Last visit with the Family!

My last visit with my Greek family was November 28th-29th. I ended up riding the tram out there again and this time I thought the stop I got off at wasn't that far from the cafe so I would just walk... ohhh nooo I walked and walked and walked and walked for what seemed like forever... I think it was actually something like 30-40min but it was hot and my backpack was so heavy at one point I put my backpack on the front of me and carried it like that because it was killing my back. Anyway I finally made it to the cafe an hour later than I said I would be there but I was excited to see Chris and Eleni and Marilena my other cousin was even there to hang out! :) We sat and talked for a bit and then the 4 of us sat down to lunch. We had chicken souvlaki, greek salad, big beans, and a few other things. It was delicious!! After lunch we cleaned up and headed back to the house. They are still working on remodeling the upstairs of the house so I took some updated pictures of the progress!

We all were tired so we took naps for a bit and then after a couple hours; Chris, Eleni and I got ready and went to have coffee and this really awesome cafe. We sat upstairs in this all glass room and I had a delicious cappuccino and then yet again we were off to go eat! This time we went to a restaurant with live music and Cretan food! It was absolutely delicious and the music was fantastic. Eleni said it was mostly love songs from the 50s and 60s. It was my first time hearing live Greek music so that was really fun! The food was great too! We had a baked potato dish with cheese, eggplants with red sauce and cheese, greek salad, cheese pies among a few other dishes. I was extremely full by the end! After our dinner we headed back to the house and I was soooo full at this point I couldn't sleep. My tummy was bothering me for so long! But I think finally towards the last half of the night I got some solid sleep in. The next morning we got up and headed over to Marilena's for breakfast. Her place is only a 5min walk from the house so we just walked over. She lives in this amazing apartment that has the most amazing view. She can see the golf course, Piraeus the port, the islands and some of the city. Absolutely gorgeous! And it was yet again another warm day! Felt like summer to me and they were making fun of me saying how they thought it was cold. Quite humorous! Marilena made me a huge plate of scrambled eggs and feta which was delicious but she didn't think I was eating it apparently and kept asking me if I liked it and kept offering to make me something else... so cute! After we ate we went out on the balcony and sat for a bit and then Chris and Eleni took me down to the beach for coffee. The beach was gorgeous we sat right along the water and the sun was shining down on us! Amazing! I am going to miss the weather so much! After coffee we went on a mission to get something they call "sweets" its basically fruit with sugar and water and it seems similar to jam/jelly but I guess we'll see when I open it when I get home! I got one for my mom and one for my Nana. I'm sure they will enjoy it! We stopped at 3 places until we found it so I hope they like it! :) After we were done with that we stopped at the cafe to get a couple things then off we went back to my cousin Marilena's for lunch. She made cannelloni pasta and this delicious salad. She made a dressed from feta, yogurt, olive oil and some other things and it was similar to the texture of mayo but it was super delicious! Of course they served me a LARGE helping and I was basically required to eat ALL that was on my plate lol at one point they even said I don't eat much and I was like are you kidding?? this is the most I've eaten in months! I felt like it was thanksgiving dinner times 100! After that we of course had to have dessert which was a chocolate banana cream cake thing which was delicious and then a chocolate mousse which all was super delicious but I was literally going to explode towards the end because I had eaten soooo much.... at one point I couldn't even swallow what was in my mouth but with the help of some water I managed to get it down haha! After we finished lunch Marilena packed up some leftovers for me to take and then Chris and Eleni drove me back to the apartment. It was sad to say goodbye but I'm hoping I'll be able to come back someday! And my Aunt and Uncle weren't there all weekend so that was disappointing but all the more reason for me to come back! I love my Greek family! <3

View of golf course from Marilena

Adorable deck at Marilena's

My cousin Marilena and I

Rocky!

The house!

Eleni and I

Chris and I

Thanksgiving in Greece!

Thanksgiving in Greece... interesting concept... but we had to do it considering how sad it would have been for all of us to not have any sort of Thanksgiving and have all of our families back home celebrating without us! Our teachers David and Liz were nice enough to cook turkey, gravy and stuffing for our dinner and the rest of us brought veggies, dessert, bread and other such things! When they day started I was pretty upset considering I had to go to school on Thanksgiving and even had a quiz! So lame! I was looking forward to our dinner but didn't expect the food to be much of anything and figured I'd be missing home the whole time... but luckily to my surprise the night turned out much differently! I started the night by getting to the Athens Center early in order to skype my mom and people started arriving. We started taking pictures and getting excited to eat! Once we had finally all arrived it was time to eat! We all dished up and headed into the other room to eat. The Athens Center provided us with wine and other such beverages and they even put some candles out at the tables. We had an amazing time socializing and eating delicious food!! Much better than I thought it would be! Not the same as home but I was not disappointed in anyway! Most of the Athens Centre staff and some of our teachers even came! It was really great that even though they don't celebrate Thanksgiving they came to hang out with us and enjoy a great dinner!










After dinner Jessie, Betsy, Hana, Tabby and I decided to go down to none other than our favorite cafe in Vernava. I was having a great time at this point Hana even videoed me doing what we like to call the Bugatsa run... and a little bit of my Trogdor... :) I will miss the cafe very much because we have gotten to know the owners and servers and spent a lot of time there and of course the food is DELICIOUS! I will never forget this place!!

2 Days/1 Night in Delphi!

November 23rd-24th we went on an overnight trip to Delphi. Luckily again it was good weather for our trip! We had quite the long bus ride to our first site and again got the little bus which we had to share a set of seats again instead of getting our own but I sat next to Betsy the whole time which was fun! :) Our first stop was a byzantine monestary which was pretty cool to see. There are actual monks that live there! We walked around for a bit and got to have our picnic lunch there.


After seeing the monastery we had another bus ride to Delphi. We saw the lower part of the archeological site which was where some of the athletes trained. We also got to drink this water from this fountain and it's like known as like some of the best water in the world. It was great but it took forever for all of us to fill up our bottles!

After seeing the site we went up to our hotel for the night and yet again I was with Jessie! yay! our hotel was nice but the view was what made it AMAZING! We could see the sea and a small town below. The sunset was gorgeous! We spent the rest of the evening attempting to work on our papers and then Jessie, Betsy and I went to dinner at a cafe. After that we watched Greek tv until we fell asleep.


The next morning we went to the upper part of the archeological site and the Delphi museum The site was pretty cool we got to see the stadium there!




After we saw the sites we had some time to have lunch then we were supposed to get back on the bus. Betsy, Hana, Whitney and I decided to get a bottle of wine for the ride back and grab some gyros! After sitting on some steps and having the wine we grabbed our gyros and off we went to the bus. It was about a 4 hour ride back but I got a little bit of sleep and some work done on my papers so it wasn't too bad. I was happy to be back though because I could finally settle down after having done 3 trips back to back!

Stockholm!

On our 3 day weekend in November I visited Stockholm, Sweden with Betsy and Christina! We got on our way on Thursday afternoon! It was a sunny day in Athens and we headed out to Syntagma to get on the metro to the airport. (pic below of me waiting in the extremely hot metro station)
After our long ride to the airport and checking in we were finally on the plane, tired and sweaty from our trek but we were excited for our adventure!

We were on Austria Air and they had GREAT snacks! We had this yummy fruity pudding type thing! I enjoyed it a lot as you can see... :)
After our long day of traveling to Sweden we had made it!!! It was night time and we had to get into Stockholm which is about 40min from the airport. We figured out it would be cheapest to ride the bus there so we got our tickets and off we went on the bus!
It was super cold!!! Stockholm is about the same latitude as Alaska so it was nice a cold when we got there! I was FREEZING! and of course just our luck it was raining! I got bundled with my scarf and gloves and got out my umbrella! Both Christina and Betsy are from Alaska so of course they didn't think it was cold but I was super cold! It was a short walk to our hotel but we finally made it!
Much to our surprise when we walked into our room it was about 7x6 feet... I thought I was going to DIE in there! SO TINY!!! and no windows! I literally thought I would suffocate... It was terrible... but we got ourselves together and off we went to find dinner! We found this little restaurant and didn't realize they were closing but they let us eat anyway! they server was really nice and we got MEXICAN!!! it was AMAZING! hadn't had it since I left home! I was super excited! After dinner we came back to the hotel and I had to register for classes so I got that finished and Betsy and I had a couple beers and watched the hills until we fell asleep!

The next morning we were up and going. We decided to go see this 17th Century Ship first. Betsy was extremely excited about it. And I figured it'd be pretty cool but our our way I got this funny sense that I was in downtown Seattle... so I mentioned it to the girls and they said the same thing! It felt so much like Seattle! It was weird! but nice! I felt like I was in downtown Seattle about to do my Christmas shopping! :)


We eventually got to the museum where the 17th Century ship was and that was pretty cool. It was kind of funny the way it went down though... it only went 1500 meters and then a slight breeze made it fall over and sink. Apparently something about the weight and what not made it sink so that was pretty hilarious. But its crazy how well they have kept it in tact!



After we saw the ship we went looking for lunch! We again found mexican food! yummy! We went to a place called the TacoBar and I had a the yummy burrito below! :)
Next we were off to see IKEA!!! The largest IKEA and of course their flagship store as it is in Sweden. It was HUGE!!! There was a free bus that would take us from downtown Stockholm right up to the steps of the store. It was great!

So excited to be there! :)

Betsy and I found the IKEA Family vests! :)

I may have been too big to go down the slide but I still felt like a kid! :)

GIANT IN THE BEAR CHAIR!!! hahahahaha

Just baking some treats! :)

Pretty lamp display!

After our adventure to IKEA we came back and decided to track down some beer/wine for the night ahead! We picked some up and headed back to our room to relax for a bit before we went out. At this point I was still sad about our super small room and my nasty beer that was 7.5% alcohol... sick! but I was still excited to experience Stockholm nightlife!
We ended up finding out about this Irish Pub that was called the Dubliner and we thought it sounded like fun. We got ready and headed out! We got there and it was PACKED! There was a great band playing and we had our first drink but then realized we were starving so we went to this place right next door that had all kinds of food! I ended up having some Turkish food that was absolutely delicious! And it was funny while we were eating in this food court type place this guy comes up to us and says he heard us speaking English and asked us where we were from and all this turns out he was studying in Sweden and he is from the states also but then he proceeds to tell us he is there with his mom cause she was visiting for the weekend and she told him to come talk to us... WEIRD? yes! haha but other than that he did well... hahaha! Anyway after we were pretty much kicked out of this place cause they were closing we headed back to the Dubliner where we got more drinks but there was no place to sit. We were standing there and all of a sudden Betsy says she'll be right back and runs after this group of guys. About 10min later she comes back and tells us she met some guys and they are going to come say hi later. Not more than 10min after that one of guys comes and invites us to their table. There were 4 guys and we had a great time the rest of the night drinking and learning more about the Sweds! :) Their version of cheers was Oi Oi Oi! It was great! The music was awesome! We pretty much danced all night! OHHH and at one point during the night this guy in a red shirt which I will refer to as red shirt man... anyway he calls me over to his table and asks me who my boyfriend is and I was like what? and he said that boy you were sitting with and I said well that's not my boyfriend I just met him tonight and he was like well I think you are cute sit down... and I was like uhhh what??? and he said do you speak english all the time?? and I was like ummm yeah??? haha it was hilarious anyway he went onto tell me I had to sit at his table instead of the other one and I somehow got out of it by saying I wanted to go dance and when he saw me dancing with some guy later that night he yelled at me and then later proceeded to try and kiss me when he was leaving but luckily I avoided that... it was quiet the interesting episode but definitely a story to tell the next day. Back to the guys we had been sitting with they kept asking us where out hotel was and we just kept saying close and they said something about how they wanted to come and we said no its too small then they said we could sleep in their car?? WHAT? noooooo we were not doing that! haha so at the end of the night we somehow just slipped out without saying anything and made it home! :) All in all it was a really fun night!!



The next morning we got up and headed to this place called Wayne's coffee to have breakfast. It is a lot like Starbucks in the states. We had yummy bagels and cream cheese with lattes! :) sooooo good!
After we had breakfast we decided to go explore old town Stockholm and we got a chance to see the royal palace which really wasn't much to see. We basically just walked around and took lots of pictures. It was a pretty relaxing day! :)

At one point we even fed some ducks!

After our day of walking around we headed back to our hotel and relaxed for a bit considering we were exhausted and it was dark out anyway. We hung out for a bit then again went out for dinner. We went back to same food court place from the night before and I got Mexican food again! Yes I'm addicted! but its just so delicious!! We decided to stay in that night because we had to be up and on our way to the airport around 4am. I only got about 3 hours of sleep before we were up and on our way again. We got to the airport and unfortunately our flight was delayed because there was a bunch of fog in Vienna where our layover was so we ended up sleeping on the benches in the airport for a bit before we were able to take off but turns out they held all the connecting flights in Vienna so we just didn't have a layover and we we got into Athens only 15min later than planned!

It was an absolutely amazing trip and I definitely plan on going back someday! Hopefully during the summer next time! :)