10 days
4 ladies (Me, Janice, Kelly, Katie – this number fluctuated, but 4 was our core number)
4 countries (Belgium, Italy, Vatican City, Greece)
18 cities (Brussels, Charleoi, Venice, Trevisio, Mestre, Florene, Pisa, a town that I can’t remember the name of, La Spezia, Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, Riomaggiore, Rome, Vatican City, Athens, Aegina)
10 means of transportation (boat, plane, train, walking, bike, car, bus, metro, tram, running)
3 nights without a bed
10 gelato (with 2 scoops each time)
2 painful feet
1 unforgettable spring break
My spring break began at 4am. I ate breakfast quickly and then my host mom, who had very kindly offered to take me to the airport, were off. After checking in, I met up with my fellow travelers (who had spent the night in the airport) to wait for the plane to depart. They told me stories of their night in the airport and we discussed our travel plans for the next 10 days with much anticipation. We then hopped on our flight to our first city...
:::Venice, Italy:::
As we began to descend into Italy we saw, to our surprise, snow-capped mountains! This was not exactly what we were hoping to see. We wanted lots and lots of hot sun, not snow. But Venice was still farther away and so we hoped the weather was drastically different there.
We landed and realized our minimal knowledge of French would do us no good in this new country and so we all went over the Italian words we knew- grazi, prego, pizza, spaghetti, ciao… Okay, that’ll do. We then took an hour-long bus ride into Venice (Ryan Air inconveniently never has their airports in the actual city they say it is in; it’s usually about an hour away). We decided we didn’t want to carry our luggage through the cobblestone streets, up stairs and over bridges and so we put it into a luggage storage place for the day.
Venice isn’t a very big city and so our game plan was just to wander throughout it and we figured we would just happen upon all the main “touristy” things eventually. We began to follow the crowd and the signs towards St. Marc’s Square. We wandered through the city getting side tracked by the numerous masks and wooden Pinocchio’s. Katie was continually in search of the perfect Moreno bead.
One of our first things on the agenda was finding some gelato! We did and it was delicious. We quickly became addicts of this creamy, flavorful frozen treat. Throughout our travels we would all suddenly crave gelato and begin to find room in our stomachs and money in our budgets for it. With all of us combined we must have tried most of the flavors offered. We had chocolate flavors and fruit flavors, scoops in cones and scoops in dishes. Marvelous.
After walking some more we decided it was time for some of the infamous Italian pizza and a glass of wine. They didn’t disappoint. We continued to walk and came upon a protest of some sort in a square. We couldn’t understand anything and so we moved on. We found the Rialto Bridge, which is the only bridge in Venice that has stores on it. I think it may be the widest bridge in Venice, too. It was beautiful, but so were many of the small bridges throughout the city that weren’t as filled with people.
We went into random churches and took pictures of cool statues and then finally arrived in St. Marc’s Square. It was very large, but very full of people. Unfortunately, like many of the other well-known tourist attractions throughout Europe, it was under construction and had scaffolds around part of it. Nonetheless, it was amazing. There was also a Campanile in the square! I think that I like ISU’s better…
We walked along the water and headed back into the city to continue wandering aimlessly. We stopped for some more gelato and found a type of music museum. Then, in search of a bathroom, we stumbled upon an Ernest Hemingway Museum. We continued to walk around and then decided we had seen pretty much all of Venice that we were going to/wanted to see. We wanted to be warmer and so we sat in a café sipping on coffee and chatting for about three hours. We then moved across the street to a less expensive restaurant for dinner. We all tried pasta for this meal and enjoyed a couple more hours of conversation. We had an interesting encounter with some Italians and then headed to get our luggage and catch our train.
My summary of Venice in a day is that it’s pretty, but pretty repetitive. As you walk you see the same style of buildings, bridges and waterways. Many times we felt as though we had already been to places, which we had not yet been to. Vehicles are non-existent in the city, which is nice. You could walk through the streets not worrying about looking both ways before crossing it. The only means of transportation are on foot or via gondola.
Venice was also filled with people walking around, majority of which were tourists. Even though I, too, was a tourist, I didn’t like being surrounded by people taking the same pictures as I and following the same path as I. It almost felt like a fake city just because everything looked similar, everyone was there to take pictures and the only “real” Venetians were the store and restaurant owners and sometimes even they were not even Italian. Also, Janice had been getting very excited to bargain with the Italians. However, they (at least not in the big cities) do not bargain. They actually get quite upset when you do try to bargain with them. Janice said that she saw something for a few euro cheaper at another store and the lady said, “Well why don’t you go buy it there then!?” Oye! Fussy, fussy.
Also, not as many actual Italians spoke English. I thought that in a very touristy city more people would, but I guess I should never assume. Finally, the men in Venice, and Italians in general, are not afraid to blatantly stare. If we wore shorts or dresses where our legs would be showing some then they would look at our legs as if they’d never seen a leg before. It was quite uncomfortable and we were always uncertain of where to look and what to do when they were staring so intently.
:::Traveling Interlude:::
We got to our train station which was a little outside the city. We still had a couple hours before our train left. We were thinking about where we could sit that’s inside so we weren’t so cold. We found a hotel and smiled with big eyes at the receptionist and politely asked him if we could sit on his couches for a couple hours because we felt unsafe sitting at the train station since we were all girls. He agreed to let us stay and took us to a lounge area on the second floor, which was nice because that way we weren’t being watched by him the entire time and so we could spread out. We all started in a vertical position and ended asleep in a horizontal position. Luckily we had set alarms and so we woke up in time to catch our train. We thanked the receptionist and headed for the station.
We got there with tickets in hand and tried to figure out which platform we were supposed to be on. Fortunately we met a girl who would be taking the same train as us. She informed us that we were to put our ticket into this box that stamps them with the date and time. If we had met her we would have never known this. She then led us to our platform.
Our train arrived and we were looking forward to sitting down and falling back asleep. Much to our disappointment, when we got on board we found that the Harry Potter style train compartments were full of sleeping people stretched out. We walked around looking for a place to sit and found nothing. Finally a train lady came and woke up people who were lying over two or three seats so that other people could sit down. We did and had some uncomfortable hours of semi-sleep. We arrived in Florence where we got breakfast at the train station and then caught our connecting train to Pisa.
Yes, we were those tourists. We arrived in Pisa, ran to a taxi, drove to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, ran to the tower, held up the tower, took pictures, ran back to the taxi, drove back to the train station and hoped on our train to Cinque Terre. We hadn’t had our tickets checked at all up to this point. We had been in a few different trains already and this one from Pisa to Cinque Terre was especially nice we noticed. A lady appeared and asked for our tickets. She told us we were on the wrong train and that we could either get off at the next station or pay the extra 50 euro and stay on until Cinque Terre.
We got off at the next station. It was a random stop in a town that didn’t look too enticing. We sat in the little café of the station with a giant Obama head, mouse head and clown head. It was an interesting experience. We played some card games and then all of a sudden one of the workers of the café place came up to us with what looked like the lid of a giant tin can and began to tap on the tin lid and just stare at us playing cards. We had never been so into the game as we were at that moment. Nobody knew what was happening, nobody knew why and nobody wanted to make eye contact with this man and his tin can lid. He mumbled a few things in Italian that were not one of the 5 words we knew and so we continued to pretend as though the card game was immensely intriguing. Finally he walked away and we all let out a breath of relief.
We considered eating lunch and then realized it was only 8:30. It seemed like half the day was over with and it was only just beginning! Our train wasn’t supposed to be there until 11:30. We still had quite a while to wait. We played more cards and chatted and then went to the platform to wait for our train. Katie and I decided we would go to the bathroom quick as we still had about 20 min before the train came. As we were climbing up the stairs to return to our platform we see our train pulling away with Janice and Maisah inside and Kelly standing outside the train with our bags watching the train pull away in disbelief. At all of our other experiences with the trains they would wait for 5-10 min before pulling away from a station. Janice and Maisah went on board to save us all seats while Kelly waited for Katie and I. All of a sudden the doors shut and the train pulls away without us. We looked to see when the next train came… 1:30. We couldn’t take this train station any longer! We were trying to figure out what we should do when another train unexpectedly pulled up. Someone said it, too, was going to Cinque Terre. So we hopped on and hoped for the best!
:::Cinque Terre, Italy (Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, Riomaggiore):::
We did end up at the same station as the other 2. Phew! We headed for our hostel, by train once again, in one of the 5 cities along the coast of Italy. We were on the train that was going through the mountain and so it was dark. All of a sudden we simultaneously gasped at the sight of the glimpse of a blue sky and a blue sea and then back into darkness we went. When our train stopped we looked over the edge of a cliff and into the clearest water we had ever seen. It was beautiful, and this was just one small part of Cinque Terre.
The city in which our hostel was in, Riomaggiore, was all uphill. We slowly began to hike up the hill with our luggage to our hostel. We walked in, out of breath, paid and then he told us to follow him to our rooms. Back down the hill we went with our luggage and then up a couple flights of small, very steep stairs to our hostel room. It was 5 single beds bunked and then one double bed. He gave us the option to take all the 5 or 3 in the bunk beds and 2 in the double. We opted for the bunk beds. We all enjoyed a much-needed shower and then headed to spend the rest of our afternoon in Vernazza.
Unfortunately when we had arrived in Cinque Terre it had been overcast, but by the time we reached Vernazza the sun had come out and the cardigans came off. The city was beautiful. Colorful houses lined the cliffs next to the blue ocean. I couldn’t take enough pictures of it all. We quickly got gelato and then sat on the beach. Janice, Katie and I climbed up stairs all the way to the top of one of the cliffs where there was a small castle and an amazing view.
We went back to our hostel’s city and enjoyed a wonderful dinner. I ate some pasta and Janice and I tried a raisin wine that was supposedly the wine to try in Cinque Terre. It was interesting… it was very strong and potent at first sip and then it was nice. You could only have small sips at a time. No gulping allowed when you drink that wine. It would be too overwhelming. We bought some bread, cheese and honey for lunch the next day at a grocery store.
We decided to climb up even farther than our hostel to get a better view of Riomaggiore. We found one. We also found a bench where we could watch the sun set over the ocean. It was beautiful and relaxing. We got back to our hostel and found that two girls had been placed in the double bed. They said they weren’t expecting them to share a double bed! They were from America, ironically studying in Rome, where we were off to next. We were able to ask them a lot of questions, which was really nice.
As we hadn’t really slept up to this point once we fell asleep (around 8 or 9 I believe) we were out cold until about 9 the next morning. We had to check out of our hostel by 10am and as we didn’t want to carry our luggage with us the next day we, once again, put it in a luggage storage place at our train station. They told us the storage place closed at 10pm. Unfortunately our train didn’t depart until 1am and so we would have to hang out at the train station for a while that night.
We went back to the start of the 5 cities so that we could hike through them and see them all. The coastal walk was gorgeous. We just couldn’t get over how blue and how clear the ocean was. We walked from Riomaggiore to Manarola. Manarola was picturesquely placed on the cliff. It was the most beautiful of all the cities. The houses had the most variety of color and the colors were more vivid than any of the other cities. We indulged in some gelato and then headed to a picnic area overlooking the city. We ate our bread and cheese and drank wine from a juice box. A couple sips in we realized that they were actually cooking wine. The idea of juice box sized wine was funny; the taste wasn’t too spectacular, however.
Unfortunately the rest of the walk along the coast was closed and so the only other options were to take the really long hiking trail, which we considered and then opted for the second option, which was to ride the train between the cities. During this train ride we heard an American girl loudly declare a ‘shocking’ and very inappropriate remark. Oh, Americans. Even though I am an American tourist, every time I walk by one I roll my eyes. I always just catch a piece of their conversation and it’s always covering a highly intellectual topic… or not. Also, Americans always seem to wear clothes that advertise their beloved country. And they seem to think that since they are in a country where the main language isn’t English that nobody around them speaks English. So wrong. I hope that when people walk by me they don’t laugh and roll their eyes at my topic of conversation.
The next city, Corniglia was the least exciting of them all. Once you got off the train you had to walk up numerous steps and then the city was pretty anticlimactic. It was small and didn’t really have anything to do there. By this point we all had to go to the bathroom and figured Corniglia would have one available. All we found were squatty potties. One of which someone didn’t understand that they were squatty potty’s and not squatty poopy’s. It was an experience…
We then went to the final city, Monterosso al Mare. We walked around for a bit, sat on the beach, in which the sand was replaced by rocks, climbed to the top of a giant rock and ate yet another delicious Italian dinner at a restaurant by the water. It was then time to catch a train back to the luggage place to make sure we were there before it closed at 10pm. The train there took much longer than expected and we were there at about 9:56. We sprinted to the luggage storage place only to find that the doors were shut and a chain with a pad lock on it was placed around the door handles!
We HAD to have our luggage! Our tickets for our train that was leaving that night were in there! All of our necessities for living were in there! We banged on the doors for a while hoping someone was still in there. No answer. We ran to an information desk; it was closed. We ran to the train station desk; it was closed. We ran to a policeman. He told us we’d have to wait until the morning. We explained that that simply would not do. He somehow found a janitor or someone that had the key to the place. We had never been so relieved!
We then trotted off to yet another hotel to bat our eyes and ask if we could sit on their couches. Once again, they agreed and we once again, fell asleep for a little bit. We ran to our train as we had done with pretty much every other train we’d been on up to this point and this time found a seat right away. We were in and out of sleep once again and then finally arrived in…
:::Rome, Italy:::
It’s difficult to navigate at 6am. We tried to do so but ended up going the wrong direction. We finally found our hostel, which was, once again, up a ton of stairs. This time the stairs were normal sized and inside a building though. We made it to the top only to find a sign outside the hostel door saying “please do not ring the bell between the hours of 12am and 7am”. So there we sat for about 30 minutes until the owner of the hostel heard us shuffling about outside her door and opened it to find 5 tired and dirty college students sitting outside the door. She asked why we were sitting there. We pointed to the sign and she just shook her head and let us in. We were able to shower and leave our luggage there while we explored Rome for the day.
Our first stop was the Vatican as it was Palm Sunday. We sat and watched 2 hours of a mass that we weren’t sure when it started or ended. It was hot in Rome. The hottest weather we had felt yet. We were slightly sunburned after the day was over. Next we ate. Pizza, gelato and a coca-cola for an energy boost. We then went to the Coliseum and Roman Forum. Palm Sunday was the last day in which certain attractions, such as the Coliseum and Roman Forum, were free. We decided that since they were free then we would pay for a guide to take us around both of them and that way we’d be able to skip the waiting in line part as well.
Our guide told us all about the Coliseum and then set us lose to wander and gave us a time and place to meet up to go to the Roman Forum. The Coliseum was amazing! I wish I could have seen it in full force… minus the killing of people and animals though. We left the Coliseum and met when and where he told us to meet and he was nowhere in sight. Scammed. Bummer. It wasn’t too expensive though so it was okay. We then met up with 2 friends and walked through the Roman Baths and part of the Roman Forum. We also saw a woman making spray paint paintings of the Coliseum that were very impressive. It looked like digital artwork.
We kept catching glimpses of this giant white building in the distance and so we set off to get a closer look. The closer we got the whiter it became. It was a fabulous building. People weren’t even allowed to stand on its steps for fear that it might not be as white! We headed back to the hostel to freshen up before dinner. We met our new roommate, Joe, and invited him to join us in search of food. He did, as did another Vesalius student, which we found while we were heading to the metro. We all went to the Spanish Steps and then the Trevi Fountain just as it was getting dark. They were both as beautiful as I remember (I was in Rome for a chorus trip in high school) and I was able to make yet another wish by throwing a coin into the fountain.
We found dinner of which I had gnocchi for the first time, and then found gelato, of course. We happened upon the Pantheon after gelato as well as other random old things throughout the city. When walking around in Rome you just seem to happen upon something old and just kind of say, huh, I wonder what this is, take a picture and move on. It’s a city filled with plenty of old as well as new. The streets, for instance, are part of the old. They are awful! They are cobblestone that are spread war too far apart and so after walking on them for a couple hours your feet are in immense pain.
The following day we got a late start and so we started with lunch and then we all wanted to go to the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Museums. We took one look at the line and said, nope, we are not getting in and then a guy came up to us and asked if we wanted to pay more and skip the line. I had already seen the Sistine Chapel and so I didn’t want to pay that much to see it again so I just wandered around for 2 hours while they went inside. It was another nice day and I enjoyed getting some sun. I found some more old things as well as a nice view of Rome from on top of a hill. I also got some gelato.
We met back up and took a metro to the Piatza del Popolo to have a looksie. It’s a big open area with big buildings that were cool to see. We then ate gelato (I don’t know if you’re seeing a trend here… but we ate a lot of gelato). We then were trying to find the Pantheon so we could see it in the day and not having such good luck. We made it eventually, but before that we found the best gelato place ever! It’s called Gelatti and they have 70 flavors of gelato. It is a mad house in there! But it was worth it. It was SO amazing! If you’re ever in Rome, go to it!
We headed to the Republic, which is yet another big open area with beautiful buildings. It’s really hard to appreciate such amazing things when you see so many amazing things in a short amount of time. We were on a time schedule obviously and so we could never just sit and appreciate something for too long. I wish I could have just sat in the Republic area for a while reading a book or eating lunch. But it was a kind of look, take a picture and go on to the next attraction type trip instead of the sit and appreciate type one. Quality vs. quantity. We went for quantity. I’m glad we did because we were able to see and do so much, but I do hope to have a quality type of trip abroad someday, too.
The restaurant we choose for dinner was full and so they just said follow this guy and so we did. He led us down an ally to another restaurant they own we assumed and we enjoyed pasta and wine once again.
The next morning we were up at 4am to meet our personal shuttle that would take us to the airport, which, once again, was outside the city. We began to check in for our flight. I was first in line so they checked my passport and ticket. He saw I was with 3 other girls and he just said, “Are you all together?” And when we nodded then he didn’t even check their passports but just let them through! Good security, Rome. Janice ended up getting through without having her passport looked at once. They just kind of held it and rubbed it and let her go through. She just looks so trustworthy, I guess. We were then off to the presumably very hot…
:::Athens, Greece:::
We arrived in Greece ready to start sweating! But when we stepped outside, we began to shiver instead. We were dressed for warmth and we got high 50’s low 60’s instead. Rome was 75! Why couldn’t Greece be? Apparently, Greece isn’t warm all year around. Even people who were studying abroad there didn’t know this. The summer gets to be like 120 sometimes but the winter actually is winteresque.
We rode a bus into the city center called Syntagma Square. We immediately noticed that there were dogs everywhere. Big dogs, too. They were just wandering, or lying on the sidewalk or doing what ever they wanted. We were a bit hesitant to get close to them, as they looked a little… rough. We then found Janice’s friend who was studying in Athens for the semester and she led us (in a sort of round about way) to our hostel. We freshened up and then went in search of food because we were starving!
On our way to food we saw a ferry place so we stopped inside to get some price and time estimates on islands we wanted to go to. Our original plan was to go to Santorini (where Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was filmed) for one day and Crete for the other day. After talking some with the ferry lady we found out this was simply unrealistic. So we began to devise a new game plan. But we decided we needed food in us before we could decide on anything.
In Europe restaurants have their menu outside so that people can see what they have and what their prices are before going inside. We looked at a couple restaurants, not liking the prices, and then finally I made an executive decision and walked in one without looking at a menu. “Eight euro! Two euro each.” the lady behind the counter said. We all hurriedly handed her two euro and walked inside a little farther. Janice asked, “What did we just pay two euro for?” I didn’t know. Nor did anyone else. We didn’t see a buffet or anything and so we just stood waiting for food to magically appear. The wait staff stared at us and tried to communicate what we were supposed to do. We still didn’t understand. We also still wanted food.
Finally we figured out that we were supposed to get a gyro (not pronounced guy-ro, but more like ye-ro by the way) out of the whole deal. Fabulous! Just what we wanted! So we got one and sat down and then the wait staff was like, “So you sit in?” And we said, “yes.” And then they made us pay 50 cents each for that. Every restaurant in Greece (or at least Athens) charges you more if you sit in the restaurant than if you take it to go. Still, 2.50 for lunch was a pretty good deal, I think.
We then found a bakery type place and had to have some baklava. It was delicious. It was the early afternoon at this point and so we decided it was time to start doing what we do best- sightseeing. We went to the Parliament just in time for them to announce that we could now take pictures with the guards. We weren’t planning on capturing that moment, but since they were offering we took advantage of it. Along with dogs being everywhere, they had fearless pigeons in search of food! I accidentally kicked one while I was walking. That’s how audacious they are. Then Janice and I tried to purposefully kick them because they were so annoying.
Next, we went through the National Gardens to the Temple of Zeus Ruins. We got in for free since we were students. This was the case for pretty much everywhere in Athens, which was nice. After being there for about 10 minutes someone came up to us and told us it was closing in 10 minutes. It was only 2:50! Apparently all of the major things to see in Athens close at 3pm, which we were unaware of. So, not too much sightseeing for our first day. But we found out that the Acropolis Museum was open and so we headed there.
We got in for free once again and joined up with a guided English tour group of older people, so we blended in well. It was better to go with a tour guide because she was telling us certain things to note about specific statues and such that we would have just skimmed over and not noticed before. We also saw how the statues, which have a brownish tint to them are restored after being exposed to pollution.
On our way back to the hostel we realized we had a craving for some gelato. We got some and enjoyed it, but knew that nothing could compare to Italian gelato. We meant to lie down just for a bit, but ended up being completely out for over 2 hours. But if you remember, we hadn’t slept hardly at all at this point, so it was allowed. We then met up with Janice’s friend once again for an amazing and truly Greek dinner. We at so much and it was all so good! Then we walked around the city at night for a bit and saw a dog attack a man! Maddy, Janice’s friend, told us that they dogs are generally nice, but occasionally they will attack what they think is an aggressive or threatening man. This man was just walking by a dog, which was lying on the sidewalk and the dog started barking really loud and running towards the man. We just stood there in shock and eventually the man got away. New rule: don’t look threatening.
We went back to the hostel and back to bed. Refreshed the next morning we hit up the ferry place once again to ask some more questions. They didn’t really like our questions and thus were not too helpful. Our ferry plans changed about 25 times that day but we finally had a plan. The next morning we would go to Paros for one day and then Aegina (Maddy had recently been there and loved it) for the next day. Both were much closer to Athens than Santorini or Crete.
To the Acropolis we went! It was pretty cool. By this point in our journey we had seen so much that we were on the “look at for a second, take a picture, move on” setting. Everything in Athens was cool to see, but I don’t feel like I appreciated it as much as I would have had I not been traveling for so long. Anyways, still amazing to see! We then marched up the many stairs to Parthenon, which was, surprisingly under construction! We were thinking, “Isn’t the thing that makes this amazing that it hasn’t been reconstructed at all?” But we found out that it’s pretty much under construction all year around because otherwise it would actually fall apart because of the weather and pollution. Aside from the giant cranes, it was pretty spectacular to see. I wish I could have seen that in it’s prime, too. Next to the Parthenon was the Temple of Nike, which honored the goddess Athena.
Next, we made our way through the Agora and to another mini Parthenon looking place called the Temple of Apollo Patroos; it was in great condition. It was a lot nicer weather-wise this day than the day before so we enjoyed the sunshine. We saw the old Hadrian’s Library and saw 2 dogs hunt down and almost eat a cat. We walked to the Zappeion and then saw the Olympic Stadium, which was quite impressive.
Luckily all of the main things to see in Athens are all within walking distance. On our way back to our hostel we walked through the National Gardens once again. We found a giant cage filled with peacocks, geese and one duck. We decided to rest and watch the birds for a while. All of a sudden, we saw a goose jump on top of the duck and start viciously pecking at it. We went a little closer and saw other geese join in on the action. The geese began to slowly murder this poor duck right in front of our eyes! I tried to save the little guy by throwing rocks at the geese but it didn’t help much. The duck would randomly break loose and we’d all start cheering! Then the geese would jump on it once again and resume pecking. The poor little duck was bleeding and running out of energy. We couldn’t watch any long. Kelly was on the verge of tears and there were men peeing in the bushes behind us. Time to go.
We needed food, but not duck. We found a nice restaurant and I ordered a Greek salad and a frappe. Yum. Halfway through lunch Janice went to the bathroom. I know these details usually aren’t important, but this particular instance was of great interest. She came back a while later looking as if she’d seen a ghost. She informed us that she had walked into the bathroom and found one of the waitresses standing there with no bottoms on. Awkward! The waitress just said, “Opa!” and she went into a stall. Janice did the same and decided to stay in there for a while just in case.
We then headed for the Monastiraki flea market area, as Kelly so desired a pair of authentic Greek leather sandals. There were plenty of souvenir shops down this street and Kelly found a pair of sandals she loved. They were a bit pricey so she decided to not be spontaneous but to really think about if she needed/wanted these sandals. We went back the last day we were in Athens because she decided she did need/want them. We all agreed it was a good buy, though. Katie ended up finding a great pair as well!
We spent the night at Maddy’s and made a late night decision to just go to Aegina for two days instead of Paros for one and Aegina for one. It would finally be a time of complete relaxation and we wouldn’t feel rushed to see and do everything on the island. We were able to sleep in a little bit and then took a taxi to the docks where we would take our ferry to…
:::Aegina Island:::
While we were waiting for our ferry to arrive I ate a sort of giant ham and cheese hot pocket. Also, a little gypsy girl came up to us and gave us a personal accordion concert and then looked sadly at us with her hand out asking for money. We declined and wondered where her parents were and why they were just letting her wander alone through crowds.
In every large city in Europe you’ll be sure to find gypsies of every age. Sometimes it’s just a woman or just a child, sometimes a woman and a child (who looks very bored), sometimes an entire family and sometimes a person with a deformed body part. They just sit there without making eye contact holding out an open and oftentimes empty palm longing to feel the weight of a coin or two. I think they would be better off spending their days trying to get a job than just sitting on the street. There are street performers, too, which I like seeing a lot more. I still don’t usually give them money (because I’m poor) but if I were to give someone on the street money it would be people who were actually doing something and not just sitting there looking sad.
Anyways, eventually our ferry, the Flying Dolphin, arrived and we set off for our hour and a half journey to the island. We reached the warm and sunny Aegina and set off in search of a hostel to stay in because we hadn’t booked one before arriving. We found a tourist office and asked them a few questions about the island and then asked which hostel he recommended. He made a phone call and seconds later an older man with dark, leathery skin appeared in the doorway. “Girls! You looking for a place to stay?” We smiled and nodded and he said, “Let me call my nephew, Takas and he will show you to your place! He is the best looking boy on the island!” He led us to his nephew and the nephew led us through the unmarked streets to our hotel. When we reached the hotel Takas cried out, “Mama! Mama!” Apparently this was a family run business.
We settled in and then went to find Uncle and Nephew again to ask them where we could rent some bike. We originally were going to rent mopeds to ride around the island, but Greeks are crazy drivers! We thought bikes would be much safer, cheaper and better exercise. They, of course, had bikes to rent out to us! They even had baskets for our purses. We rode along the water and got more of a taste of what this beautiful island looked like. The water was 10 shades of blue and ridiculously clear. It held our attention for most of the bike ride. We found a beach about a mile away and grabbed a seat in the sun by the water. We ordered some drinks because we felt we deserved a day of relaxation, sipping on strawberry daiquiris and piña coladas. Unfortunately, our bill of relaxation caused stress. It was a great day until that bill. Then we started to realize that we were sunburned and had little money left.
We rode back into town and went straight to the grocery store. No nice dinner tonight after such expensive drinks! So we got some Greek yogurt, honey, granola, bread and some giant water bottles and headed for our hotel room, exhausted from the sun. We had a lovely dinner on our hotel beds watching The Bucket List (not a fan) and MTV music videos and Made. Classic. Just so you know, they were the only things on in English. Sleep was nice and the shower, which had no curtain, was painful as the sunburn was fresh.
The next day we decided to check out early, even though we had paid for two nights. We realized we could just stay at Maddy’s for free instead of staying in the hotel for another night. We ran into Uncle again (he was everywhere we turned. He was definitely the guy to know on the island) and he continued to refer to us as, “Girls!” and said it would be fine if we checked our early. The island is known to have the best-preserved Doric temple, the Temple of Athena Aphaia. There was one bus going there and one bus coming back. We sat by the blue water for an hour or so and then rode the bus to the temple. It was beautiful, especially with a bright blue sky as its background. We ate lunch by the temple and sat in the sun some more waiting for our bus back.
When we returned we bought some pistachios, as Aegina is known for having good pistachios. It’s true they are quite good. We then walked so some other ruins and then went back to Uncle to get our luggage from him. He said, “It’s upstairs. You can take anything you want from up there. Takas is up there.” Was he insinuating something with that comment? We just took our luggage and headed to the ferry. The one back to Athens was a lot bigger than the one from Athens. We started on the deck and moved inside once that became chilly. We started brainstorming cheap meals that we could make this summer since we wouldn’t have any money. We came up with quite a few good ones!
We arrived in Athens around dinnertime. We were dropped off in Syntagma Square once again in the middle of the Easter mass festivities. It was the Good Friday evening and people were all heading to mass. We were craving a 2 euro gyro and, since we already knew the drill, we headed there. We were wearing shorts, holding luggage and eating meat. Woops. Not really the proper Good Friday attire or activity. We then got McDonalds milkshakes to add to our out of placeness.
As we were walking to catch our bus back to Maddy’s apartment we noticed that the road was blocked off. A crowd was gathering in front of Parliament, too. We were sure what was going on but we were sure that we didn’t want to miss out on any of it! We joined the crowd and waited to see what happened. We finally asked a Police officer, who wasn’t very helpful. He did inform us that it had to do with Easter and it wasn’t something we wanted to miss.
All of a sudden we could hear music, and soon after we could see people marching through the streets. Some were priest-type people, some soldier-type people, some instrument-playing-type people and some were normal-type people. We still weren’t sure what was going on but we watched anyways. They all went to this stage in front of the Parliament and then, what appeared to be the main priest guy, gave a speech in Greek. We still didn’t know what to think of it all. After the speech they all started marching back where they came from.
Maddy’s roommate told us that it was something like all the people from the churches start on top of a large hill and walk all the way down it to Parliament and then to their churches (or vise versa). So we just saw a piece of that processional. Huh. The bus back took extra long because of all the traffic. We managed to find the apartment and then quickly went to sleep.
The next day we went to this giant hill that has a good view of the Parthenon. We were all exhausted in every way possible and so the hike up the hill was kind of challenging. But we made it, and it was a lovely view of not only the Parthenon, but also the city of Athens. We walked back to Maddy’s and got some groceries to make a pasta stir fry dinner with.
The whole day I was thinking that my flight back to Brussels was at 10, but I found out just in time that it was actually at 8! We all had separate flights home and I was the first one to leave. I was ready to go home by this point. I was tired of living out of a suitcase and just tired. I don’t know how people do months of traveling at a time.
Greece wasn’t what I expected really, but I still enjoyed it! There were some stereotypes that I was expecting to see in Greece that weren’t actually true. Yelling “Opa!” and smashing plates, for example, doesn’t happen (except for American tourists). I thought it would be super hot there, but it wasn’t. I was expecting to visibly see the Greek family life (similar to that of My Big Fat Greek Wedding) play out before my eyes, but it didn’t really. Seeing Uncle and Nephew and Mama was a small bit of the family life I was hoping to see I suppose.
Some more fun facts about Greece… Their septic system isn’t very good and so you’re not allowed to flush toilet paper down the toilet; you just put it in a trashcan. I didn’t always follow this rule. Putting the palm of your hand towards someone as if to say stop means the same thing as flipping off someone does in America. I realized I habitually do this a lot more than I thought. Moped driving is crazy! They drive not only in between cars, like it’s a lane made just for them, but they also occasionally drive on the sidewalks. Red lights mean almost nothing to the Greeks. Hardly anyone has a dryer; they just use the hang out to air-dry technique. People were wearing thick coats and scarves even though it got up in the 70’s at one point. The old women in Greece are really old. They had gelato, but it was no Italian gelato. Men stare in Greece, too.
