Day 39

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Day 39: Sami

This morning I got up at 7:30am again and skyped with my boyfriend until 8:30, when I went out for a run with Isabelle, Steph and Jenn. We went for about half an hour and headed back to take showers, prep for our field trip to Sami and I did some laundry since today was promising to be a sunny and cool day (the sun helps to dry out the clothes and rather than being damp out the cool crisp air prevents the moldy mildew smell in our clothes).

At 9:55am Isabelle came down and we walked down to the docks where Vasilis was waiting with Gioria. Once we were all accounted for, Zach being the last to arrive as usual and had to be individually escorted down by Neil, we drove down to Pantelli’s to pick up Steph’s mom and great and, then at our prof’s to pick him up for the day. After we gathered all our group, we drove for about 45 minutes to Sami, where we first stopped at the Drogarati Caves. It was an amazing cave where there are thousands of stalactites and stalagmites all around, and that Italians sawed off some for keepsakes. There used to be concerts held there, but the noise damaged the cave, and they have now been banned. We took pictures, explored the decently-sized cave (not as big as I thought it would be), and then hit the road again.

On our way to Melissani lake, we all ate our packed lunches; I packed the leftovers from last night’s dinner of moussaka and Greek salad, and Jenn’s Kefalonian meat pie. I ate my share and gave the rest to her during the bus ride. We arrived at Melissani lake after about a 15 minute bus ride and walked down a short underground hall to the underground lake. Since there were over 20 of us, we split up in 2 groups. I was in the 2nd group with our prof, Isabelle, Lisa, Jenn and others. For a stupid reason, this one guy in our group decided he wanted to touch the sacred waters of the lake, but when he stretched back up from bending down into the lake, we heard a small plop into the water and he realized it was his camera! He didn’t have his zippered pockets done up, so his camera came fall out and went straight down to the 30m depth of the lake. The water was crystal clear and blue, but there was no way he would be getting his camera back; all we could do was watch it as it sank to the bottom.

After that little bit of excitement, luckily the guy wasn’t upset about it (it was a crappy camera and he didn’t use it much to take pictures), we continued on our bus ride to an old abandoned monastery in Sami, only about 20 minutes away. Here Vasilis found an almond tree and started to crack a few open for us with two rocks. We started seeing the nuts around everywhere so we began to crack a few for ourselves. They tasted pretty good, but because they’re so much work to open we can understand why they’re expensive in stores. Here we took a few pictures, ventured on to find a fountain and parts of the church in ruin.

We were done after about 30 minutes at the monastery and carried onto the Ancient Acropolis of Sami, which was about a 10 minute drive away; from one mountain top to another neighbouring one. Along the way, Vasislis stopped to pick some kind of fruit we’ve never seen before. Apparently it can be used to make ciporo, which is a very strong and gasoline-tasting wine fermenting alcohol. According to our prof, if you eat enough of it you can get drunk. So Vasilis picked enough for everyone on the bus to try, and a few extra for him to eat along the way. Once we got to the Acropolis, our prof lectured a little bit and then we ventured our way up into the deepest balk in captivity in Greece, and the Acropolis around it. We didn’t get to enjoy much of the surroundings because we were busy watching our steps and making sure to avoid the goat and cow poo everywhere! It smelt really bad and when we returned back to the bus, there were over 30 big flies in our bus, since Vasilis leaves the bus doors open while we’re out. It was a pretty gross bus ride back to downtown Sami, with all the flies, but we stopped there for a bathroom break, a snack break and I bought a souvenir postcard there for my sister. Isabelle and I shared an apple pie, that turned out to be a pie crust filled with cake and slices of apple. It wasn’t what we were expecting and we were a little disappointed. But regardless it was a nice snack and we ate it along the water with our class.

At about 5pm we headed back onto our fly-infested bus, and drove back home to Poros. It took about 45 minutes and I took a small nap on the bus. We arrived back home and I caught up on my blog entries, while Isabelle did some laundry. She came back down at 6pm saying that we’ve all been invited for free dessert crepes at Panteli’s at 7:30pm, so we made our chicken nuggets on the pan, mixed a honey mustard sauce ourselves and sliced some carrots for a small dinner. We almost finished the rest of ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ and ate dinner. Joe came knocking at 7:30pm to rally the group to head down to Panteli’s together. It was about 9 of us who walked down, and Steph, Lisa and Jenn were already there with Steph’s mom and great aunt. So we grabbed a table, and Panteli came to double check that we wanted banana chocolate crepes with strawberry ice cream. And when he came with the food, it was better than could have ever imagined!!! He served it hot, fresh and with his famous strawberry ice cream that I had last night, with whipped cream and chocolate sauce on top! It was deliciously sinful and we were treated to one each! At the end of the meal, his mom even came out with free shots for us! There was an extra at the end so she took it herself! The woman’s a party animal!

We walked back, stopped off at Gioria’s and then headed home. Lisa and Jenn headed to Kivatos’ tonight, but Isabelle and I were so tired that we decided to make it an early night and sleep.

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