Grecian Islands, I will Return!

SO what can I say?...I loved Greece even though two of the four days it was cloudy and sometimes rainy...I stilll loved it and made it a must to go back someday...maybe a honeymoon...or whatever, I WILL be going back...and this time not on my parents money! Thanks mom and dad!

Okay well I guess I will try to do a brief day by day reenactment....here we go!
Day One: Well we landed in Athens on Friday and it took an extremely long and crowded bus ride to get from the hotel to our hostel, after which we found out we could have just taken the metro straight to our hostel door, but none the less....we got to our hostel and settled in and then wondered down Athinas street to a sqaure to find some food. We ended up at a small cafe where we has some pizzas and paninis. Did I mention you could see the acropolis from our balcony. And yes I did say balcony...our hostel room had a balcony. Oh and it was me, Annie, Dan, Luke, and Laura Torres. That night we just took showers and got ready for bed...oh and decided that we were going to take a cruise the next day to three islands.....yeah...I was super excited! My first cruise!

Day two: Cruise Day! Yeah!
We woke up like at 6 am...ahhh...and got ready to go cruisem...a chartered bus picked us up down the street from our hostel and took us to the port where we loaded onto our cruise ship and settled down at a table on the back of the ship. The sun wasnt shinning yet and the wind was blowing off the Aegan(sp?) Sea so it was a bit chilly, but we hoped that with time came the sun. It did eventually by the time we made it to our first island...Poros. We had about 30 minutes on Poros where we climbed a small hill and took some pictures..of course...and Dan stole/borrowed some postcards. He waited around and asked for somebody to help him and nobody would so he just left because the ship was leaving. So as we sailed on to our next desitnation we took an inside lounge booth that allowed almost all of us to pass out for a good 45 minutes until we arrived at Hydras...my favoirte island! We had about an hour there and they do not allow cars or motorized vehicles of any kind on this island so all you can do is ride donkeys...no no sorry we didnt ride any, we just found a place to lay out by the water...it was a rocky hillside and still a bit chilly but we managed. Oh and I bought a fabulous white floppy hat! for 22 euros mind you...yes that was kinda ridiculous, but what can I say! So then we boarded again and it was time for lunch. After our three course lunch..we had some entertainment. A man dressed up as a woman? and Elvis? and a magician? Dont ask...but he did manage to make fun of Texas in his act. All the way in the Grecian Islands, and people still make fun of Texas? Who knew? The third and final stop was Aegina which is supposed to have some really good beaches but not on the half we were on and about 15 miuntes after we left the ship I realized my camera was missing. Ahhh so of course I wasnt in a good mood and I just wanted to get back to the ship to see if I had left it there. I was afraid someone had taken it out of my bag on the isalnd, but wasnt sure. So the girls went back to the ship ealry to look for my camera and the waiters gave me a run around and told me to come back later? So I wasnt sure if that meant they had it or not but basically all of us passed out agian inside and right before we were to dock back in Athens, I went and asked again about my camera and they had found it!! Phew! Thank goodness I was really worried more about the pictures than the camera, but I was glad to have it back. Geez that was long I will try to make the next couple days shorter...That night we came back to our hostel and watched a Van Dam movie on the tv in our hostel! Hah!

Day three: Sightseeing. I will try to make this brief. We basically wondered around Athens to the acropolis where it was raining and there was scaffolding on the Parthenon but still quite amazing as you may guess. We also wondered around the Agora which held the market and town and governemental building below the acropolis back in the day! And we made our way to Hadrians Arch and The Altar of Zues and several other ancient ruin sites. We found a couple dogs that wanted to hang around. Those dogs are crazy. They have their territory and they know the streets better than we did. They knew when to cross and when not to and knew that if you had food, you were their new best friend. But we had a pair of dogs do a sligh battle for us and so we had a new dog body guard for a bit! It was cute! Anyways I think this day ended with a panini, some ice cream, and some Rummy! haha!!

Day four: Stadium Day
We took off in the morning for the first ever Olympic Stadium. For the 1986 Olympics I believe....and then headed toward the Mystery Hill...meaning we didnt know what was up there but we climbed 19,000 feet in our flip flops none the less. I like to hike, just not completely unplanned and unaware of what lies ahead. We did get some good views and it was by far higher above Athens than the Acropolis....so I shouldnt complain. Next we took the tram to the end of the line to the most recent Olympic Comlex, whihc was by far larger than the first and probaly included 6 stadiums and arenas of some sort. Swimming, soccer, cycling, indoor, whatever you can imagine Im sure! Then we made it back to our hostel again for some Heineken(sp?) and some rummy. And we packed for our flight the next day!

Day Five: Yes Yes we did have a flight at 4:15 which left us with a few hours to kill, so with our luggage in tow we took the tram to the beach because it was sunny again and we wanted to lay out. So we found the nearest beach and dragged our luggage out and layed out and read for about 2 hours. Thank goodness my skin got some sun because it was beginning to be scarey and quite similar to an albino. :( But we had to leave at some point so we made our way to the airpot only to get ticketed because we didnt have the right type of pass...ahh frustrating story! So 10 euros later we got to the airport and boarded. Our flight was only about half full so it was relaxing and I finished The Da Vinci Code which I enjoyed tremendously. But we landed i Prague and the weather was fabulous and we were all in pretty high spirits after our successful trip!

SO now it is time for work for about a week and a half before Teefey, Vossman, and Katie come to visit. I am going to finish two classes this weekend and hopefully another two by next weekend and then figure drawing and sculpture are done by the end of May and then all I have left is studio! Yeah! Geez the time is flying! Okay this was terribly long but I havent written in a while...so...I hope everybody has a fabulous day and congrats on all the graduations! I miss everybody tremendously!! Ciao!