When in Rome? When in Greece...

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Hi Guys!

Before I tell you about Greece (thus far) I need to make a few comments, or apologies, about my blog posts. Please try your best to overlook spelling and grammer errors. I usually consider myself a fairly decent writer, however I can't spell (I'm a spellcheck generation baby) and I am usually writing these very late at night or in quite a hurry and trying to squeeze as much information in as I can in the few minutes I have and don't have much time for proof reading. So please forgive me! There is also no way I can come close to doing justice to the experience I am having, because truly, it's beyond words. However, I will try my best to capture as much as I can and share it with all of you! I hope you can still enjoy (Karina...I love you, you bitch).

Also, before I go on with this entry. Please ignore the bit about pictures. This computer doesn't seem to want to upload my pictures afterall. I promise I will share them the next time I am at a computer!

Onto Greece...

Dave and I arrived in Athens late on Friday afternoon. An hour delayed flight, a long wait for luggage, and a 40-minute very crowded train ride into the center of the city, and a long and winding walk to our hotel left us with just enough time to plop our sweaty backpacks down and catch the Acropolis for an hour before it closed. While I wish we had more time at this impressive sight, we arrived just in time to watch the sun start setting over the city of Athens. When the Acropolis closed we followed a small crowd of people to a nearby rock/lookout point where we sat and watch the rest of the beautiful sunset. This moment nearly brought me to tears as I think the reality of my experience set in. I suddenly had the overwhelming realization of 'Wow, we're really doing this." Then I heard the sad little noise my camera makes when the battery dies and I was utterly dispappointed. Sidenote: I won't have many pictures to show of Greece thus far as we only managed to get our hands on a working power adaptor this morning. So the majority of the pictures I have to share on this post were taken this morning on our moped ride from our guesthouse over here to the internet cafe. Continuing... after the sun was set we headed back to Plaka, the area of Athens we were staying in. Plaka is extremely quaint and cute LOOKING, but is in fact extremely overpriced and very touristy. It's a great place to stay for one night in Greece as you are very central, close to all the sights, and as an English speaking tourist it is very easy to navigate. However, I would not recommend spending any more time in Plaka than simply a few minutes to wander the little side streets. This is exactly what Dave and I did before heading over to another area (the name escapes me) to grab some dinner of Greek Salad (of course) and yummy Dorada which is the local fish here...so it's very cheap! After dinner we headed to Ermou street for a beer. This street was packed with hundreds of locals, young and old, sitting at all these outdoor tables drinking everything from Espressos to pints of beer. The energy was amazing. This was also the first taste I had of the Greek schedule as we had trouble getting a seat for dinner at 11pm and the area where we got drinks only seemed to be getting crowded around 1am. Dad, I can see why you love Athens so much. You would fit right in! We headed back to the hotel at a decent hour (um, 3am) as we had to wake up at 6:30 to catch our ferry to Paros.

The ferries in Greece are an experience in themselves. They literally feel like cruiseships with restaurants, shops, cabins, etc.. I would tell you more about the 5 hour ferry ride to Paros, however, I spent the majority of it sleeping under a table in the lounge area (Dave and I were too late to get a seat...the "10 minute walk" to the port turned out to be 45 minutes when you incluse the actual walk to our ferry dock...mind you was done in 90 degree heat with our heavy packs and very bad hangovers in tow.)

We decided to come to Paros at the suggestion of my sister, Karina. Her information was PERFECT! This island is much less expensive and much less touristy than many of the other islands such as Mykonos. Everything just feels a bit more authentic here as this is the place all the Greeks come for their vacation. At first this made it a bit tough to meet people, but, of course, Dave and I have already managed to make quite a few fantastic Greek friends!

We arrived in Paros without accomodations booked because we heard it's better to just book directly with a hotel owner who will approach you at the port entrance. Little did we know what we were in for. It's like having 100 sweaty and smelly auctioneers screaming things at you all at once. It was nuts. Dave and I copletely lucked out and happened to stumble across an AMAZING deal for the most perfect place just 5 minutes outside of Noussa which, to me, ifs absolutely the BEST place to stay on Paros. We are staying at a guesthouse called The Young Inn. We have a little studio apartment with a bathroom, AC, and a little kitchen for only 30 Euros a night! We also have a little terrace that sits in the garden with a table and chairs where Dave and I have been eating our breakfast every morning. Cooking our own food for many of our meals has saved us SO much money. Dave has also already mastered making Tzaziki and Greek Salad, so I am not missing out on anything. We have also gone out for dinner in the lively port twice since we eat our dinner around 8pm and then eat dinner out at midnight.

This is a great time to tell you about the schedule (or lack thereof) here in Greece. It took me a little while to catch onto how things work around here, but I believe I finally had my "when in Greece" night last night. The days go something like this. Wake up around 11am or noon and head to the beach. Leave the beach around 7 or 8pm (when the sun starts to go down) and head to grab a light "first dinner" before napping until anywhere between 11pm and 2am depending on whether you are having a second dinner or not (last night we had a fabulous seafood dinner at the port wit a few of our new friends who guided us through some delicious local fair). After dinner you go to one of the 19230829014 cafes (it's out of control how many cafes they have here) to have coffe BEFORE heading out to the bars/clubs. Mind you, this means you are sitting down to a relaxed coffee at about 2am. Then you dance your butt off until about 5am before goign to the store to get more food and beer to take to the beach to watch the sun rise over the Agean Sea. You finally role into bed aroun 7am, sleep until about 11am, and do it all over again. This was our night last night. So you say "when in Rome", I say 'when in Greece". Seeing as we are heading to Rome next week...I can only imagine what we are in for!

We leave tomorrow for Santorini which, as most of you know, is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. This will also be the place we celebrate Dave's birthday (the 11th)! I will share more from there.

As always, I love and miss you all!!

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