Hey hey hey!
This past week has been a pretty incredible one. For two sessions of class last week, we got to walk around the city (including entering the Parliament). I don't mind sitting in class and being taught - I always learn a lot - but nothing beats learning by experience. I can tell that I'm really going to enjoy this method of learning for the semester. Now, I'm sure many of you are wondering if classes get cancelled in Greece. Well, they do :). Wednesday, our classes were cancelled because our teacher got sick. It was not good that our teacher was sick, but we all really loved having the day off. It was like waking up in the morning, checking your e-mail, and finding out that today is a snow day, except there is no robot lady who calls my phone at 6 AM when school is cancelled like at St. Ben's. There's nothing like waking up to school being cancelled. Wednesday was also Chris' birthday, and since he is in the apartment next to ours, we cooked him dinner. We made a lasagna...it looked kinda funny but tasted surprisingly good!
Then we had an awful weekend because we went to Santorini, which is the ugliest place on earth. Oops, I meant to say the opposite. It seriously was one of the best weekends I've ever had and maybe one of the best places I've ever visited. We of course stayed up late the night before, so after taking a nap, we got up at 4:30 AM to catch a ferry. It was really nice - the seats were like an airplane (but bigger and more comfy) and you could get up and walk around the whole time. We saw a great sunrise and enjoyed each other's company for 8 hours. As we got off the ferry, the first thing we noticed was how beautiful it was. The water is the most intense blue-turquoise you have ever seen. It was like we stepped into the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants or Mama Mia. We took a bus up the mountain to the town of Fira, which is where we stayed. Our hotel was great...it had a pool in the middle of a courtyard filled with flowers, and we got free breakfast! Friday evening, a few of the girls and I took the bus to the town of Oia. When people normally picture Greece, this is the place that pops into their head. As we went along the winding roads along the cliffs, we could see the sunset as we approached town. The sun was hot pink, not even joking. The sunsets there were the most beautiful I've ever seen. The town was really great, not very busy and filled with the blue roofed, white buildings one thinks of when they think of Greece. At night, you can see the whole city lit up down the mountain...so cool! We enjoyed a nice spaghetti dinner with this view...not bad!
Saturday was even more incredible. After breakfast, we all got on a sailboat and hiked up a volcano. Yes that's right, a volcano. There have been some big eruptions there in the past, so it looks like mountains with a bunch of big craters. There are still some spots that are active, so we could see smoke coming out of some cracks, which is pretty crazy. After this, we took the boat to some hot springs. We were very grateful for this because it got hot on the boat, so we loved jumping in. The water was not as warm as you would think, just luke warm. We saw some goats walking along the mountains above, and also saw names and handprints that people had put on the rocks from the past. We then made our way back to the hotel via riding donkeys up the hill, which was so funny. Then Jen and I decided that we really needed to go parasailing. The island is small enough to go from one end to the other, so Jen, Kate, Chris and I rented two 4-wheelers and drove them to the black beach. I'm sure we were quite the sight on those, wearing these big biker helmets that make me have to work extra hard to keep my small head up. We loved driving those little 4-wheelers around the island! We then got to the black beach and found the water sport place. We got onto a little sport boat, put in these harness thingys, and then they connected us to the parachute. They had us sit on the back of the boat and then all of a sudden, we were floating up into the air! I can't even describe to you how great it was to be flying through the air, over the ocean, with the mountains and the beach in the background. Unbelievable. Having Jen as a companion was great, she was giggling like crazy the whole time which made it even more fun. They had some fun with us, letting us drop all the way down til our feet were in the water and then shooting us back up into the air again. It was so much fun, and one of coolest things I've ever done! I highly recommend it. We then spent some time on the beach, because we really liked it - it was a lot quieter than the other beaches we've been to, and the sand was black! We then 4-wheeled it back to Oia to spend some time there again and had some dinner. Another perfect day.
I'm sure you are thinking it can't get any better, but it does. Sunday morning, we went back to Oia to cliffs that you can jump off of and swim. These cliffs were probably around 15 to 20 feet tall, so quite the drop! I have done it before at the Quarries in Saint Cloud, but this was better because it was in the ocean in Greece. It is a little scary to be standing on the edge of a rock pretty high up over the ocean, but it's so much fun, something else that I recommend for people. It was beautiful. We then got to have another 8 hour ferry ride home, getting back around midnight when the metro closes. Luckily, there is a bus that runs 24 hours that we caught, and finally arriving home around 1:30 or 2. It is funny how this little apartment is starting to feel like home. So to sum up, we saw amazing sunsets, went in a sailboat, hiked up a volcano, swam in hot springs, rode donkeys, drove 4-wheelers, parasailed, hung out at a black beach, and jumped off of cliffs. Not bad. Pictures to come!
We have a pretty busy and exciting week coming up, so I will have updates soon! Hoping all is well!
Peace and Blessings,
Laura
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