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Saturday - The start of my spring break began early Saturday morning. I woke up and got ready, made sure the flat was clean and in order, and then headed down to call a cab to take me to the airport. Downstairs, my doorman found me struggling with my suitcase (it wasn't heavy it was just big because I had to use one of the big ones I brought from the states) so he grabbed it and walked out with me to call a cab and make sure I got in and on my way... he is such a sweet man! The ride to the airport was very quick. Normally it takes 45 minutes to an hour to get there but since it was 7 in the morning there was no one on the road so we got there in about 20 minutes. Got to the airport, checked in at the EgyptAir desk, got my tickets, and got my bag checked. After all that I still had like 2 hours to kill. So I explored the airport for a while, read my book, and checked out some of the stores. I realized I really didn't have anything for the Harigs as a thank-you for letting me stay with them so I went to the duty-free store and bought them some Karkaday tea. I knew it wasn't much but I thought it was a really good gesture and Karkaday is unique to Egypt. So then I got on my plane and had an uneventful flight and was in Athens in about 2 hours. My bag was one of the last ones to come off the belt and I had a mini panic attack because I thought it wasn't coming but it turns out they lost the green baggage belt that I use to ID my bag... oh well! Got through customs and met up with Allison and caught the bus into Athens. Found the hotel with little trouble and dropped off our stuff and headed straight to the Acropolis. Unfortunatley, it was still March and it had closed at 5. So we wandered around the site and back down to the Agora and then straight to the Museum. Fortunatley that stayed open until 7:30 so we got there and wandered around. We saw the golden mask of Agammenon, the statue of Zeus, and the ceramic vase I had to write a paper about in Greek Civ last semester. Afterward we were really tired so we headed back to the hotel, had dinner of bread and nutella I brought from Egypt to use up, watch the movie Hercules (hey! we were in Greece!) and go to bed.


Sunday - We planned to wake up really early to find the bus to take us to Epidarus but of course, that didn't happen. Our alarm went off at 5:30. We looked at one another, shook our heads, and went back to bed until 8! Take two went over much better. We got out and tried to find the bus stop for Epidarus but that didn't work. We were looking for the Kiffisus station but we ended up at Kiffisia. Not the same place! But we did find the Olympic complex for the 2004 games and that was really cool. So we headed back into town and caught the bus to Sounio. At this point I had a headache from my lack of caffiene but Allison uses No Doz which are caffiene pills so I took two of them and then we got to the Temple of Posiedon in Sounio. Me and caffiene pills don't really work very well. Because I got really hyper and really excited that we were there. But the temple was really pretty and the view was just spectacular. Oh. My. God. How amazing is that place!?! Hands down the best part of Greece. Then we went back to Athens and headed back to the Acropolis and the Agora. Both of which were open and both of which are free on Sundays! Yaaay! By that time I was really hungry so we had dinner at one of the tavernas at the base of the Acropolis. I had a four cheese rotini with pine nuts... yummy! After dinner we went back to the hotel because we had to really get up early the next day because we had boat reservations.

Monday - We woke up at 5 in the morning to be at the docks by 7:30. I got some coffee at the local coffee shop and then we caught the metro to the docks. We were there with plenty of time and we found our boat... this giant ferry and got our seats inside. It was so nice! It was a four and a half hour ferry ride but I slept most of the time. We got to Santorini and caught the bus up to Fira. Fira was so nice! There were all these awesome shops and all the buildings were white and blue (of course). There were also some great views of the Med. But we wanted to see the beach so we got the bus to Kamari. But we were there in the afternoon and everything was closed for the midday nap. So we wandered around the beach for a while and then went back to Fira just in time to catch the bus back to the dock. At the dock we sat at a cafe and I had cheese bread and iced coffee... the bread was good but the coffee I was not a fan of. We got on the boat... which was called the Flying Cat and got to Crete in a few hours. We hopped off our boat in Crete and went to find our boat that would take us back to Athens. It was amazing. It was an overnight boat with a movie theater, shopping mall, three restaurants, and a pool. Our room had its own bathroom and we shared it with a Greek mother and daughter that were so cute! For dinner we had this dessert called kok which is two grahm cracker cookies covered in chocolate with whipped ice cream in the center. It was pretty good! We had the top bunks of the room and we crawled up into them and went to bed.

Tuesday - The boat landed at 5:30 so we were woken up at 5. We made it out of bed and got off the boat. Got onto the metro and went back to Athens. On the walk back to the hotel we ran into one of the local stray dogs that walked with us for a while. At first I thought it was cute... like our own personal escort! Then some guy walked past us with a bag of food and the dog ran up to him and tore the bag! So at that point we decided to walk a little faster back to the hotel. We slept for a few hours and then headed back out. Got a cappucino at the coffee shop then went back to the metro to attempt to find a bus stop to take us Delphi. It took a while. We had to ask a few people and follow a couple buses that lead us in the right direction but we finally found it. We got to Delphi and headed to the site. We saw the temples, the stadium, and the mountains around the site. It was amazing. The mountains reminded me of Austria. We had to catch the bus back to Athens so we went back to the local village and wandered around for a while. We went into some of the shops and met some of the owners who we talked to for a while. One of them loved America more then I think Allison and I do combined and the other had been to Cairo before so we talked to her about our experiences. Then the bus came and we headed back to Athens. It was still kinda early so we went back to the mall we found Sunday and I had a veggie wrap for dinner. We wandered around and found a book store and stayed until it closed. Then we went back to the hotel and got to bed.

Wednesday - Got up, hopped onto the metro feeling like pros, and got to the train station. There was a coffee shop there and I tried a freduccino... a classic Greek iced coffee drink. Pretty good. We got to the train station but the trains to Epidarus weren't gonna work for us so we called a cab and had him take us to the bus stop where we got a bus to Epidarus with no trouble. It dropped us off in Nafplia and we loved it. It was this great European village and we wandered around and found this cafe where we stopped for lunch. I had this fruit, yogurt, and honey thing that was the best thing ever! Then we got on our bus to Epidarus. In Epidarus there was this great Amphitheater and we sat for a while and watched a French drama troop put on a couple skits in the center because the acoustics were so great you can hear a piece of paper being torn from the top of the audience. We wandered around the rest of the site and then headed back to Athens because Allison had to catch her flight! We got her all packed and then I walked her to the metro, got McDonalds for myself for dinner (a veggie burger and a chocolate sundae) and got to bed early because I was leaving in the morning.