Before you start reading this, I want you to know that it is an extremely long post with lots of pictures. I hope you don't become too bored with it!
My alarm goes off at 6:35 am. I turn it off and roll over - wait, that was supposed to go off at 5:45, not 6:45. Shit. I jump out of bed and into the shower, thank god all of my stuff is already packed and my clothes for the day are laid out. Both my roommate and I overslept due to incorrectly set alarms. We're now an hour behind schedule. We meet Kelly on the U-Bahn and take it to the S-Bahn station. Of course, we get on the wrong S-Bahn. We get off, take it back one stop and wait for the right one. Luckily, it comes within 5 minutes. We arrive at the airport with 20 minutes to spare until boarding time. None of us check bags, so checking in is fast and easy. Security goes smoothly...for the most part. The metal detector goes off on Rachael and she gets patted down. We finally get on the plane and our insanely rushed and stressful morning slows down. Vienna to Amsterdam.
We have a 9 hour layover, so obviously we're going into the city for the day! Amsterdam definitely has character.
There are these strange music box things throughout the city that end up clashing horribly with each other. The city is packed with people walking a little too close for comfort. We're also lugging around our bags with us, so that's fun. It's a warm day, kind of muggy. None of us know that much about Amsterdam, which now seems a little silly, so our plan is to just wander for a few hours. Soon enough, I recognize a Holocaust Memorial that I saw online when I was looking up things about Amsterdam.
One thing I notice: there are SO many bikes here! It blows my mind how many parked bikes we had to walk around. We wander some more. I remember that I wanted to go to the Anne Frank House, so I find it on my map and we start to walk in that direction. However, when we get there, we realize that the entry fee is a little more than any of us are willing to spend and they have a "no large backpacks/luggage inside" policy. Fail. Oh well, I guess it was worth a shot, right? We continue walking down the street and then I see someone who I think I recognize...or, two someones. "Mariah?!?" Yep, it's her and Ann! Two fellow Puget Sounders in the middle of Amsterdam, what are the odds? They've been traveling around Europe for the past month or so. We stop and talk for a while and then go our separate ways. I still can't believe that I ran into them here. More wandering. Eventually, we stumble into a small pizza shop that ends up being an Italian culture center, too (or something of the sort). The 3 of us share a square slice of pizza, drink water, and rest up from the past couple of hours of walking around with our bags. When we get up to leave, the man working there tells us we can store our bags there for the rest of the day. He does it all the time and says it's no problem at all. We decide to trust this friendly stranger and leave our bags in a side room. Our backs feel so much better and we feel free to explore even more. As we're walking around, I get very turned around and say "I have no idea where we are," while trying to locate ourselves on my map. Right then, a man who's walking by yells out to me "You're in Amsterdam!" He reminds me of Max (played by Joe Anderson) from Across the Universe for some reason and I can't help but laugh. We continue walking and stumble upon a street that is full of coffee shops...Amsterdam style.
We get waves of the smell seeping from every door we pass and we think it is so funny. This is definitely a hippie area. There's a man sitting on the window sill of the first floor (European) of a building, playing his guitar. There's also a group of people lounging in an open café window on a bed of pillows and cushions. We stop in a few souvenir shops to buy some postcards and stamps. Then, we return to the pizza shop, thank the man for storing our bags and head back to the train station to get to the airport.
Amsterdam to Athens. We land at 12:30am, it's been a very long day of traveling. Rachael met a Greek woman on the plane who is now helping us get to our hostel! She takes us to buy tickets for the bus into the city, she's taking the same bus as us. She draws out a map showing us how to get to our hostel and writes down the names of a few places that are must-sees in Athens. She also gives us her phone number, just in case we need anything else. Her English name is Kris - I am so glad Rachael met her. The second person who has been extremely helpful in the past 12 hours. We get off at the last stop and make our way toward our hostel. It's past 1:30am and the streets are a little dark.
On our right, we pass the Temple of Zeus and we all can't believe that there are ruins
right in front of us! It's beautiful. We finally make it to our hostel and walk into our room: a 6-bed mixed dorm room. Of course, 2 of our roommates are asleep and the 3rd is in the bathroom. It's a struggle to get settled and changed with cell phone lights. Sometime around 2 am, we finally get to sleep. The next morning, we sleep in until 9:20 and miss the complimentary breakfast that ends at 9:30. We take our time getting ready and befriend one of our roommates: Hamish, an 18-year old from Australia. He comes to eat breakfast with us then does his own thing. Rachael, Kelly and I make our way to the Benaki Museum and pass the Temple of Zeus and Parliament on the way. Athens is very student-friendly and has discounted rates for everything. If you're under 22 years old, you get into the Benaki for free! Score. It's 4 floors of history, art, and culture. We're there for a few hours and finally have to leave - we can come back again, if we really want to. On our walk back to our hostel, we take a detour through the National Gardens.
The gardens kind of remind me of Point Defiance, which is nice and feels familiar. There was a random zoo-like area that we ran into. There were goats, turtles, birds, roosters, ducks, and other really random animals. It was weird. Later, we go to the Acropolis Museum, which is located up the street and around the corner from our hostel. We heard that going to the museum is a good way to become familiar with the history and layout of the actual Acropolis. I forgot my University ID card in my backpack in Vienna, so I have to pay full price. That kind of sucks, but it's also only 5 Euro...I think. We're not allowed to take pictures in the museum, so my camera finally gets a rest. I find so much of the history completely fascinating and I'm also in love with Athena. She is just a bamf and I want to be her. I think one of the most incredible and upsetting things about the Acropolis is that there used to be this huge statue of Athena the Warrior, holding a spear made of solid gold, sitting on top of the monument. However, during the Dark Ages, this statue was melted down in order to produce coins. How ridiculous. The statue was visible from the sea ports on the coast! That's how enormous it was. It makes me sad that such a beautiful thing was destroyed for some money. Our first day in Athens has been pretty chill and we head to our hostel's roof top bar for the end of our evening.
The picture to the right is our view from the roof. We end up seeing Hamish at the bar and meet a guy from Amsterdam, along with 2 Turkish men who just spent the past few days on Mykonos and are heading back to the States, where they currently live. It's an interesting night and the bar gets pretty empty by 10pm. We decide to leave and Hamish is hungry, so we get food with him. We end up at the hostel's sports bar and run into the guy from Amsterdam again. By this time, Kelly and I are feeling pretty tired, but everyone else is wide awake and we end up hanging out until midnight.
The next morning, we wake up early enough to catch the free breakfast. Then, we go on the walking tour that our hostel hosts everyday. Our guide, Yorgo (Gorgo?) - English name: George - is an archaeologist and is super insightful and informative. We literally walk
everywhere. The Temple of Zeus, The Olympic Stadium, Parliament and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Churches, Hadrian's Library, the major shopping street, the flea market, the Ancient and Roman Agoras, the hill where Saint Paul spoke to the Greeks about Jesus Christ and Christianity, and the Theatre of Dionysus.
We can't actually go into most of these places because we haven't paid for entry tickets, but now we know where everything is and it's easy for us to navigate around when we buy tickets later that afternoon. After the walking tour, we eat a snack and get ready to venture to all the ruins. Our first stop: the Temple of Zeus. Somehow, I talk the cashiers into letting me pay for the student-priced ticket package that only costs 6 Euro, instead of the regular-priced package of 12 Euro, without showing any sort of student ID.
As I'm doing this, two other students are nearby and see my California ID - they're from Orange County. I ask where they go to school: UC Irvine. It turns out one of the girls knows a friend of mine from high school who goes to UCI! What a small world we live in. After walking around the Temple, we venture over to a beautiful church for which none of us are appropriately dressed (shorts, flip flops, tank tops/t-shirts), so we can't go inside. But, I stick my camera in the doorway and take a few pictures. The church is also under some intense-looking construction, so it takes away from its external beauty.
The next stop: Hadrian's Library. The grounds are much larger than I thought they would be and we spend a good amount of time walking around here. Close by is the Roman Agora. It's about the same size as Hadrian's Library and much smaller than the Ancient Agora. There's also the Tower of the Winds in the Roman Agora. Oh, and Agora = open market/public space and Phobia = fear of something. Therefore, Agoraphobia = the fear of open spaces. This is one of the many insights that our tour guide gave us. Whenever he did this, it reminded me of the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding and I wished my sister was there to laugh about it with me, considering no one else understood what I was talking about when I referenced the movie (which happened a lot during this trip...there were also several Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants references that people didn't really understand, either). Another quick fact: do you know why a Marathon is a fixed distance of 42 kilometers? Well, the Battle of Marathon took place between the Athenians and Persians. Somehow, the Athenians defeated the Persians even though they were grossly outnumbered. Right after the battle, the Athenian army needed to inform the rest of Athens of their victory so they sent one warrior - the fastest in the army - to run 42 kilometers, back to the city of Athens to tell them what had happened. Upon arrival, the soldier only had enough energy to say "we have won," and, at that moment, he died from exhaustion. Thus, the term "Marathon" has been coined to mean a 42 km-long run.
Anyway, back to our exploration of Athens. After the Roman Agora, we went to the Ancient Agora. The Ancient Agora is HUGE.
We could have easily spent over an hour here alone. But, we did not have enough time in our day and were unable to do so. However, we visited the main attraction of the Ancient Agora: the Temple of Hephaistos. This temple is the best-preserved ancient Greek temple, with most of the original columns still standing. Finally, we make our way to the most-anticipated ruins: The Acropolis. First, we stop to walk the lower ring of the Acropolis. George told us that not very many people know about it, but there are some awesome caves and other random ruins to see there. He was right. There were several caves, one for Pan and one for Zeus, among others, and we were the only people there. The Cave of Pan reminded me of my lovely SAI ladies and I had another moment of familiarity in this foreign country.
I had told one of my managers from Diversions that I would take some epic pictures with our café shirt on while traveling around Europe this semester and these caves seemed like the perfect place. Good thing I had been carrying the shirt around all day! On our hike up to the Acropolis, we passed the Theatre of Dionysus, where they still hold concerts and performances. How amazing would it be to see your favorite musician perform at the Theatre of Dionysus? I thought that was amazing.
We finally made it to the Acropolis and it was fantastic.
The views of the surrounding city were breathtaking and I realized how large Athens really is. The Parthenon is massive and humbling, but my favorite was definitely the Erechthion, which includes a section of columns carved out as the nine Muses. I think the Erechthion is just such a pretty building and the decorative Muses just make it even more beautiful.
Exhausted, starving and sunburned (well, Kelly and Rachael were sunburned), we left the Acropolis at 7pm and made our way to a restaurant to eat. We also had plans to meet two other Puget Sounders who are currently studying abroad in Athens at 9pm that night for dinner. Silly us, we thought that at 9pm "dinner" meant drinks and maybe some snacks. However, apparently Greeks don't eat dinner until 9 or 10pm! So, when we did meet up with our friends, we had already eaten and we joined them for dinner sometime after 10pm. Although I wasn't very hungry, I couldn't help but eat all the delicious food that was being put in front of me. At the cost of 10 Euro per person, we got Greek salad, fried feta, fried zucchini balls, some sort of meat balls, potatoes, and chicken. We also ordered two bottles of wine and were given two more for free! Don't worry, there were about 8 or 9 of us who went out to dinner this night.
I would have to say that this was probably my favorite night of the entire vacation. I got to see my good friend, Kayla, in Greece while eating some delicious, mouth-watering food and drinking good wine. Not to mention, everyone else was great company and we had a lot of fun just talking and hanging out for hours at dinner. We headed back to our hostel and fell asleep around 2 am, preparing to get up at 5:30 in the morning in order to catch our ferry to Paros.
We made our way to the ferry via the metro without many issues, got our ferry tickets printed, found an outdoor booth to sit on and took naps. The ferry dropped us off in Parikia and we took a bus to Naoussa, where our hostel was. When we get off the bus, none of us know where to go. We ask one of the travel agencies in the area and a woman points us in the right direction. As we walk through the narrow streets of the town, a man sees us and tells us to turn left and then right. We didn't say a single word to him, but he knew we were looking for our hostel! After walking around the town, up some stairs, around a church, and down a road, we finally find our hostel. It's a quirky little place with Tibetan Prayer Flags in the entryway.
Our room is bigger than my room at home, has 3 beds and our own private bathroom. We put our bags down, relax for a few minutes and then head to the beach. The next three days consist of visits to different beaches via the local bus. The owners of our hostel also recommend a local restaurant, Gafkos, for dinner. Gafkos is right on the beach and has a menu that promises full stomachs and happy taste buds. The 3 of us split a Greek salad, fried zucchini balls, bread, spaghetti, and a liter of wine. For desert, they bring us a complimentary serving of Greek yogurt with a rose petal syrup that is actually the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. I don't think my mouth has ever been so happy and I seriously never wanted the taste to ever leave my mouth. It may have been my favorite dinner in Greece (although the one in Athens comes pretty close) and I am now craving that same Greek yogurt. We also make two trips to the same gyro restaurant during our stay in Naoussa and on our second visit, the worker already knows what we're going to order: "Pork gyro, pork gyro, and vegetarian gyro?" We all smile and say yes. On our last day, we take a water taxi to another beach and stay there for the entire day.
The water is the most beautiful shade of crystal blue and I just can't believe that I'm actually here, experiencing this. This is what a vacation is supposed to be like. When we get back to Naoussa, we go to the ruins of a Venetian Castle that are right on the coast. Naoussa was a pirate village back in the day and was a major rest stop for many pirates who were out at sea. That night, we go back to Gafkos and order almost the same thing as the first night. Of course, our dinner is concluded with the delicious Greek yogurt desert and I am in heaven once again.
I think the food in Greece may have been one of the best things about my vacation there. Yes, everything was amazing. The ruins, the history, the art, but holy shit the food was so good. And it wasn't expensive, either. I'm going to miss Greek food a lot - hence, the title of this post.
The next morning, we left Naoussa and headed to Parikia to catch our ferry back to Athens. But, before that, we stopped at a cafe and I ordered a small Greek coffee. IT WAS SO GOOD. It's slightly chocolatey and is about the size of a double shot of espresso. I loved it. If you ever get the chance, I think you should try Greek coffee. Don't get it too sweet, mine was barely sweetened and it was actually perfect.
We made one last stop at the Cathedral of Ekatontapiliani (Church of 100 Doors) in Parikia. This church is over 1600 years old and is one of the oldest and best preserved Christian monuments in the world.
Back to Athens. We drop off our bags in our hostel room, which is HUGE. Somehow, we ended up with this amazing 6-person mixed studio apartment room that had an awesome view, a common room with a TV, kitchenette, and private bathroom...say whaa? It was pretty great. We spent the afternoon walking up the Hill of the Muses and sitting at the top for a few minutes. We also saw the Prison of Socrates and Church of Agios Dimitrios Loubardiaris. We get back to our room to find that we have been joined by 3 other people. They turn out to be Brazilian Navy men on vacation (?) and they're kind of strange. Whatever, we enjoy our wine and hang out. The only annoyance comes when they stumble back into the room at 6 am, after a night out and are not quiet about it. We wake up around 8:30, shower, get breakfast and walk back to the Benaki, where Kelly buys some postcards. Then we walk to the bus station and head to the airport at 11:30. Our flight to Rome is delayed by an hour, we miss our connecting flight from Rome to Vienna. After some horrible customer service by Alitalia (don't EVER fly with them), we get tickets for the next flight to Vienna...which leaves Rome in 3 hours. I get us some free dinner vouchers from Alitalia and we eat a decent dinner with wine in the airport and wait for our flight. Finally, home bound. We land around 10:30pm and don't get back to our apartments until sometime after 11pm (I think I'm getting these times right..I was very tired). Since grocery stores are closed on Sundays, today was the first day that we were able to go grocery shopping and it feels so good to have food in our fridge once again.
Overall, it was an amazing week in Greece (and Amsterdam, briefly), but I am glad to be back "home" in Vienna. Today was the first day of classes and both of mine went swimmingly. I have 2 more classes tomorrow, so we'll see how those go. I think this is going to be a good semester. Hopefully I'm not jinxing it. Whatever, I'm in Europe! It's going to be a good semester no matter what.
Thanks for sticking with me throughout this entire post, I know it was a long one!
