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!

Sol, Spain, Sangria & S'mores

Hey guys!

Repping all my Boston gear.

There have been some rather drastic ups and downs for this week due to A) Current events B) The weather and C) The beginning of finals.To begin with the current events side of things, I'm sure you've all heard about the Boston Marathon bombings; however, the effect seems different when you aren't in your own country. I feel disconnected with everything that happened, and it's incredibly strange to deal with such tragedy when you are away from home and have to rely on the internet (it's a little sketchy here) to keep you updated. It was tense waiting to see the outcome of everything, and I don't think I really describe my disorientation and shock over the bombings. I'm aware that, had I been in Minnesota, I couldn't have helped any more than when I am here, but I felt far more helpless not even being in America. Overall, I am grateful to the city of Boston for hanging tough in these trying times and proving the strength of humanity in the face of such hatred (I am wearing my Green Monstah Red Sox shirt while writing this. Sorry I couldn't be serious in the picture, that's just my blogging face. Also, go Twins!)  

While events unfolded in Boston, the weather here has been absolutely fantastic. This almost adds to my struggle to come to terms with the destruction back home (home being 'Murica in general) because how can such beauty exist in the same place as that much hate? No answers to that question, I guess. On a less world-wide scale, this week has featured an extreme internal battle: homework and studying versus the absolutely fantastic weather. I fear for my grades.

I was Skyping with the fam last Sunday, so I realize rubbing in the weather situation is not particularly nice. It seems my Minnesota people have had some winter storm watches, right? And a little bit of snow? Ah the joys of the Midwest. In case you were wondering, I have a tan line and it's been between 70 and 85 degrees for most of the week. No big deal.

This means I've been outside for the entire week when I'm not in class.We have a plaza outside the Fund with benches, so I've been reading and studying out there whenever I get a chance because I only have one week left in Spain. The Spaniards don't necessarily share the Minnesotans and Wisconsinites love for the heat: they stared at any of us wearing summery clothes and they still had on jackets, and some of them even had gloves. I don't know how they physically survived. (There is no "ph" in Spanish an I almost put an "f" instead. Just thought you all should know...) When we weren't sitting out on the benches or enjoying other parts of Toledo, we were drinking Sangria at Dragos (the bar that is 30 seconds from the Fund) after class to relax in the afternoon.

I also had my first final on Thursday, which went well (?). Maybe. We are connected to a music school, so I apparently get a soundtrack to finals week because they were definitely making a racket during my test. So it goes. To celebrate being done with our first final, about thirty of us headed to Dragos just to hang out for the rest of the afternoon. This was extremely fun and one of our professors even joined us in  our Tapas-and-Sangria hangout. In reality, I don't think a person gets many perfect times in their life, but this was one of them. I don't mean a good or great time. I mean absolutely perfect. Yeah, that's how fantastic it was.

Friday was basically just more hanging out and studying during the day because finals. I have a paper and presentation due tomorrow (We won't talk about how far I've gotten on them. That idea scares us.) so I actually-sort-of tried to be productive. Results were mixed. We had all decided earlier in the week to have a bonfire Friday night, so I was looking forward to that all day. We planned to leave at nine, before it got completely dark out because we were climbing the mountain (I swear it's a mountain. Big hill isn't accurate!) to where we planned on making our fire. We didn't exactly leave on time, so it was pretty dark when we made it to the other side of the river.

Life Lesson #86: Do not climb small mountains in the dark. Do not wear flip-flops while climbing small mountains in the dark.

That was up there in Dumbest Things I've Done In Spain. But we did eventually make it and the view was literally breath-taking. Mostly on account of the climb, but the view was actually spectacular. We were the first group that got up there and none of us brought a lighter. Le sigh. Eventually the other groups straggled up, and they brought provisions to make a fire possible. Unfortunately for us, fires fall under the Super Illegal activities here on account of the dry countryside. Even so, we decided to make it and hope there weren't any headlines the next day saying: American Students Burn Down Medieval City Due To Stupidity. We didn't need to worry though because our fire struggled to survive. All of the guys were trying to prove their manliness or what have you because they were obsessed with the keeping the fire going. Most of us got to roast a S'more though, before it died completely so it ended up working out alright. It was super windy up on the mountain, so when we got cold we went back to Toledo to sleep and prepare for the next day.

Saturday started off much the same as Friday, with a lot of studying and trying to accomplish things in spite of the beautiful, weather-y distraction. Mostly, I am terrible at accomplishing school things even when I give myself a deadline. So I really didn't get that much done. Saturday night was a celebration though because it was Emma's 21st birthday this weekend! Free champagne and starting the night out at Dragos because that's where it's at. I don't think the bar scene in the states is going to be anywhere as good as it is here. I got tired quite early because of um, obviously working hard the entire day, so I headed in earlyish. I had hopes of actually getting things done today, but it's been difficult. Ugh. At best, this was wishful thinking.

I pretended to do homework today, so now I have quite a bit to go tonight. I really need to work on my time management skills and not do Other Spain Things.

On a concluding note, I have realized J.K. Rowling stole my life story for Harry Potter. Now, it might seem like a lot to compare myself to the Boy Who Lived, but it's true. (If you haven't read/watched Harry Potter, just ignore this paragraph.) Like Harry, I have to destroy the horcruxes in my life to save the world. I mean, my horcruxes are finals, but it's almost the same as parts of Voldemort's soul. Anyway, the closer I get to having them destroyed the happier I can be, right? Wrong! Harry needs to sacrifice himself for the good of humanity by destroying the last horcruxes and when I destroy mine I uh...won't be in Spain anymore. This is true sacrifice. No finals = No Spain.

Basically, I'm Harry Potter. 

One week left in Spain then off to Greece!