Bela has gone International

greetings from Greece Everyone!
Here is my first post since I've arrived here, and I have been having a pretty good time so far! For reference, the time on the posts will be in American time, which is 7 hours earlier than Grecian time. We arrived Friday afternoon after a grueling plane ride. However, on the trip from Paris to here, the man sitting next to me was Greek, so he helped me practice my greek! In the airport, Jacob and my seats were far apart, and a lady at the Air France counter was very nice for a long time and helped us out. So, here's a shout out to Air France =). On the other hand. I am not too tall, and I have no idea how anyone taller than me could sit comfortably in those chairs. They were SO close together on the overseas trip. The one from Atl-NY was normal, and Paris-Athens too. but man, I have no idea how people manage to fit in those seats. When we arrived at the airport, Austin (the third in our mini-group) met us there, and took us back to the hostel. He arrived 5 hours earlier, so he'd had time to get back to the city (a 45 minute ride), and find a hostel and take a nap. When we arrived, we took the bus (which was packed like sardines), and made our way back to the hostel.

The hostel is pretty cool. When I'm able to upload pictures, you'll be able to see the hostel. We went downstairs after dropping our bags off, and found a restaurant and ate some wonderful Greek food. At night, we walked around the town, and took some pictures, most of which looked like black background with small light dots for me, and planned to relax for a few minutes before going to sleep. We have a balcony, so it's pretty neat to look over and watch the people going by (see pictures).

As I was getting ready to go to bed, completly tired from the previous 30 hours, I opened my bag only to discover that my shampoo bottle had opened. I am talking a full size shampoo bottle, which when I took it out of my bag, had about 1-2 uses remaining. I had an entire bottle of shampoo seeped into my clothes, into my backpack, into my toiletries, and just all over everything. Needless to say, that was not a good start on my arrival, but after an hour of rinsing and hanging things to dry, I finally went to sleep.

Yesterday, we got up around 9:00ish, and conveniently, there is a travel agent in the hostel. We booked rooms for the next two nights, and booked our trip to the Greek island Santorini. We'll be going there on Monday, until Friday. Once we had that all figured out, we headed out on the town. We went to a lot of the main tourist attractions, which I hate doing, because I hate standing out as a tourist. Anyone who has traveled with me before knows that I really like to act, dress, and pretend like I'm part of the culture I'm in. Unfortunately, 1) I don't speak greek, 2) we were going to touristy places 3) I don't look like anyone here 4) though I was careful to bring no shorts, but lots of capris and skirts, jacob and Austin are dressed in shorts and English teeshirts and baseball caps =)

We toured the Acropolis which was really cool. Seeing the Greek theatres, the Parthenon, and all of the other ruins there was pretty cool. The way the Parthenon is depicted in all the postcards and pictures is incorrect though. Much has remained, but a lot of it is not there anymore, and they're trying to rebuild it. After we left the Acropolis, we went to lunch at a gyro and kabob place, which was really good. We made a decision to spend our money at no more than one meal above 5 Euros per day. After we ate, we hung out walking around for a bit, and then went to ancient Agora, which used to be a market of some sort, and now is pretty much just ruins. For all of the sights, we bout a ticket that at student rates, was 6 Euros for everything. We then sat outside for a bit and people watched. At night, we ate at a cool restaurant that you pay for what you order on your sandwich. So for example - if you want a piece of turkey, that is .60, mayo is .10, cheese is .50 feta cheese is .60 or something like that. So you can get a sandwich, toasted for about 3 Euros. If you are one of those peole that goes to subway and orders your sandwich with "everything" though, you might be paying more like 4/5 Euros for a sandwich. Anyway, pretty good.

Jacob bought a small bottle of Uzo on the way back because they sell it everywhere, and we were all curious what it tasted like. Well, for public knowledge- it tastes horrible. If you know what the green nyquil tastes like, it's like that, but worse. I think it is supposed to taste like licorice, but either way, I think we've all sworn it off.

Today we bought a 24 hour bus pass, but right after buying it discovered that the line we wanted to take wasn't running today. We walked to what was supposed to be some wonderful bazaar, and never found it. Either our map was labled with it in the wrong place, or it didn't exist today. Almost everything is closed on Sunday, but supposedly the flower part of the market is at its best on Sundays. They also sell fish, meat, tourist stuff, household items, etc. Oh well, I'll have to see it on my next time to Greece. We continued walking, all the way to the National Archaeological Museum. There were so many things kept SO well over the last 2000 years. Most were statues of all different types, but VERY well maintained over the years. After that, we went to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. All that was left were about 10 columns, but they were incredible. There was one that had fallen, I'm not sure when, but it laid on the ground in pieces, perfectly aligned. We then went to climb the hill of muses (Philoppapos). We walked to the top, and took a few pictures both of the monument at the top, and of the surrounding city of Athens. We were awed at ourselves too, because we've already walked much of the city. As we decended, we stopped by the Parlaiment building just as they were changing the guards. Supposedly it's a huge honor to be chosen as one of these guards, but man they looked silly both with how they marched and how they dressed. They were wearing a traditional uniform of some sort, and similar to the guards in England, they stood for one hour and did not move a muscle. We watched them for a long time, and they didn't even blink! After we watched the changing of the guards,we stopped by the botanical gardens for a bit, and saw their little animal zoo, and then after seeing all that, we stopped in the internet cafe for a short bit before dinner. After dinner, we'll probably try to get to sleep early because our ferry ride to Santorini tomorrow leaves the dock at 7:00am, whcih means we have to leave the hostel around 5:30. yak!

By the way, I have made the sights bold so you can easily skim my entries =)

So, there you have it. I am not sure how detailed all my posts will be this trip, or how often I'll be able to upload pictures, but I will be sure to maintain consistency with these updates (as I do at home)