My Greek Vacation

I realize that to many of you, I've been "on vacation" this whole time, but I really have been going to school and doing homework! I swear!! In fact, I just took a final this morning and have to sit around campus for the rest of the day to take another. The last week however, I decided to throw it all into the wind and go on vacation with my boyfriend!! It was the greatest vacation ever.

It started with hanging out in Thessaloniki. We walked around the town and I showed Marc some of my favorite sites in the city. We went out to the taverna that night with all my crazy friends. Great time. Hilarious photos on facebook from that night, but maybe you had to be there to really appreciate those pictures.

The next day, we took a night train to Athens. This was Marc's first train ride! He's such a big boy now, taking planes, trains, and metros! Well anyway, the "best" part of the train ride was the fact that we had standing room only tickets. Which basically means, you can sit in a seat until somebody kicks you out. Well, we got to sit for about the first 2 hours. But the last 5 hours we were forced to find our own "seats." This is when I learned that I can fit into the little cubby shelf on the train! I was on the floor in the corner, under the shelving unit thing for luggage and Marc sat next to me. It was just wonderful.

We get into Athens and go to the airport to make our way to Santorini! I don't care how cliche and touristy this island is, I LOVED IT!! It was everything I ever thought Greece was (before I came). I definitely recommend it for any trip to Greece. Do yourself a favor, and go in mid-May. Not a lot of tourists yet and the weather is beautiful!

We ate at a taverna next to our hotel the first night, and we were the only people there. There was one Greek man that was running the whole restuarant by himself and he was pretty cool. We ordered some fish and it came just like a little plate of fishes that had been fried. Marc was too scared to eat them, so I pretty much ate the whole plate. We were trying to cut them up so we wouldn't eat the bones and the owner came over and told us to stop doing that! We were supposed to just pick them up, whole fish and all, and just eat them like that. So I did :) It was good. Then after our meal, he came and had a shot with us. I'm not sure what it was, but it definitely was NOT Ouzo. I know Ouzo by now and that was definitely not it. We also had some Santorini white wine with dinner which was amazing!!

The next day, we rented a 4-wheeler to explore the island. We drove to the red beach which was near our hotel. It was amazing! Not a good beach for swimming, but it's really pretty. The views all over the island were spectacular. Next, we drove to Oia. The whole way there was amazing views over the sea! This is where I wanted to go in Santorini. This city is built on the cliffs and there are the awesome blue-dome churches EVERYWHERE!! It was sooooooo pretty!! After that, we went to Fira (the main city) to watch the sunset from a roof-top taverna. We had some more amazing white Santorini wine with chicken soulvaki :) Marc's new favorite food!



*Blue dome church in Oia
Most amazing sunset... in the world, I'm pretty sure.

The next morning we woke up super early to watch the sunrise.

I thought the sunset was cool. I was wrong. The sunrise was even more amazing. We got up around 5:30 a.m. and hopped on our 4-wheeler. We made it to one of the black beaches of Perissa in 15 minutes. There was nobody there, and it was silent. We climbed out onto some rocks out into the water and waited for the sunrise. Perissa is on the east side of the island.

A little after 6 there was all of a sudden this amazing burst of orange and yellow coming up from the water. It was so amazing to watch it come up out of the water and light up everything around! Beautiful.


*Sunrise in Perissa
After that, we drove the 4-wheeler around the island a bit more because we didn't have to return it until 10 a.m. and Marc realllllllly liked it. LOL. My Wisconsin boy loved to drive a 4-wheeler around, who would have thought?

But then it was time to leave :( But our next stop was pretty amazing, Nafplio. This is a city in the Peloponnese, a few hour bus ride from Athens. It has old castles all over! We walked up to the big castle on the first day, and from up there you can see all over the city. It's up on a big rock, kind of like the Parthenon in Athens. It was Marc's first castle ;) It was huge! You don't really realize how far it stretches when you're down on the ground, and can't quite see all of it.



*View from atop the castle

The trek up there was pretty hot. Lots of stairs and sunny the whole time, of course. So once we were done, we wanted to go swimming! I heard that the beach at Nafplio isn't the greatest, but hey, it was water! It was pretty terrible. The waves were super high and crashing all over the place and the beach was like cement rocks. We ended up sitting on a wall somewhere so we didn't have to sit on the "beach". We jumped in once to cool off then got out pretty quickly. But we went to a much better beach later in the trip.

Next stop, Athens. I decided that if Marc comes all the way to Greece and doesn't at least see the Parthenon, then I will have failed him. So even though I really dislike the city of Athens, we went anyways. We went up to the Acropolis the first thing and I made sure we spent some time in the theater of Dionysus! Where theater was born...... Marc really liked that. I think he just wanted to show off to his theater friends where he got to go.



*Theater of Dionysus

After that, we walked around Athens a bit. Saw the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the Ancient Agora, all the good old ruins basically. It was pretty sweet.

We get back into Thessaloniki at 2 a.m. and my roommate tells me that we are all going to go camping on the beach in Halkidiki the next day. So I wake up on Tuesday, go to my econ exam, and then tail it to the bus station to go camping on the beach!

We went to the tip of the 2nd penninsula in Halkidiki. If you look at a map of northern Greece, you'll know what I'm talking about. It's the 2nd "finger" of the 3 fingers of Halkidiki.

We rented little trailers and had a bonfire on the beach. We made Reese's smores! You make smores, but instead of Hersey's chocolate, you use a Reese's peanut butter cup. It's pretty good.

The next day we layed on the beach all day. The water is the most amazingly clear blue and the sun just shines all day long. Not a cloud in the sky. I want to go to Halkidiki one more time while I'm here because I'm going to miss it soooooooooo much.


*Me and Marc on the beach

Marc got sunburned to death, of course. So when we got home I had to go get him some aloe from the pharmacy immedately! Then we had some Gyros and he left this morning at 6 a.m.

It was the best time I think I've had here. Like I said, I know it's cliche but OMG Santorini was so amazing.

I'm leaving in 3 days and I'm really sad to leave! I definitely have to go to the beach one more time, while I still have it. After my exam tonight, I'll be done with school and will have all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to do whatever I want.

Before I came to Greece, I couldn't even believe that I was really coming. Now, I can hardly believe that I'm actually leaving. It doesn't feel real yet. Maybe when I pack up my room it will hit me... I'm happy to go home and see everyone but I really love it here. It's amazing and I'm so happy that I came. I know it wasn't my first choice, but now that I'm here I can't imagine if I had gone anywhere else!

And I'm even a little tan! LOL. This is the most tan I've ever been in my life... and I still look like a ghost. I just have a LOT more freckles and my hair is turning blonde! Well, you'll all see when I get home.

Just a quickie

Ok, I only have a few minutes for a quick blog post! So here are the essentials:

I CLIMBED A MOUNTAIN! I am not kidding. I literally hiked up a mountain this weekend. Mt. Olympus, to be exact. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. In fact, I can barely walk still because my legs hurt so bad. It was intense, but beautiful!!

It was a school field trip, so I was with about 40 other American study abroad students. We took a bus from Thessaloniki to the mountain (about 1 1/2 hour west). It took 3 hours to walk up to the refuge camp. It was HOT and a loooooooooong walk up. And that was the easy part! It was really cold up high. We stayed the night and woke up at 6 a.m. the next morning to begin our hike to the top. It took another 3 1/2 hours to get to the top. I was at the back the whole time. I had about 4 tour guides with me helping me the whole way, but I did it! It's about 10,000 feet to the top.

It was beautiful and amazing! I was definitely NOT in shape enough for this and probably should not have gone, but I did it! I honestly thought I wasn't going to make it, but the guides helped me a lot.

And as for today!!!!!! GUESS WHO'S HERE!!!!

I'm going to class in a few minutes, and I think Marc's plane just touched down in Thessaloniki. I'm going to meet him downtown after class! Tonight we're going to my favorite taverna and then tomorrow we leave for Athens!

Santorini, Nafplio, Athens, then hanging out in Thessaloniki for a while. Maybe I'll take him to Halkidiki beaches next week. :) I actually kind of planned things for us to do. I'm pretty amazed at my awesome planning skills.

I probably won't post again for a while! My internet in my apartment is broken and I won't be on campus for another week. I'm almost done here :( My last adventures will be the best though, I think.

I'll let you know.

This is the end... (almost)

Now that my time here is winding down, I’m starting to look forward to things that are waiting for me at home. I can’t believe I have less than a month left. It’s all gone so fast! Now I’m trying to cram in all the stuff I wanted to do and put off until now. I’ve decided to dedicate this blog to the top 10 things I will miss about Greece and the top 10 things I definitely can’t wait to get away from:

Top 10 Things I Hate (in order of annoyance level):
10. Slow Internet- A minor inconvenience, but annoying all the same.

9. Pigeons- I just hate these birds!

8. Stray Animals- Not too bad, I usually just feel bad for them. They don’t scare me, but its #7 that becomes a real problem…

7. Dog/cat poop on sidewalks- Pretty self explanatory. Watch where you’re going in Greece, is my best advice.

6. Hot and crowded buses- B.O. to the max. Yuck. Also, getting crammed into a bus in that one spot where I always get hit by the doors. It’s super fun.

5. Shop hours- I can never go shopping here because stuff is never open. Not that I have any money to spend anyway, but I can’t even look!

4. Bed- This bed at my apartment is awful. It feels like I’m sleeping on a board most of the time. I’m going to need serious chiropractor help when I get home to re-correct MY SPINE.

3. Cars have the right-of-way- You pretty much always feel like you’re going to get run down.

2. Laundry- 2 washing machines for an entire building of 8 floors. You do the math. Also, it takes almost 2 hours to do 1 load of wash and we are only allowed to do the wash from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. then again from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. It SUCKS.

1. Not flushing toilet paper- Its strange how used to this you get after a while. But, it’s still pretty gross.

Top 10 Things I Love:
10. Kiosks- Little stands every block that sell drinks, bus tickets, snacks, basically little mini Super Americas! EVERYWHERE! I love them.

9. Convenience of buses- Even if they are a little crowded sometimes, they are really convenient and cheap. You can get anywhere in Thessaloniki on public transportation. It’s great.

8. FOOD- Refer to the “Taverna” section 

7. Weather- It’s a little hot now, but it is BEAUTIFUL! Sunny everyday, gorgeous sunsets, and lovely walking weather at night.

*Sunset by the water in Thessaloniki

6. My new roommate and new friends- I’ve met some of the coolest people ever, and I can’t wait to roadtrip some day to see them again once we’re back in the states!

*The gang at Harry's Spot, one of our favorite hang outs!

5. Relaxed school- Wow, is it ever going to be hard to adjust back to life in Eau Claire after this semester. The professors are so laid back with assignments, and they even encourage skipping class to go travel! Traveling is just as important a learning experience as being here, is the typical attitude.

4. Being able to stay out late- Just not used to this sort of thing in Eau Claire. If you’re not 21, you have pretty limited options and most stuff closes by 11 p.m. Thrilling, really.

*Night in Thessaloniki, by the water

3. Tzatziki- YES, this needs its own category separate from food. That’s how much I love it! I will be making it frequently back home as well, if I can find good enough Greek yogurt in Wisconsin.

2. The people- Greek people have been so kind to me here. People will really go out of their way to help you!

1. The sea- I will be so sad to not live close by a sea once I leave. I love to walk down by the waterfront by my apartment, and the last 2 weekends I’ve spent the day at beaches in Halkidiki. Crystal clear water and sandy beaches… that’s the life for me!!

*Look at that clear water... beautiful!


*A beach 30 minutes away from Thessaloniki

And last but not least… Things I cannot wait to get back to!!
MY BED!!
TACOS JUANITA! SHANGHAI BISTRO! CHINA BUFFET! (Cheap greasy food for college students in general)
NIKO!! (my roommate’s cute little doggy!!)
MARC!
My new apartment
Having a car
A REAL oven and stove top

…and there’s probably some other stuff as well, but those are the big ones that I’ve been missing a lot while out here. I’ll get to see Marc in 7 DAYS though!!

ΤΑΒΕΡΝΑ! (Taverna!)

My mother keeps asking me what exactly a taverna is, so I’ve decided to dedicate an entire blog posting about the Greek tavernas. To me, this is the real “Greek experience” and to travel to Greece without a visit to a taverna would be a crime! This is a place for food, drink, music, and the occasional dance. I feel that this is a brief glimpse of what the Greeks are all about- food and fun!

Every Greek city I’ve been to so far usually has their own little spot that’s filled with tavernas. Sometimes you can’t tell where one ends and another begins! This is because they are essentially outside restaurants. They arrange tables and chairs together in one spot for the guests to sit. There is always live music, our favorite taverna here in Thessaloniki has one guy singing with a guitar, and another guy playing the mandolin. Occasionally, guests can go up and sing for the taverna as well because they always play traditional Greek songs that most of the Greeks know. It’s as if an American went to a restaurant and we could sing some traditional American tunes that we all somehow know. There is usually a little gypsy boy that comes in and sings and plays the drum for the establishment and then asks for money afterwards. (I think he’s pretty good at the drums but his little kid singing voice always annoys me.) The people at the taverna always let him play. People also come in from the streets and try to sell things to customers as well. People selling roses and flowers to couples are rather frequent.


When you go to the taverna, you must go at night and stay for at least a few hours. This is not a rushed affair- you always need to take your time with your wine, and enjoy good conversation with friends. I feel that this is also very Greek. They really like to take their time with things, and eating is definitely one of those. For example, last night we went and tried to ask for the bill before midnight-and they just sent us more wine. That’s pretty typical. They will also NEVER kick you out or rush you (also very Greek). One of the first nights we went to the taverna, we stayed until 2 a.m. and they were cleaning up around us but not once did they ever ask us to leave, bring us our bill, or take food off of our table. You will always be left to finish at your own pace. You will never be brought your bill until you ask for it. Even then, it usually takes a while to get it.
The food you get at a taverna is probably comparable to bar food in the US, but it’s Greek so it’s always delicious. Often, you go with a large group and order a few appetizers and some meats and everybody shares off the plates. My favorites include fried zucchini, tzatziki (cucumber yogurt dipping sauce, I usually compare it to ranch dressing back home, not in taste but how it’s used), grilled feta, cheese stuffed beef, chicken breast, stuffed eggplant, and more that I can’t even think of right now. There is always fish and meat, plenty of feta, and salads.
And then there’s the wine. Our favorite place always serves free wine all night. It’s not the best wine in the world, it’s just the table or house wine of the place. Greek wine is a little different. Their best at the sweet red wines. I love it! Regular wine drinkers tend not to like the sweet wines, so I don’t recommend it for big red wine drinkers. You can get dry reds and whites which are just as good. They serve it to you in a little bronze liter pitcher that they make sure to refill immediately if it ever goes empty! Wine is a big part of Greek culture but getting drunk is NOT. To be drunk is to look like a fool, so that is one reason they take their time drinking.




People will sometimes dance at the taverna if they’re in the mood. I’ve seen lots of women get up and dance on the tables, or just dancing near the music is acceptable too. People like to clap and sing along and just all around have fun! I danced last night because there was this woman dancing near our table who kept trying to get us up to dance! It was fun.



So to those of you who will one day visit Greece (and I definitely recommend it, Greek people are the most wonderful people I’ve ever met and it’s just generally a beautiful country!) you must remember to go to a taverna. It won’t be hard to forget because if you’re out at night between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. you will see and hear the tavernas nearby!

Istanbul, Turkey!

Ok really, THIS weekend I'm going to lay around in my apartment and do nothing! I need some rest in good ol'Thessaloniki for real. I need a break from this paper I'm writing for history class. I haven't even started my econ paper... that will be a weekend thing too. This Greek environment has totally messed me up, I have 2 papers to write and I'm freaked out about it. How strange... this is not even near the amount of work I do back home and I even don't have that much compared to most people! I will need to get whipped back into shape pretty quickly once I return home. Eeeek!! But on a good note, I may actually be able to graduate in 4 years or possibly only 4 1.2. I'm really trying to avoid that 5th year if possible. I think my minor is going to be global studies. This is one that I've considered before, only now it looks incredibly doable! Yay!

Enough babbling, on to my adventures in Istanbul!

I planned to go on this trip before spring break even happened, so I've been looking forward to this for a while. I went with 5 other American girls including my roommate, another girl from the Boston area, and 3 other Eau Claire girls. We took a bus leaving on Thursday night at 10 p.m. It's about a 10 hour bus ride! But hey, the tickets were really cheap!! Our total cost roundtrip was about the price of a one-way on the trains. So needless to say, we were all pretty OK with the super long bus ride.

Got into Istanbul around 8 a.m. Friday morning. First things first, we need to find our hotel. All we had was the name of the hotel. We asked a tourist stand where it was and he told us to walk down the road we were on for about 10 minutes and it was on the right. Seems easy enough. Well, we starting walking. And kept walking. To make a REALLY LONG story short, we couldn't find it. We ended up using the internet at a different hotel and mapping it all out. Yeah, it was definitely not "on the right". It was down a super large hill and way up in a different direction.

But we found it! We stroll in about 10:00 and the guy at the front desk is really nice to us. Our room isn't ready yet, but they were still serving breakfast and he let us eat the breakfast and leave our bags at the counter until our room was ready. The breakfast wasn't great but it was free, every morning. So we filled up on as much free food as possible each day! I love being a college student sometimes... Dana also stole a large amount of tea bags from this place which I found to be hilarious and very suitable at the same time.

That first day we decided to walk around by the tourist stuff. It was really nice outside. Hot, actually. I was wearing long sleeves the whole trip for multiple purposes: 1. Avoid sunburn (which I did successfully) 2. Respect an Islamic culture and 3. Avoid attracting any more attention to myself than what my super pale skin already does. The first thing we did was go into a little Mosque that was near our hotel. They had some scarves for us to cover our heads when we first got in. It was a pretty neat experience for me. The whole culture in fact, was a pretty great experience for me. Growing up in Minnesota, I very rarely get to experience culture like this and at this scale. They did a call to prayer every day 5 times a day right on time. It was a little weird at first. Since at one point we were right by one of the largest mosques that do the call and it was really loud.


*In a mosque near our hotel
We spent some time at the palace. It was really pretty and had a fantastic view of the city! Later that night we saw whirling dervishes! It was so cool. I have a video of it that I'll try to post later. But anyways, we got into where the dance would happen and I got to sit on some pillows on the floor right in front. Then, there was about 30 minutes of music. It was really hard to stay awake at this point because I had been walking all day without any sleep the night before. They turned down the lights and starting this really soothing music... I think I may have fallen asleep a little bit, but so did many other people. After about 30 minutes, 3 men came out in their traditional dress and started to spin. The whirling dervish is a form of worship that is outlawed actually, but they do it for tourists nowadays because it's so popular. When it was over, one of the girls I was with didn't like it. "All they did was twirl around." "Yup, that's pretty much all they do." At any rate, it was amazing just to listen to the music and watch them come out in their outfits. Long white robes that when they spun so close to me on the floor, I actually got cold from the breeze!!


*View from the palace

The next day we saw the Cistern, the old underground water system for Istanbul. It looked pretty cool, but I couldn't tell you much about it. They had some columns that had Medusa's heads carved into the bottom and I still don't understand why. But it looked pretty cool and old, so I guess that's good.


*Underground water system. Columns holding it up


*Medusa Head

Then we went to the Blue Mosque. This is one of the biggest tourist attractions today. It was really neat. I learned that it is called the blue mosque because of the inside! Blue stain glass windows and tiles decorate the inside. It was rather magnificent. I actually feel bad going in there because it is still a mosque for worship for people who live there. They have a "fenced off" area for people to worship and on the other side is a massive amount of tourists walking around and taking photos. It feels disrespectful, but I guess they must be used to it at this point.

We sat on the floor along the wall and there were these 2 Turkish women who walked by us and started saying something and they pinched my cheeks and were petting Sara's blonde hair. They seemed rather amused at the site of us. It was funny and kind of cute. I don't think they've ever seen blondes and red heads up close before or something. We decided that it was cute when the old women did it, but probably not as cute had it been men trying to touch our faces!

Next up, the grand bizarre. I bought 2 scarves for myself. I don't really know why, actually. But I felt like I had to buy something since I was visiting a place where my currency is actually doing better AND everything is super cheap there already. I paid 15 Turkish Lira for 2 scarves, so maybe $5 per scarf US, maybe a little less. Yay for traveling to countries that aren't destroying the dollar!

This is where I should put in the little bit about intense verbal harrassement! These people have quite a different view on how to get someone into their store. We were called "Charlies Angels" once, which I thought was pretty funny. We also got "Spice Girls" MULTIPLE times. Didn't get that one, there was only 3 of us (we split into 3 groups to make our shopping easier). On the streets we got a lot of "Is there a beauty contest in town?" And just your average, hooting, whistling, "Pretty girls!", "I want to sleep with you", etc. on the streets. I would think it was mostly directed at the 2 blonde girls but I was probably pretty noticeable as well. It wasn't scary or anything, just incredibly annoying after a while.

The last day we walked to Asia. We crossed the bridge to the part of Istanbul that is technically in Asia minor, so that Megan could say that she's been to Asia! LOL thats not really why we did it, but it was fun. We just walked around and looked in some shops. We eventually had a really long lunch on a rooftop terrace that looked out over the sea! It was beautiful. Another tribute to the cheapness of this country for 6 people to eat, drink, AND have a hookah (I had to, it was Istanbul) the total bill came to 72 Lira... $46.


*Eau Claire girls in Asia!

I wish I could have written a better blog about this trip because it was honestly my favorite thing I've done so far here! But I gotta catch the bus in a few minutes and don't have time to elaborate. I'll just save the good stories for when I get home to the US!

And in other news, Marc is coming to visit me May 25th to June 4th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now I have to plan more adventures, and for cheap! This should be interesting...

The thrilling conclusion to the "Spring Break" blog series

(Ok, don't know if it's actually all that thrilling, but I found the title to be amusing.)

I recommend taking a train from Geneva to Venice... it is BEAUTIFUL!! It was really one of the most beautiful countrysides I've ever seen. I didn't really know when I passed into Italy because I was half asleep/half awake on and off but what I saw was awesome. Cute little mountain towns with beautiful lakes and little villas! Plus it was sunny and wonderful out. It was a 7 hour ride, but it was totally worth it.

When we got in to Venice the sun had left and it was raining. Good timing on our part, I guess. We got in and went straight for some Italian food!! I got tortellini in a cream sauce. It was amazing. Our waiter was also wearing some extremely tight pants... it made me laugh. I literally couldn't even figure out how that man was moving his legs they were so tight. Welcome to Italy, I guess. I had a vision of Ross on friends trying to pull up his leather pants with lotion/powder/paste, which made me laugh harder.

Off to the hostel. I was excited to have another "true hostel" experience. Laura said she booked us in a 10-person dorm. The name of the Hostel was "Camping Serenissimo". I was like, "Ummmm, are you sure this is a hostel? Cuz if I have to pitch a tent, screw that. We're finding something else."

"No, it's a hostel. The picture online was of a building, and I booked us in the 10-person dorm. I think you CAN camp if you want, but we're not."

Hahahaha, you already all know where this story is headed.

It was definitely a camp grounds. We stayed in a little mini trailer thing that was just a little box with 2 beds in it. The bathrooms were across the camp grounds. Sweet.

Again, not terrible, just definitely NOT what I was expecting. But really-12 Euro a night. You just really can't beat those prices.

We went back into Venice (it was a 30 minute bus ride) and walked around and got nice and lost. We have heard from people that the thing to do in Venice is to just walk around until you get lost. So we did. It is sooooooooooo beautiful! All the buildings are really old because there are so many building restrictions there. The whole city is literally sinking. So it was a good thing I saw it now because it probably won't be there for much longer.

Just walking around, seeing all the canals, and old cute buildings was really neat. We kept going until we sat down for some dinner. Lasagna for me! Yum. It was awesome. We sat at a little sidewalk cafe on a canal for dinner as it got dark.

Went back to our "hostel" for some sleep. The next day was our last, and we had to carry our backpacks all day :(

More walking around and getting lost the next day. We had a really long lunch at 2:30 with pasta, chicken, salad, and Italian wine.

It is REALLY hard not to spend money at this place!! Every other shop has tons of hand crafted Murano Glass goods and hand painted Carnival masks. It's so shiny and sparkley and pretty... it's easy to be distracted if you happen to be a 20 year old female (which, in fact, I am). I did buy myself a necklace, but for pretty cheap. I think the woman I bought it from may have been going out of business. She had a cute little shop somewhere further away from the "tourist" spots and had all of her stuff on sale. But, what are you gonna do? I'm sure she appreciated me buying at least something from her. And I still think it's cool because I now have a necklace that is someone's art.

Not to mention the food. I pretty much wanted to go to Italy just for the food. We ate at every chance we got. I had lots of gelato, pasta, and other pastries. It was pretty amazing.

So after a full day of walking around with our backpacks on, we headed to our lodgings for the evening-the airport. I may have mentioned before that the Dublin airport is a great place to sleep. It's HUGE and has tons of couches, chairs, benches, 24 hour McDonalds with booths for sleeping, etc. The Venice airport is not QUITE the same. The only place to sleep beside the floor was some metal seats. So 6 hours on metal seats that suck all the heat out of your body was pretty fun. Our flight left at 6:30 a.m. and we had a layover in Germany.

I'm happy to be back in Greece, but it was nice to get away for a while. There are just a few things about this country I don't care for too much... Like not being able to flush your toilet paper, and people not understanding what a "line" is. Greek people don't line up, they just sit in a large confusing mass and push their way around.

I did really miss Greek food!! I need to have a gyro pretty soon or I may lose it. I did eat about half a block of feta in the 2 days I've been back. I am getting a really severe feta addiction, not good. It's pretty expensive back home!! Hahaha, we'll see how long I can last :)

If you have any questions about any of my travels, let me know! I can't really do it all justice with just some typing on a blog. I will have much better story telling skills in person when I get home!

To conclude, I'll just say this, see the world. It rocks.

Spring Break Part 4: Geneva

This story will begin with my telling all of you that being prepared is a good thing. Book a hotel in advance, everywhere. I will now tell you that we did not do that for Geneva.

While getting ready for spring break, Laura and I booked all of our hotels/hostels/planes/trains/etc. because we wanted to be prepared. However, the ONE city we did not do that for was Geneva. We couldn't find a lot online when it came to Geneva hostels so we thought we'd just find one when we got in about 11 p.m. Geneva is a relatively small town, and everyone there is really friendly and most people speak at least some English.

Now I'm going to tell you about our first night in Geneva.

We got off the train and couldn't find any information on hostels/hotels in the train station. It pretty much didn't exist. Ok, odd. But we'll walk around and find something, right? This seemed easy, since there were signs pointing to multiple hotels. We wanted a hostel however. We found ONE and it was completely booked for the week. We soon came to realize that there was some sort of HUGE convention in town and ALL THE HOTELS WERE FULL ALL WEEK. So here we are, 3 American girls, wandering around Geneva close to midnight, asking every single hotel along the way if the have ONE room open for the evening. We got the same response everywhere, "No, we're full all week." Awesome. We managed to find 1 or 2 that had rooms but they were WAY out of our price range.

Close to 1 a.m. we became desperate, and decided to go to a little one near the train station and just pay more than we could afford. (There was no where to sleep in the train station, otherwise I would have just done that.)

We walked in and the guy at the counter was really nice. He reduced our price and gave us free breakfast. I love that guy. I think he could tell we were pretty desperate, and poor. We got a room that was supposed to be 250+ (in Swiss Franc=215US) for 230 plus free breakfast (breakfast was 20 SF per person). So we got one night in a nice hotel with a really nice shower! We all took super long showers the next morning. They also had a really nice breakfast buffet, so we all ate as much as possible.

We then went next door to the Starbucks to use the WIFI on with Megan's laptop to secure a place to stay that night. We ended up having to stay in France because there really was nothing left in Geneva (in our price range). I have some pretty good stories about the hotel in France, but that will come later.

That day we got to tour CERN. It's a HUGE physics lab. Laura's dad is a physicst and knew people there. I'm sure I saw some pretty cool stuff, however, it all went way over my head. I did see the place where they thought the blackhole would appear and suck up the earth in it, killing us all. (If any of you heard that story in the news a few months ago.) Lucky for us, the chances of that happening are really quite tiny.

We went back into town for some dinner and we realized that we had to check into our hotel before 9 p.m. because that's when the front desk closed. We didn't really know where it was, and we waited for the tram in Geneva at about 8:30 and we missed it. Shit. We're screwed. There's no way we're going to make it out there in time! And we thought that if reception was CLOSED, we would get charged on our credit card anyways and we also would not have a place to stay, again. So we ended up taking a taxi. Which we knew would be expensive, but we were desperate.

Trying to get out there was ridiculous. We passed it on the freeway, but there was no actual way for the cab to get there because there was no exit ramp. It was so stupid but we got there at 8:58! And... the damn front desk was closed. Nobody there. Damnit, I'm starting to hate the French a little bit at this point. However, there was a "check in" machine outside that we could use to check in 24 hours. So we basically just paid 50 Francs on a cab we apparently had no need for. GRRRRRRR!! I hate spending money unnecessarily!! Annoying.

Well then we couldn't get the machine to work. It recognized that we had a reservation under Megan's name, but wouldn't accept her credit card. WTF?! We got out of the way after we tried it twice, because there was another group of people trying to check in. They were also having a little trouble with it, and at some point a hotel employee had come outside and we all jumped him, "Help us!!"

I heard the employee talking to the group in front of us, in French. The group tried to speak to him in English. The hotel employee only spoke French and the group spoke Spanish, with some little bits of English. This is where I stepped in to try and help. I was pretty proud of myself. I tried to translate the Spanish guys' English into French to the employee, then translate his French to English for the Spanish guys. Yay language!! It wasn't anything too impressive, the guys just didn't understand what floor their room was on and I had to ask the employee for them. I still felt pretty cool.

The employee helped us with our credit card problem (we apparently just didn't leave it in the machine long enough). And voila! We finally have a cheap hotel room! And cheap it certainly was! I have some photos of it but I can't post any on here now, I'm on a campus computer in the library. It was called "First Class Hotel" I kid you not. Can you imagine a first class hotel for $15 a night?? LOLOLOLOLOLOL... I'm still laughing just thinking about it. It wasn't really bad, just TINY rooms and apparently the reception desk is just an illusion because there was never anybody there, and when we found an employee they didn't know how to get into Geneva. But, like I said, you really can't complain for $15 a night (15 per person).

We eventually got some help on how to get to the bus that takes us to the France/Switzerland border. We pretty much knew how to get to Geneva once we got into Switzerland, it was just getting there that was fun. We walked a few minutes to our bus stop. The buses were not frequent, and we had about a 30 minute wait at that point. I spend a lot of time waiting at bus stops, it seems. We waited. Got on the bus, took it for about 5 minutes, and then it stopped.

Apparently we were right next to the border. We probably could have walked there in less time than it took to wait for the bus. Would have been good to know. So now we got to walk from France to Switzerland! Woot! That also became a pretty funny joke later, "Hey guys, save up your energy. Remember-we have to walk back to France tonight!!"

Once in Geneva, we walked around the lake. It was very nice outside, and the lake was full of swans and ducks. We ate some Swiss chocolate while sitting at the lake, terrified that the swans were going to attack us (we were also eating French bread). We walked around town, had some food, and walked back to France late that night.

We had to walk back to Switzerland at 6 a.m. because our train to Venice left at 7:45 a.m. and we didn't want to miss it!

Now I'm off to Venice....