It's Greek to Me

GREECE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVED GREECE!!!! I will go back before I die, mark my words! Definitely my favorite part of spring break, we came here after Rome! A change in weather (sun instead of rain)  was great! We stepped off the plane and there was Grecian music playing! Good start. Our first task was to find our hostel, we wandered around quite a bit before we found it, but it was such a nice walk that it didn't matter that we couldn't find it. Our hostel was in the middle of an area called the Plaka which was full of cute little shops and was really close to the Acropolis. Here is a picture of the front of it.

It was cute and we had the best receptionist! After throwing all of our stuff in our rooms we headed back out to enjoy the sun. We grabbed gyros, ate on some steps in the sun, and went walking through a park, it was great! Later we went back to the Plaka area and shopped and ate to our heart's content! I even had some yummy baclava. Great first day in Greece! Here are some pics, the second one is my favorite!

The next day we went to the beach! No big deal, I went to a Greek beach on my spring break! (Cue shrugging shoulders) After laying out for a bit, Ash and I went on a hunt for sunscreen. Although we didn't really find any, we had a fun time exploring the area around the beach and found a grocery store (By the way, one of my favorite things to do in other countries is grocery shop, because it is such a great insight into the real culture of the area). We bought some cheese, bread, fruit, humus, greek yogurt and cookies to eat on the beach. Yay for picnics on the beach!!!

Unfortunately a sudden storm hit so we had to clear out quick. As usual on our way back to our hostel we ran into a protest (somehow we are drawn to them) about rights for immigrants in Greece. After changing out of our swimsuits we headed out to dinner and again had the best last night ever! (similar to our last night in Rome). To set up the story, we were walking around the Plaka area which is full of restaurants as well as shops. We were looking at menu prices and a man promised he had authentic greek food. We went in and had some fabulously delicious food! I had humus and pita bread for an appetizer and a greek salad. Not to mention, Lizzie and I finished off Bailey's chicken and lamb kebab which was so good. Anyways the food was great, but the people were better! At a table next to ours were two older greek couples. One man was playing a greek instrument that I believe is called a bouzouki (a guitar like instrument except with a longer neck and smaller body). As usual, Caleb quickly became friends with them (he's good at making friends with the locals). He even went and sat at their table with them. Quickly we all started talking to them. One of the older men, who had had a little too much wine, said that I looked Greek, and since I don't know my family's history, maybe I am! The man said that I was the love of his life, I had just come into it too late! Haha He was really fun and pretty drunk, but still fun. His wife was precious, she even kissed  me on the cheek! The guys were both singing and playing the greek music and then they started dancing! And then they grabbed us and we all started dancing with them, even the owner of the restaurant jumped in! It was the most unreal movie-like moment! They taught us how to dance to the greek music, it was absolutely amazing! We stayed for probably over three hours, dancing, talking, and listening to music. In the end, the older man gave me his scarf as a way to remember the night. And boy, will I! For one night, I felt like one of the locals! Here are some pics:

What a great last night in Greece! The next day was our last and to go out with a bang we went to the Acropolis and saw the Parthenon and all of the other great ruins that I don't know the name of. It's amazing that these wonders are still standing. Speaking of wonders, before we went to the Acropolis we went and saw the Temple of Olympian Zeus, which was one of the 7 wonders of the world at some point. Words cannot describe how amazing all of these ruins were, or the view of Greece from atop the Acropolis. I'll just let pictures try to describe it.

Temple of Zeus 

  Parthenon with boys 

view of Acropolis from afar 

Okay well that basically sums up my amazing amazing amazing experience in Greece! I'm tired of blogging now after doing two in two days, but I will continue to update as best as I can! 

Roman Holiday

Okay so I know I know, spring break was over two months ago and I am still trying to catch up on my blog. Left to update after this: Greece, Switzerland, Ireland, Spain. Hmm that's quite an overwhelming list. Forgive me if I don't even get close to updating on all of these. Sadly my memory is starting to fade on what exactly happened on which trip, but I'll manage. Back to Rome.

If anything can be said about Rome, it is rich in history. Sadly though my memories of Rome are being literally drenched from head to foot, having pushy men force umbrellas in my face, friends being tricked out of money by sleazy guys dressed as Roman guards, staying 30 minutes outside of Rome in a jank hostel called Peter Pan and there being TWO, only two metro lines for the entire city of Rome. Also in order to catch a 7am flight, we opted out of sleeping for a night. Awesome. However, disregarding all of these things that make Rome sound awful, it really was a neat city. One of my favorite things I got to do was explore the ruins at the Roman Forum. Especially after reading the Francine Rivers Mark of the Lion series, I could actually see and feel like what it would have been like to live during the prime of the Roman empire.

After exploring Rome on our first day, we happened to run into two guys from our study abroad programs, Chris and Wilson. Although we figured this would happen since almost everyone from our program was coming to Rome at some point on our trip, we happened to run into them on a back road randomly. We were already a huge group, starting out as 10, but then we added two of Robynne's friends, and picked up these guys, which then made us a total of 14 (important to remember for later). We then explored Rome some more and went and saw the Trevi fountain (just like in the Lizzie McGuire movie)! haha

After our usual gelato for snack, we went to the Parthenon, and then went to eat at a well known pizza place called Pizzaria da Baffetto. I got a pizza with zucchini's on it, yum! That pretty much sums up our first day in Rome. On the next day we visited the Vatican city, the smallest country in the world. (Debatable?) It was amazing. Actually it was beyond amazing and completely not what I expected. St. Peter's Basilica was huge, enormous, grand, magnificent, larger than life. This is supposedly where St. Peter is buried, which is why there is a huge shrine dedicated to him. (picture below). There was also holy water, a dead pope covered in something that looked like candle wax, and Michelangelo's Pieta. Basically everything in there was historic and significant in some way. The Sistine Chapel was just as stunning. I was so in awe that my neck literally got a cramp from looking up and around for so long. Amazing, absolutely amazing. Wow. Words cannot describe how breathtaking it was. Obviously this picture showing the creation of adam will not suffice, but it'll have to do.

In the Sistine chapel we somehow ran into three of the students from ACU's study abroad program in Germany. What? How does that happen? Now I can say, "Oh yeah I ran into those guys in the Sistine chapel," like that's normal or something. This now made our total 17. Yeah 17. Then to be more ridiculous we heard from some more guys from our program who had decided to come to Rome earlier than planned. Naturally we met up with those five guys, which made us 22! Good job infiltrating and taking over Rome ACU, nicely done. Anyways after a meal with ALL of us. We did some more exploring, including going to the Spanish steps (where Audrey Hepburn has gelato in Roman Holiday) in the rain. Here is the picture of (almost) all of us:

The next day in Rome we took a tour of the Roman Coliseum, which was absolutely amazing and definitely reminded me of Atretes (the roman gladiator) from Francine River's As Sure as the Dawn. (Btw you must read these if you have not!). The inside of the coliseum was just as massive and impressive as the outside. It's horrible to think about all of the murders that happened in the coliseum, lots and lots of martyrdom. (Again, Hadassah from Mark of the Lion) Regardless, it was an amazing sight to see.

After a tour of the coliseum, which oh by the way was free because we were accidently there on some holiday (whoop whoop), we took a tour of the Roman Forum, which I already talked about above. Chris and Wilson were our own personal tour guides, since they are both history buffs. Amara and I might have stayed behind to explore the ruins a little longer and to steal oranges from the orange trees in the Roman Forum. Although we made quite a spectacle (including a guy handing us an umbrella to use) the mission was accomplished when Andrew climbed behind some hedges to get into a tree with low branches. This next picture shows our triumph. Too bad they were sour and not edible.

Good, ACU appropriate times. After meeting back up with part of the group, we did some more exploring, including going to the liar's grate, which is the place where Gregory Peck pretends he's lost his hand in Roman Holiday. Afterwards we had the most incredible dinner where we met some amazingly nice people. For dinner we had pizza (surprise!) again at the Pizzeria da Baffetto (again, because we liked it so much). However, this time the line to get in was much longer. The people standing behind us in line happened to be from Houston. We chatted with them for the hour we were in line and we finally both got in to tables. While we were ordering the girls from the family found our table and told us their dad was paying for our meal. As a college student, free is the most precious and coveted word in the entire dictionary. After dinner we went to thank him for our meal. As poor college kids we ordered as poor college kids do (sharing, getting free water, etc) and 9 of us ate for less than his family of four. This Houston guy and his family then insisted in paying for our gelato at the place next door and it turned out to be some of the best gelato I had in Italy (I had lots to compare it to!). After having not so many great experiences in Rome, it was refreshing to meet such an amazingly nice and generous family. It was a great ending to our last night in Rome. Here is a picture of us with the family:

And that's the end of my Roman Holiday. Upcoming: Greece, where I met the love of my life. ;)