A day-by-day account of my Greek vacation! :-)



*Day 1*

July 28, 2003 - Greece... is... FABULOUS! It took us (my mom and I) about 25 hours total to get here, including both flights, the layovers, and the 6-hour boat ride out to the island, but who cares? I would have sat for 25 more if that's what it would have taken. :-) The worst part was the flight from Zürich to Athens. We had the rudest family behind us - a younger couple and their kid. They spent over 1/2 the flight "eating" and would NOT let us keep out seats reclined while they ate. If we even tried to recline, the man would scream maniacally at the top of his lungs, "We are eeeating!!!" and then he'd slam my seat back forward as hard as he could. I physically could not keep my seat back. Not to mention, they kicked us and threw garbage at us the entire flight. It was unbearable, and the flight attendant took their side, probably because they had a kid. Oh well. At least that was the shorter of the flights, plus - we are in Greece now!! And what could be better than that? :-D

By the time we got to Paros (the island we are spending our 1st week on), with the 7-hour time change, it was 5:00 a.m. The "slow boat" took 2.5 hours longer than expected (and boy was it slow!) so my poor brother (Jason) was waiting for us that whole time. But we made it here in 1 piece! We got to Jason's room at 6:00 a.m. this morning, got a much-needed 5 hours of sleep, and then spent today at the beach in Logaras, the town Jason is living in. It is so beautiful here! Paros is about 15 miles long and 5 wide, and everybody travels by motorbikes or tiny foreign cars. The countryside is hilly with vineyards, monasteries, churches, fishing harbors, and some of the most gorgeous beaches of the Cyclades (Greek islands). And all of the hills are covered with homemade stone walls - some run left-to-right and others run right up to the top of the hill. They're everywhere. I have no idea how old they are, or what they are for. Division of land? Irrigation? I have no idea. But it's really cool looking. The small villages here are the traditional cubic, white-painted houses with blue doors & windows. The houses here don't even have screens because there isn't even a cloud in the sky. And oh my god - you should see the night sky!!! It feels like you are sitting right on the top of the planet, looking out. You can see every individual star, every constellation, Mars, the Milky Way... it was amazing. :-)

 
Our 1st day at the beach was terrific, and we got a good start on our Greek tans. Everybody here has a cigarette in 1 hand and a cell phone in the other. The beaches are filled with boobs and smiles, and everybody speaks in Greek - not English. Thank goodness for Jason. You should hear him talk! You'd think he was right from Greece! He can carry on a conversation with anybody here. It's incredible.

We ate both lunch and dinner today at Jason's friend Kostas' restaurant, right on the beach. I discovered a great new Greek dish called Gigantes - they are gigantic beans in a tomato sauce and so yummy! Wonder if I can find them back in the states?

And then tonight, we took a nice, long walk through some nearby towns, Marpissa & Marmara. We bought bread & pastries from a bakery for breakfast tomorrow. Our eating schedule here is so bizarre, but my brother insists upon it - real Greek culture, you know? LOL. We eat a small breakfast when we get up, lunch around 5:00, and then dinner after 10:30 p.m. Everything in Greece shuts down between 12:00 and 5:00 and they take a "siesta" (laying on the beach and napping, pretty much) so that's why they don't eat lunch until 5:00. Things are definitely different here! You can't even flush your toilet paper. LOL.

And you should see the drivers over here! You can pass any time you want, and when you want to pass, you just flash your lights, the car in front of you moves over, and any oncoming cars also pull over, give you the entire middle of the road to pass. And on roads with more than one lane, the dots inbetween the lanes basically turn into motorbike lanes! Not to mention, there are no guard rails anywhere, despite the fatal dropoffs on many of the roads, and everybody drives so fast! It is insane!! :-)

Bungalow	Paros

July 29, 2003 - We spent the day at the beach again, only this time at the beach club where Jason worked all summer - at Pounda Beach. It was nicer than the beach yesterday, since we got beach chairs, and not to mention the heart-thumping dance music by the pool. There's a giant crane where people bungee jump right into the pool. It's insane - imagine if somebody missed the pool! Plus the kids all run around, completely unattended, jumping off this footbridge into the pool - the same pool people are bungee jumping into. Nothing here is even the slightest bit regulated. LOL.

After our day of beach bumming, we went shopping and ate dinner (spinach raviolis with creamy tomato sauce & feta) in Parikia - the port town of the island. The restaurant we ate in had a "ceiling" made up of 2 giant trees and their branches! That was very neat. The shopping here is fun - tons of jewelry and gift shops - all a bit too touristy though. I can't wait to shop in Athens at the end of our trip! :-) We also got to use the Internet cafe in Parikia. Got to send home some x's and o's to Jay...

Pounda	Me + Mom	Me + Jason

*Day 3*

July 30, 2003 - Today was incredible! We took a day-trip to one of the other islands - Santorini. It was absolutely awesome. This is the island that the legend of the mythical "Lost City of Atlantis" is based upon. It is believed that after a tremendous volcanic eruption in 1640 BC, the entire center of the circular island sunk into the sea. There were no human remains found on the island, and it is theorized that the people knew the volcano was going to erupt and they tried to escape by boats, only to be wiped out by giant tsunamis (tidal waves) from the eruption. The island today is crescent-shaped, and you can see the giant, black volcanic crater right out in the water. Can you believe I got to see this island?! Seeing it - both from the boat on the way in, and from the island itself - was positively breathtaking, with the deep, blue sea and the volcanic cliffs topped with gleaming white villages & churches.

We rented a car for the day, and we visited 2 archaeological sites - Ancient Akrotiri (1600 BC) and Ancient Thira (400 BC). Akrotiri was a small site, and completely underneath a tent, but still very cool. And Thira was awesome! We had to take our car up this steep, winding mountain road to get there, and once at the top, we were probably about 1000 feet about sea level. My poor mother was petrified! Not only is she afraid of heights, but this was barely a road, with hairpin turns the whole way up and no guard rails, of course. :-) The motorbikes on the road with us were barely moving, and the hikers looked like they would keel over and die at any minute. Thank goodness we had a car! Thira was well worth the climb though. Very interesting ruins, and not to mention an absolutely gorgeous view of the island and the sea below.

After surviving the drive down from Thira, we ate lunch (cheese crepe) at a cafe on the black beach, and then we did some shopping in a town called Ia. Very cute little town. And then after Ia, we went to the most SPECTACULAR beach I have ever seen in my entire life - the red beach. This beach was incredible - secluded and tucked below these gorgeous and enormous soaring red volcanic cliffs. The black & red sand wasn't soft like the beaches on Paros - this was more like pebbles - but it was so gorgeous, you couldn't even care!

We even got to see a Santorini sunset from our boat on the way home! Probably one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen in my life.

The day was absolutely perfect, except for the end in Paros, when it took us 2 hours to catch a cab home. The taxi service in Paros is horrible!! Jason referred to them as "more of a formal hitch-hiking service than a taxi service." The first time we hailed one, the guy told us he couldn't pick us up from the street, and that we had to wait in this designated taxi line. Well, we sat there for 2 hours! Only 1 taxi even came up there, and when we went to get in (we were first in line) this slutty girl in club clothes appears out of nowhere and jumps in before we can. He takes her instead of us. And then we find out that the taxis ARE picking people up right off the street (like we had been trying to do originally) and not even coming up to the taxi line. So we go back down to the street again, and get the same BS - go wait in the taxi line! And you could see the cabs all right on that street - picking people up! Of course, they were picking up all the hot girls, heading into Naossa to go clubbing. Who wants to pick up us, right? It was ridiculous! And there was no other way home. I thought we'd have to sit there until the 4:30 a.m. bus came around. Sheesh.

Mom + I on Santorini	Red Beach on Santorini	Jason + I with wind-bent tree

July 31, 2003 - I got into an accident! :-( I ran a motorbike into a tree! :-( We decided to rent motorbikes for the day, to drive around Paros. We wanted to see the ancient marble quarries, The Butterfly Valley, and some other things. My brother and mom were going to ride on 1 bike and I was going to ride on another. But just after I left the rental place, the first time I tried to make a turn, I accelerated right into a tree! I guess I need some practice before I try to drive one of those on the road. And of course, they don't exactly teach you before they give you the keys. I figured it would be easy, since everyone in Greece is driving them. But when I tried to turn, it just wouldn't. And of course my brother was already a half-a-mile down the road ahead of me when I crashed. It was horrible. I was sure I had broken the bike, and I could hardly breathe, sitting there on the side of the road clutching my chest and shaking. A car stopped and asked me if I was OK (I am assuming) but I couldn't understand a word they said. I just choked out, "My brother. He will come back for me." 

Our day was delayed a few hours, while I laid on my mom's bed and we determined how badly I was hurt. I could bend my arms and legs, but my right knee got banged up pretty bad. I can walk, but it hurts when I put any pressure on it. I also think bruised my rib - that's where I got the wind knocked out of me when I hit, and why I thought I couldn't breathe at first. It hurts to sit up from a laying-down position, but once I'm up, it's not so bad. And if those 2 things weren't bad enough, I also have a giant blue bruise on my right arm, an enormous swelled-up bump on my inner left thigh, a big red blood blister on my left thigh near my knee, and various other cuts and bruises on my hands and shins. :p Well anyways, all I know is that I am lucky!!! I am so lucky that I didn't break any bones or hit my head!!! I wasn't wearing a helmet, you know. And if I had hit my head, who knows how long it would have taken for some slow medical service to helicopter me to Athens. And thank goodness it was just a tree, and not off a cliff. These roads are all cliffs here, with no guard rails. Yes, I definitely could have died today.  *shudder*

Well, after a few hours of calming down and practicing my new gimp form of walking, we set off on the motorbikes (Apparently, my bike was still drivable) to explore the island - my brother and I on 1 bike and my mom on the other. It hurt to sit on the bike, with the swelling on my inner thigh, but there was no way I was going to let my injuries ruin even one day of this vacation! All things considering, the day went well. And actually, it was nice riding on the bike, because I got to soak in all the scenery without having to pay attention to a damn thing. :-)

First, we rode across the island to The Butterfly Valley, which is a secluded little wooded area where the stone walls & trees are covered with this 1 type of butterfly. It was fun to see, and thankfully not very big so I was able to hobble around without much of a problem. After that, we hit Farangas beach for a few hours, and then got AMAZING gyros (pronounced "year-row" not "ji-row") from this place in Marpissa called Tassos. Since they put french fries in their gyros here, and since I'm vegetarian, mine was basically just a french fry gyro! Mmmmmmm! It was just fries, lettuce, tomatoes, and tzetziki on the fried pita bread. Mmmmmmm! The pita was so good! (Unlike every Greek restaurants in New Jersey back home. they don't serve lots of pita here, so this was a treat for us!)

And then after lunch, we took the bikes to the marble quarries (mines). Jason showed us the ancient entrance, but we ended up going down the newer entrance, which was escavated just a few hundred years ago. It wasn't quite as steep or rocky as the ancient entrance, but still difficult enough that with my busted-up knee, it took me FOREVER to get down there. :p But the caves down there were incredible! This was nothing like the U.S., where a cave like this would be wired up w/bright lights, with ropes and railings blocking off certain passageways, and a marble quarry gift shop on the way out. :p Over here, it's the real thing. It's enter-at-your-own risk or don't enter at all. You make your way down the dangerous entrance, and if you fall, it's your own damn problem. And once you're inside these caves, it is pitch black. You can't see anything at all without a flashlight. Jason had one (with a dying battery, of course) but I didn't, which made it even harder for me to limp around down there. Plus it was quite scary because Jason would often go ahead alone and see if it was worth me limping with my bad knee all the way to the end of a tunnel or not, leaving me in absolute darkness. I felt like I was in the X-Files or something! But the marble walls down there were absolutely gorgeous, and I got my picture taken on an ancient stairwell, which was really cool to see.

We drove around on the bikes for awhile more, after that, watched the sun setting over the Aegean, went home & washed up, and then took the bus in Naossa to shop for the evening and have dinner. (Naossa and Parikia are the 2 big town on Paros. Parikia is the biggest - it's the port town - and Naossa is where the night life is.) It would be fun to go to a club with Jason one of these nights, but I doubt it will happen. We've been eating dinner after 10:30 p.m. every night and then coming back to the room and crashing. Plus, Jason would be talking to everybody in Greek and I wouldn't be able to understand anybody. And not to mention, I'm a gimp now and can't dance anyways. :p I must admit, it's getting to be a little depressing not being here with friends or with Jay. There are couples everywhere we go! And if it's not couples, the people my age are all hanging out with their friends. Don't get me wrong - I am having a blast with mom and Jason! :-) I just get envious of the couples and the groups of friends at times. (Plus, I can't go topless on the beach w/my mom and Jason now, can I? LOL!)

Ancient Nemea	Ancient Epidauros	Acropolis of Corinth

The Parthanon	In front of Athens