Greece Is The Word!

Hola chicos!

EDIT: I had this ready a few days ago but the internet has been sketchy. Bear with it for the next posts, whenever they arrive.

We have a lot to catch up on because I just ended my stay in Greece and am now in Turkey. I'm going to try to update you after each new country but we'll see how it goes because I am exhausted from travel and busy doing real things. Not that you aren't important, readers. You just really aren't as cool as Europe or the beach or ATVing or whatnot. But I am getting ahead of myself: on to my Big Fat Greek Adventure.

We all know I was depressed to leave Toledo, but bright and early on Sunday morning I did indeed leave. This was a sad moment but the beginning of more travels with some new faces which has started out excellently. I am currently one in a group of six, all of them from Notre Dame and me as the sixth wheel. Which has worked out pretty well because the Notre Dame kids are awesome.

Our flight didn't leave until 12:30, but because the Fund provided transportation, we were up early at 6 AM with everyone else. Some hilarity ensued when Nick, a member of our group, forgot his bag on the bus and had to chase it down and ended up disappearing for half an hour trying to track it down. We had plenty of time to kill at the airport before our flight so we spent it catnapping on the floor. I'm going to not talk about Airport Time that much because it bores me, and must be even more boring for you. The only thing of importance was one split second decision I made.

Life Lesson #302: If you plan on bringing one backpack of stuff for traveling, do not suddenly change your mind and bring All Of The Things around Europe. Bringing all of my stuff has been an interesting and, on occasion, very un-fun.
 

We made it to Athens but only were spending the rest of the day and the night there because we had to catch a ferry the next morning. So our afternoon in Athens was a fantastic whirlwind. From the airport, we took the metro into the actual city and stored our bags in lockers at one of the stops. We wanted to see the Acropolis, which has one of the best views of the city and we managed to find a nice British gent to give us directions. Unfortunately, I had to lug my over packed backpack up the giant hill but it was well worth it. We made it to the top a little before sunset which made the view even more fantastical. Afterwards, we played a game called We Are Lost. Katie had heard of a really great restaurant and it took us quite some time to find due to deficient map abilities. When we did find it, everything was awesome.

Sidenote: One of my first impressions of Greece was that everything was written in math because we use Greek symbols. Carry on. 

We made friends with our waitress/owner of the place and she told us she was our Greek mom, so we refer to here as Mama Greece. She gave us the best food (Greek salads are 8 bajillion times better there) and I had a gyro which mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Delicious. We finished off the night with some Super Special Greek Donuts, and I will gain so much weight after this trip.

Our fantastic night came to an end so we headed to Sketch City, Greece for our hostel. Now, when you pay eight euros a night, you know things won't necessarily be great. One would think, though, that the entire city (Piraeus, our port) was the dirtiest place I've ever been in. Ever. Like cockroaches and a terrible smell and ugh. The hostel was only slightly better but life does what life wants, so these things happen. We went to bed not-really-early even though our ferry was supposed to leave at I-Should-Not-Be-Awake AM and hoped for the best come morning.

Monday came far too early and we got, at best, five hours of sleep. Fortunately, we had a eight hour ferry ride to relax and catch up on the sleep. We spent the time admiring the gorgeous sea and playing both cards and thinking games. I've never seen as many shades of blue as in Greece. When we finally made it to Santorini, we waited for our "abuelo" to pick us up from the port. Stelio, the guy who ran our hotel, loaded all of our things into his van and we zig-zagged up the mountainside to our place on the beach. Our hotel was super cute, had a pool and was a two minute walk (at most) to the water.

It was still fairly early in the afternoon so we laid out by the water for a few hours before taking showers to freshen up before dinner. For dinner, we walked along the waterfront to a restaurant called Waves to enjoy the view (and the company). It wasn't high season yet, so when we made friends with the bartender, he invited us to the bar for a free drink: some kind of banana smoothie-ish deliciousness. After a while, we headed out onto the beach to enjoy the stars but eventually (thanks to our new Greek friend) decided to go to a club for dancing...which really was just another bar. We, however, decided to make it a party and got the DJ to play American music until he banned us because he didn't apparently like it. So it goes. We were out for a long time before our party ended.

The next morning, we had planned to wake up early, but that actually was lying to ourselves. For breakfast, we wanted to go to a 24 hour bakery that we had seen the day before but instead ended up at the Closer Bakery because of laze. Greek pastries are absolutely delicious. We proceeded to go rent ATVs because that is something you do if you want to experience the best time ever. Three ATVs only cost us 75 euros total, so it was a relatively cheap way to see everything on the island and also the greatest thing that will ever happen in my life. I was excited about the tour bus in Madrid, but that was ridiculous: ATVs are quite possibly the greatest invention, ranking above the internet and Batman. Batman, guys. That's how good it was.

We zipped around and saw most of the best sights: the Red Beach, Fira, and Oia. We parked our ATVs in Fira, a city in the center of the island, to do some shopping and eat a homemade lunch, which was both cheap and tasty. We ended up there for quite some time, and the weather was incredibly beautiful and hot. There were tons of cute shops and Nick was likely irritated with us by the end. After the shopping, headed back to our town to shower and head over to Oia, another city, for the night.

Oia is on the other side of the C-shaped island, so it took about an hour to get back over there after changing. The ride was super crazy because we whipped around the mountainous countryside, next to cliffs and suchlike. To say I had some vertigo would be an understatement, but it was all well worth the view. We also were able to see the classic white buildings with the blue domes, as though the Greeks got the color scheme from the sea and sky. (The probably did).

When we got to Oia, it was hard to find a place to park because there were so many vehicular transports already there due to the city having the best view of the sunset. So, naturally, it was incredibly crowded by the time we found the perfect spot. And I will probably never see any sunset more beautiful.  

After the sunset, it became a little chillier and we looked for the best spot to eat. And failed. The food wasn’t terrible, but it took over an hour to get it and overall the service left something to be desired. The only redeeming quality was the view which was like woah. We paid as soon as we could, and ventured out into the night. And by ventured, I mean we drove our ATVs in the dark on a crazy mountainside. We also looked like a biker gang because we wore matching jackets the rental place provided; I obviously look like an intimidating biker. We survived the night back and were all tuckered out, so it was time for bed.

Leaving Santorini the next day was incredibly sad and I’m going there on my honeymoon provided some magical creature of a boy ever asks me to marry him. Otherwise, I’ll go back anyway. We got on a ten-hour ferry back and played more card games (Kemp, anyone?) and mostly spent the time napping or trying to nap. The ferry didn’t get in Athens until 11 PM so Katie and I set our alarms for 4:15 AM and hoped not to die after only four hours of sleep.

Spoiler Alert: We didn’t.

I’m going to leave this off before telling about my Turkey trip because that definitely deserves a post of its own. I’ll try to get it (and pictures) up, but wifi does what it wants.

Hasta Luego!