GREECE

Hi gumballs,

How is everyone? Hope you are all doing fine and dandy. So....I went to Greece last weekend! It was really fun and full of surprises, and i definitely want to go back someday, maybe do an island tour or something. I'd only ever learned about ancient greece and greek myths, so i had no idea what to expect of modern greece. I think i was expecting something a la "sisterhood of the traveling pants", of which i've only seen about 15 minutes (because i dont like to look at rory's face) but the in the movie, the island scenery of wherever they were was so exotic and fresh-looking..so i was expecting a vacation paradise with gorgeous greek guys riding around on motorcycles and sweeping people off their feet into the sunset.....yeah, Athens is not exactly like that...hollywood lies...but no matter, i still had a great time and it was a perfect adventure for my friend natalie and me.

We spent a day and a half in Athens, the capital. Athens is cool, we saw the parthenon (temple of Athena, also known as parthena, the virgin), the Acroplis (the big hill where the Parthenon and the Cariotids? Temple stand. The temple is right next to the Parthenon and has 7 lady statues as pillars, very beautiful, though most of the statues are replicas, the originals are in museums. You can see the Acropolis from practically everywhere in the surrounding neighborhoods.), the theater of dyonysus, Hadrian's Arch, the temple of Olympian Zeus (a bunch of pillars in the middle of a park, prolly built about 6 centuries BC), the Olympic stadium and lots of ancient ruins. The city is normal, kinda under construction and parts are a little dirtier. The tourists landmarks are all fenced in, with obscure hidden entrances, and I was the map-navigator, so for a while we were just wandering around in circles, always ending up at the same Acropolis again. The street signs were fun to read, because everything is in the Greek alphabet, with english on the bottom. Most letters are the same, but there's a lot of confusing ones, like their R looks like our P, and their P looks like upright rectangle with no bottom line. At first the alphabet barrier was kind of frustrating, but after three days, i felt really comfortable reading all the signs.

At the Greek parliament on sunday, we saw the changing of the guards, which is a very calm, serious military parade of sober-faced greek soldiers dressed in traditional uniform (white skirt and tights, embroidered shirt, and wooden shoes with big pom pom's). The whole marching band and a procession of 50 soldiers march in front of the Parliament in Syntagma Square with their rifles, and took about 40 minutes just to change the two gaurds who stand in front of the building!! They march funny too, raising their feet to hip level, bending at the knee and then clomping down in big steps.

We (my friend Natalie and I) met a lot of really nice people, everyone speaks english fluently there, and lot of people went out of their way to help us, like this one girl from kenya, Naomi, who gave us her extra bus tickets, (which are only sold beforehand, in the morning, at little newsstands), and escorted us to our next bus stop. When you get on the bus, you have to validate your ticket, like in italy, but no one's really watching, so some people dont do it. But if the bus inspector comes around to check, you'll get fined 60 times the price of the ticket, which is only 50 euro cents. One night we made friends with this nice little old man and the next morning we bumped into him on the bus, and it turns out he was the bus police! Good thing he thought we were pretty and let us go free.


The best part of the trip was our island excursion to Aegina! It is an hour ferry's ride from the capital. We wanted to go the beach on the opposite side of the island, but the bus only runs every 2 hours, so we rented an ATV motorbike!!! I was zooooming around the island at 40 km/h, winding through hills and mountainside and quiet little neighborhoods, buzzing alongside the beeeeeautiful coastal cliffs, with the Mediterranean and its other islands in the foggy distance. From the west coast to east coast of Aegina, it takes about 25 minutes by motorcycle, very small place. In the middle of the island, there's a gorgeous grand church, probably greek orthodox. It’s very colorful, sepia and blue and yellow domes, with carved marble railings and a patio that wraps around the building, allowing a peaceful stroll and a great view of the deep green hills that overlap into the horizon.

We got to Marina Beach, which was not more than a patch of soft, silky sand (but scattered with lots of sea junk), at the edge of an immense blue seascape. We lunched at a little place, Paradise Restaurant, overlooking the sea. I had a plate of fried Greek sardines and fried cheese, saganaki. We relaxed in the sand for a while, but it got a bit cloudy, so we hopped back onto our trusty bright yellow all-terrain vehicle (we named it Bumblebee) and drove to the southern tip of Aegina, called Perdika, where there’s not much but a quiet dock and a row of quaint little seafood restaurants. Having conquered the tip of the island, we drove back to the main port, and sat down for a quick snack before the ferry ride home.

Aegina being a Mediterranean island, the diet here consists predominantly of seafood, and barbequed octopus is quite the popular delicacy. In fact, when we first stepped off the ferry that morning, the first thing we saw was a man smacking a freshly caught octopus to death against the concrete dock, and ever since then, I knew I couldn’t leave the island without trying it. So….I bought a plate (1 barbequed octopus leg, complete with all the crunchy little suction dots) for 9 euros and I have to admit it was pretty delightful. Crunchy on the outside, chewy in the middle, really salty (though I guess you would be too, if you lived in the ocean), enticing barbeque grilled smell, nice burnt flavor, and a dash of lemon and olive oil, overall quite delicious.

The food was really the highlight of the trip, I had mousakas (ground meat, potatoe, eggplant and tomato sauce casserole with a bread pudding top), tzakziki (greek yogurt with cucumber shreds and lots of garlic), chicken gyros (the best roll-up sandwich in the world, with grilled chicken, tomato, onion, sauce and French fries inside)….there was an awesome bakery with 25 big baskets of Greek cookies that I went to every morning (raisin, pistachio, s-shaped cinnamon cookies, tons of exotic spices, twisty shapes, circle shapes with banana, orange cheese and carrot flavors…apple tarts, etc etc.)…..and near our hostel (12 euros a night in Pangrati neighborhood) there was a fancy ice cream café on a wide sidewalk, where they serve the ice cream in a frosted wine glass, in a little glass room with crystal chandeliers and red velvet sofas. Oh and tap water is free and tasty in Athens, which is a plus.

Oh yeah, on a completely opposite note, it’s kinda weird, most restrooms have signs that tell you not to throw toilet paper into the toilet, I guess they don’t have the best plumbing. Oki doki, I think that’s about it, thanks for reading about my Hellenic odyssey. phew! your eyes must be tired.

Hope you all have a wonnnnnnnderful day, miss each and everyone of you!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 Hasta Luego!