Ancient History and the Traveling Pants

My second night in Sweden, my Canadian friend Sarah and I were talking about how we both really wanted to go to Greece. Finally 5 months later, it happened. We spent a week in Greece: 3 days in Athens and 3 days in Santorini. It was amazing :-)

We left Karlstad in the middle of the night to take a bus to Stockholm. From there we flew to Budapest Hungary and then finally onto Athens. Lots of traveling, but it was worth it! We saw all of the sights that we wanted to see while we were there. Obviously we stopped at Acropolis and the Parthenon (the picture at the top). It was crazy to see buildings and temples that I have only read about. I remember in 7th grade art class we had to draw the Parthenon and to finally see it in real life was unbelievable! It was fairly large and so impressive to think about how people in the 5th century BC were able build something like that.

The Temple of Olympian Zeus. This picture was taken from the Acropolis. In the 6th century BC construction started on this temple and was finished some 650 years later!

Panathinaiko Stadium. The place where the first Summer Olympic games took place in 1896 and used again for a couple of events in the 2004 games. It is completely built of white marble. Sadly we werent allowed to go in the stadium :-(

From Athens to we took an 8 hours ferry ride to Santorini. The ferry ride wasnt the best. Apparently when you buy economy class tickets on the ferry that means you get to sit at a cafeteria table (think Mcdonalds or Taco Bell) for 8 hours. Not so comfortable. The first half of the ferry ride we were surrounded my old greek people who were extremely loud. We got a bit tired of that so we went to try some new seats. We ended up finding much nicer seats to sit in for the rest of the time on the boat. I dont think we were allowed to sit there though!

Santorini was beautiful! My favorite movie is the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants; ever since seeing those movies I have wanted to go see the island! The first day we were there we took a boat ride that lasted the whole day. We made several stops. We climbed on a volcano, stopped at Thirassia (an island of 300 inhabitants) and some people swam in a hot spring.Behind the cruise ship is the volcano that we climbed on.

Another day we went to the towns of Fira and Oia. Fira is the capital of Sanorini. The picture above is Oia at sunset.

This is the town were the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movie was shot (this is the house from the movie). Oia was such a cute place! Lots of white houses and orthodox churches with accents of blue. We stayed in Oia to watch the sunset and disappear behind the other isalnds. AMAZING!

To see more pictures from our trip, click here!

Like I said, we got to see and do a lot on our trip! It was definitely quite the adventure trying to navigate around Athens and Santorini. We never got completely lost, just did a lot of back tracking. When we left the port of Athens and tried to get to the airport it was crazy. There was a sea of taxi drivers at the port and down the street. Every five feet we took we were asked if we wanted a taxi. Of course we didnt. Long story short, after we found out we couldnt take the metro to where we needed to go we had to wait for a bus. While waiting, a taxi driver pulled up and told us we were in the wrong spot for the bus. We were so confused of what he was saying. Finally he pulled away. I guess he was trying to get the attention of the bus driver (of the bus we should have been on). Then he put it in reverse and came back down the road and started yelling at us. "The bus! The bus! I tried to get its attention. Come! Come! Get in! I take you to the bus!" [sarah and i completely confused at this point. not wanting to get in the crazy taxi drivers car] "Come! I take you to the bus! No pay! No Pay! Get in! I take you to next stop." Still confused we get in the cab. He takes off like a maniac, chasing the bus. Weaving in and out of traffic. Then into the opposite lane of traffic trying to get to the bus. Finally we get close to the bus (as we are still driving down the road) the taxi driver starts yelling in Greek at the bus driver. In the middle of the road and traffic, the bus and our taxi stops. The taxi driver yells "Go! Go! Go! get the bus!!! he stopped!" Thankfully we made it to the bus, but it was a crazy adventure!

Now I am back in Karlstad and only have a few days left. I am leaving for good in four days (Wednesday). I dont think it has really hit me yet that I will be leaving and not coming back. I need to start packing soon, but that will be a mess of its own. I have NO clue how I am going to pack all of my stuff back up into 2 suitcases!