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WOW! once again so much has happened since my last blog over a week ago. To begin, we left for Athens on Wednesday. We went to the port in the hotels handy-dandy minivan. While approaching the port our car load was joking about how awesome it would be if the HUGE boat at the harbor was our boat to the mainland. Sure enough as soon as we got there we found out it really was our boat and we got a room of 4 to sleep in over night! It was a large ferry but not a big as a cruise ship. We got a tour of the ship and got to see the captain's quarters and even got to steer the boat. UH OH!
There was one friendly guy who took an interest in Tiana and I and showed us around and offered a little bit to aggressively to stay with them (the crew) there in the room. We decided that we had enough and by this time someone, aka the once friendly guy but now massively creepy guy, developed a HUGE crush on "Tiaaaana" He followed us as we made our way with our group to the lobby. I helped Tiana escape to a safe place without him following us but then ran into him when we had to go to the bathroom shortly after.... He had been waiting for her outside of the Lobby! "Tiaaana" he would say to her. LMAO!!! I was a little bit worried for a quick sec to be completely honest. But he got the point when we started to run away... literally!
We arrived in Athens around 7:30am and met with a tour guide at the Acropolis. We learned about greek mythology and why the monuments were built. We were one of the only ones there at first which I now realize was a blessing because as we were leaving it was more crowded than Cedar Point on a beautiful sunny day. You could barely move and there were tour guides holding numbers up so you wouldn't lose them. We got some awesome pictures! It was truly an amazing place.
From there we went to the location where the 2000 Olympic games where held. But we had to pay money to go inside so we passed. It wasn't anything that special from the looks of it but it was cool to have seen it and know that Olympians had walked here just over a decade ago.
Unfortunately, we only had about an hour for shopping and investegating the city of Athens on our own so we didn't get to see very much. I got a sweet gift for Jarriel though :)
Then we were back on the boat for our next destination, Santorini. This was the most interesting and exciting boat ride thus far. The reason being, the new Greek army was in attendance as well. In Greece, every guy must go to the army for at least 9 months. They can post-pone it for after college or they can go directly from high school. Most of the boys were between 18-24. Us American girls got the party started by sharing bottles of wine (since we weren't going to be able to go out in Santorini because we would be arriving late). So we got drunk, myself included. Some of them spoke very good english while others it was more like a game of charades. It made for some fun conversations. It reminded me of the scene in Pearl Harbor where the boys put eye drops in their eyes to seem sincere because "after tonight, you might never see me again". I met a nice guy who was 24 and we had had a nice conversation about how we view each others countries, our relationships back home and what we'll be doing with ourselves in the future. He was very kind and made fun of us "drunk american girls". Apparently he didn't realize I was just as drunk. :/ hehehe.
Santorini was beautiful. We went to a black sand beach and enjoyed the hot weather and eventually went cliff jumping off from about 40-50ft high. It was exhilarating! The next day we took cable cars down to the water and went to an active volcano via pirate boat. I really enjoyed hiking up the volcano and seeing the areas where it had once errupted from. After we went to some hot springs and rubbed mud all over our bodies. It is suppose to be good for your skin. I didn't notice a difference however. The coolest part about the hot springs was easy it was to float. The water density was much higher than normal here.
When we got back to the island we took donkeys up! It was a lot of fun but really scary because sometimes the donkeys decided to race and cut off other donkeys. Plus, the siding was not very high and we could have easily been bucked right over the edge to our death bed. We al made it safely but there were some tears of horror from my fellow classmate. I hate to laugh but it was kind of hilarious (sorry friends).
The night life in Santorini was great fun. But we couldn't leave the island without going to Eja to see the world famous sunset. The city was beautiful. It's what you think about when you think of Greece. White buildings with blue roofs all the way up the mountain. Donkeys walking up the endless steps (tamed donkeys, which were treated much better than those that we rode previously) and a view of the ocean all around. The sun set was beautiful but went into the clouds instead of the sea. Which was kind of a disappointment.
We left Santorini after 3 days there and took yet another ship to Paros. Paros was by far my favorite island in Greece so far! Our hotel was beautiful, again it had white-washed walls but no blue rood. The pool had a bridge going over the middle and had perfectly clear water. The beach was only a 5min walk and town was about a 10 min walk. The shops in town reminded me of the cute little town of Gilmore girls. It was still off season so it was extremely peaceful here. I LOVED IT!
We only had 2 days here tho and then it was back to Lesvos. It was nice returning to Hotel Votsala it has become something like our home. We had class the day we came back and participated in cleaning the environment yesterday. Last night, we went for a hike and ate dinner at an interesting place with a bunch of cute little kittens to which many of us got attached to. Sadly, we couldn't take them with us but I have decided that I'm getting a puppy when I get home. Can't wait!
Lastly, I finally decided that I will be taking the internship at Beaumont hospital! I am very excited to come home and start this new chapter of my life.
Until next time!
phrase of the day: yasta harri a su = health to your hands or in other words, that was a great meal!
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