PART ONE: Pre-Greece
The day before Nat got here a couple boys from SLC came to visit (which by "visit" I mean they wanted a free place to crash, which Amy was generous enough to allow 3 stinky boys to stay a couple of nights on air-mattresses in the office). They were a riot and Nat and I let them tag along with us to Lucca and Cinque Terre, where we made awesome shadows on the Lucca wall and jumped cliffs in Cinque Terre. It was pretty fun.
Andrea flew in on Saturday morning and Nat and I decided (mostly I decided) to be mean and keep her up for a girl's night. Amy joined us three with our neighbor and some friends from the Pisa Branch. We had a grand time, but I'm not so sure Andrea even remembers it!! P.S. Italian Karaoke = Local Italian Idol tryouts. (No one sings "girls just wanna have fun" only Andrea Bocelli)...
After that l o n g Saturday night we attended church early the next morning and boarded a train to Milano. We stayed a short night in Milano and then caught our airplane to.......
GREECE!!
PART TWO: Athens
Let me warn you...flying into Athens ain't the most sight ever seen. In fact the long bus ride into the city was quite depressing. Athens is HUGE and filled to the brim with people. Our hotel "Easy Access" was nice, but in a stinky and seedy part of the city. We got a great fill of some inner workings of Athens at night. And despite the name our hotel was quite safe :) And as long as you got into the hotel before dark you had nothing to worry about, which in fact gave us some extra time... don't judge.
Rachel the Goddess of Relief Society Arms
Natalie the Goddess of Weight Lifting
Andrea the Goddess of Interpretive Dancing
ANYWAY... the next day we set out to meet our muses, the Gods of Olympus.
The Acropolis
The Parthenon is a sight to see! Even if half is covered in construction you still feel the ancient majesty.
We were prepared with our Greek flags.
We are total Greek Parthenon supporters!!
The Parthenon and the rest of the city
are dedicated to the Goddess Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom.
It remained the cities place of
worship for many many years.
Also on top of the Acropolis hill are two other temples. One, The Temple of Athena Nike is a place of worship of one of my favorite Greek mythology Goddesses: Nike the Goddess of Victory...she's awesome.
The Temple (that was under construction, not a pretty picture moment) was dedicated to Nike to secure hope of victory.
The second temple on top of Athens is the Erechtheion Temple. Erechtheus was a greek hero gone bad and was defeated by the God of the Sea, Poseidon. In reward for his victory over Erechtheus Athena allowed Poseidon to share this temple. The side right by my head holding many statues is Athena's side and the oppisite side, which you can't see, was given to Poseidon.
The Agora
This photo is copyrighted by Natalie Roe. Any copy or distribution of this photo without her consent will be punishable by law. haha.When the monarchy of Athens was overthrown by an aristocratic bunch of guys the political center of Athens and Greece was changed from the Acropolis to the Agora, which was our next stop...
The most impressive thing within the Agora is the Hephaesteion Temple. The most preserved ancient Greek temple in Greece. And it is definitely impressive.
The temple is dedicated to the God of Metal Working, Hephaestus. It was amazing siting on top of the hill.
The other main part of the Agora is the Stoa of Attalos. Shops were erected here and many debates were made. Also, more recently, many countries signed their entrance treaty into the European Union within these walls.
An interesting tidbit; if you find yourself in Athens with a camera make sure you don't make the same mistakes we did, it almost cost us our lives...
It is strictly forbidden to make funny faces or poses next to any of the greek statues. So following my past behavior, I took some illegal pictures:
Our last stop of the day is
The Temple of the Olympian Zues and Hadrian's Arch
(For those who are familiar with "Hercules" the Disney film...this is the Temple that Hercules "Goes the Distance" and talks to his father Zues)
Hadrian's Arch was built many years after the temple. It was built for the Roman Emperor Hadrian when they triumphed over the Greeks. Which is not pictured here.
Also visited but missing pictures are; Dionysus (the God of Wine) Theatre, the Roman Agora (the main part of Athens during the Roman Empire), and the outdoor market place of Athens. These were all AWESOME, but the pictures just added too much length to this really short post.... which brings us to:
PART THREE: The Island of Santorini
This is the BEST part of the trip, the actual vacation part.
So we ride a 8 hour ferry ride from Athens to Santorini. We had a fair amount of card playing (Lubbock Christian; best card game in existence) and singing outloud among the passing Greeks Isles.
We arrived at the main port of Santorini and went to our hostel which was about 30 meters from the black sand beachs of Perissa, Santorini. For only 12 Euro a night, uh AWESOME!!
The next morning we embarked on a small sailing ship that floated us to the Volcano in the middle of the Santorini Islands.
(check out the map in the pic above, our hostel was where nat and andy are pointing, the volcano is the dark circle in the middle of the Caldera or circle of water)
This Volcano totally blasted a huge hole in the island which made it three islands, which our sail boat also took us to. It was mucho fun-o.
The last stop of our little sailboat tour was Oia (pronounced E-ah, ANDY!!) where we watched a BEAUTIFUL sunset! (The pictures above have the town of Oia behind us.) But first when the sailboat dropped us off at the port underneath the cliff city of Oia we were very tired of our day in the sun....
so.... we hired some help to climb the steep staircase.
It was scary. I almost dropped off a cliff to my death (and the donkey's), but we all lived and managed to swipe some pics even.
Oia is the reason Santorini is recognized on the tourist's map. It is simply and enthrallingly beautiful!
And the sunset is unlike any I have ever experienced.
Our next day in Santorini was just as amazing. We woke up late, about 10 am. (This is where the "real" vacation part comes in) We walked into the little town of Perissa and found a place that would rent out atv's to 3 young american girls. (We tried scooters, but they didn't trust us that far). Atv's are allowed on the streets of Santorini so we took a whole day and explored everything the big island could offer. We didn't see half of it!
This is where we got some good camera shots... just enjoy the sights. There is NO way that our cameras (or anyone else's for that matter) could capture what it felt like when you saw these things. One of most beautiful things God has created for us to experience!
First we went to The Red Beach and worked on our tans
Second we checked out the lighthouse
Then we tried not to fall off the cliffs looking at the blue Koolaid water beneath us
Seriously these cliffs were 59 million feet above the ocean!!! One bad step and the last thing you see is a huge thing of blue Koolaid coming fast.
It was so cool! Seriously! I loved it!!!
That night, our last night we found a small club (with a total of 10 people there... lame) and did some dancing by ourselves and went to dinner at a traditional Greek Santorini Restaurant. Yummy! Minus the whole octopus tentacles and mushrooms!
The next day we took the 8 hour ferry ride back to Athens and that morning we left for Italy once more.
And that was the end of our wonderful trip to Greece.
it was okay, i guess.
Sorry my post is so short, I'll do a longer one next time.
:)
Ciao Ciao
Love ya girls!!
