Its a hard knock life...

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After an exhilarating and tiring four days in Egypt, Sarah and I spent a day back in Athens, mostly regrouping, and then headed out to Crete for the remainder of spring break!

We arrived in Crete around 6am and waited at a passenger's center (nice building with a little shop and chairs) for about an hour when we decided we would be likely to find a bus. Our first destination was Rethymno, a little over an hour bus ride from Heraklion. We found the town without problem and got ourselves checked into the hostel. After freshening up a bit, we went for a walk around the town, which was really nice and incredibly familiar, since many small Greek towns are pretty similar- a nice welcome home-ish for me.

After a few hours of walking around, we decided to head on down to the beach. It was quite small, but the sand was lovely and no one else was around! It was a tad cool, but I can't really complain... we spent about six hours lazying around the beach. It was wonderful. That night we went to an amazing creperie and Sarah and I split a giant crepe between the two of us.

The next morning, we left bright and early to get back to Heraklion as soon as possible. We found our hotel, dropped off our luggage (it was too early to check in) and made our way to the bus stop for Knossos! We had a lovely time exploring Knossos, though we took great pleasure in laughing at the silliness of Evans for his often nonsensical reconstructions.

Next we made our way to the Archaeological Museum in Heraklion. The museum is actually under construction, so most of the artifacts can't be seen. But there is a temporary exhibit for the most important objects. It was really awesome because most of the stuff in there I recognized from my studies and some of the object I knew quite a lot about!

We got back to the hotel fairly early, all things considering, and took the rest of the day pretty easy- mostly just doing a bit of exploring around Heraklion. We spent a good hour or more at a cafe- very Greek- and walking up and down the pedestrian streets until we found some dinner.

On Friday, Sarah and I met up with Dr. Siafakis. Apparently he had planned to sail us out to the island Dia- about an hour and a half off the coast of Crete, then take us to a monastery, and then have us to his house for dinner. Unfortunately his son, Hermes, hadn't been feeling very well so Dr. Siafakis came without his wife and son and had not had an opportunity to ready the boat. We started off by sitting at a cafe for a bit and enjoying some lovely conversation. Then he showed us the boat anyway (it was really beautiful and is named after his son 😊 ) and then we walked through Heraklion a bit and he pointed out a few Venetian buildings. Next he drove us to Sisi, a small port town not too far away, where we had lunch. We went to a taverna and had one of the best meals I've had thus far in Greece. I tried octopus and was happily surprised, despite it being very chewy!

Friday night Sarah and I went to see a Greek Orthodox Easter ceremony. It was a precession to resemble a funerary precession for Jesus. Saturday night we went to another ceremony. This one was at midnight and was a giant celebration of the Resurrection. There were lots of candles and fireworks and loud banging noises! Apparently on Saturday during the day many people roast lambs on a spit in the front yard, but Sarah and I didn't see any... maybe because we were in a city...

Saturday and Sunday day we spent primarily on the beach. It was pretty rough having to sit in the sun and laze around the beach all day... Somehow, we survived. We even survived having to go swimming in the Mediterranean sea!

Spring break is now over and it is time to get back to "real" life... if you call having class at places like the Acropolis and such real life...

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Photos

faience snake goddess!
an illegal picture Sarah managed to take- you aren't supposed to pose with artifacts in this museum