Hello again everyone! So I am very delayed on my blog ( go figure), but now is my attempt to catch up. So I visited Greece about a week ago, and had an absolutely amazing time. I spent a day and night in Athens, and then traveled to Mykonos to spend two nights there, and then spent my fourth night in Piraeus, which is the port town where we docked. Greece was definitely a top country of mine, especially because my first day in Mykonos was probably one of the best days of my life. Oh, and I have also established a serious love for ATV’s, and must purchase one immediately….or at least ride one in the desert or something. Any takers? ☺ Alright well enough babbling… onto my day by day explanations!!! Woooohoooo
July 16th: (I have fully lost track of days of the week….so the only way I know when I was at places are the dates on my iphoto…thank the heavens)
We arrive in Athens, and set out to see the Acropolis! However before leaving, my roomie Jordan receives news from her friend in Athens that a heat wave has just arrived into Athens, and the Acropolis is supposed to be around 40 degrees Celsius….which is around 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Awesome. Well with that in mind, we head out to trek around the city of Athens and try to find our way. Considering my awesome slacker abilities, I have yet to buy my ferry ticket to Mykonos, so we (Erica, Katie, Jordan, and I) head to the ferry office so we can purchase/ pick up our ferry tickets. Pretty much the whole SAS community planned on going to Mykonos… so we were excited for the SAS-fest to begin. After the ferry office, we decide to take the lazy American route and take one of those obnoxious bus tours with the big, red, double decker busses. While it was 20 euros, the convenience was definitely worth the 20 euros. We hop on the bus and put in our earphones to hear all about the history of Piraeus on the way to Athens. We arrive in Athens after a 20-30 minute drive, and decide to go to the new Acropolis Museum. While we heard it was cool, the main determining factor for us was the Air Conditioning. (Fun fact: When traveling around Europe in the summer, sometimes you will pay ungodly amounts of money to get into museums, aquariums, or ridiculous “cover charges” at restaurants for some amazing AC. ) After walking around the nice museum, we decide that we are over it because everything that we are looking at isn’t even the real thing, but plaster copies of the original. So while it looks nice and real, it is not so much. So obviously to stick it to the man, I violated the museum “no touch rule” and touched a column. HA. Take that I say.
Okay moving on from that…. before giving you the complete wrong image of the museum, the walkway leading up to the museum is plexi glass with ruins beneath it, so that was really cool to be walking over ruins from ancient Greece. Also, there were see-through floors in the museum as well, so the ruins underneath were definitely the coolest part, as well as the see through floors on the second floor, giving everyone on the first floor quite the show. Overall, the museum was definitely worth the 3 euros we paid to get in.
After the museum, we head to the Acropolis itself. We realize later that we end up taking the long route up the hill, but get to see some cool ruins of theaters along the way, so it was worth it. We take some sweet pics of the entire city of Athens, because the Acropolis is definitely the highest pedestrian point of the city. We finally fight through the hoards of tour groups and various ethnic groups plugging up the entrance and arrive to the Acropolis. It was really cool to see all of the ancient ruins, but it was kind of hard to enjoy with such huge crowds. Oh and also, these sites are always being renovated, so there was tons of construction equipment surrounding the Parthenon, which was kind of annoying and took a little bit of the beauty away. But whatever, it was still really cool to see. We also took some sweet pics…so look forward to that on facebook.
We decide that we have sweated past our comfortable level, so we head down the hill and precede to get some AMAZING frozen lemonade which really hits the spot on this 40 degree Celsius kind of day. We head to a restaurant that clearly lures us in with the words “free Air Conditioning” and enjoy our first real Greek meal! I have some delicious stuffed vegetables (Look at how well I’m eating, Mom!) and sample some of Erica and Jordan’s Greek Salads. After lunch, we decide to find this area called “Plaka,” which apparently is home to this cool flea market. While we soon realize that Plaka is a huge neighborhood, we stumble upon this really great shopping street, and buy souvenirs to our heart’s content.
After an exhausting day of ancient ruins and shopping (standard for a SAS summer day), we drag our exhausted selves to our big red double decker bus to take us home. Due to Hilary Clinton’s presence in Athens, our travel plans got a little bit messed up, but we finally made it back to the ship. After napping, I then go out for a nice dinner in Piraeus with Olivia, Katie, Erica, Kristin, and Hannah. It is this super fancy/ cute Greek restaurant which had the best service I have had in any country thus far. I only ordered some boiled zucchini because I kind of already ate on the ship, but it was still delicious. After that we went to this super cool “cocktail lounge bar thing,” but I was way too tired to enjoy myself fully, so I headed back to the ship to rest up for MYKONOS.
July 17th:
I wake up at the ungodly hour of like 5:30 to catch the 7:25 ferry to Mykonos. Due to my last minute purchase, I had to buy a Business Class ticket, which ended up being pretty cool. Shane and I head to the ferry, which is surprisingly extremely nice on the inside. It was very spacious and had great Air Conditioning (clearly very important). We stopped at two other islands before Mykonos, so I got to see some pretty cool places because my seat was located right in front of a window! So great :D. So we arrive in Mykonos and mass chaos ensues, because there are cars on the bottom and people on the top….so imagine that one scene in Avatar when the military car thing unloads all of the mechanical animals and such on Pandora in the beginning of the movie, and that’s pretty much what it looked like. So I am meeting up with Olivia at our hotel, but she flew so I had to get to our hotel somehow. There was a HUGE line for taxis because I realized later that there are ACTUALLY only 30 taxis on the island, so that is why the line was not moving. So I am waiting in line being confused and this guy comes up to me and is like oh Hotel Sofia (where I stayed)! 5 euros I take you. And I’m like awesome! But then I see his car…which is more of a truck ATV. Imagine the trucks that the yard people drive with like the open back and such….. and that is what he drove except mini sized. So I was like ummm definitely not going on that. However there were no taxis and he was still hassling me so then I was just like…. Okay fine. So I went with him and was like holding on to my backpack for dear life because I didn’t want it to fly out of the back of the mini truck. I finally get there safe and sound, which is a relief because half way through I realized he could have easily taken me or something. That moment will probably go on my list of the not smartest things I’ve ever done…sorry parentals! Haha
So I finally reach the hotel which is SO GORGEOUS and I try to check in…but Olivia isn’t there yet so I can’t do it without her. I quickly discover the free wifi and am very content in the AC (go figure). So Olivia arrives and we check in to the cutest little room ever. The hotel is so quaint and beautiful and the people working there are SO NICE and the room is sooooo white and great. I can’t really describe how cute it is without pictures… so I will upload some ASAP. One of the women bring us this delicious beverage because we have to wait for our room to be cleaned, but it was sooo appreciated because it was so delicious. Olivia and I drop off our stuff and immediately go to the pool to clearly use the free wi-fi, because we are technology deprived SASers. We run into some other SASers at the hotel, but otherwise we relax for a while waiting for Olivia’s friends (Kristin and Kim) to arrive as well. After they get there, we decide to go rent ATV’S!!! Best decision of the trip EVER. Not only were they so fun, but there is almost no other way to get around in Mykonos without them. So we get the ATV’s, stop to get gas (so cool), and then make our way over to Super Paradise (the gay beach of Mykonos). We have a great time riding through the countryside and taking it what Mykonos has to offer. I was officially in love with the island.
So Olivia and I are approaching Super Paradise, and we see this massive white villa with music blasting above us on a hill with people dancing and clearly having a great time. We were really upset that we didn’t know them….until we realized that we DID! There were a bunch of Sasers that rented this SICK villa and were hanging out and such. We drive our ATV (a bit of a struggle sesh) to the villa and it is absolutely breathtaking. I like to describe it that if Real World were to have a season in Mykonos, this is the house they would use. It was unreal. So we hang out at the villa for a few hours, until we head back to the hotel to get ready for the evening. We go back to the hotel to shower and stuff, and then ride our ATV’s to Paradise Beach, which is where MARTIN SOLVEIG was playing at Paradise Beach Club that night. If you don’t know who Martin Solveig is, he is the DJ that plays “Hello,” aka is AWESOME. So we stop at this restaurant across the way and eat more delicious Greek food and drink some delicious drinks. The manager loved us so much that he brought us free Champagne! It was perfect.
After that, we head to the beach where there is this huge dance party going on, so naturally I partake in the festivities. We hang out for a while because the club doesn’t even open its’ doors till 11:00 pm, so we head over around 12:30. We have a great time listening to Martin Solveig and dancing the night away. Afterwards, I have pizza and a crepe, which is a perfect end to a perfect day in paradise… Mykonos ☺.
July 18th:
Olivia, Kristin, and Kim all leave for Santorini today, and Katie, Shane, and Erica move from their hotel to mine! So we go rent another set of ATV’s and head over to Paradise beach. This beach is different from SUPER Paradise, because Super Paradise is the (super) FABULOUS gay beach. Anyways we laid on the sand for a while and while unknowingly at the time, I got absolutely eaten up by mosquitos. My legs are COVERED in bug bites and I am in the most pain everrrr. However I can’t let that ruin my fun (until I get back to the good old MV). So we head back to the hotel on our wonderful ATV’s and relax/ get ready for dinner. We head downtown to eat some delicious Greek food, and end up eating right on the water! It was great. We then go to a few bars but head home early.
July 19th:
The sad day comes when we have to leave Mykonos. So we wake up and head to our ferry for the sad ride home. We arrive home and I go on a furious hunt for some medicine for my bug bites. While I don’t find an open pharmacy, I luckily find something at a newspaper stand. That night, everyone decides that we are going to a karaoke bar in Piraeus and it was SO FUN. I can’t wait to post videos on facebook because the singing is quite impeccable. I’m very glad I went because where else will I see Americans invade a Greek karaoke bar and sing “Don’t Stop Believing” at the top of their lungs? Standard debauchery of course.
July 20th:
Per usual, the last day in port is normally reserved for shopping. I wish I could post a picture of my bag of souveniers, because it is actually unreal. Now get excited for your presents :D. hahah. Anywaysssss Erica, Jessica, and I all head to this street where we know where all the shops are and do some pretty good damage. Because this is the last port where Euros are used, we all had to make sure that we used them all up! So luckily we had like 7 streets of the exact same shop to spend them on. Sadly, our time has come to an end, but now onto BULGARIA!
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