Greece

Day 1 - Back to Athens! It is so cool that one year ago, I found out about Semester at Sea in this very port of Piraeus, Greece and I am back actually on the ship this time. Another great thing was that I really remembered Athens and how to get around… well, at least in certain areas. Audrey, Sarah, and I set out for Athens early in the morning. As we searched for the metro, we started to get frustrated early on. We found a place for lunch in Piraeus and regrouped our selves. We found out the metro was actually about a 30 minute walk from the port. Finally making it into Athens, we got to the Placa where the best, flea market shopping is. I got tons of souvenirs, found my artwork for Greece (I am getting artwork in every country I go to), and even found some jewelry for myself! We then caught a  tram that looked like a “choo-choo” train to get to the acropolis. I decided to skip the acropolis as I had just gone a year ago and wasn’t all that impressed the first time. While they explored the acropolis, I hung out below, got an orange slushy and people watched. It was great! About 45 minutes later, Sarah and Audrey came disappointingly down the hill as the acropolis didn’t live up to the hype. We then went to catch the tram and go to dinner. For dinner we went to Politico! Politico was my favorite restaurant from last summer because it has the best hummus I have ever had. It was still a good as I remember! We then found a great internet café, made some Skype phone calls and leisurely surfed facebook. Exhausted, we decided to head back to recharge for the next day on the ship.

Day 2 in Greece was a trip to Delphi through SAS for my philosophy class. We traveled by bus for three hours to Delphi. When we got there I was taken back by the history of the place. I took tons of pictures for the voyage book and finally got a great place to use my wide-angle lens, I was excited! Before the three hour trek back to the ship, we stopped for lunch near Delphi where I had one of the best meals of the trip. We started with these little spinach pastries that were incredible and then was followed by chicken and rice that was cooked to perfection. Dessert was super fresh watermelon.

That night, Sarah, Audrey, Tim, Dan, Nesthy, and I decided we wanted to go out in Athens. We first went to a karaoke bar in Piraeus where Audrey and Nesthy blew us away with  their amazing voices. Sarah and I made an embarrassing attempt to sing “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls. After that, the night ended up being a bust and we didn’t find a good place to go out to. In our cab ride back, the driver showed us where all of the clubs actually were and we felt like fools since they were very close to where we started. The driver also dared us to name the 12 Greek gods/goddesses for a discount. We got 10 out of 12 and I offered up about half of them, so, I was still satisfied.

Day 3 – Audrey, Sarita (Sarah Cogdill), LaSarah (Sarah Morgan), Tara, and I headed to Hydra Island by hydrofoil. The island was super authentic and was not one I had visited in my previous trip to Greece. The whole island was completely free of motor vehicles, everything was done with donkey’s or wheelbarrows, SO COOL! It was quiet, yet rich with culture. The shopping on the island was somewhat expensive but great. For the first couple hours we walked around browsing the shops and taking in the simplicity of life on the island. We then decided to get an afternoon snack. I had been craving a crepe the whole time so I ordered a chocolate and strawberry crepe. Unfortunately, the crepe pan wasn’t working, so I had to settle for a waffle… tough life, I know. It was the best waffle of my life. No exaggeration. It was absolutely incredible. The chocolate was thick and creamy, and the strawberries tasted like they had just been picked out of the most perfectly ripe field. I cannot describe it other than if heaven was a dish, it would have been that waffle. After we were full on waffles and coffee, we decided it was time to go cliff diving and cave swimming. The water was even better than Croatia, which I could not believe was possible! Jumping off of the cliff was so much fun and the cave was awesome. I got some great pictures of myself underwater with Tara’s underwater camera.  Sarita tends to hurt herself constantly and pulled a leg muscle while jumping off of the cliff so she was content with laying by the beach for a while. Audrey and I decided to go wander some shops and find a good place for dinner. We ran across this restaurant that had the most incredible view. It was right on the water and overlooked where the sun would set. The only downside was that it was really expensive. We had discussed earlier in the trip wanting to have a really nice dinner and then decided that this would be it. We convinced the other three to go and we ended up getting the best seat in the house. Our table was jutted off from the rest of the restaurant and was just indescribable. I had the catch of the day which was a succulent sea bass with roasted vegetables and fresh lettuce. We split two bottles of wine and had great conversation. It was one of my favorite nights of the trip so far. Afterward, we went bar hopping around the island and laughed the night away.
Tara headed in early and when I got back she was asleep. I quickly changed and got into bed. The small air conditioning unit above her bed then started pouring water. She didn’t wake up, so I put some towels down and turned the A/C off. This proved to be awful later in the night as I woke up sweating.

Day 4 – The group got up and headed to breakfast before we had to catch our hydrofoil back to Piraeus. I started my day with a sorbet smoothie and toast. It was incredible, as usual with my meals in port. After a few more hours of roaming around, Audrey and I went to catch the hydrofoil. On our way we stopped to buy crepes for lunch that were insanely good, again, as usual. We both were dreading getting back on the non-air-conditioned, cramped boat, but were completely surprised when the boat was much nicer than the first time and we had a table and really nice, wide, uncrowded seats. Along the ride, the national new was shown on the TV and to our surprise, there was Semester at Sea! So cool! Upon arriving back in Piraeus we went to a local grocery store and stocked up on snacks for our rooms to save us from the vial ship food. I spent the remainder of the day uploading photos, hanging out in Sarah and Audrey’s room, writing postcards, and having some resting time.

Today on the ship has been stressful at best. As I am excited to be in Istanbul tomorrow, I will have four papers due between Turkey and Bulgaria, which is only one day so I have to get them done now if I don’t want to do them while in Turkey.