Greece, baby!

Hello again, lovely people!

As you know, I went to Greece for Spring Break, March 2-11, and here I am with promised pictures. I need to go to sleep soon, so I'll try to make this short. Only problem is, there are 56 photos... so bear with me. :D

I traveled with Caelainn and Michael and sorely regret being in the company of the latter. He sort of tainted the trip. But more on that later.

Greece is quite beautiful, and I could really see myself living in Athens or another part of mainland Greece. The islands were equally gorgeous (if not more so), but a bit too small for me to see myself living there. Now I've just got to go back to Greece, sans Michael, and find me a Greek guy to marry! Greek people, by the way, are beautiful and have THE most amazing eyes. I want to be Greek! Anyway, back to how Greece was. Not only was the countryside and archeological ruins amazing sights to see, but I was in mythology heaven. I'm "a bit" of a Greek mythology geek and loved seeing references all over the place. I learned that I have a fascination with the Greek alphabet, and I sort of taught myself how to read Greek, so I can pronounce Greek words, but can't tell you what most of them mean. :P

Ok, let's start with my usual geography lesson:

as you can see, Greece is east of Spain, past Italy, so the flight was pretty long.
We had a stopover in Frankfurt, Germany, where we had frankfurts!
They're pretty good, but not too different from regular hotdogs, in my opinion, haha.

Here's a more detailed map of Greece, for reference:

OK, get ready for another haphazard narration from yours truly!

The first thing we did in Athens was to head to the Acropolis!
(The Greek part reads "Pros Akropoli," roughly)

Despite photographic proof, I can't believe that I was standing
in front of the Parthenon. Wow.

This is the Temple of Athena (goddess of wisdom
and war, patron of the city of Athens.)

View of a Temple of Olympian Zeus, from the Acropolis.

View of the Acropolis (on top of the hill) from the Ancient Agora.

Me, grinning like a fool, in front of the Temple of Hephaistos
(god of metalworking, husband of Aphrodite)


After half a day of exploring the ancient ruins, we broke for lunch
and delicious smoothies and frappes:

Yea, now I can say that I had lunch near the Acropolis!
The cafe was a mere half a mile away from the Acropolis, if that.

this is their metro system, which was cool because part of it
was underground and parts opened up, like this part.
You can see the Temple of Hephaistos in the background.

we visited the Athens Flea Market and all got henna tattoos
and new sunglasses, heh.

this is a shot of the Flea Market, which was really fun and full of
interesting characters.

Greek music on the streets! So awesome.

Greek Orthodox churches are so very different than all the Spanish cathedrals I've been seeing (yes, duh, but I didn't really how different!). This one that we briefly visited was beautiful.

Statue of Athena Nike (the goddess in victory mode) near the Parliament building, I believe.

Ahh, yes, Greek food. SO delicious. Here I am, consuming my first of many gyros (pronounced "euros") and mmm, mmm it was delicious. I also had the pleasure of dining on several Greek salads, which are amazing.

A night view of the Acropolis.

On our second day in Athens, we tried to catch a ferry to the island of Santorini at 7:30 am but missed it, so we went to the Olympic Stadium instead.

It was cool figuratively as well as literally, unfortunately. I was not dressed too warmly...

Healthy breakfast of heart-shaped-chocolate-almond-covered donut in Syntagma Square, where we went after the Olympic Stadium in order to see the ceremony of the Changing of the Guards.

Gotta love those uniforms. The ceremony was pretty interesting. What's crazy is that two days after we were in front of this building, university riots broke out and we saw crazy stuff happening in front of this very building, on the news, while we were on one of the islands. It was rather trippy.

We managed to catch a ferry to Santorini at 3:30, and after
a hellish 15-hour ferry ride, arrived there at 6 am.

This is the view of the sunrise from our hotel balcony. Pretty sweet.

We explored the "Casteli" on another part of the island that day.

... then went to the area of Fira,

which had colorful buildings that I liked very much. Tourist season had not started yet, but everybody was preparing for it so we saw construction and painting and remodeling everywhere.

After several hours in Fira, we grabbed some gyros and headed up a hill to watch the sunrise over the caldera, which Santorini is famous for. A caldera is a volcanic crater, btw.

pre-sunrise

I particularly like the silhouette of the statue in this one.

After the breathtaking sunset, we got ready for some night life.
Unfortunately, nobody was out and about because it was not tourist season and all the locals were nowhere to be found! We found a bar called Murphy's that was open, though.

We hopped next door to Town Cafe, where we met an Italian named Nino and his friends, with whom we hung out the rest of the night, at Murphy's.

The next morning we headed to Akrotiri, aka the Red Beach, for a short photo opp.

Then we spent some hours on Perissa Beach (aka Black Beach). This is the view from the Beach Cafe we chilled at for awhile.


We then took a ferry to the tiny island of Syros, enroute to Mykonos.

Syros was actually very pretty, and I wish we had spent a bit more time there.

statue in Syros' port

We saw fishermen selling super fresh fish right off their boats.


After a night in Syros, we went to our intended destination, the island of Mykonos:

These white and blue buildings were prevalent all over the islands,
and they made for a pretty sight.

Caelainn and I were too excited for the possibility of sun and the beach, and we prematurely dressed for tanning... you can't tell in this picture, but we're actually freezing. We wised up quickly, no worries.

Ah, so there is a nasty story behind this decidedly amazing picture. That night in Mykonos, Caelainn and I declined to hang out with Michael because he was being sort of creepy, so he went off the beach to take pictures of the sunset.. and drink a whole bottle of vodka by himself. Needless to say, he returned to our triple room in the hotel very trashed. He was stumbling around clumsily and was sort of scary. He ended up throwing up all night, and it was horrible because Caelainn and I were huddled under the covers terrified of him and his burly disposition. It was a pretty terrible night, and I remember thinking, "this is ridiculous. I am in GREECE, damnit! I shouldn't be having a sleepless night like this!" But eh, we are OK, and it's all in the past now. We just know that from now on, no traveling with Michael under any circumstances. The rest of the trip was like walking on eggshells because he had a bad temper so we didn't want to bring it up. BAH.


Anyway! Back to pretty pictures! I am done being mad/bitter about it. I've just learned my lesson about choosing traveling buddies more wisely.

Check out the huge-ass pelican in this photo. For comparison, see the man on the left.

sunset our second night in Mykonos.


We returned to Athens that night/early morning and promptly took a bus to Nafplio, in the area of the Peloponnese. And THESE are the stairs we had to climb to get to our hostel (keep in mind we were lugging suitcases with us...)

Funnily enough, after reaching our hostel and depositing our stuff, we decided to go climb the 999 steps up to the Palamidi Castle/Fortress, hahhaha.

Phew. Halfway there.

999 steps. For serious. At least I'm getting exercise, I guess.

view from the top -- worth it?

the entrance to the Palamidi Fortress.

fortress view -- it was pretty different from the castle we visited in Portugal.

Me being me, I tried a Greek burger. And it was weird. But look at how they write "hamburger" (click to enlarge to see text)!!! SO cool/crazy.

view from the window of the double room Caelainn and I booked
(Michael was in the single next door.)

Mmm, freshly-made ice cream.


From Nafplio, we took a short bus ride to the ancient city of Mycenae to see the ruins. Unfortunately, it started being very rainy and windy. The ruins were still pretty though.

Me in front of the famous Lion's Gate.

As Caelainn said, "NOT CRACKING!"


After returning to Nafplio from Mycenae, we went back to Athens for one last (uneventful) night. So that's my Greece trip in a (rather large) nutshell. I have had a week to let go of my anger, so it's all good now. I am looking forward to this weekend, during which I will be in Morocco (in north Africa; see Europe map) with 5 other people, none of whom have drinking/anger management problems.

OK, sleep now! But since I don't want to end with that picture (hilarious as it is), I'll leave you with a pretty sunset pic of Caelainn and I:

Hasta luego, amigos! Thanks for staying with me through such a long entry!