Greece love.

Hello! I am writing this on the train to Florence. Rome was fantastic but for the moment, we are going to focus on Greece! So, our program included a cruise portion that consisted of port stops in Santorini, Istanbul, Kudashi (Ephesus), Athens, Mykonos, Pompeii and Naples. I have never done a cruise before so as we were going through the process of boarding, I was super interested in what it was going to be like. It ended up being everything I imagined. Endless food, activities always going on, everyone is nice and cheerful. It was a great time. They had a house band that plays every night and needless to say, I was on the dance floor every night. It was absolutely fantastic. At this time of year, you can imagine that all the passengers were older but we had a blast with them! They were a riot and we were the token young people on the entire ship!

Anyways, I am going to combine the Greece port stops, even though we didn’t visit them consectively. The first stop on the entire cruise was Santorini. Now, with what I have heard about Santiorini, it made me extremely excited to finally see it. We arrived and had to take a littler boat to the port since the huge cruise ship could not port in the little dock. As we arrive, we had already planned to take donkeys up the mountain (because Santorini is perched up on top of a mountain). We pay the guys and they lug us over the donkey and we were on our way up the mountain. But, the entire time it was not enjoyable. They treated the donkeys very badly, yelled at them and hit them. It was a total downer the entire time. Also, my donkey was very competitive and was blocking out all the other donkeys as we climed the hill, cut people off who were walking down… it was an experience. When we finally descended the donkeys, we were relieved, said goodbye and were on our way to explore Santorini. (By the way, there is a Facebook page to free the Santorini donkeys. I encourage everyone to like it.)

My Donkey

Amazing

We walked to the end of the city. It was magnificent. 

Sav and I had frozen Greek yogurt. I am not kidding, the best thing I ever tasted. 

Now to get down the mountain, we took the cable car (instead of the donkeys) and saw the most unbelievable sunset. It continued when we were on the littler boat. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the sunset. 

The view from our ship. 

I haven't experienced beauty like this since Ireland. A truly wonderful time.

Now, a couple days go by, when we visited Turkey, but then we arrive in Athens. Well, our port was not in Athens so we had to take the metro to Athens. We exit the metro and within a 10 minute walk, we are at the Acropolis. Man, there was a lot of people. It is also because our cruise does tours to all the major places so there is always a gurantee that a lot of people will be there. Other than that, the Acroplois was unreal. I was basically staring at it for a good amount of time, trying to convine myself that I was actually looking at the real thing. It has happened eveytime I finally see something that is so old or so famous, or both.

I bought these glasses with a mirrored lens and so now, at every place I am wearing them, I try to get it reflected in them while taking a picture. It is tough and it definitely takes a lot of tries. 

After we got a look at the Parthenon, we moved down to the theatre of Dionysus and started our play. So, one of the assignments for our Athens adventure was that we had to perform part of the Dionysus play in the actual Dionysus theatre. Now, they don’t let you even walk on the theatre and always have people watching you at all times. So, needless to say, we did it off to the side. It was a riot. I was the chorus leader and all we did was make bizarre sounds. If you want an interesting and historical thing to read, I recommend it. Very philosophical yet interesting. We took the metro back, and we were off.

The last Greece stop was Mykonos. Mykonos was SO COOL. I absolutely loved it. All the buildings were white and it was exactly what you picture of a Greek island. They have these awesome windmills on the island so we went off to see those first.

They had random cats walking around. 

After, we walked to this little cove and now had free time to explore the island. Morgan, Savannah and I stayed at the cove and Morgan and I went swimming!  I SWAM IN THE MEDITERRANEAN OCEAN. If I could sum my experience up in 3 words, it would be: cold, salty, and fantastic. After we finally plunged down into the icy water, I was just chilling there and I look down and I see all these little fish swimming around my legs. Unreal. The water was so clear and blue. Exactly what you picture. Morgan went back to shore and then I was just chilling, buoyant as ever from all the salt.

I was super content until a fish tried to either bit/suck on me/ran into my leg. I screamed out of instinct and all the tourist who were looking were shocked. I completely laughed it off but it was definitely an experience…. And I loved it.

Overall, Greece was so cool, basically unreal the entire time. It was filled with beauty, history, and great times. I am definitely coming back.

Turkey is next!

xoxo,

Halle