Friday, June 17, 2011

DAY SEVEN: ATHENS-THE NEW YORK OF GREECE TIMES TEN

Unfortunately, today was our last day in the wonderful Delphi. We all came down for our last breakfast at 8 AM and I had my last yogurt with the most delicious honey I have ever tasted. We sadly left Hotel Kouros at 9 AM and headed for our 3 hour drive to the bustling city of Athens. We arrived there at about 1 PM with no where to unload. Our driver pretty much stopped in the middle of the road, blocking traffic, while we unloaded our luggage in like a record of 4 minutes. Our driver did get yelled at by the police, but by that time, we had already finished. We quickly walked to our hotel around the corner and this is by far the nicest place I have stayed at. 
I am rooming with Dina, so we just relaxed in our room for about 30 minutes. I hope she can handle this!! hahha. 


We all left to go to lunch down the street and I had a yummy pita with chicken and almost ate the whole thing. This is Greece people, their portion sizes could feed like 5 people. Afterwards, we split into two groups to go exploring, shopping, and of course take some photographs. In my group was Madds, Clairé, Demeris, Dina, Ariel, and Caro. Our little adult supervisors were Carolyn and David.


We had some fun walking around taking pictures of random people such as a jacked trainer, a man wearing a Tour de France shirt, and a man with spiked hair on a motorcycle. 







We legitimately did this for about 2 hours until we finally headed back to meet up with the rest of the gang at 4 PM. From there, we all power walked to Acropolis and let me tell you, power walking uphill plus going up stairs is pretty rough. We finally made it to the entrance however, and along the way I saw dozens of stray dogs and cats and it made me soooo sad because we were not allowed to touch them. 


Apparently last year, the group who went to Athens petted the dogs and fed them and stuff, so these animals followed them everywhere and barked at anyone who came close to the group. Sounds hilarious now, but they said it was awful having everyone stare at them like that. Psh Americans. We wondered around Acropolis taking some pictures and obviously looking at the famous Parthenon.
  After wondering around for about 45 minutes, we all gathered in a circle and introduced our "boyfriends" aka our cameras. My "boyfriend's"name is Pinocchio because he has such a long nose and sometimes lies. My dad gave him to me for my birthday and we clicked just like that. We had a lot of fun doing this for about 15 minutes until we got kicked out Acropolis at 6:40ish. 



We walked down to where all the stores were and shopped till about 7:45 PM. I bought an extremely trendy fedora, a leather satchel, and a quilt!! I thought the quilt would be a nice touch to my dorm room when I attend college. We all headed to our reservations for dinner at 8 PM at Tabepna, and this place is something that everyone needs to go to if they go to Greece. Besides the food being absolutely outstanding, their was singing and dancing and it was the kind of dancing that you actually see in movies. I ate soooo much food that night because David told us that we must eat everything [he did not want us to put it all to waste]. I had some bread, a spinach pie [truly scrumptious], a bite of fried cheese, chicken suvlaki, a bite of ice cream, and about 12 glasses of water. You can imagine that I felt like I was going to explode. 


The dancers came in three times with three different outfits for each dance. During one dance, one of the men took a girl out of her seat to dance, but her dress was so short he had to keep pulling int down. It was absolutely hilarious, but I am sure the girl was mortified. 


Clairé bravely went out to dance with the most precious little girl and we were all screaming OPA OPA!! It was sooo much fun!! After enjoying ourselves at the restaurant for more than 2 hours, we headed back and arrived at Athens Center Square Hotel at 10:40ish. We all sat to have a talk and say our goodbyes and thank yous to the most wonderful teacher and person ever: MRS. HARTMAN. I will definitely miss her for the remainder of the trip and will be thinking about her. Sadly, I do not think I will get to see her for a really long time, but I have some wonderful pictures of her that I will for sure post!! That pretty much was the end of our night since lights out was at 11:30 PM and they did room checks. Yikes. Well tomorrow is going to be a pretty relaxing day since all we have on our agenda is one of the most famous archeological museums in the world. Yasoo yawl. 


SOME MORE PICTURES!!


ashamed.

        


     
question mark.
i love athens.

HOT.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

DAY SIX: OFFICIALLY OBSESSED WITH DELPHI



Waking up at 8:30 AM was the best feeling ever, even though we lost an hour of sleep when we traveled from Italy to Greece. After frolicking down the stairs, I walked in to see an amazinggg breakfast. Besides bread of course, there were cereals, yogurt, and honey, and hard-boiled eggs [the classy ones in the egg holders]. Being as classy as possible, I cracked it with my spoon and sipped some tea. Madds brought over some yogurt with honey in it and this is not an exaggeration: IT WAS THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER TASTED IN MY LIFE [IN GREECE]. I had no idea it would taste this awesome. After breakfast we all went upstairs for a shutter lecture, then they let us wonder of in the village for about an hour and a half.


We were suppose to take pictures, which we did eventually do, but Clairé, Madds, and I took advantage and shopped!! DUH. We walked around the village snapping some pictures, shopping, and just having fun being girls!! We came back to our hotel and chilled out here for about ehhh 2ish hours trying to upload some photos, blog, and just listen to some music. After that, we split up and Clairé, Madds, Rachel, Erin, Holly, and I all went to lunch at this delicious restaurant…we were the only ones in there.

            

I ate a chicken souvlaki with fries and I actually ate the whole entire thing It was soooo goood!! During our hour and a half off, we also went exploring and being girls, went shopping. 


      


The stores here are sooo cute!! We reconvened at the hotel where as a group, we went to the Delphi Museum and got a tour of the history behind Delphi [apparently it is a free will town]. Along with the museum tour, the guide introduced the ruins of the Apollo Temple, the theater, and many more interesting artifacts, including the oracle. 


temple of Apollo
   


On our way back to town, we stopped for dinner where I had an amazingggg gyro [it is lamb with pita and yogurt, which is tart, plus fries]. I was a little afraid to taste the lamb, but considering I am in Greece, I felt the need to try all of the local foods here. When we arrived back to the hotel, Madds, Clairé, Rachel, and I watched YouTube videos—of course Bon Qui Qui, something called Mrs. Swan [the woman is Mrs. Ungermire from Lizzie McGuire Movie], and Disney Mean Girls. hahhahha it was hilarious!! 


not sure what is going on here exactly...
       we had some fun out in the ruins!!


Then we got ready for a spontaneous toga party on the roof to celebrate the lovely Abby’s birthday. She turned 16!!






 We had some delicious chocolate cake and then I think raspberry cake?? Afterwards, we watched Mamma Mia, since we are in Greece after all!! akljdflj now I have to pack : ( but on the plus side, we are headed to Athens tomorrow!! I can not wait!! I am devastated that I have to leave this uber cute village, but I am looking forward to what’s to come!! ehhhh now I have songs from Hercules stuck in my head!! Watch out Athens, here I come [and I am quite a handful]!




Some pictures from our toga party!!


happy birthday girl!!
struggle
   


party hard