. Anyway! This week I had a presentation and project due in Psych, a 8 page paper for Sport and Culture, a cumulative final in Macro, a 8 page paper for Religion, andddd a spanish presentation. Adding to my stress levels, that just so happen to be through the roof already, is the fact that I have 4 finals next week. 3, yes T-H-R-E-E, back to back to back on Tuesday, 1 on Wednesday, and then I leave bright and early Thursday morning. I'm pretty sure when I walk off the plane I'm going to immediately collapse and sleep for 17 hours right in the terminal. Hear that, Dad? Bring a tent.
Thankfully, I started my Sport paper two weeks ago, so I just had to put some finishing touches on it this week. My sport paper was an analysis of global sport superstars like Michael Jordan and David Beckham, and whether or not we'll ever see atheletes, like LeBron James and Cristiano Ronaldo, reach that level of superstardom. I handed a rough draft in early and my teacher loved it, so it was good to have that one outta the way. The paper was due on Tuesday and we had to hand it in at the bullfighting ring in Barcelona, where we were having a field trip. I start making my way to the ring (about a 10 minute walk and 5 minute metro ride), and I'm jamming along with my Mp3 player, thinking about how beautiful it is outside, and I say to myself, "It's gonna be a good day." I haven't been having a great past few days so I was just trying to remind myself to stay positive. I'll let you know how that worked out for me. Our class was supposed to meet right outside of the Monumental metro stop. This sounds corny, but I love coming up the escalator from the metro station and out into a new part of the city that I've never seen before. It's kind of like an exciting, big reveal for me when I finally get to the city street. So I'm going up the escalator, theres a blue sky above me, I'm in a good mood, and I'm totally enjoying the new view as I come out of the metro station. Once at the top of the escalator, I go to walk out into the street and put my "best foot forward". Yeahhh. My "best foot" stepped directly into a pile of vomit. I was wearing flip-flops. There was major slippage. It took place infront of my entire sport class. You can guess how my day went. :)
Studying for my Macro final was a pain in the butt x's 487539. Our teacher told us material from the entire semester would be "fair game" and that we should be prepared for anything. So I proceeded to make a study guide from over 250 pages in the book and all of my class notes. I stayed up til 3 am to study Monday night, 1am Tuesday night, and woke up at 7:30am to study this morning. I probably spent about 15-20 hours studying for this thing and I STILL didn't feel confident walking into that exam. I initially had no idea how to do the first question on the test. Great confidence booster. Pissed off at the world, my test, and my Macro teacher, I was incredibly tempted to write, "Your the teacher, why don't you tell me?" as the answer to the question. I ended up skipping to the other two questions on the test and had some sort of idea how to do them. I've learned over the years that if I stare at the test questions long enough, sometimes the answers come to me. Thankfully, that was the case with this test. I was really unsure of everything in the beginning, but ended up leaving with answers I was pretty confident with. Right after the test I went back to our room and looked up answers in the book. All my answers were right as a whole, I just had a few mistakes with minor details. I guess I should just be happy I didn't fail it; lord knows me and economics don't mix well. Oh, and the questions on the test only covered material from half the semester. Thank you Mr. Macro Teacher...I definitely had time to spare to study for things that weren't going to be on the test at all. Let me impart some of my unnecessary knowledge on you. I sincerely hope your taxes increase, causing your incomes level to decrease, as well as your consumption levels, causing a decrease in aggregate demand, thus causing a decrease in YOUR EMPLOYMENT!!!!!!!!!!! :)
The Psych presentation went well. The teacher is insane...probably clinically. I'm afraid to speak in that class because she snaps at you if you get the answer wrong and accuses you of not reading the homework assignments. As you can imagine, that makes class, especially presentations, pretty tense and scary. Our group did well though. She said she liked it and actually cracked a smile. We'll see how we actually do though. Last presentation/project, one group got a 100 on their presentation and a 65 on their project. Now, the presentation is based on the project, so how one can get a 35 point difference on two things that are essentially the same, is beyond me. I try not to question. My other presentation, for Spanish, was supposed to be Monday, so I worked my nerves up nicely for that one. Monday comes and my teacher tells me I'm going Wednesday. Alright..I'll take it. Today rolls around and I'm sweating bullets again, reciting my entire 6 minute speech outloud on the street, like a crazy woman, as I walked to main campus. I get there, get up to the front of the classroom to do my presentation, and try to load my flash drive to open my powerpoint. Just my luck. For some reason unbeknownst to me, my powerpoint would not open on this computer. Thankfully, my teacher is the nicest lady ever and said I can go on Monday. MONDAY?!?! I just want to get this freaking thing over with. But nooo, I will anxiously wait for Monday to roll around so I can finally be done with this thing. Lord knows I don't need the stress. Presentations in English make me nervous enough. Presentations in Spanish? Let's just say: Quiero orinar en mis pantelones. Translation: I want to pee my pants.
So what's up for me this weekend? Studying. Studying. Writing a paper. Studying. Going out at night. Studying. CAN'T WAIT! I can't believe it's my last weekend in Barcelona. I can't believe I'm going to be spending 80% of it studying. Oh well, so it goes. If I don't blog much the next week, I hope you can understand. I love and miss you all. BUT DON'T YOU WORRY...I'll be taking the States by storm in approximately 7 days.
See you all soon! :)
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Spring Break - Santorini
**Please excuse any and all typos in this novel. It only took me two hours to write...it would probably take me an hour to revise. So forgive me when I don't! :)
Our ferry for Santorini left at 7:30 am and you had to be at Piraeus Port by 6:30am. It takes about a half hour to get there by metro...aka we had to get up around 5am. I wouldn't say I enjoy waking up that early, but I like to think I'm a trooper and suck it up. Sara, Jess, and I were all up and ready to go by 5:30 with no problems. We didn't exactly feel safe taking the 20 minute walk to the metro station, so we decided it would probably be best to take a cab even though it was really close. At first, the cab drivers didn't understand what we were trying to say. I thought communicating in Spain was difficult. Hah! It's ten times worse when you don't know the language AND the country has an entirely different alphabet. We couldn't even attempt to pronounce words. A can of Fanta soda...as in F-A-N-T-A...was written as NBN in Greek. HOW DO YOU GET "FANTA" OUT OF N-B-N?!?! I got a good chuckle out of that. After we were finally able to convey to the cab drivers where we needed to go, they were hesitant to take us because it was so close. Finally, one agreed to take us. We're all in the cab and about aout 2 seconds before we arrive at the metro stop, I notice that the fare counter thinger-ma-jigger isn't on. I couldn't even begin to say "turn it on" in Greek, so I had to just sit there. We kind of motioned the question "How much?" and the driver told us we owed him 5 Euros. Now I was ready to drop kick this guy on the spot. We were in the cab for no more than 2 minutes. There is no way on God's green earth that a 2 minute cab ride cost us 5 Euro. A 7 minute cab ride, through multiple blocks, costs me about 5 Euro in Barcelona. I swear to goodness, the next cab driver who rips me off is going to get smacked side the head. I wish I was kidding.
We got on the metro and made it to the port without a problem. We were the only idiots who actually showed up an hour before departure time, so we had a lot of free time on the ferry. I've only been on crummy ferries before and this one was SWEET. It was decorated nice and had comfy seats and what not. Having only gotten like 8 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours, I zonked out for the first 3 1/2 hours of the 5 hour ferry trip to Santorini. Unbeknownst to us, the ferry made multiple stops on various Greek islands. We had assumed that the ferry would only take 5 hours from Piraeus Port to the port in Santorini; Thira. Jess had told our villa owner that we would be at the port for pickup at 12:30. WHOOPS! We didn't get there til 1:30, but it wasn't really a problem because the entire ship was late for their pickups too. Our villa owner's name is George and he was freakin' awesome. Horrible driver, but other than that, he was incredibly helpful with tips of places to go and places to eat, etc. By the end of the week we were pretty good buddies with him. As I mentioned, dear George wasn't exactly the best driver in the world. In order to get from the port to Fira, the main town in Santorini where we were staying, you have to drive up this HUGE cliff on these incredibly windy roads. I have never been more scared for my life. Ok, slight exaggeration, but it was bad!
It took us about 10 minutes to get to Fira and our villa; Villa Evgenia (we never really did learn how to pronounce that...). Our villa was so freakin' cute and SO cheap. It was pretty much a house that had multiple rooms in it. But it was more like a hotel than a hostel. It only cost us 15Euro a night to stay there. I found that amazing since I typically paid around 20 a night for hostels in the various countries I've visited. We had ordered a room for three. It was a nice little surprise when we walked in and saw two beds: one double, one twin. Sara and Jess took the big bed and I took the twin. My bed had the squeakiest bed spring I have ever head. I would roll over in the night and scare myself from the noise. Other than the noisy bed spring, the room was perfect! We dropped off our stuff and decided to just walk around Fira that day.
We were totally starving so we wanted to grab some lunch in the town square. The location of our hostel was perfect. It was only a 5 minute walk to get to the town center where all the restaurants, shops, bars, and clubs were. We grabbed some lunch, I had pork steak. MMmm! We walked around to the shops after for a few hours and did some souvenir shopping. At that point we were all exhausted and made an executive decision to head back to the villa to take a nap. A solid decision if you ask me. After the power nap we all showered and got ready to go out for dinner. We went to this cute little restaurant called the Roof Garden. I know I'll sound like an idiot but I had pork steak again. IT WAS JUST SO GOOD THE FIRST TIME! I couldn't help myself. After dinner we acted like total grandmas and went home to go to bed and rest up for the next day.
We decided to do an excursion our first day. George suggested a few to us and we went with a half day excursion. It included a boat ride out to an island that is a volcano and swimming in some hot springs. This excursion left from the Old Port in Santorini and the only way down is either by foot, cable car, or...donkey. Foot is really only an option on the way down because you literally go down a cliff and there are 600 steps. George suggested the cable car on the way down and donkey on the way up. The first sounded good to me...the latter I was a little hesitant about. We took the cable car down to the port and got on our ship. It was modeled after an old pirate ship, but instead of sails it had a motor. The boat ride only took about 10 minutes and the weather was absolutely perfect! We got to the volcano and we were told that we had an hour to get up and back. Oh, no biggie, right? WRONG! I know you will all be proud of me when I tell you that I climbed a volcano in flip-flops. Yes, flip-flops. Listen, my packing skills have not progressed as they should have, but I'm getting there. I guess my mind just doesn't work that way. When people travel to Santorini, you have the majority who will think, "Ah, yes. Vacation = lots of walking... I should pack sneakers." Then theres me who thinks, "Santorini. Ah, yes. Above 50 degrees?...FLIP FLOPS!" I'm an idiot, I know. It wasn't the most pleasant experience but I made it up the volcano...with time to spare. Only the view from the top would have been worth the 40 minute hike, but seeing the crater was pretty cool too. We took some pictures of the view and the volcano when we looked at our watches. We had about 10 minutes to get our butts down the mountain it took us 40 minutes to get up. You can probably imagine that there was a lot of accidental sliding down the rocky paths. We made it back to the ship in time, thank goodness, and headed off the hot springs. I was pretty excited for this part of the excursion. First, I found it pretty cool to be able to say I've swam in the Aegean Sea. And then there's the fact that its pretty cool to be swimming in the ocean and its actually warm. The springs were in this cove that the ship couldn't pull into, so you had to swim about 200-300 ft to get them. Now, I figured the swim in the ocean to the springs would be a little chilly, but I did NOT think that it would be downright FRIGID. The guy who was in charge of our trip was pushing people into the water who wanted to go to the springs. You could tell by their screams that the water was a bit cold. Sara was the first to go in. Being a smart girl, she knew she had to keep a calm and straight face when Jess and I asked if it was freezing. She said, "Oh no, its really not that bad at all". Jess decided to go for it and jump in. Her leap was followed by blood-curdling screams. "NOT BAD AT ALL" MY FOOT! So poor Hannah is sitting there on the deck not wanting to be the loser who doesn't go in. Just as I'm working up my confidence to jump into the Artic, I hear some screams. An old man who jumped in totally went into shock and was pretty much drowning. AH COOL! That did wonders for my motivation to jump in. I had to say, "Do it. YOU WON'T!" to myself a few times before I finally lept in. Worst. Decision. Of. My. Life. I have never been SO cold in my ENTIRE life. Only 21 years, I know, but you get the point. I felt like I was swimming in a pool of ice cubes. I swam SO freakin' fast toward the hot spring, just waiting to swim into warmth. I kept saying to myself, "Keep going Hannah. Only a little further!" Yeah, that moment never came. I contemplated suing the excursion company for false advertisements. We did not swim in hotsprings. We swam in "20-degrees-warmer-than-the-ocean-water-but-still -40 degrees" springs. After like 5 minutes of working up the confidence to re-enter the colder ocean water, I finally made a mad dash for the ship. It took me about 30 minutes to regain feelings in my body. It was the coldest 10 minutes of my life but a very cool experience. No pun intended.
After the hotsprings the excursion was over and we headed back to the port. It was time for another executive decision. This time it involved the mode of transportation we would take up the cliff back to Fira. We went with Donkeys. Before I got on mine I was just thinking about how I'm probably going to crush this poor little fellow. I was wrong. They are ALOT bigger and stronger than they look. I got a cute little white furred one; he seemed like a sweetheart. WRONG AGAIN! I rode the anti-christ up that mountain. I got on, they slapped his butt, and the freakin' donkey started BUCKING UP THE MOUNTAIN. I, naturally, start screaming at the top of my lungs. Which caused the donkey's owner to scream in broken English, "NO LOUD! QUUUUIIIIET!!!!!!!" I had to cover my mouth to keep the screams from coming out as my donkey continued to sprint up the moutain. As we're rounding corners, that lead to steep edges and hundred foot drops, wayyy to fast for my liking. I'm thinking to myself, "This would be how you die, Hannah. You WOULD go flying off a cliff with a donkey." Seriously, that would have been a horrible "Hannah Moment", but definitely one of my finest. After about two minutes of sprinting my donkey decided to slow down and let the rest of the pack catch up with us. He proceeded to follow this brown donkey up the moutain. This was fine by me because, unlike my donkey, this one believed in obey speed limits and was walking at a nice pace. NOT fine by me when this donkey raised his tail in the air, inches from my legs, as if he was going to...relieve himself. I let out another scream and was immediately yelled at again. "NO LOUD! BE QUUIIIIEEETTTT!" Now, this probably sounds like the donkey ride from hell, but it wasn't totally horrible. The view during the entire ride was looking straight out into the port and it was absolutely AMAZING! It took the donkeys about 15 minutes to get to the top, so it was pretty nice to take in the view and not have to climb another mountan in flops. We were in the last straight away of the trail and I was finally able to loosen my death grip on the saddle. I swear my donkey hated me. With my feet firmly stuck into the stirrups and saddle, I wasn't able to move them until we came to a complete stop. My donkey walked right up to the brown donkey and I can already see where this is going. I'm trying to move my feet, mainly my knees, out of the stirrups and out of the way. Unable to do it in time, my donkey had parked himself in such a way that my kneecap was firmly planted in this brown donkey's BUTT. After quite the struggle, I am finally able to remove my knee from the donkey's BEHIND. I had some donkey excretion and hair on my kneecap, thankfully I was wearing pants. At this point, I can only laugh. Seriously Hannah?!?! I would get the donkey that hates his job. I would get the donkey that force my knee into the ass...of an ass. I came to the conclusion that my donkey was just that, an ass.
I found the whole donkey riding experience hilarious. It's definitely something I will remember the rest of my life; for some good and not so good reasons. After our trek up the mountain we decided to check out one of the famous beaches in Santorini, Perissa, a black sand beach. The bus schedule in Santorini is ridiculous, they only come about once every 45 minutes. We really had no idea when to get off and the guy spoke no English, so when we heard "BEACH!" we bolted for the door. Yeah, wrong beach. In fact, this wasn't even a beach...it was a rock and some restaurants that spanned a length of about 40 feet. We figured the bus would be back again in 45 minutes so we had to make the most of it. We walked around the pier...sadly it was 5 feet long, so that was done pretty quickly. Then we opted to find a nice place to lay down our towels and sit in the sun while we waited for the next bus. The flattest, softest surface available was a concrete slab. Amazing "beach", let me tell you. After about 40 minutes we decided to walk the 10 feet to the bus stop. We did NOT want to miss this bus. We got there in plenty of time though, believe me. The bus didn't show up for another 2 hours. I, Hannah Kinzelmann, as well as Jessica Levy and Sara Bonomo, fell asleep on the cement in a parking lot by the ocean. Probably my classiest moment to date. Adding to the splendor of our afternoon, was the fact we all got scorched while we slept. The bus finally came and we sprinted onto it. Two stops later was our intended destination...it was beautiful. This whole day in general just makes me laugh when I look back on it. I really did have an awesome day though. Riding up a mountain with an angry donkey is pretty awesome. Falling asleep in a parking lot in paradise is fine by me. There were some interesting moments but it was definitely a solid day. After our 2 hour tour of a rock/parking lot we went back to the villa to get ready for dinner.
Again, dinner was absolutely fantastic. Greek food is hands down the best food I've encountered in my European travels. I wanted to TRY everything, but I had to refrain as much as possible. In order to keep my consumption under control, I only allowed myself to get appetizers every other day. It was THAT good. During dinner we decided that we wanted to check out the beaches on Santorini the next day. There are probably a million stores in Fira that rent ATV's to people for the day. Since no beaches were in walking distance we thought it would be a good idea to rent some ATV's and drive to the beaches. After our debacle earlier that day, we really didn't want to sit in parking lots waiting for buses all day. Plus, we would be able to knock out more beaches if we traveled on our own. The island seemed simple enough to navigate so we decided to give it a whack.
After dinner we had to take this little pathway home to our villa and a stray dog started following us. He was this cute little german shepard and followed us all the way back to our villa. When we got back it was pretty late, so reception was shut down and what not. We thought it would be funny to walk him into the little lobby area like he was ours. So we did that, he came in and laid down, and we're like...OH NO! So we tried to get him out and we were able to, but then he would just follow us back in. We would run down the street, he would follow and sprint ahead. When he wasn't looking we would turn around and run back to the villa. He would hear us and come running back too. FINALLY, we made it back to the villa and shut the door before he had a chance to sprint and catch up with us. We went in our room only to hear the sound of a dog outside our door. We open it up and see that the dog has opened the door and let himself on in. We are cracking up at this point and begging him to leave. NOPE! We fell in love with this poor thing, so of course we had to give him a name. Another girl, named Emily, was with us when we were brainstorming. We came up with JESH!..the first letters of all our names. We're all sitting there in the lobby thinking of how we can get him out. We're calling for him and he's just laying there...falling asleep. It was precious. We went into our room after trying to get Jesh to leave for about an hour. We were very unsuccessful...he laid in the lobby for about another hour before he decided to leave. Sadly, we didn't see Jesh again.
We were up and out the door by 9 that morning to rent the ATV's. We found a little place that rented us the ATV's for only 10 Euro for 24 hours; a bargain if you ask me. We decided to head to Perissa Beach, our intended destination from the previous day, the black sand beach. The drive on the ATV took about 35 minutes. I was SO SO SO SO SO scared when we started off but 2 minutes into I was having the freaking time of my life. I'm riding on an ATV, on the most beautiful island ever, heading to a beach. DOES IT GET ANY BETTER?! Probably...but you get the point. I cruised and sang at the top of my lungs the entire way. Perissa Beach was beautiful. The sand is more gray than black, but it was awesome to see. We sat on the beach for a little. It was only in the low to mid sixties the entire time we were there, but the sun was SO intense. After Perissa we wanted to drive to Vilchadi Beach. Every single moment we were driving, even with a full tank, I was terrified that I was going to run out of gas because I didn't know how quickly the gas went. After Perissa I made everyone pull over so I could put a stick in my tank to see how much gas I had left because my gas gauge didn't work. I had like 3/4 of a tank left, so that should've put me at ease for a few minutes. We went to go and Jess couldn't start her ATV. Ironically...she was out of gas. We were in the middle of nowhere and thankfully we found someone who pointed us to the nearest gas station so we could get some gas to bring back to her ATV. About 45 minutes later we were finally able to all get going and head to Vilchadi. This was another black sand beach but it had some pretty neat cliffs behind it. It kind of looked like you were on a different planet. You'll have to see pictures to understand. We laid on the beach for a few hours and just relaxed. After about 3 hours, and the scorching of my face, we decided to head back to the villa and rest before dinner. I, in my infinite wisdom, set my ATV key in the sand when we arrived. And of course, I couldn't find it when it was time to go. FEAR NOT! I found it after a 5 minute frantic search. So we were all ready to go and ready to pull out of the parking lot anddddddddd...Sara's ATV won't start. She was not out of gas. It just randomly stopped working. Sweet work ATV company. Over to save the day, came a short, fat, creepy, little man named Sampson. He pretty much pushed us out of the way to try and get the ATV started, but to no avail. He called up the ATV company for us to let them know where to go to come fix it. There was going to be about a 10 minute wait til they got there so we had no choice but to chill with Sampson. He kept saying to us, "It fine. NO PROBLEM *insert creepy laugh here*". He was totally messing with us and we were totally messing with him. It was hilarious. We learned alot about Sampson in our 15 minute chill-session. Here's what he told us: He has driven the same moped for 35 years and it has never needed any gas. He ate only fruit for two years straight...stawberries and bananas to be specific. And my personal favorite, he is 45 years old but has somehow managed to live on Santorini for 50 years. Ohhh Sampson. The company finally came after about 20 minutes and made a quick fix on the ATV. We bid Sampson farewell and drove off into the sunset...literally. What an interesting and memorable encounter.
We decided to rent the ATV's again the next day, Easter. We wanted to knock out the other two beaches: Red Beach and Kamari Beach. We went to Red Beach first and you had to climb a huge mountain to see it, and climb down a mountain to get to it. It was freezing out because it was so early so we just took pictures and headed to Kamari. We figured we would just stay there for the day and have a relaxing Easter. Kamari was on the other side of the island and we had some minor difficulties getting there. We drove in the entirely wrong direction for about 20 minutes before someone finally sent us the right way. We had to take some really small, rocky roads that were in the middle of nowhere to get there. Normally, the ATV order of driving was Jess (because she knew the directions), Sara (because she was a grandma driver), and Me (because I needed to keep Sara moving faster than a snail's pace). For some reason when we headed to Kamari I took the lead on one road, followed by Jess then Sara. Now, I have to backtrack a little so you can understand the next part of this story. Jess was a little spastic when it came to driving the ATV. If there was a big bump or pothole in the road she would kind of panic and jerk the wheel. We tried telling her that she can't do that, that it's an ATV...as in ALL TERRAIN vehicle, but it still happened. In the 24 hours of our ATV posession, Jess had managed to go off the road twice; strangely enough, it was in the same place. The first incident, on the first day, she just had a few scrapes on her legs but the second time, on the second day of our ATV rentals, she cut open the top of her big toe. It was bleeding pretty badly so we had to go find some bandaids and disinfectant stuff. We found the bandaids but couldnt find any cream so we went with....a bar of soap. OK! Now back to the story. I was leading the way on the road to Kamari beach and it was a really rough road filled with potholes. As I'm driving, probably like 100 ft ahead of Jess, I noticed some HUGE potholes. I want to panic but I just drove through them smoothly but I'm thinking to myself, "Ohhhh no. Jess is gonna panic and this is not going to be good." So I immediately slow down to tell Jess not to jerk her wheel and to go through them smoothly. As I'm turning around to warn her, Jess sees the pothole, totally whips her wheel to avoid it the moment she's about to drive through it. She hits a 2 ft cement wall on the side of the road and her and the ATV flip into the air. Both Jess and the ATV flip into a tree and the ATV lands on top of her. And then she fell out from underneath the ATV, off of the wall, and back into the road. My heart seriously stopped. I immediately slammed on my breaks and ran back to where she was. I'm wanting to panic because her legs are all covered in blood and her hand looks like its broken, but I was just trying to keep her calm so she wouldn't freak out. I took my water bottle and her towel and tried washing off some of her cuts so it didn't look so bad to her. The ATV was still on the wall, in the tree and it was spewing gas....soooo we turned that off. Jess was as ok as she could be at the moment. She didn't go unconcious or anything, thank God. There was just a lot of blood and her hand was really injured. She still wanted to go to the beach. We we were like, "JESSICA! Your hand is the size of a boxing glove, you are covered in blood, and we have a totaled ATV. WE ARE NOT GOING TO THE BEACH!" Then she really started crying. I'm trying to crack jokes to make her laugh. I told her I turned around, saw it all unfold before my eyes, and that I was honored to have been able to see the first triple axel, double salchow, ever completed on an ATV. She was incredibly brave and was able to stay relatively calm and collected while we were waiting for someone to drive by. Cars didn't drive by very often because we were in the middle of nowhere. Finally, after a few had passed, one finally stopped. The guy spoke Greek and English. He called the ATV place for us to tell them there was an accident and where they could get the bike. Jess was calmer at this point and one of the guys offered to drive her to the hospital in Fira. She went with him and Sara and I sped the entire 20 minute drive into Fira. They took xrays and her hand wasn't broken. She went to the hospital again here in Barcelona to make sure. It's not broken but they did end up putting a cast on her. It was a really scary moment on the trip but I think we all handled it well. We all kind of look back on it now and laugh. Seriously, who crashes an ATV into a tree in a field full of GOATS?!?! We do :)
We laid low the rest of that night so Jess could ice and rest. We went out for one last dinner and it was FANTASTICCCC! I had chicken that was stuffed with spinach and cheese with grilled vegetables and rice on the side. It was an emotionally draining day and Sara and I slept good that night; Jess not so much. The next day we needed to be at the port to leave on our ferry back to athens by 4:00. We returned 2 of the 3 ATV's the next morning and went back to the villa to check out. After checkout we went into town, got some crepes for lunch, and walked around the shops because souvenirs were still needed. We headed back to the villa around 2:30 because George was going to give us a ride down to the port. We got a picture with George and he went on this way after he dropped us off. We had about an hour and a half before we had to board so we laid in the sun and then had some lunch. I got a gyro for my last meal in Greece.
On the ferry I was the unlucky one who had to sit alone with random people. My seat happened to be at a table for six. Only one of the seats was taken by the creepiest, wormiest, scariest man I have ever seen in my life. The entire time he just started at me. I would look at him, catch him staring, and he would laugh to himself, keep staring, and wink. I was soo repulsed. Repulsion increased when he proceeded to lay down on the seats with his head below the table so he could get a shot of my legs. I covered up with a sweater and he sat back up. At this point I'm thinking that this is unbelievable. After about an hour and a half of him just staring at me, I kid you not, he starts rubbing himself under the table. After a few minutes, he gets up to go to the bathroom, which is in my peripheral vision. I'm not looking directly at him but I can see that he is just standing outside the door. And I'm thinking why isn't this guy going inside. He opens the door a little, like hes about to go in, and pauses again. I turn and look at him and he gets this disgusting smile on his face and motions for me to come into the bathroom with him. I shot him the dirtiest look I have ever sent someones way. If I had a cannon, I probably would have taken it out and shot it at him. He finally went in and I proceeded to grab my bags and move to an empty seat nearby. If one person told me I couldn't move I was going to flip. Move the pervert at my table and MAYBE I'll sit there. The men here are unbelievable. SERIOUSLY EUROPE!??!? Thankfully, he got off at the next stop and that was the end of that. Not the best ending of my trip, but hey...it happens.
The trip back was long. Ferry, 4 hour wait in an airport, 3 am flight home, back to the Residencia in Barcelona at 6:14 am. But I wouldn't have traded it for anything. I had the time of my LIFE. I did NOT want to leave. Athens was awesome but I absolutely loved Santorini. It was so beautiful, people were so nice, and I had such a good time. I ate gyros, I swam in the freezing ocean, I climbed a volcano, I had memorable encounters with Jesh & Sampson, I relaxed on beaches, I drove an ATV, and I freakin' rode a donkey. I am so blessed to have been able to go on this trip and I really am so incredibly thankful for the opportunity. This is seriously a week that I will remember the rest of my life. I had the best Spring Break everrr. I guess really, really, REALLY long story short... I loved Greece.
The End.
I love and miss you all so much!<3 15 days!!!!!!!!!!!
Our ferry for Santorini left at 7:30 am and you had to be at Piraeus Port by 6:30am. It takes about a half hour to get there by metro...aka we had to get up around 5am. I wouldn't say I enjoy waking up that early, but I like to think I'm a trooper and suck it up. Sara, Jess, and I were all up and ready to go by 5:30 with no problems. We didn't exactly feel safe taking the 20 minute walk to the metro station, so we decided it would probably be best to take a cab even though it was really close. At first, the cab drivers didn't understand what we were trying to say. I thought communicating in Spain was difficult. Hah! It's ten times worse when you don't know the language AND the country has an entirely different alphabet. We couldn't even attempt to pronounce words. A can of Fanta soda...as in F-A-N-T-A...was written as NBN in Greek. HOW DO YOU GET "FANTA" OUT OF N-B-N?!?! I got a good chuckle out of that. After we were finally able to convey to the cab drivers where we needed to go, they were hesitant to take us because it was so close. Finally, one agreed to take us. We're all in the cab and about aout 2 seconds before we arrive at the metro stop, I notice that the fare counter thinger-ma-jigger isn't on. I couldn't even begin to say "turn it on" in Greek, so I had to just sit there. We kind of motioned the question "How much?" and the driver told us we owed him 5 Euros. Now I was ready to drop kick this guy on the spot. We were in the cab for no more than 2 minutes. There is no way on God's green earth that a 2 minute cab ride cost us 5 Euro. A 7 minute cab ride, through multiple blocks, costs me about 5 Euro in Barcelona. I swear to goodness, the next cab driver who rips me off is going to get smacked side the head. I wish I was kidding.
We got on the metro and made it to the port without a problem. We were the only idiots who actually showed up an hour before departure time, so we had a lot of free time on the ferry. I've only been on crummy ferries before and this one was SWEET. It was decorated nice and had comfy seats and what not. Having only gotten like 8 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours, I zonked out for the first 3 1/2 hours of the 5 hour ferry trip to Santorini. Unbeknownst to us, the ferry made multiple stops on various Greek islands. We had assumed that the ferry would only take 5 hours from Piraeus Port to the port in Santorini; Thira. Jess had told our villa owner that we would be at the port for pickup at 12:30. WHOOPS! We didn't get there til 1:30, but it wasn't really a problem because the entire ship was late for their pickups too. Our villa owner's name is George and he was freakin' awesome. Horrible driver, but other than that, he was incredibly helpful with tips of places to go and places to eat, etc. By the end of the week we were pretty good buddies with him. As I mentioned, dear George wasn't exactly the best driver in the world. In order to get from the port to Fira, the main town in Santorini where we were staying, you have to drive up this HUGE cliff on these incredibly windy roads. I have never been more scared for my life. Ok, slight exaggeration, but it was bad!
It took us about 10 minutes to get to Fira and our villa; Villa Evgenia (we never really did learn how to pronounce that...). Our villa was so freakin' cute and SO cheap. It was pretty much a house that had multiple rooms in it. But it was more like a hotel than a hostel. It only cost us 15Euro a night to stay there. I found that amazing since I typically paid around 20 a night for hostels in the various countries I've visited. We had ordered a room for three. It was a nice little surprise when we walked in and saw two beds: one double, one twin. Sara and Jess took the big bed and I took the twin. My bed had the squeakiest bed spring I have ever head. I would roll over in the night and scare myself from the noise. Other than the noisy bed spring, the room was perfect! We dropped off our stuff and decided to just walk around Fira that day.
We were totally starving so we wanted to grab some lunch in the town square. The location of our hostel was perfect. It was only a 5 minute walk to get to the town center where all the restaurants, shops, bars, and clubs were. We grabbed some lunch, I had pork steak. MMmm! We walked around to the shops after for a few hours and did some souvenir shopping. At that point we were all exhausted and made an executive decision to head back to the villa to take a nap. A solid decision if you ask me. After the power nap we all showered and got ready to go out for dinner. We went to this cute little restaurant called the Roof Garden. I know I'll sound like an idiot but I had pork steak again. IT WAS JUST SO GOOD THE FIRST TIME! I couldn't help myself. After dinner we acted like total grandmas and went home to go to bed and rest up for the next day.
We decided to do an excursion our first day. George suggested a few to us and we went with a half day excursion. It included a boat ride out to an island that is a volcano and swimming in some hot springs. This excursion left from the Old Port in Santorini and the only way down is either by foot, cable car, or...donkey. Foot is really only an option on the way down because you literally go down a cliff and there are 600 steps. George suggested the cable car on the way down and donkey on the way up. The first sounded good to me...the latter I was a little hesitant about. We took the cable car down to the port and got on our ship. It was modeled after an old pirate ship, but instead of sails it had a motor. The boat ride only took about 10 minutes and the weather was absolutely perfect! We got to the volcano and we were told that we had an hour to get up and back. Oh, no biggie, right? WRONG! I know you will all be proud of me when I tell you that I climbed a volcano in flip-flops. Yes, flip-flops. Listen, my packing skills have not progressed as they should have, but I'm getting there. I guess my mind just doesn't work that way. When people travel to Santorini, you have the majority who will think, "Ah, yes. Vacation = lots of walking... I should pack sneakers." Then theres me who thinks, "Santorini. Ah, yes. Above 50 degrees?...FLIP FLOPS!" I'm an idiot, I know. It wasn't the most pleasant experience but I made it up the volcano...with time to spare. Only the view from the top would have been worth the 40 minute hike, but seeing the crater was pretty cool too. We took some pictures of the view and the volcano when we looked at our watches. We had about 10 minutes to get our butts down the mountain it took us 40 minutes to get up. You can probably imagine that there was a lot of accidental sliding down the rocky paths. We made it back to the ship in time, thank goodness, and headed off the hot springs. I was pretty excited for this part of the excursion. First, I found it pretty cool to be able to say I've swam in the Aegean Sea. And then there's the fact that its pretty cool to be swimming in the ocean and its actually warm. The springs were in this cove that the ship couldn't pull into, so you had to swim about 200-300 ft to get them. Now, I figured the swim in the ocean to the springs would be a little chilly, but I did NOT think that it would be downright FRIGID. The guy who was in charge of our trip was pushing people into the water who wanted to go to the springs. You could tell by their screams that the water was a bit cold. Sara was the first to go in. Being a smart girl, she knew she had to keep a calm and straight face when Jess and I asked if it was freezing. She said, "Oh no, its really not that bad at all". Jess decided to go for it and jump in. Her leap was followed by blood-curdling screams. "NOT BAD AT ALL" MY FOOT! So poor Hannah is sitting there on the deck not wanting to be the loser who doesn't go in. Just as I'm working up my confidence to jump into the Artic, I hear some screams. An old man who jumped in totally went into shock and was pretty much drowning. AH COOL! That did wonders for my motivation to jump in. I had to say, "Do it. YOU WON'T!" to myself a few times before I finally lept in. Worst. Decision. Of. My. Life. I have never been SO cold in my ENTIRE life. Only 21 years, I know, but you get the point. I felt like I was swimming in a pool of ice cubes. I swam SO freakin' fast toward the hot spring, just waiting to swim into warmth. I kept saying to myself, "Keep going Hannah. Only a little further!" Yeah, that moment never came. I contemplated suing the excursion company for false advertisements. We did not swim in hotsprings. We swam in "20-degrees-warmer-than-the-ocean-water-but-still -40 degrees" springs. After like 5 minutes of working up the confidence to re-enter the colder ocean water, I finally made a mad dash for the ship. It took me about 30 minutes to regain feelings in my body. It was the coldest 10 minutes of my life but a very cool experience. No pun intended.
After the hotsprings the excursion was over and we headed back to the port. It was time for another executive decision. This time it involved the mode of transportation we would take up the cliff back to Fira. We went with Donkeys. Before I got on mine I was just thinking about how I'm probably going to crush this poor little fellow. I was wrong. They are ALOT bigger and stronger than they look. I got a cute little white furred one; he seemed like a sweetheart. WRONG AGAIN! I rode the anti-christ up that mountain. I got on, they slapped his butt, and the freakin' donkey started BUCKING UP THE MOUNTAIN. I, naturally, start screaming at the top of my lungs. Which caused the donkey's owner to scream in broken English, "NO LOUD! QUUUUIIIIET!!!!!!!" I had to cover my mouth to keep the screams from coming out as my donkey continued to sprint up the moutain. As we're rounding corners, that lead to steep edges and hundred foot drops, wayyy to fast for my liking. I'm thinking to myself, "This would be how you die, Hannah. You WOULD go flying off a cliff with a donkey." Seriously, that would have been a horrible "Hannah Moment", but definitely one of my finest. After about two minutes of sprinting my donkey decided to slow down and let the rest of the pack catch up with us. He proceeded to follow this brown donkey up the moutain. This was fine by me because, unlike my donkey, this one believed in obey speed limits and was walking at a nice pace. NOT fine by me when this donkey raised his tail in the air, inches from my legs, as if he was going to...relieve himself. I let out another scream and was immediately yelled at again. "NO LOUD! BE QUUIIIIEEETTTT!" Now, this probably sounds like the donkey ride from hell, but it wasn't totally horrible. The view during the entire ride was looking straight out into the port and it was absolutely AMAZING! It took the donkeys about 15 minutes to get to the top, so it was pretty nice to take in the view and not have to climb another mountan in flops. We were in the last straight away of the trail and I was finally able to loosen my death grip on the saddle. I swear my donkey hated me. With my feet firmly stuck into the stirrups and saddle, I wasn't able to move them until we came to a complete stop. My donkey walked right up to the brown donkey and I can already see where this is going. I'm trying to move my feet, mainly my knees, out of the stirrups and out of the way. Unable to do it in time, my donkey had parked himself in such a way that my kneecap was firmly planted in this brown donkey's BUTT. After quite the struggle, I am finally able to remove my knee from the donkey's BEHIND. I had some donkey excretion and hair on my kneecap, thankfully I was wearing pants. At this point, I can only laugh. Seriously Hannah?!?! I would get the donkey that hates his job. I would get the donkey that force my knee into the ass...of an ass. I came to the conclusion that my donkey was just that, an ass.
I found the whole donkey riding experience hilarious. It's definitely something I will remember the rest of my life; for some good and not so good reasons. After our trek up the mountain we decided to check out one of the famous beaches in Santorini, Perissa, a black sand beach. The bus schedule in Santorini is ridiculous, they only come about once every 45 minutes. We really had no idea when to get off and the guy spoke no English, so when we heard "BEACH!" we bolted for the door. Yeah, wrong beach. In fact, this wasn't even a beach...it was a rock and some restaurants that spanned a length of about 40 feet. We figured the bus would be back again in 45 minutes so we had to make the most of it. We walked around the pier...sadly it was 5 feet long, so that was done pretty quickly. Then we opted to find a nice place to lay down our towels and sit in the sun while we waited for the next bus. The flattest, softest surface available was a concrete slab. Amazing "beach", let me tell you. After about 40 minutes we decided to walk the 10 feet to the bus stop. We did NOT want to miss this bus. We got there in plenty of time though, believe me. The bus didn't show up for another 2 hours. I, Hannah Kinzelmann, as well as Jessica Levy and Sara Bonomo, fell asleep on the cement in a parking lot by the ocean. Probably my classiest moment to date. Adding to the splendor of our afternoon, was the fact we all got scorched while we slept. The bus finally came and we sprinted onto it. Two stops later was our intended destination...it was beautiful. This whole day in general just makes me laugh when I look back on it. I really did have an awesome day though. Riding up a mountain with an angry donkey is pretty awesome. Falling asleep in a parking lot in paradise is fine by me. There were some interesting moments but it was definitely a solid day. After our 2 hour tour of a rock/parking lot we went back to the villa to get ready for dinner.
Again, dinner was absolutely fantastic. Greek food is hands down the best food I've encountered in my European travels. I wanted to TRY everything, but I had to refrain as much as possible. In order to keep my consumption under control, I only allowed myself to get appetizers every other day. It was THAT good. During dinner we decided that we wanted to check out the beaches on Santorini the next day. There are probably a million stores in Fira that rent ATV's to people for the day. Since no beaches were in walking distance we thought it would be a good idea to rent some ATV's and drive to the beaches. After our debacle earlier that day, we really didn't want to sit in parking lots waiting for buses all day. Plus, we would be able to knock out more beaches if we traveled on our own. The island seemed simple enough to navigate so we decided to give it a whack.
After dinner we had to take this little pathway home to our villa and a stray dog started following us. He was this cute little german shepard and followed us all the way back to our villa. When we got back it was pretty late, so reception was shut down and what not. We thought it would be funny to walk him into the little lobby area like he was ours. So we did that, he came in and laid down, and we're like...OH NO! So we tried to get him out and we were able to, but then he would just follow us back in. We would run down the street, he would follow and sprint ahead. When he wasn't looking we would turn around and run back to the villa. He would hear us and come running back too. FINALLY, we made it back to the villa and shut the door before he had a chance to sprint and catch up with us. We went in our room only to hear the sound of a dog outside our door. We open it up and see that the dog has opened the door and let himself on in. We are cracking up at this point and begging him to leave. NOPE! We fell in love with this poor thing, so of course we had to give him a name. Another girl, named Emily, was with us when we were brainstorming. We came up with JESH!..the first letters of all our names. We're all sitting there in the lobby thinking of how we can get him out. We're calling for him and he's just laying there...falling asleep. It was precious. We went into our room after trying to get Jesh to leave for about an hour. We were very unsuccessful...he laid in the lobby for about another hour before he decided to leave. Sadly, we didn't see Jesh again.
We were up and out the door by 9 that morning to rent the ATV's. We found a little place that rented us the ATV's for only 10 Euro for 24 hours; a bargain if you ask me. We decided to head to Perissa Beach, our intended destination from the previous day, the black sand beach. The drive on the ATV took about 35 minutes. I was SO SO SO SO SO scared when we started off but 2 minutes into I was having the freaking time of my life. I'm riding on an ATV, on the most beautiful island ever, heading to a beach. DOES IT GET ANY BETTER?! Probably...but you get the point. I cruised and sang at the top of my lungs the entire way. Perissa Beach was beautiful. The sand is more gray than black, but it was awesome to see. We sat on the beach for a little. It was only in the low to mid sixties the entire time we were there, but the sun was SO intense. After Perissa we wanted to drive to Vilchadi Beach. Every single moment we were driving, even with a full tank, I was terrified that I was going to run out of gas because I didn't know how quickly the gas went. After Perissa I made everyone pull over so I could put a stick in my tank to see how much gas I had left because my gas gauge didn't work. I had like 3/4 of a tank left, so that should've put me at ease for a few minutes. We went to go and Jess couldn't start her ATV. Ironically...she was out of gas. We were in the middle of nowhere and thankfully we found someone who pointed us to the nearest gas station so we could get some gas to bring back to her ATV. About 45 minutes later we were finally able to all get going and head to Vilchadi. This was another black sand beach but it had some pretty neat cliffs behind it. It kind of looked like you were on a different planet. You'll have to see pictures to understand. We laid on the beach for a few hours and just relaxed. After about 3 hours, and the scorching of my face, we decided to head back to the villa and rest before dinner. I, in my infinite wisdom, set my ATV key in the sand when we arrived. And of course, I couldn't find it when it was time to go. FEAR NOT! I found it after a 5 minute frantic search. So we were all ready to go and ready to pull out of the parking lot anddddddddd...Sara's ATV won't start. She was not out of gas. It just randomly stopped working. Sweet work ATV company. Over to save the day, came a short, fat, creepy, little man named Sampson. He pretty much pushed us out of the way to try and get the ATV started, but to no avail. He called up the ATV company for us to let them know where to go to come fix it. There was going to be about a 10 minute wait til they got there so we had no choice but to chill with Sampson. He kept saying to us, "It fine. NO PROBLEM *insert creepy laugh here*". He was totally messing with us and we were totally messing with him. It was hilarious. We learned alot about Sampson in our 15 minute chill-session. Here's what he told us: He has driven the same moped for 35 years and it has never needed any gas. He ate only fruit for two years straight...stawberries and bananas to be specific. And my personal favorite, he is 45 years old but has somehow managed to live on Santorini for 50 years. Ohhh Sampson. The company finally came after about 20 minutes and made a quick fix on the ATV. We bid Sampson farewell and drove off into the sunset...literally. What an interesting and memorable encounter.
We decided to rent the ATV's again the next day, Easter. We wanted to knock out the other two beaches: Red Beach and Kamari Beach. We went to Red Beach first and you had to climb a huge mountain to see it, and climb down a mountain to get to it. It was freezing out because it was so early so we just took pictures and headed to Kamari. We figured we would just stay there for the day and have a relaxing Easter. Kamari was on the other side of the island and we had some minor difficulties getting there. We drove in the entirely wrong direction for about 20 minutes before someone finally sent us the right way. We had to take some really small, rocky roads that were in the middle of nowhere to get there. Normally, the ATV order of driving was Jess (because she knew the directions), Sara (because she was a grandma driver), and Me (because I needed to keep Sara moving faster than a snail's pace). For some reason when we headed to Kamari I took the lead on one road, followed by Jess then Sara. Now, I have to backtrack a little so you can understand the next part of this story. Jess was a little spastic when it came to driving the ATV. If there was a big bump or pothole in the road she would kind of panic and jerk the wheel. We tried telling her that she can't do that, that it's an ATV...as in ALL TERRAIN vehicle, but it still happened. In the 24 hours of our ATV posession, Jess had managed to go off the road twice; strangely enough, it was in the same place. The first incident, on the first day, she just had a few scrapes on her legs but the second time, on the second day of our ATV rentals, she cut open the top of her big toe. It was bleeding pretty badly so we had to go find some bandaids and disinfectant stuff. We found the bandaids but couldnt find any cream so we went with....a bar of soap. OK! Now back to the story. I was leading the way on the road to Kamari beach and it was a really rough road filled with potholes. As I'm driving, probably like 100 ft ahead of Jess, I noticed some HUGE potholes. I want to panic but I just drove through them smoothly but I'm thinking to myself, "Ohhhh no. Jess is gonna panic and this is not going to be good." So I immediately slow down to tell Jess not to jerk her wheel and to go through them smoothly. As I'm turning around to warn her, Jess sees the pothole, totally whips her wheel to avoid it the moment she's about to drive through it. She hits a 2 ft cement wall on the side of the road and her and the ATV flip into the air. Both Jess and the ATV flip into a tree and the ATV lands on top of her. And then she fell out from underneath the ATV, off of the wall, and back into the road. My heart seriously stopped. I immediately slammed on my breaks and ran back to where she was. I'm wanting to panic because her legs are all covered in blood and her hand looks like its broken, but I was just trying to keep her calm so she wouldn't freak out. I took my water bottle and her towel and tried washing off some of her cuts so it didn't look so bad to her. The ATV was still on the wall, in the tree and it was spewing gas....soooo we turned that off. Jess was as ok as she could be at the moment. She didn't go unconcious or anything, thank God. There was just a lot of blood and her hand was really injured. She still wanted to go to the beach. We we were like, "JESSICA! Your hand is the size of a boxing glove, you are covered in blood, and we have a totaled ATV. WE ARE NOT GOING TO THE BEACH!" Then she really started crying. I'm trying to crack jokes to make her laugh. I told her I turned around, saw it all unfold before my eyes, and that I was honored to have been able to see the first triple axel, double salchow, ever completed on an ATV. She was incredibly brave and was able to stay relatively calm and collected while we were waiting for someone to drive by. Cars didn't drive by very often because we were in the middle of nowhere. Finally, after a few had passed, one finally stopped. The guy spoke Greek and English. He called the ATV place for us to tell them there was an accident and where they could get the bike. Jess was calmer at this point and one of the guys offered to drive her to the hospital in Fira. She went with him and Sara and I sped the entire 20 minute drive into Fira. They took xrays and her hand wasn't broken. She went to the hospital again here in Barcelona to make sure. It's not broken but they did end up putting a cast on her. It was a really scary moment on the trip but I think we all handled it well. We all kind of look back on it now and laugh. Seriously, who crashes an ATV into a tree in a field full of GOATS?!?! We do :)
We laid low the rest of that night so Jess could ice and rest. We went out for one last dinner and it was FANTASTICCCC! I had chicken that was stuffed with spinach and cheese with grilled vegetables and rice on the side. It was an emotionally draining day and Sara and I slept good that night; Jess not so much. The next day we needed to be at the port to leave on our ferry back to athens by 4:00. We returned 2 of the 3 ATV's the next morning and went back to the villa to check out. After checkout we went into town, got some crepes for lunch, and walked around the shops because souvenirs were still needed. We headed back to the villa around 2:30 because George was going to give us a ride down to the port. We got a picture with George and he went on this way after he dropped us off. We had about an hour and a half before we had to board so we laid in the sun and then had some lunch. I got a gyro for my last meal in Greece.
On the ferry I was the unlucky one who had to sit alone with random people. My seat happened to be at a table for six. Only one of the seats was taken by the creepiest, wormiest, scariest man I have ever seen in my life. The entire time he just started at me. I would look at him, catch him staring, and he would laugh to himself, keep staring, and wink. I was soo repulsed. Repulsion increased when he proceeded to lay down on the seats with his head below the table so he could get a shot of my legs. I covered up with a sweater and he sat back up. At this point I'm thinking that this is unbelievable. After about an hour and a half of him just staring at me, I kid you not, he starts rubbing himself under the table. After a few minutes, he gets up to go to the bathroom, which is in my peripheral vision. I'm not looking directly at him but I can see that he is just standing outside the door. And I'm thinking why isn't this guy going inside. He opens the door a little, like hes about to go in, and pauses again. I turn and look at him and he gets this disgusting smile on his face and motions for me to come into the bathroom with him. I shot him the dirtiest look I have ever sent someones way. If I had a cannon, I probably would have taken it out and shot it at him. He finally went in and I proceeded to grab my bags and move to an empty seat nearby. If one person told me I couldn't move I was going to flip. Move the pervert at my table and MAYBE I'll sit there. The men here are unbelievable. SERIOUSLY EUROPE!??!? Thankfully, he got off at the next stop and that was the end of that. Not the best ending of my trip, but hey...it happens.
The trip back was long. Ferry, 4 hour wait in an airport, 3 am flight home, back to the Residencia in Barcelona at 6:14 am. But I wouldn't have traded it for anything. I had the time of my LIFE. I did NOT want to leave. Athens was awesome but I absolutely loved Santorini. It was so beautiful, people were so nice, and I had such a good time. I ate gyros, I swam in the freezing ocean, I climbed a volcano, I had memorable encounters with Jesh & Sampson, I relaxed on beaches, I drove an ATV, and I freakin' rode a donkey. I am so blessed to have been able to go on this trip and I really am so incredibly thankful for the opportunity. This is seriously a week that I will remember the rest of my life. I had the best Spring Break everrr. I guess really, really, REALLY long story short... I loved Greece.
The End.
I love and miss you all so much!<3 15 days!!!!!!!!!!!
Spring Break - Athens
I'm back! We got back from our trip at about 6:15am on Tuesday morning. As you could probably guess, I was exhausted. Vacation for 7 days and 12 hours of traveling back to Barcelona reallllyyyy took its toll on me. BUT! I had the most amazing spring break EVER! I didn't want it to end and I absolutely LOVE Greece.
The night before the trip I spent about 3 hours figuring how to pack 7 days worth of clothing into a small duffle bag. Now this is more complicated than it sounds. I had to pack a towel, a hairdryer, outfits for the day...and outfits for the night. I opted to go with the rolling method for my shirts because they were thin and the folding method for my pants. It probably weighed about 20lbs but I did manage to get all of my clothing in the small bag. I managed to get to bed around 1 am the night before we left and I ACTUALLY fell asleep. Around 4:30am I woke up to a HUGE thunderstorm and thought to myself...SERIOUSLY BARCELONA??!?! I was just talking with some of my friends that it's only rained in Barcelona once while we've been here and we've never had any thunderstorms. Of course, the night I need to get some rest, there is a two hour long thunderstorm. I tried to sleep through it but it was so loud. I ended up getting up around 5:15 and watching the end of the NCAA Championship Game online (UNC FREAKIN' WON!!!!!!!!! WEEEUUUU). When that ended I took my sweet ole time getting ready to leave, seeing as we weren't leaving til around 8am. When 8am rolled around, we rounded up the troops (just me, Jess, and Sara) and headed to the airport.
Flights went off without a hitch, thank goodness. We arrived in Athens, Greece around 2 and got to the hostel around 3. Walking around the city part of Athens, I was really kind of sketched out. It's very dirty and kind of scary, even during the day. I'm thinking to myself, I really don't want a crummy hostel. After walking around for about 10 minutes we arrived to the street that our little hostel was on, turn the corner, and waaaa-LA! Absolutely BEAUTIFUL neighborhood. Our hostel was in this little section of Athens that kind of seemed like "Old Athens". If I had to compare it to anything I would probably say like the street and small neighborhoods you always see pictures of in Italy. We checked into our hostel and found out we had one roommate, an 18 yr old boy, who has been backpacking in Europe since January. I was in total awe of him. Only 18 and he has gone to nearly every country in Europe, all by himself, just winging it as he goes. Definitely an experience of a lifetime for him. He was real cool and we talked for a little about his travels. He was only there for one night because he was leaving for Prague the next day. The following day we had a guy from Germany, who spoke English, and was in Athens to give a presentation for his PhD. He was nice too. We lucked out with our roommates, thank goodness.
The first day in Athens, we only had a few hours left of daylight after we settled into the hostel, so we decided just to walk around and explore. We walked by the Temple of Zeus but it was closed for the day. You could still see it from the street, so we were able to get some pictures of it. Traffic in Greece is CRAZY! We spent literally 10 minutes trying to cross a street to get back to our hostel neighborhood. We walked around there to find a place to get some dinner. This proved to be quite difficult because there were literally like 200 restaurants in that area. It was the perfect location. We got recruited by this flamboyant guy and decided to eat a meal at his place. I went with Pork Souvlaki for my first meal because they didn't have gyros. DELICIOUS! I know I'll say it again after this but Greek food is absolutely AMAZING. I have never eaten so much in my life. After dinner we walked around some more in our neighborhood and I did a little souvenir shopping. Stuff was relatively cheap for the most part. The really beautiful things were an arm and a freakin' leg though, but I still managed to get some good stuff for people. I have so many gifts I'm not going to be able to remember what I got for who. Oh well, there will be a time and place for figuring that out. Anyway, after walking around for a bit, we decided to get some dessert. I figured HEY, I'm on vacation, I can treat myself to some dessert. We went to a little gelato place and I had 2 scoops of gelato: cookies & cream and black berry. It was really good and I loved the way they served it. They brought the scoops out in this pretty bowl with sparklers stuck into the scoops of ice cream. I tried to get a picture. Naturally, with my luck, right as my camera took a picture, my sparkler went out. We decided to call it an early night because I hadn't slept at all the night before and we had a big day planned ahead for tomorrow. We got a map and made a plan of attack for our full day in Athens. Our hostel was in the PERFECT location; it was close to everything.
The next day we decided we wanted to be up and out of the hostel by 9:30. First, we decided to go to Acropolis, which was only a 2 minute walk from our hostel. I was so excited to visit Acropolis, it's really what I think of when I think of visiting Greece. We paid our admission and proceeded to hike up the freakin' MOUNTAIN. Little did I know, we would be doing a LOT of climbing during our vacation. The view was spectacular on the way up. When we got the top it was pretty crowded, but not too bad. I think it was smart to go early because I can imagine it being absolutely packed later in the day. Acropolis is basically the name given to the area that holds other ruins and the famous Parthenon. When I walked into the main entrance of the Acropolis I was just in awe. It wasn't the most beautiful thing I've ever seen but I just couldn't believe I was there. In moments like that, I can't help but think, how the hell did I get so lucky? The things I've seen, the places I've been, it truly is incredible. I paused for a moment before walking around, just taking everything in, and it sounds stupid, but I was just thinking to myself over and over...I'm standing infront of the freakin' PARTHENON! Woooo! So anyway, we walked around to the different ruins, saving the Parthenon for last. Unfortunately, there was a lot of scaffolding on the one main side of the Parthenon. You still could see it from other angles, but it would have been nice to be able to see it in its entirety without the scaffolding. The Parthenon is larger than life, and SO beautiful. I was walking around and looking at the detail on it. I find it fascinating to think of how this thing was built so long ago, and is still here today. We were up at Acropolis for about an hour, just walking around and taking pictures. We decided to walk down and head to the next point on our map; the National Garden.
The National Garden was only about a 10-15 minute walk from Acropolis. Walking around Athens, you notice very quickly that they have a stray dog problem. We asked someone about it and they said that its really common to see strays everywhere. The majority of them are well fed though. Apparently in Greece they will take strays and give them their shots. If a stray is wearing a collar it means they have their shots, if not, it means they haven't recieived them. After I heard that, I couldn't help but laugh because I had seen a bunch of dogs with collars up at Acropolis (as I mentioned before, its on top of a mountain) just hanging out in the sun. I wanna say to the dogs...little buddy, do you know where your sitting?!?!? Your chilling in the presence of greatness! Haha...but they really have no clue. I found it kind funny. We eventually got the National Garden and we were quite famished becaused we had not eaten breakfast before we went to the Acropolis. This guy was selling some pretzels and doughnuts outside of the gate of the park, so we decided to get these HUGE fried dough donuts to hold us off til lunch; they were only .70 cents. Probably the cheapest food I bought all week. Donuts in hand, we walked around the garden. I'm glad we went because it's a big part of Athens, but I really wasn't impressed. The Garden had a TON of potential and I can see it being absolutely gorgeous, but it really wasn't. It wasn't well kept, weeds everywhere, and just kind of messy in general. I'm thinking maybe because it's only April they hadn't really spiffed it up for the season. But like I said, I'm glad we went because you can't really go to Athens without seeing the National Garden.
After the National Garden we headed to the next stop on our own personal tour of Athens; the Olympic Stadium for Track. I'm not sure if I'm right, but I think the Olympics were held in Athens in 2004, so the stadium was relatively new. It was cool to see it and imagine all of the athletes there. I snapped a few shots and we moved on. On the way to our next stop, the Royal Palace, my dear friend Jessica got pooped on by a pigeon. We were just walking and talking and all of the sudden she just screamed. As you probably know, I'm a very easily scared and generally jumpy person. So when I heard her scream, naturally, I screamed too. Little did I know, she had only be pooped on...poor thing. I washed it off her arm, shirt, and bag with some water and a map so she could be a little clean until we could find a place where she could wash herself. We finally found a little cafe that gave her some napkins to wash up with. They kept saying, "It's good luck, it's good luck!". HAH! Maybe it's good luck, but it certainly sucked. Poor Jess. After she cleaned up we continued on toward the palace. Now, we thought this was a place you could tour and take pictures and what not. We couldnt finds the main entrance so we asked one of the guards which way to head and if admission was free. He pointed the way, said that admission was free and proceeded to laugh at us; we didn't know why. Turns out, the President of Greece lives at the Royal Palace. We probably looked like total idiots asking if we could get in for free. We had a little chat with another guard at the main gate. He was the one who told us about the President, who just so happens to be a she, and the fact that she is currently living in the Palace. We joked around with him saying, "Oh yea, she invited us for lunch". He got a kick out of us and eventually we decided it's probably not a good idea to just chill like idiots outside of the Presidents House. Interesting side note, you might think its bad that the poor guards at Buckingham Palace have to wear a giant fuzzball on their head...well the guards in Greece have to wear skirts, wools socks, and shoes with a giant PUFFBALL on the tip. STYLING!
After that we decided to head to Monastaki Square to find some lunch and this flea market. This is where I got my first REAL GREEK GYRO. Now, gyros just so happen to be my favorite food, bu they have to be GOOD gyros. The fake, gross ones they serve at school are a sorry excuse for a gyro. I'm very particular about the ones I eat, and as it stands, the only ones I eat and like are at the State Fair...aka I only get them once a year. So, as you can imagine, I was STOKED to be able to have real gyros. When my gyro came it was all on a plate, not on a pita, which kind of confused me. Apparently that's how gyros are really served when they aren't "To-Go". It was absolutely DELICIOUS! You'll be pleased to know I had 3 on the trip. After lunch we walked around the square, the flea market, and another some other streets. We were in the main part of Athens and I must say, it's really dirty. I wasn't really loving it, but I did absolutely love the area we were staying in. So I guess we kind of were lucky in that regard.
We decided to pick up our ferry ticket to Santorini the day before we left. We had to be there at like 5:30 in the morning and we didn't think the place would be open so wanted to make sure we had them in our hand the day before. We trekked out to the port and like total idiots, we did not bring the directions to agency we had to pick our tickets up from. We were all optimistic thinking, "Oh yea, we'll recognize it, there can't be too many". Right? WRONG! There were 56,824 ferry ticket sale stores on the main street. We spent about 20 minutes just pacing the street trying to see something that look familiar. We found this one store that suggested the store we needed was across the street, so we crossed the street to see. It wasn't the right store, but this store suggested we cross back to the other side of the street and try another store. Let me just say, we probably crossed that street 45 times in the hour it took for us to find the place. Finally, after a great deal of ridiculousness, we got our tickets. I'm really happy we got them the day before because we passed by the store early in the morning walking to our ferry and it wasn't open...aka we would have had no tickets to Santorini. That night, we got dinner and decided to go to this bar called Bretto's. It's pretty cool inside; all the walls have a light behind them and they are entirely covered with liquer bottles which are pretty colors. It's like this giant glowing, rainbow room when you walk in. I got a glass of raspberry liquer...it was disgusting. I've come to the conclusion I just don't like the taste of alcohol...oh well. After that we walked around a little more and did some more souvenir shopping. We had to call it a REALLY early night because we need to get up at 5am to head to Piraeus Port to catch our ferry to Santorini.
Sooo, what did I think about Athens? It was alot different than I thought it would be. I was picturing the whole city to be like the area our hostel was in. I was wrong. It's very big and very dirty, but there are some nice areas. I think spending 2 days there was the perfect amount of time. We were literally able to see all the big sites and do some exploring of the actual city itself. I was just in awe of all the history that is in that city. I always have this same cheesy thought at every destination I go to. When I see locals just walking around, and I think to myself...These people walk by the Parthenon everyday; they live in the shadow of the Acropolis. Do they know how awesome that is? Do they appreciate where they live? I always wonder. Then it makes me think about being home in the U.S. Ya know, what do I walk by everyday and not appreciate? It really makes you want to see things differently. Anyway, Athens was amazing; I loved it. I was definitely tired after the two days of non-stop walking. I was very ready for some beaches, relaxation, and adventure in Santorini. And boy did I get it.
The night before the trip I spent about 3 hours figuring how to pack 7 days worth of clothing into a small duffle bag. Now this is more complicated than it sounds. I had to pack a towel, a hairdryer, outfits for the day...and outfits for the night. I opted to go with the rolling method for my shirts because they were thin and the folding method for my pants. It probably weighed about 20lbs but I did manage to get all of my clothing in the small bag. I managed to get to bed around 1 am the night before we left and I ACTUALLY fell asleep. Around 4:30am I woke up to a HUGE thunderstorm and thought to myself...SERIOUSLY BARCELONA??!?! I was just talking with some of my friends that it's only rained in Barcelona once while we've been here and we've never had any thunderstorms. Of course, the night I need to get some rest, there is a two hour long thunderstorm. I tried to sleep through it but it was so loud. I ended up getting up around 5:15 and watching the end of the NCAA Championship Game online (UNC FREAKIN' WON!!!!!!!!! WEEEUUUU). When that ended I took my sweet ole time getting ready to leave, seeing as we weren't leaving til around 8am. When 8am rolled around, we rounded up the troops (just me, Jess, and Sara) and headed to the airport.
Flights went off without a hitch, thank goodness. We arrived in Athens, Greece around 2 and got to the hostel around 3. Walking around the city part of Athens, I was really kind of sketched out. It's very dirty and kind of scary, even during the day. I'm thinking to myself, I really don't want a crummy hostel. After walking around for about 10 minutes we arrived to the street that our little hostel was on, turn the corner, and waaaa-LA! Absolutely BEAUTIFUL neighborhood. Our hostel was in this little section of Athens that kind of seemed like "Old Athens". If I had to compare it to anything I would probably say like the street and small neighborhoods you always see pictures of in Italy. We checked into our hostel and found out we had one roommate, an 18 yr old boy, who has been backpacking in Europe since January. I was in total awe of him. Only 18 and he has gone to nearly every country in Europe, all by himself, just winging it as he goes. Definitely an experience of a lifetime for him. He was real cool and we talked for a little about his travels. He was only there for one night because he was leaving for Prague the next day. The following day we had a guy from Germany, who spoke English, and was in Athens to give a presentation for his PhD. He was nice too. We lucked out with our roommates, thank goodness.
The first day in Athens, we only had a few hours left of daylight after we settled into the hostel, so we decided just to walk around and explore. We walked by the Temple of Zeus but it was closed for the day. You could still see it from the street, so we were able to get some pictures of it. Traffic in Greece is CRAZY! We spent literally 10 minutes trying to cross a street to get back to our hostel neighborhood. We walked around there to find a place to get some dinner. This proved to be quite difficult because there were literally like 200 restaurants in that area. It was the perfect location. We got recruited by this flamboyant guy and decided to eat a meal at his place. I went with Pork Souvlaki for my first meal because they didn't have gyros. DELICIOUS! I know I'll say it again after this but Greek food is absolutely AMAZING. I have never eaten so much in my life. After dinner we walked around some more in our neighborhood and I did a little souvenir shopping. Stuff was relatively cheap for the most part. The really beautiful things were an arm and a freakin' leg though, but I still managed to get some good stuff for people. I have so many gifts I'm not going to be able to remember what I got for who. Oh well, there will be a time and place for figuring that out. Anyway, after walking around for a bit, we decided to get some dessert. I figured HEY, I'm on vacation, I can treat myself to some dessert. We went to a little gelato place and I had 2 scoops of gelato: cookies & cream and black berry. It was really good and I loved the way they served it. They brought the scoops out in this pretty bowl with sparklers stuck into the scoops of ice cream. I tried to get a picture. Naturally, with my luck, right as my camera took a picture, my sparkler went out. We decided to call it an early night because I hadn't slept at all the night before and we had a big day planned ahead for tomorrow. We got a map and made a plan of attack for our full day in Athens. Our hostel was in the PERFECT location; it was close to everything.
The next day we decided we wanted to be up and out of the hostel by 9:30. First, we decided to go to Acropolis, which was only a 2 minute walk from our hostel. I was so excited to visit Acropolis, it's really what I think of when I think of visiting Greece. We paid our admission and proceeded to hike up the freakin' MOUNTAIN. Little did I know, we would be doing a LOT of climbing during our vacation. The view was spectacular on the way up. When we got the top it was pretty crowded, but not too bad. I think it was smart to go early because I can imagine it being absolutely packed later in the day. Acropolis is basically the name given to the area that holds other ruins and the famous Parthenon. When I walked into the main entrance of the Acropolis I was just in awe. It wasn't the most beautiful thing I've ever seen but I just couldn't believe I was there. In moments like that, I can't help but think, how the hell did I get so lucky? The things I've seen, the places I've been, it truly is incredible. I paused for a moment before walking around, just taking everything in, and it sounds stupid, but I was just thinking to myself over and over...I'm standing infront of the freakin' PARTHENON! Woooo! So anyway, we walked around to the different ruins, saving the Parthenon for last. Unfortunately, there was a lot of scaffolding on the one main side of the Parthenon. You still could see it from other angles, but it would have been nice to be able to see it in its entirety without the scaffolding. The Parthenon is larger than life, and SO beautiful. I was walking around and looking at the detail on it. I find it fascinating to think of how this thing was built so long ago, and is still here today. We were up at Acropolis for about an hour, just walking around and taking pictures. We decided to walk down and head to the next point on our map; the National Garden.
The National Garden was only about a 10-15 minute walk from Acropolis. Walking around Athens, you notice very quickly that they have a stray dog problem. We asked someone about it and they said that its really common to see strays everywhere. The majority of them are well fed though. Apparently in Greece they will take strays and give them their shots. If a stray is wearing a collar it means they have their shots, if not, it means they haven't recieived them. After I heard that, I couldn't help but laugh because I had seen a bunch of dogs with collars up at Acropolis (as I mentioned before, its on top of a mountain) just hanging out in the sun. I wanna say to the dogs...little buddy, do you know where your sitting?!?!? Your chilling in the presence of greatness! Haha...but they really have no clue. I found it kind funny. We eventually got the National Garden and we were quite famished becaused we had not eaten breakfast before we went to the Acropolis. This guy was selling some pretzels and doughnuts outside of the gate of the park, so we decided to get these HUGE fried dough donuts to hold us off til lunch; they were only .70 cents. Probably the cheapest food I bought all week. Donuts in hand, we walked around the garden. I'm glad we went because it's a big part of Athens, but I really wasn't impressed. The Garden had a TON of potential and I can see it being absolutely gorgeous, but it really wasn't. It wasn't well kept, weeds everywhere, and just kind of messy in general. I'm thinking maybe because it's only April they hadn't really spiffed it up for the season. But like I said, I'm glad we went because you can't really go to Athens without seeing the National Garden.
After the National Garden we headed to the next stop on our own personal tour of Athens; the Olympic Stadium for Track. I'm not sure if I'm right, but I think the Olympics were held in Athens in 2004, so the stadium was relatively new. It was cool to see it and imagine all of the athletes there. I snapped a few shots and we moved on. On the way to our next stop, the Royal Palace, my dear friend Jessica got pooped on by a pigeon. We were just walking and talking and all of the sudden she just screamed. As you probably know, I'm a very easily scared and generally jumpy person. So when I heard her scream, naturally, I screamed too. Little did I know, she had only be pooped on...poor thing. I washed it off her arm, shirt, and bag with some water and a map so she could be a little clean until we could find a place where she could wash herself. We finally found a little cafe that gave her some napkins to wash up with. They kept saying, "It's good luck, it's good luck!". HAH! Maybe it's good luck, but it certainly sucked. Poor Jess. After she cleaned up we continued on toward the palace. Now, we thought this was a place you could tour and take pictures and what not. We couldnt finds the main entrance so we asked one of the guards which way to head and if admission was free. He pointed the way, said that admission was free and proceeded to laugh at us; we didn't know why. Turns out, the President of Greece lives at the Royal Palace. We probably looked like total idiots asking if we could get in for free. We had a little chat with another guard at the main gate. He was the one who told us about the President, who just so happens to be a she, and the fact that she is currently living in the Palace. We joked around with him saying, "Oh yea, she invited us for lunch". He got a kick out of us and eventually we decided it's probably not a good idea to just chill like idiots outside of the Presidents House. Interesting side note, you might think its bad that the poor guards at Buckingham Palace have to wear a giant fuzzball on their head...well the guards in Greece have to wear skirts, wools socks, and shoes with a giant PUFFBALL on the tip. STYLING!
After that we decided to head to Monastaki Square to find some lunch and this flea market. This is where I got my first REAL GREEK GYRO. Now, gyros just so happen to be my favorite food, bu they have to be GOOD gyros. The fake, gross ones they serve at school are a sorry excuse for a gyro. I'm very particular about the ones I eat, and as it stands, the only ones I eat and like are at the State Fair...aka I only get them once a year. So, as you can imagine, I was STOKED to be able to have real gyros. When my gyro came it was all on a plate, not on a pita, which kind of confused me. Apparently that's how gyros are really served when they aren't "To-Go". It was absolutely DELICIOUS! You'll be pleased to know I had 3 on the trip. After lunch we walked around the square, the flea market, and another some other streets. We were in the main part of Athens and I must say, it's really dirty. I wasn't really loving it, but I did absolutely love the area we were staying in. So I guess we kind of were lucky in that regard.
We decided to pick up our ferry ticket to Santorini the day before we left. We had to be there at like 5:30 in the morning and we didn't think the place would be open so wanted to make sure we had them in our hand the day before. We trekked out to the port and like total idiots, we did not bring the directions to agency we had to pick our tickets up from. We were all optimistic thinking, "Oh yea, we'll recognize it, there can't be too many". Right? WRONG! There were 56,824 ferry ticket sale stores on the main street. We spent about 20 minutes just pacing the street trying to see something that look familiar. We found this one store that suggested the store we needed was across the street, so we crossed the street to see. It wasn't the right store, but this store suggested we cross back to the other side of the street and try another store. Let me just say, we probably crossed that street 45 times in the hour it took for us to find the place. Finally, after a great deal of ridiculousness, we got our tickets. I'm really happy we got them the day before because we passed by the store early in the morning walking to our ferry and it wasn't open...aka we would have had no tickets to Santorini. That night, we got dinner and decided to go to this bar called Bretto's. It's pretty cool inside; all the walls have a light behind them and they are entirely covered with liquer bottles which are pretty colors. It's like this giant glowing, rainbow room when you walk in. I got a glass of raspberry liquer...it was disgusting. I've come to the conclusion I just don't like the taste of alcohol...oh well. After that we walked around a little more and did some more souvenir shopping. We had to call it a REALLY early night because we need to get up at 5am to head to Piraeus Port to catch our ferry to Santorini.
Sooo, what did I think about Athens? It was alot different than I thought it would be. I was picturing the whole city to be like the area our hostel was in. I was wrong. It's very big and very dirty, but there are some nice areas. I think spending 2 days there was the perfect amount of time. We were literally able to see all the big sites and do some exploring of the actual city itself. I was just in awe of all the history that is in that city. I always have this same cheesy thought at every destination I go to. When I see locals just walking around, and I think to myself...These people walk by the Parthenon everyday; they live in the shadow of the Acropolis. Do they know how awesome that is? Do they appreciate where they live? I always wonder. Then it makes me think about being home in the U.S. Ya know, what do I walk by everyday and not appreciate? It really makes you want to see things differently. Anyway, Athens was amazing; I loved it. I was definitely tired after the two days of non-stop walking. I was very ready for some beaches, relaxation, and adventure in Santorini. And boy did I get it.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
ventures in BCN
Greetings everyone! I'm sorry I haven't written in quite some time. My grandma said it perfectly the other day, I've kind of gotten into a routine here and nothing blog-worthy is happening anymore...hence my lack of writing. Not to mention I have a butt-load of work I have to do in my remaining 25 days. 25 days?!?!?! Holy CROW! I can't believe it.
Anyway! It's my spring break, thank God! I have about a week and a half without classes. Let me tell you, going this long with no break from school has been KILLER! This little vacation was much needed. I don't leave for Greece until Tuesdsay, so I've had some time to kill. I was hoping to knock out two of my papers but my motivation levels are at an all-time low. I haven't been completely lazy though. I guess you could say I did some exploring. I think I've been in Barcelona for so long that I've stopped being "in awe" of it. So the past few days I've taken some time to go and sight see in Barcelona. I find it absolutely fascinating that I can live here for almost 4 months and still go visit things that I haven't come across yet.
My friend Jess had a bunch of her friends here visiting for their spring break. She was going to take them to this place called Font Magic. It is basically this MASSIVE fountain infront of a castle in Barcelona. Everynight when it gets dark out the fountain puts on this show. Now I assume your thinking, "Wow, a fountain spraying water...cool?". But I promise you, it is INTENSE. The water shoots up to different heights and in different patterns. Inside the fountain are different lights that make the water and spray look colorful. To top it all off, the entire show is done to blasting music. We caught the last showing of the night and I absolutely loved it. Not to mention, I got some pretty sweet pics too.
Carly's family is visiting her for the week and they invited me to come out with them today. We went up to Parc Guell, which surprisingly, I have not seen yet. Parc Guell is probably one of Barcelona's biggest tourist attractions. It is basically a little city that Gaudi designed and lived in. I remember seeing it in Vicky Cristina Barcelona & America's Next Top Model and thinking it was absolutely gorgeous. Little did I know, I'd be in it someday. I'm a huge fan of mosaics and Parc Guell is basically one giant mosaic. I was in heaven! Everything in Parc Guell is so unique. It is almost like your in a fairy-tale; kind of like Alice and Wonderland. It was definitely the most beautiful place that I have visited while in Europe. I took tons of pictures but they really don't do it any justice. I wish you all could have seen it.
I'll post some pictures from my Font Magic & Parc Guell excursions below. I leave for Greece on Tuesday and I won't be back until the 14th. I'll try to update the blog as soon as I can when I get back. Hopefully some spring weat
her is comin
g your way. Love and miss you all! <3
Anyway! It's my spring break, thank God! I have about a week and a half without classes. Let me tell you, going this long with no break from school has been KILLER! This little vacation was much needed. I don't leave for Greece until Tuesdsay, so I've had some time to kill. I was hoping to knock out two of my papers but my motivation levels are at an all-time low. I haven't been completely lazy though. I guess you could say I did some exploring. I think I've been in Barcelona for so long that I've stopped being "in awe" of it. So the past few days I've taken some time to go and sight see in Barcelona. I find it absolutely fascinating that I can live here for almost 4 months and still go visit things that I haven't come across yet.
My friend Jess had a bunch of her friends here visiting for their spring break. She was going to take them to this place called Font Magic. It is basically this MASSIVE fountain infront of a castle in Barcelona. Everynight when it gets dark out the fountain puts on this show. Now I assume your thinking, "Wow, a fountain spraying water...cool?". But I promise you, it is INTENSE. The water shoots up to different heights and in different patterns. Inside the fountain are different lights that make the water and spray look colorful. To top it all off, the entire show is done to blasting music. We caught the last showing of the night and I absolutely loved it. Not to mention, I got some pretty sweet pics too.
Carly's family is visiting her for the week and they invited me to come out with them today. We went up to Parc Guell, which surprisingly, I have not seen yet. Parc Guell is probably one of Barcelona's biggest tourist attractions. It is basically a little city that Gaudi designed and lived in. I remember seeing it in Vicky Cristina Barcelona & America's Next Top Model and thinking it was absolutely gorgeous. Little did I know, I'd be in it someday. I'm a huge fan of mosaics and Parc Guell is basically one giant mosaic. I was in heaven! Everything in Parc Guell is so unique. It is almost like your in a fairy-tale; kind of like Alice and Wonderland. It was definitely the most beautiful place that I have visited while in Europe. I took tons of pictures but they really don't do it any justice. I wish you all could have seen it.
I'll post some pictures from my Font Magic & Parc Guell excursions below. I leave for Greece on Tuesday and I won't be back until the 14th. I'll try to update the blog as soon as I can when I get back. Hopefully some spring weat
her is comin
g your way. Love and miss you all! <3
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