Athens... I met a legend today!!

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So yesterday we finished our course, took our final exam (which we all passed easily) got our certificates, and went to the beach to swim and celebrate our last day in Vrahati. I got this amazing plate of spaghetti yesterday for lunch at 12&1 (thats the name of the restaurant). I've decided it was my favorite place to go (its where I got the mousaka and alfredo too). For dinner we all got crepes at this restaurant on the beach. Got up early this morning, packed alllllll of my stuff, then we took the bus to our hotel in Athens which was just a little over an hour ride, not bad at all. The hotel is super nice. Apparently its a five star, but we got our room for a great price. On a side note, my hand was attacked by some fierce mosquitos last night. Anyways, the our room is on the 8th floor and the roof has a pool. You can even see the Acropolis from the roof!!! It's amazing. Then we went out searching for the sandal maker Melissinos. (Stavros Melissinos was the father who sold sandals to the John Lennon, Jackie O, Barbra Streisand, Sophia Loren, etc. His son Pantelis took over the business later and sold to the Prince of Wales, Bob Saget, Lily Tomlin, etc. They both write poetry, but Stavros is known as the actual "Poet." Pantelis writes too though.) Anyways, after getting lost for 10 minutes we finally found this small sandal store and workshop. It was INCREDIBLE. Pantelis was even there!!! There were 2 other helpers that came and helped us pick out which style we wanted then brought us our size and took the entire sandal apart and put it back together so that it perfectly fit to our feet. Just watching them was awesome. I got 2 pairs. They weren't even that expensive. Around 30-35$ per pair. After fitting our sandals, we paid and Rachel and I got our picture taken with him!! He also gave us a free book of his poetry and small biography booklet. He is such a great writer!! Then we wandered around some more and went into some shops, bought some more postcards. At one store where Rachel bought a hat, the shop keeper spit on her (its a Greek good luck thing) and Rachel just said thank you and walked off. Just got back to the hotel. It is soooooo cold in this room but none of us are turning off that ac since we haven't had even a fan for the past 4 weeks. I'll wrap it up, everyone is wanting to go for a swim before the sun sets. More tomorrow!!

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