Speaking of different languages....we just realized yesterday that we have spoken more Spanish to one another in the last week than ever before. Everyone in Copenhagen and Amsterdam knew English sooo it made it very difficult to say everything we "needed" to say! In Greece a lot of people try to speak English, so when we weren't feeling like talking to people, we would just speak in Spanish- they didn't even try to go there. Althouuuugh, a lot of people here think the language of love is universal and realllllyyyyy tried to speak that language with us- that didn't work out on us so well - some of them were creeps.
Ok, so we are leaving Greece today, and we are really sad. We could be heading home today and it still would have been the greatest vacation. The number of times we have claimed since we have been gone that something was THE best thing we've ever tried or THE best thing we've ever done- says it's the best vacation ever.
I don't think it was until we landed in Greece that we really felt like woooowww- this is vacation!!! We arrived on Monday night really late, but just like every other time we've caught the bus-we sprinted with our backpacks and ended up on the next bus to Piraeus, Greece which is about 45 minutes from the airport. This is Greece's largest port where people leave for the Greek Islands. We arrived in Piraeus and after a very speedy cab ride, we made it to our destination. We proceeded inside to the tiniest and slowest elevator I've ever been on in my life with our big backpacks to the sixth floor as Jenny said to me "I really hope we don't get stuck here". We had to ask the neighbor to let us in because apparently our host was out at a beach party. We got in the house, threw our stuff down and headed straight for the balcony, where we saw this...
Needless to say, we spent a lot of time up here when we were home. But, that's also because it was about 1000 degrees in our bedroom. A whole other story. After a hot night's rest we woke up around noon and headed out to the streets to experience the Greek culture, and especially what we were more excited about....the food!!
There were tons of cute restaurants along the port but we kept walking thinking somehow the next one would be better than the one before. We got to the top of the hill and next to a park we saw some tables out with views of the Mediterranean and the city. We sat down and hoped they would have an English menu because everything in the streets were signs with Greek letters. Our waiter spoke in English as soon as he saw us. We are a very interesting duo when we are together and people don't know where we are from- Jenny definitely looks American and I look ummmmm....I look like I could be from anywhere. Anyways, he recommended that we have the Greek salad and the seafood platter for two, so each of us got one of those ...kidding...but it actually wouldn't be surprising. Greek salad is so simple and so good! It really is only onions, olives, tomatoes, feta and peppers. I usually don't even like onions and I was fighting Jenny to get the last one! Then he came with a huge plate full of fried calamari and other fish.
Just the great food and the view was worth the long trip from DC to Piraeus. The waiter came by frequently to talk and because he wanted to make sure we were having "kefi" which means feeling good and happy. And if you know us after that great lunch we were more kefi than ever! He taught us some Greek words- enough to get by and told us the rules in Greece, which were pretty much do what you want! Annd, just when we thought we couldn't fit anything else, the waiter came back with desert on the house. He was enjoying our company as much as we were enjoying the food.
After lunch we wanted to lay out in the sun on the beach close to our house- so we went back home to get our towels and headed to the beach! Everyone on the beach was very intrigued by us. Everyone was staring at us and didn't care that we could see them. At first it was annoying, but then it got funny! The water was a little chilly at first but after being in the sun it was just PERFECT!! When we got in the water a man followed us in and start speaking to us in broken English asking about plans in Greece. When we told him we were going to Hydra he mentioned that his friend had a business and could get us a good deal on the ferry but we were like, "no thank you, we will figure out." He said "Girls, girlllss, for you, I will fly you to the island" and we were like yeah you will probably fly us over the island on our way to Albania or somewhere far away from our destination. We finally got away from dude, but he found us again and asked us if we wanted to party because he had a club called "Parachute". We took his number so that he would leave us alone and finally he did. There was so much going on at the beach and we wanted to get involved so we joined a volleyball game and nobody spoke English! We didn't know if they were cursing us out or saying good job, next time do better. They were so intense yelling at each other even to us but two seconds later they were all cracking up even we were cracking up, we actually were laughing the whole time- maybe that's why we missed so many balls, oh well! We enjoyed the sunset while playing volleyball on the beach. Our first day had been so good already, we didn't know how good it was about to get the rest of the week!!
On the second day we decided to visit Athens, which technically Pireaus is part of Athens but it's kind of far from downtown. We took a bus to the center and I almost lost Jenny. The bus doors closed with her inside so I had to ran up the hill to the next stop to get in. Thank God there were so many traffic lights- that helped me out- but not as much as Jenny cheering me on/laughing from the inside. Also on the bus nobody paid so we felt like experiencing the culture to the max so we imitated them! We got to the center and we were overwhelmed because we had so much we had to do- we wanted to see it all. The first thing we wanted to do was to visit the Acropolis, which surprisingly was not very well directed- so, we found our way around asking people in the streets. We loved the tiny streets and white houses all over Athens. Could have done without all of them being on a hill...everything was on top of a freaking hill and it was so so so hot. But everything got better when on top of the hill we saw all this......
Words cannot explain how incredible that place is! Jenny got emotional and I turned around and she's crying- and I was going crazy taking pictures of every rock standing and on the ground. We know we are so lucky that we got to see all of this in real life, and know how many people dream to go there one day- because we did too. It was just incredible to see how old the monuments were, and how they built them with no technology like we have now. It just blew our minds standing in front of the Parthenon.
We were still in shock when we came down the hill from the Acropolis, we could only say woow woow woow that was sooo cool that was just awesome, unbelievable, unreal....more than ever, there are not words to explain. What we could explain is how thirsty we were! We sat down at a bar and no joke we drank 4 big bottles of water! We were dying! But it was so worth it! We just wanted to drink our water and have some really cold wine and chill, but we can't go anywhere and expect that. The waiter was so chatty and wanted us to enjoy Greek music while we had some wine. We just payed it so that he would leave us alone but as soon as the song was over he had a playlist written down in our table to keep the Greek songs coming.
There were two more places we wanted to visit in Athens- The Olympic stadium and Lykavittos Hill (where we wanted to see the sunset.) We got there with some directions from people in the streets and we found everything easily. We went uuuuup another hill again but this time is was a bigger hill. But it was so worth it because we would have the view of the entire city while the sun was going down. We enjoyed dinner in a restaurant on top of the hill and sat amazed at the view of this endless city.
Everything sounds juuuust PERFECT on this trip, right? Well before you think so... just know that we stopped by the hospital because Jenny got bitten in the leg by a vicious insect before we left the States, and the infection was spreading-it did not look good, it was different everyday, and it was scaring us. Just being in a hospital in Greece was not the most fun adventure, but we made it fun and she is on another medicine-he assuuurrreddd us this would work!
Day 3 in Greece was probably our favorite! We went to Hydra, which is a small island only 2 hours away from Piraeus by ferry. We bought our tickets, took a nap on the ferry and woke up on a beautiful island - maybe it was all a dream, because this place is dreamy, just like out of a travel magazine.
First thing we saw as soon as we got off the boat were many donkeys on the port!! There are no motor vehicles allowed on the island, the only transportation is the donkey and they have license plates!!!
We went up for lunch at a pretty rooftop restaurant where we had a Greek salad with the best olives we have ever tried in our lives and some eggplant feta and beef to get some energy and move on with our day!
We asked around the island what would be the best beach to go to and they all agreed to send us to a beach bar very popular. We started walking that way being amazed by the views of the blue water and the mountains- it looked like a post card or a background for a computer.
Before we made it to our destination, Jenny saw a sign from a bar that she had seen on her research about Hydra that rated top 10 bars with a view in Europe! We were surprised it was not very crowded and it was very affordable, maybe it was not crowded because people come out only at night, everything is crowded at night in Greece- they love the night life! We ordered some wine and calamari and guess what... I know we say this a lot on our trip, but its so true - best fresh and fried calamari we both have ever had. If I were a calamari, I would be happier there too and probably happier calamari taste better!
We layed out on the rocks, and jumped in the water as we chilled there listening to music for a couple of hours and headed back to the port where we would get a donkey ride!!! We bargained to get a good price on the ride, apparently the Greeks like when you do that! We jumped on a donkey and rode it in the streets of Hydra!! Such a funny experience, we were both cracking up the entire ride, it was just funny seeing us on a donkey in another country, cruising in the streets!
Just before we left Hydra we had to get into some trouble, if not we wouldn't be writing a blog about adventures. Let's say that we got kicked out of a bakery......yes, as low as it sounds (and fat), it's true, we did. We did not try to eat things without paying, but, we were sooo excited to buy some baklava and other sweets to take on the ferry with us. The owner of the store was grumpy. He did not speak English, and when we tried to communicate what we wanted he got frustrated. I got an ice cream cone out of the freezer, and he did not like that we messed with the freezer, soooo he shut the freezer in Jenny's face and went off in Greek. Jenny told me "Maria we are leaving" so he looked at me with the ice cream cone and told me to pay for it and Jenny said "no, let's go!" So, I set the ice cream cone on the counter and said to this man "I don't want this anymore, because you are not a nice man!" I was trying to make a simple comment in English, so that he might understand that we were upset about his attitude...which now that I think about it, it wouldn't have matter since he didn't speak any English he probably heard me go off and thought that I said....-excuse my language-" look, you can stick this cone up your a**". I did not mean that at all but that's probably what he thought I said because he yelled so clear in english "Get out, Get out. You girls, Get out." So no sweets for us...not that we needed them anyways. So we got on our ferry called the "flying dolphin," which was almost flying and cracked up about the bakery the entire ride.
Day 4- we really just wanted to chill. We have not been able to sleep much on the trip or in this house because its sooooo soooo hot- so, we decided to wake up whenever and just go to the beach and enjoy our last day in Greece. We walked around the port in the small streets trying to find a good place for lunch and we did find it, but it was a bakery - we couldn't let it go - but, they had sandwiches and obviously sweets, which was what caught our attention in the first place. We got our food to go and ate it at the port. We got back home to get our towels and back to the beach! We love the beach and every opportunity to get sunlight. We tried to stay out of trouble and drama today so every time someone came up to tell us the best party place for tonight we were like "yes, we will be there" and kept doing our thing. We just enjoyed the beach with some drinks in hand, took a nap, a good nap... we woke up and the people around us were gone and new people came to the beach and were staring, we didn't feel like dealing with all that again so we packed up and went to the supermarket to get stuff to prepare an authentic Greek dinner at home. We loved our house so we wanted to enjoy it and thought it would be the perfect plan for our last night in Greece-and it was!
Our belts are tighter, and our smiles are bigger. We plan on continuing that with dinner in our first night in Rome- Here we come, Rome. Here we come, Pizza!
