Week Break – Santorini (Part 2 of 3)

My lesson in Santorini was this: Don’t plan an island adventure; it’s just going to change. I wasted SOOO much money planning and buying my ferry tickets in advance without any benefit. Unlike plane tickets, ferry tickets don’t increase in price if you buy them even the day the ferry leaves. I purchased my tickets for my week break a good month in advance without really knowing exactly what I wanted to do when I got to the islands. I had originally thought I would visit Naxos in between going to Santorini and Mykonos just because it happened to be an island on the way and I’d heard of it before. When I went to the travel agency and asked for a ticket to Naxos from Santorini he told me there were none for that day. Instead of going home and trying to decide exactly what and where I wanted to go, I bought a ticket to Paros instead. Hostels work in a similar manner, it doesn’t matter when you book the room, it just might matter what time of year it is when you want to stay. Overall, through changing ferries and trying to cancel ferries and cancel hostel rooms, I ended up flushing about 80 euro down the drain. If I would have just shown up to the port the day I wanted a ferry ticket, or booked a room the night before, I wouldn’t have wasted a dime. This lesson goes against everything I have learned as a child from a mother who loves to plan and from myself as a money saver. It killed me I came home with two expensive ferry tickets that I didn’t even get to cancel to get money back from. They are just sitting in my purse waiting for a man to rip them in half who will never come.

The reason those ferry tickets didn’t get used is this: Santorini captured me and wouldn’t let me leave. Spending 5 days in Santorini was the most amazing time I have had in Greece to date. There are still things I haven’t done on that island and I’ve spent a total of 7 days there now. When I walk down the main street of Perissa Beach I wave to people I know from the hostel or The Beach Bar and smile as the sun shines down on the small town. Perissa Beach is on the south eastern edge of the island, removed from the tourism of Fira (the capital) and Oia (home of Kostas from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants). Since I’m a patron of the same bar each time I go out I know the guys that work the bar and those that hang out there. The night I thought would be my last I went to the bar and took pictures with most of the guys that I’m close friends with there. Tricia decided to stay out with me when Rachel and Mandy went home that night. That was the fateful night when we met Leo and George. Leo is the reason I stayed in Santorini and never made it to Paros at all, but that’s a story for another night.

The Sunset in Fira, Santorini. Click for the rest of my pictures from Santorini!

Fira and Oia are two towns worth writing entire books about. I don’t even say this as a tourist doing touristy things because of movies or because of books. Sitting at a café watching the sunset one night in Oia and the next night in Fira really made me feel like the queen of the island. To see the sunset from two distinct parts of the island back to back makes the island seem small and familiar. I feel like I belong in Santorini after going up and down it time and time again, not just this trip, but the first trip as well. I can find my way through the tiny stone pedestrian streets, I can give directions from one town to the next, and I can even recommend a good café or restaurant in 3 towns! I feel like I haven’t really touched on the touristy aspects of Santorini. I never went to tour the volcano, I haven’t been to the museum, the ancient city was closed, I haven’t seen the red or the white beach, and I haven’t ridden a donkey up 500 steps! You might wonder what I even did for 7 days being in Santorini! Truly, I just relaxed. For two days I spent as much time on the beach as I could, lying on a sun bed in front of The Beach Bar of course. They don’t just know me because of the night life; I am a day time patron of the place as well for my 4 euro cocktails on the beach. This is most of the reason for me being so tan. The day Rachel first saw me after only two days in Santorini she exclaimed, “Katherine! You’re so tan!” This has never been uttered with me as the subject before in all of my life! I finally succeeded in covering up the engineering white that has plagued my life for so long! It’s too bad it’s so bad for my skin; I finally got the courage to wear shorts and dresses. Sitting on the beach and sipping a Piña Colada while reading a book was exactly what I wanted to do for my week off of school. I wasn’t racing around trying to see everything there was to see and I wasn’t feeling guilty about ferry tickets going to waste, I was just being in my surroundings and soaking it up. I did a lot of soaking this trip and I loved every minute of it.

My random encounter in Mykonos and a third lesson learned coming tomorrow! Stay tuned!

Week Break – Crete (Part 1 of 3)

I am back safe and sound in Athens! My bed was a wonderful thing to sleep in last night as hostel beds leave something to be desired. Since the last 10 days of my life have been nothing but action packed and amazing to write about the task at hand is a bit daunting. I have decided to break up my posts into three sections, one for each of the islands I visited during my 10 day break from class. Since I didn’t get a spring break after last term – I just flew to Athens – you could call this my Spring Break but when I do people look at me funny so I’ve taken to calling it my week break.

Crete was the first island that I visited for the first three nights of my nine night vacation. My eight hour ferry arrived in the port of Heraklion at 5:30 am and my friend that I met last time I was in Crete for a school trip picked me up from the ferry. It was a really great feeling for me to be back in a place I’d already seen and yet have so much more to do on the island since it is huge! I spent the 3 days I had in Crete exploring the east side of the island this time since the school trip took us west through the ruins and into Hania. That first day my friend showed me around one of the branches of the University of Crete which looked like a prison. It was just some white concrete buildings and nothing else. There might have been one palm tree off in the corner but the rest of the campus was just white and brown as the dirt. The first night I stayed in Ammudara which I guess is a district of Heraklion? It was a cute place next to the beach except that the pillows were rock hard like the bed. We went to a small bakery down the road from the hotel and got two of the Χορτα version of spinach pie which I believe is called Χορτοπιτα. It was amazing! I will have to look for it in the bakeries here in Athens. The day was spent relaxing on the beach with my amazing book that I ended up finishing and then the night was dedicated to salsa dancing! My friend and I went back to the dance club that we met at and I saw another guy there from last time as well. We were unfortunately both tired that first night though so we didn’t stay out as long as I would have liked. It was that salsa club that really made me want to come back to Crete and I was only there for a few hours!

Saturday was when we went to the National History Museum of Crete which was tiny like the rest of the museums I have been to in Greece. I did get some really cute pictures of the animals in the living section of the place though.

Tiny Tim the Turtle and friends! Click on the picture for the rest of my pictures from Crete.

Tiny Tim the Turtle and friends are to the right! After leaving the museum we took a walk along the path to the lighthouse which most of my friends had already walked to last time we were here. The water was beautiful and there was just enough wind to make you feel like you were out on the ocean. Walking back into town I found a couple of cafés with funny names like Mani Mani Tasty Seconds (Pacman themed) and Mr. Mam with the image of a man giving a baby a bottle. That afternoon we had coffee in the main square of town with my friend’s parents. Neither his mother nor father spoke a lick of English and my Greek isn’t good enough to entertain a conversation so I mostly sat and smiled feeling extra awkward. That evening we drove off into the country for his work as a member of a traditional village. Since he is a professional dancer he and 4 other guys dance with 5 girls for hours on end to entertain tourists in a traditional setting. I got to sit with the rest of the tourists for a large buffet dinner and watch the dancers in their perfectly choreographed moves that looked like they were taken right out of Zorba the Greek.

Traditional greek dancing. Click for the rest of the pictures from Crete!

As soon as dinner ended we raced off to Agios Nikolaos to check in to the next hotel. The town was very lively at night and since the restaurants were closed we sat at a table next to the lake for a while. Sunday brought a morning view of the town which was calm and serene. The lake is one of a kind in Crete and acts like a small harbor to the sea which is just on the other side of a bridge in town. That day was spent relaxing on a beach not far from town which I think is responsible for one of the many layers of tan from the trip. I even put actual tanning oil on my legs to force them into changing color. Even red would have been a welcome color compared to the engineering white I usually sport. It wasn’t until Santorini that I really became ‘tan’ but that’s a story for tomorrow.

There has been a lesion that I learned in each of the three islands I went to on break these past days. From Crete the lesson is this: In Greece, lanes in the road are just guidelines. Every time I got into my friend’s car or a bus or a taxi a line from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie comes to mind when the pirate says, “They aren’t rules, they’re more like guidelines.” Racing to The Traditional Village Saturday night I had to close my eyes and just trust the lord and my friend’s 6 years of driving experience on that road 3 times a week up and back. The fact that the white lines on the side of the road are the actual curb to the road makes “driving on the line” even more frightening. If a car isn’t coming around the corner the second you’re taking it, the middle line has no real meaning to the driver, nor does the idea of ‘solid’ and ‘dashed’ lines for passing. Greeks pass whenever the hell they feel like it.

Glad to have survived 3 days of Greek driving and sleeping in a car on the beach Sunday night, I departed on a super fast ferry to Santorini on Monday morning. This is a story for me to tell tomorrow. Goodnight!

The Roosters Are Wrong

So it’s 7:30 pm here in a small town near Heraklion on the island of Crete and the roosters outside my hotel window are roostering. It’s what roosters do best, and I know we’re on Greek time here, but come on! Maybe they know that two wrongs don’t make a right, but they’ll try to see if a hundred wrongs will make the sun come up. Hell, if they keep at it they’re bound to be correct soon!

I happen to be just 5 minutes from the beach so I think I’m going to pick up my amazingly great book that a friend Alex gave to me this past summer and shift my reading location. I have a couple more hours till my friend from my last visit to Crete comes to take me to the same salsa bar that we met at! Round 2 salsa bar! Round 2.

Safe and Sound

I just want everyone to know that yes there are riots in the center of Athens, but no, I am no where near them. My part of Athens where I live is safe and boring. Actually, I am on my way now to the port to get on a ferry out of the area! I will be in Crete by 5 am Friday morning and will update you all there!

A Detailed Salad in Gazi

EDIT: With input from my professor, classmates, and my dad I have revised the paper for submission which is below.

I have to write small vignettes for class here so I expanded upon the salad in Gazi and decided to post it and get see if I can get some feedback.

I am convinced now that tomatoes and yogurt in Greece come directly from God. The evidence of this comes from a small café in the Gazi district of Athens adjacent to the Keramikos metro station. As soon as I had made the trek from the Thissio metro station down to the Technopolis in Gazi I looked up and realized just how close to the Keramikos metro station I was. “I wish I had purchased a guide book with up-to-date metro routes,” I thought to myself. I then sat down at the Κανδαυλος café and settled in, unaware of the slice of heaven I was about to receive.

Upon ordering what I thought would be a modest salad for 5.90 € a plate the size of one of Saturn’s moons was brought out to me. A huge bed of loose lettuce was accompanied by thick chunks of tomato layered with blackened chicken and cheese and topped with Κανδαυλος sauce. The sauce was a mixture of yogurt, dill, garlic, and something else I’d probably be killed for knowing about. To quote Sarah McCormick on Greek yogurt, “it was richer than homemade ice cream and had a slight sour tang that curled my lip.” The yogurt in the sauce made the salad thick and resistant to tossing. I was simply satisfied with hunting out bits of chicken in the forest of lettuce and bringing them up for air through the dense cloud of sauce on my place. After about an hour of attempting to finish the salad there was still a normal serving of salad left on my plate. That was also about the same time that the couple next to me ordered a plate of fries smothered in chicken. My eyes became hungry for some luscious starch and I ordered a plate of fries for myself. ”Θέλω πατάτες” I said to the charming waiter as he nodded at me and winked. As soon as the fries came I quickly forgot about the salad and my lack of appetite. They were seasoned with something that made me understand why ketchup is nowhere to be found here, it just isn’t needed.

As soon as I had my fill of what the café had to offer my eyes were hungry for something new. As I looked up and around me I soaked up the beautiful sight of Gazi. The sun was just setting which put a soft calm glow on the park surrounding the metro station. Across the park from my café was another street entirely lined with cafés and people to fill them. I sat there at that café for an hour or so after I had finished eating just watching what was going on in the park. The constant movement provided plenty to watch as I sat and relaxed that evening. A gentle breeze rustled the trees as the sun went deeper and deeper into the horizon. I knew then that this was a place I wanted to come back to and share with anyone that wanted a truly amazing Greek experience.

They Let Us Touch It!

Touching an ancient wall made of whatever was at hand. They let us touch the ruins! Click the picture for the rest of my photos from Aegina!

It isn’t as weird as it sounds, I promise. Here’s the explanation to my title/picture. Usually when we go to an archeological site there are ropes and fences and official looking people with whistles. This time though, in Aegina there was none of that! We actually got to touch the ruins, step on the ruins, and sit on the ruins. It was so refreshing! There was a pillar that has been standing since it was first built there too which was cool to see. Most columns in ancient times were mad in pieces with hollow centers and then put together later. In a lot of places you see toppled columns that look like a stack of sliced salami fell over. Not this one though! The column, although eroded, was standing just as it always has. We even got to touch it!

The island of Aegina is just a stones throw away from the mainland, Attica. Well maybe if Zeus is the one throwing the rock. You can see it from the shore of Piraeus but it takes an hour by ferry to get across. This makes it the perfect day trip island! We rode over in the morning, toured some ruins, went to a museum, toured more ruins, visited another museum, and then the class part of the trip was over! Pretty typical Monuments class stuff. At the second ruins Rachel and I did a photo shoot for Nancy Barbour for the OSU yearbook! There are lots of pictures of us jumping before the ruins which I’ll link to as soon as she puts the photos up on Facebook! Those should turn out quite well!

Rachel Hanson and I jumping up in front of the temple of Athena in Aegina. Photo courtesy of Nancy Barbour.

After the ruins and things we went and visited a potter who still makes his things by hand on a little wheel in the tiny town of Aiyina. We got to see him make a few things on his wheel and I took a video of him doing it. We also got to see his old fashion kiln that you still heat by fire. I think everyone but Jaxon bought at least one of his pieces of pottery. I personally bought two. One to keep and one to give away of course! That’s the proper way to get souvenirs!

A cropped photo of the fat cat being pet by Dana. Original photo courtesy of Anthea Carns.

I had lunch with some of the other people in my group at a little café near the port which wasn’t much to comment on. There was, however, a cat that’s worth commenting on. This cat was larger than any I have ever seen. It has eaten so many leftovers it could barely walk under its own weight. It had to keep taking rest breaks just to cross the section of tables outside. It honestly looked like a small planet. Dana really doesn’t like cats normally but since this one couldn’t move fast she warmed up to it, and even pet the thing! It was quite a miracle.

After lunch I got some delicious ice cream and then we all piled back on the ferry at 6 and headed back to Athens! Now I have some journaling to catch up in my physical journal for scrapbooking class and then who knows what the weekend will bring! Since I’m sick with bronchitis I’ve decided to not go to Thessaloniki this weekend and will just spend some time exploring maybe Plaka and Gazi again!

I’m taking antibiotics so I’ll get better soon. Who needs your prayers right now though is my cousin-in-law Ryan Sobolik whose Leukemia came back. The chemo is working pretty well but May 1^st (tomorrow for me) we’re doing a fundraiser to help them with the costs of having to go back into the hospital just when they thought they were in the clear. I love you all and hope you’re doing well where ever you are!

The Oracle is In

Kenda the oracle at Delphi. Picture taken by Nancy Barbour.

We visited the oracle at Delphi today, her name was Kenda Huffman. We found the stone pictured in the movie My Life in Ruins and took turns putting our faces in the hole and dishing out answers. I also had a picture taken of me hugging a replica on site of the omphalos that Kronos was tricked into swallowing instead of Zeus. The temple of Apollo was amazing as were the ruins surrounding it. When we went into the museum there was a painting recreating what Delphi might have looked like and it was even more astonishing to me than the ruins. I sometimes have a hard time picturing what all these crumbling stones would have looked like back then so the picture was very helpful. Being in the ruins themselves gave me a tingling sensation though. It’s the columns that do it. Although there are only ever a couple left on site the sheer size of them give you the impression that something important is before you.

Apollon's Temple at Delphi and a beautiful view of the sky. Click on the picture for the rest of my picture of Delphi.

Apollo was the God of the sun and his temple gives a perfect view to the whole hillside. There isn’t much to the present day town of Delphi but the recreation in the museum makes it seem as though it was a major town in ancient times. Walking through the museum is a completely different experience from the ruins themselves and brings on a different kind of awe. Walking from room to room found objects get larger and then smaller from reliefs to tiny offerings to statues and back again. There was so much found at the site of Delphi that the museum is pretty substantial. The other museums we’ve been to have been mostly just a room or two with things found at the nearby site they are of. Nothing here compares to that of the museums in say New York but I like it better this way because you can spend an hour or two at a museum and really feel like you’ve seen the museum. I know when I went with my father to the Metropolitan Museum of Art we spent about 6 hours and only saw a small portion of the museum.

I’ll make it brief since I have things to write about for class as well. Maybe after I’ve finished my class essays I will post them as well. I have two days of classes and then we have a day trip to the island Aegina on Friday! So I’ll post my essays when I write them and then tell you about Aegina this weekend as well! Not sure on plans for the weekend yet but if I haven’t gotten over this cold I’ll probably be in Athens. Love you all!

A Salad in Gazi

I’m convinced now that tomatoes and yogurt in Greece come directly from God. I am sitting down at a café in the Gazi district of Athens right now eating the best salad I have ever had. A huge bed of loose lettuce is accompanied by thick chunks of tomato layered with blackened chicken and cheese and topped with Κανδαυλος sauce. Κανδαυλος is the name of the café and the sauce is a mixture of yogurt, dill, and something else I’d probably be killed for knowing about.

The most amazing salad I have ever had.

Later that day:

After about an hour of attempting to finish that salad there was still a normal serving of salad left on my plate. That was also about the same time that the couple next to me ordered a plate of fries smothered in chicken. My eyes became hungry for some luscious starch and I ordered a plate of plain fries as well. As soon as the fries came I quickly forgot about the salad, my appetite got a jump start and I finished the whole plate in 10 mins flat. I can’t wait to take my friends to that café some time because the prices were reasonable and there were so many things on the menu that I wanted to try. As I was walking through the park later I noticed everyone that was eating had bags from that café so it must be a popular spot. It is literally right next to the Keramikos metro station as well so it’s very convenient to hop on, eat, and head back.

The second food adventure for the day was later that night as I was waiting for my concert to start. I had originally thought that it started at 8 but it turned out the first opening DJ didn’t get on till 11. While I was waiting to even pick up my tickets I wandered around the mostly deserted streets behind the venue. That area of Gazi is mostly warehouses and appliance stores with some car repair shops and apartments thrown in the mix. As I was about to give up finding anywhere to hang out for a while I walked past a little shop advertising “Traditional Greek Doughnuts”. Our Greek teacher had told us we should try these sometime so I walked back past it to check it out. The store is named Look.OO.Ma.Des as an English play on the word for these doughnuts in Greek (loukoumades). Paris is the brother of the man who owns the shop and he kindly told me to repeat what I wanted in English because I apparently failed to tell him what I wanted in Greek. His English was really good because of the time he’s spent in England and we talked for a while about all sorts of things while I waited for my concert to start. The doughnuts are little balls of moist dough soaked in honey and covered in cinnamon and eaten on a stick. I got to try the chocolate and vanilla flavored ones but Paris said I’d have to come back when his brother is working to try the other three kinds. Near 10:30 pm his best friend Babis and some of their girl friends came to the shop to hang out. I learned their names and talked with them for a while before heading around the corner for the concert.

The concert itself was everything that I had hoped it would be. If I hadn’t have been so sick I would have enjoyed it a lot more. There were two opening DJs that were really amazing and the second one even had a guy on an electric guitar accompany him on some songs. I don’t know who the first DJ was but the second was DJ Yahel. Infected Mushroom didn’t even get on the stage until 2 am. This is totally normal in Greece but where I live that would be unheard of. I ended up leaving the venue around 3 am because I was exhausted and feeling terrible. I knew if I stayed until the end of the show it would be hard to get my stuff out of coat check and a nightmare fighting with a thousand other people to get a cab. I think the concert probably went till 5 or 6 am though because usually the headline band is about twice as long as the opening acts. That would be about 3 hours and I only stayed for 1 hour of Infected Mushroom playing. The good news is that Juno Reactor and two other smaller bands I know are going to play in the same venue on May 22^nd when I know for sure I’ll be in town. This means I can have a second chance to rave it up and not be sick!

So overall my 12 hour long adventure in Gazi was amazing. I loved just wandering the streets in a new area and discovering places in this huge city. I would have more pictures if my camera hadn’t died part way through the day so I’ll have to go back for round 2. There is a huge flea market Sunday mornings that I’ll try getting to one of these weeks as well. I am taking a school trip to Delphi Monday and Tuesday so after I get back I’ll tell you all about the oracle at Delphi! (It’s the oracle in the movie 300)

A month gone by…

Oh my goodness I have already been here for a month already! I can really tell the difference though between when I got here and now. You can probably tell just by how little I’ve been journaling that things have started to be become a lot less noteworthy. I really do have a daily routine now and being in this foreign place seems very natural to me now. When people talk to me in Greek I can either respond to their question/exclamation or else I tell them in Greek that I don’t understand. When I got here though I would just freeze and look helpless and they figured I was a foreigner. Santorini was a real drop in Greek speaking practice since it’s so touristy. Everyone knows perfect English and a lot are actually from English speaking countries that work there. Speaking Greek almost felt unnatural in such a touristy friendly area. It wasn’t the mom and pop back country that some of the lesser known islands would feel like. I start to really soak up what’s around me now that the newness of this place is passing. I can look up and see the Parthenon and really see how majestic it is instead of rushing to take a picture. Pictures might last longer, but they don’t mean as much as the experience of it itself. It really is incredible to be here for three months and be able to get to this point. The Parthenon is just 10 minutes away from me for three months and I could go see it every day if I wanted to. Just the idea of getting to go BACK to places I’ve already visited is incredible. You would never do that if you were touring Europe because there’s always the next and the next place to see. The first time I went to Santorini just made me think of all the things I would do if I could spend more time there or if I went back. So guess what, I’m going back and doing them! Traveling through Santorini the first time had the opposite effect on me than the other girls. They took hundreds of photos and saw Santorini through a camera. I on the other hand was just having a magnificent time walking around soaking things up with my eyes. I took maybe 4 pictures or so but mainly was focusing on just being there. So, this time when I go back I’ll be taking a lot of pictures. I really want to share how beautiful it is there since my words have still been failing me. When my mom goes to Santorini I hope she’ll paint there because I’m sure whatever she paints will be incredible.

Spring break plans are set! I purchased all of the ferry tickets yesterday at the travel agency near my apartment. All of the tickets were very reasonably priced except for the ticket from Crete to Santorini. Even though Santorini is the closest island to Crete it was 54 euros because only the super fast ferry goes there. On the plus side it only takes 2 hours to get there instead of about 4 on the speed the ferry to Crete will be going. I originally swore off ever buying anything but a cabin ticket for overnight ferries but when I saw the price difference, the floor sounded just fine to sleep on. Turns out it’s 63 euro for a cabin on the same ferry I took to Crete last time when we went as a class compared to a 19 euro economy ticket. No thank you! After spending a few days back in Crete and Santorini doing all the things I didn’t get to last time I went, I’ll be taking two days to explore Paros. I don’t know anything about the island or what to do once I get there so I have some research to do! The Friday before spring break ends I’m meeting up with the rest of the girls in my program in Mykonos. Mykonos is the party island known for its night life and gay population. For three days we’ll be partying it up true spring break style and then Sunday afternoon I head back to Athens. The total cost for all 5 ferry rides was 143 euro which I don’t find to be that bad since it was 270 euro just to go to Rome. This isn’t including places to stay, however, which I haven’t researched yet but it really won’t be that bad if I stay in hostel dorms. The 6 of us staying in the private room in Santorini was only 6 euro a night and it’s where I’ll probably end up staying again since they already know me and pick up their guests for free from the port. Spring break starts on May 7^th for me so I still have some time to do research and get good rates.

Tonight is a pizza potluck with the rest of the girls so it’s time to make zucchini bread and have fun!

Oh my goodness!

I really don’t know where to start. Santorini was such an amazing experience I feel that writing anything down on paper about it will take the magic out of it. At the moment I’m still in too much shock to try and do it justice so I’m not going to try until I can write something decent. For now I’d prefer to talk about it with people one on one and hopefully get some Skype times set up! I’m a little starved for phone conversation right now so that should be refreshing.

I’ve also been noticing a lot more of the differences to make up a second edition of the list from before so I’ll write a second helping of those soon.

Time to do some Greek homework and then read read read for class! We’re also going on a little day trip to the top of a hill near school tomorrow for a great view so I’ll be sure to post some good pictures from that tomorrow!