Greece!!!

I’ve decided that I love Greece and I’m coming back one day when my bank doesn’t suck and I’m not confined to 4 days!!

Day 1:
I started Greece off by getting breakfast with my friends and then going to the purser’s desk every 15 minutes because my debit card had arrived but they hadn’t given it to me yet and every time I went they said “Come back in a few minutes we haven’t gotten to it.” So to kill some time before lunch me, Taryn, and Bridget went to find where the ferries were so that they could check out the prices and I could see where I had to go on day 2. After finding it we went back and ate lunch on the ship. Then a bunch of my friends headed out to the S@S trip to Athens and me, Courtney, and Taryn went to find the Metro and go to Athens. It was a really long walk but we finally found it and got our tickets. When we got on the Metro I was being a stupid tourist and I saw a ΧΩ on one the signs and a Greek guy saw me and started laughing I asked him what was funny and he asked me if I knew what the sign said and I said no and he said that the sign said something like keep the windows closed because the train is air conditioned. We ended up talking to him for a while about what to visit in Athens and what was best to eat while we were there.

When we got off the train at the Thissio stop (Alex is that spelled right?) we walked up the hill to the Acropolis. Greece was completely different than Italy. In Italy if you wanted to see a historical site they charged you for EVERYTHING. For example you had to pay to get to Vesuvius, for a bus ride up the volcano, for a ticket to climb up to the top, for the bathroom, for water, everything. At the Acropolis a student ID got you a half price ticket (only 6 euros!) and the ticket worked at about 6 different historical sites. Not to mention that while we were walking I stopped at a random café to get a cup of water and when I asked how much it was they laughed and said no charge. (Yay Greece!!). I loved the Acropolis! Courtney is taking an architecture class so she played tour guide and told us fun facts like the Parthenon was built for the goddess Athena and there used to be a huge gold statue of her in it. Also, it was built with a slight curve so that to the eye it would look straight. Those smart Greeks.

So after the Acropolis, the theater of some Greek god that starts with a D (Dionysus? Or something like that) and a bunch of other sites we did some touristy shopping and heard from a shop owner that there were some more historical sites one metro stop away. Once we paid and got down to the metro we realized we didn’t know which direction so we asked some randos and they pointed us in the right direction. When we got off the place we were going (I don’t remember the name) was already closed so we walked around until we found a place to eat. I had some kind of Kebap (haha! Aka a kabob) that was really good. After walking around a little bit and shopping a little more we headed back to the ship where I went to sleep right after getting my debit card that had FINALLY been processed.

Day 2:
I got up at 5:15 to catch a ferry to Mykonos with Georgina, Jill, and Courtney. We got to the ferry about 20 minutes early so I tried to take money out of an ATM and had an unpleasant surprise when my pin number didn’t work. Since I didn’t have a calling card and my friends offered to lend me money I didn’t worry about it right away.

After a 4 hour ferry ride (which was fun because there were a lot of S@S-ers to keep me entertained even though I forgot my iPod), we got to Mykonos and waited a long time for the bus for Villa Vissilias (the place where some friends of ours were staying and added us onto their reservation). The Villa was beautiful! It was all white and it had 3 bedrooms with 3 or 4 beds each (which was good because there were 9 of us) since we were all hungry we walked down the street and found a cute little bakery. They didn’t speak English there so we just pointed at stuff in the windows to pick what we wanted to eat. Since pretty much no stores on Mykonos took credit card (which I would have loved if I had money) Courtney paid for me. There was a fruit stand/store next door and when I went over to buy a banana the lady behind the desk gave me a mini greek lesson (Yasoo is to say hello to one person, yasass is for a bunch of people, and to say thank you you say efharisto… pardon the phonetic spelling).

 After lunch we headed back to the villa to get ready for the beach. We asked the lady who runs the villas, Maria, and her dad how to get there and they described a 20 minute walk down the road. It ended up being a 45 minute walk with lots of hills and crazy drivers but we finally got there. The beach was beautiful! The water was pretty nice but 2 girls I know had gotten there early and gotten stung by jellyfish so I was a little paranoid and made my friends swim in front of me and would swim really fast until I got to the deep water (apparently in the deep water they are farther down and can’t sting you).

We headed back after a while and I opted to walk with Courtney and Mehmet to save money. I forgot that since we had walked mostly downhill on the way to the beach it would be mostly uphill on the way back… So we finally got there and showered before heading out to get dinner. Since the bakery was closed we walked around until we found a grocery store and we all bought pizza, sandwich stuff, or pasta and I got cereal and chips as well for the next day (they took visa!!!!). When we got back our villa and the 2 other groups of S@S-ers who were staying at the same place cooked dinner in our villa because we were the only ones with a stove and oven. It was a lot of fun! Our villa was full of people cooking, playing cards, singing and dancing to an iPod, watching the sunset, sitting and relaxing, etc. it was my favorite park of Mykonos. After dinner we all hung out at the villa with the other S@S-ers and some Australians that were staying in the other villa and then went out.

Day 3:
We all got up at 10ish and had Alexa (one of my friends who is a fabulous cook) make us breakfast. Jill and Courtney left shortly after to catch a ferry back because they wanted to see more of Athens. I didn’t go because I didn’t want to go to the Olympic stadium but I shortly realized that since they left I only had 2.73€ left and I didn’t know the rest of the people in the villa well enough to borrow money (Georgina had ended up staying the night with one of her other friends).

I had some of my cereal for breakfast and then walked to the downtown with some of the other S@S-ers. They wanted to go shopping so I told them I was going to find a pay phone and I’d meet up with them later. It took me forever to figure out the pay phone. The first one I went to you had to buy a special card for and so I went to an exchange place to ask how to use it and they said to buy a phone card but the mini-mart they sent me to didn’t take visa but luckily I ran into one of my friends, Justine, and she lent me 5 euros to get a phone card. When I tried the phone again it didn’t work so I asked a random person who walked by and luckily spoke English and greek why and they said there was a phone error. I walked around until I found another phone and this one had instructions on how to place a collect call on it and I called the number Chase bank had given me when I called to tell them my itinerary. I asked the lady if my card had been activated and if the pin number was still correct and she informed me that yes it was activated but my pin number had been changed by Chase even though it isn’t supposed to be when you get a new card and that they couldn’t tell me my own pin number to protect my account and the only way I could get money was to take my passport and card to a bank to get money except that this would cost a 10% commission cost. So after some not nice language I hung up on the lady and attempted to call my house only to realize that you can’t leave a message on a collect call. So I tried Natalia’s phone but I think her number got changed when she got an iPhone because it didn’t work. Since I couldn’t remember the number for my families summer cabin and I don’t have my aunt’s number memorized and I had left my passport on the ship thinking it would be smart for it not to get stolen and my friends had all either not gone to town, were back at the ship, or were shopping I ended up completely alone with no money and unable to call anyone in a country where I can’t speak the language. I ended up walking around Mykonos crying and ended up getting lost. I saw a shop that had a visa sign and I went in to see if they sold any snacks because all I’d eaten was some cereal but they didn’t so I bought some stamps and the nice lady tried to get me to smile (I ended up buying a ring as well because she was really nice and I wanted to give her some business).

I finally found some people I knew but they kept stopping to shop and I wanted to get back to the villa and get my stuff so I could change my ferry to that day so they pointed me in the right direction and I walked the 5 km back to the villa where it was locked. So I found maria’s dad and he opened for me and as I was opening the door some of my friends came back from where ever they had been and Georgina was with them so we both grabbed our stuff and Maria’s dad nicely drove us to the new port to catch a ferry. We ran into 2 S@S-ers there one of which had a ticket for the 5:00 ferry and one of which was trying to change his as well. When we tried to get on the ferry the lady said we had to talk to this other guy. Luckily the S@S-er who was trying to change his ticket speaks greek so he did the talking. The man told us we had to go to the downtown area to change our tickets at the office or to get money out of an ATM (there wasn’t an office or ATM at the new port) but since the 5:00 ferry was the only one to Pireaus on that day and we only had a ½ hour until it left we decided to walk back to the ferry. This time I did the talking and found someone who spoke English and explained that we didn’t have any cash and our tickets were for tomorrow and asked if they knew of any other way to get back to Pireaus on that day and the guy agreed that we could ride back on the ferry and he would go with us to an ATM when we got off. Luckily about ½ way through the ride Nick found his emergency money so we could pay the guy on the ferry and I now owe Nick money too. We got back at about 9:00 and went right back to the ship since we were both starving (I’d only eaten the cereal earlier in the day) so I got back and had the single best burger I have ever eaten in my life and then called mom and aunt and we figure out what to do about money. And then I went to bed early because I was tired.

Day 4:
As horrible as day 3 was is how perfect day 4 was. I got up in time for breakfast and then got my computer and found the free wifi spot I had been hearing about for days. After spending some time on facebook and checking my regular email I went to a bank to try the visa pin number my mom had given me and IT WORKED!!!! I was so relieved that I could finally get money and pay back Courtney, Mehmet, Justine, Georgina, Nick, and Justin. I went to the grocery store after to get some junk food (S@S has the whole healthy food thing covered) and then I went back to the ship in time for lunch. After lunch me and Jill went to Athens because she never had a chance to do her tourist shopping. It was fun walking through the stores and making fun of some of the ridiculous clothes we saw and I ended up buying a pair of sandals because they were handmade by the guy who was selling them to me. We got back to the ship before the line to get our bags checked and swipe in got long and I had just enough time to write my postcards and send them before it was dinner time.

Life lessons learned in Greece:
-       Greek food= YUM!!!
-       Find a bank that takes just as good care of their customers and they take of their customer’s money (I’m looking for one… any suggestions?)
-       ALWAYS put sunscreen on your feet.

The next stop is Turkey and my plans are…

Day 1: Go to the giant market thing and maybe some palaces.
Day 2: Capadoccia
Day 3: Capadoccia
Day 4: Capadoccia
Day 5: TBD maybe visit the aquaduct or the Turkish baths… not real sure yet. Mehmet speaks Turkish and is from Cyprus so maybe I’ll ask him