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So this is super late, but here's the Greece update…
After Croatia we had two days at sea before we arrived in Piraeus, the first day we had classes then the second day (July 12th) we had Sea Olympics. Pretty much our ship is divided into hallways, called seas. Each hallway competes in events against each other and the winner gets to get off the boat first when we arrive in Norfolk, VA. I'm in the Bering Sea and we didn't do that well, but I can't complain, I didn't contribute much to the events. Since everyone was running around in the morning, Nicole and I laid out on the Observation Deck, which was beautiful, it was really nice out. After lunch we watched some of the events like Synchronized Swimming, which was hilarious. A lot of the guys wore girls' bikinis or speedos and danced around the pool. They also did a relay race in the pool, tug of war, and pictionary. The last event was the makeover challenge, and the boys were dressed up as girls, with makeup and heals on, the pictures will probably haunt them forever.
The first day in Greece we went into Athens to check out the city. We ended up eating at this cute café right in the center of the city. The food was amazing and I tired Ouzo for the first time, which was this awful cloudy alcohol that tasted like licorice. After we headed towards the Acropolis and there was this giant rock you could climb on that overlooked the entire city. The Acropolis and the Parthenon were both pretty cool to see because their so famous. Then we walked around town and found the Olympic stadium from the 2004 games, so this makes two Olympic stadiums I've seen in a month. We also found the Zeus monument, so overall it was a very productive tourist day. A big group of us tried to find a pub crawl in Athens, but we ended up missing it, so we made our own. We went to a lounge for a while then ended up at a hookah bar which was a lot of fun. We met a few other boys from England, and we celebrated his 18th birthday with a round of shots.
The second day Nicole and I ended up going to one of the Greek Islands called Aegina, which was an hour ferry ride from Athens. We spent most of the day exploring the coast and laying on the beach. It was really nice because the beach was actual sand, so it didn't hurt like the beaches we went to in Croatia. The water was really warm too, so we just floated in the water for a long time. Since it had been a pretty long day, Jess, Nicole and I decided to grab some dinner at a restaurant around the boat. We ended up at an Irish pub down the street that had really good food. We got a huge platter full of typical deep fried American food, which was amazing since we haven't had anything like that in over a month. I have missed onion rings more than I should.
On the third day Nicole and I headed down to the Square where the bars were to go shopping. There were a ton of really cool stores that sold crazy hand-made jewelry and shoes. I ended up buying a few shirts for myself since I'm getting tired of wearing the same things over and over. I'm glad I didn't put as much back when I was packing as they suggested, otherwise I'd only have 2 outfits. That night we decided just to stay around the port area since we had been into Athens a bunch of times already and it's a 10 minute bus ride to the metro, then a 30 minute metro ride into the city itself. Jess, Kate, Danielle, Kyle, Nicole, and I ended up going to the Irish pub that was down the street for a few drinks. We ended up meeting up with a ton of other SASers, which was actually a ton of fun. After a while Kyle, Nicole and I ended up walking back towards the ship, but we ran into a group of kids headed to another bar, so we ended up following them. It was cool to hang out with a ton of different people considering it seems to always be the same group of kids out.
The fourth day was a super lazy day for us. Since we've been constantly on the move and in different countries every week, the culture and the environment is constantly changing. It's hard to get used to being in a foreign country, but it's even harder when you're constantly running on empty since sleeping is never high on the priority list…not that I'm complaining too much since this summer has been amazing so far. Nicole and I pretty much stuck around my room for most of the day. I got online for a little while to check back into reality and check my email, but other than that we watched movies all day
I can't believe I've already been on this trip for over a month, it's crazy how fast it's going by. I don't even want to think about Fall semester, I only have one day from when I get back to the States to get to Pennsylvania and unpack everything in my life. Everything is in boxes in my new apartment, so this is going to be interesting…I'm definitely going to miss the ocean view I have in my room and Rolando cleaning up the disaster I call my cabin. I'm just not going to think about it, so maybe I can just stay on this ship forever because nothing could beat this whole situation.
Peace & Love
Kati
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