I’m not sure what I expected when I decided to start a blog. I didn’t anticipate weekly posting. I definitely didn’t anticipate the writing of each post being such a rigorous, lengthy process. (Some of my blog writing friends/relatives could’ve warned me about that…Zach, Lani, Danielle, I’m looking at you guys…)
I have less than a week left before I head home, and so many stories have been left untold. And yes, it’s finals week, and yes, I should be studying, but study breaks have probably/definitely/scientifically been proven to be helpful, and I can only spend so many hours a day trying to ingrain grape varietals into my brain. One of the adventures that I’ve yet to write about is Spring Break.
One of the reasons I waited so long to write this is because I wanted to definitively report that none of us have gone blind. Yet. Intrigued? Great. Read on.
Unfortunately, for the story to make sense, I have to start at the beginning. So! Spring Break! We eventually nailed down our plans, and decided on Greece. Anyone who knows me probably knows how much I love Greek food, and so they’d be able to guess that Greece has been a dream destination of mine for a while. Their guess would be correct. Becca and I took a (surprisingly comfortable) bus to Bologna, Italy to catch a short and inexpensive flight to Athens. Our flight got in around noon, and after locating our Airbnb, we headed into Athens, where we spent the rest of the day. We were immediately blown away by how inexpensive everything was – thanks terrible Greek economy!
I’m still not sure what was happening that day, but downtown Athens was all a-bustle with a weird riot/street party hybrid. The city bus dropped us off, and we began exploring. The acropolis wasn’t too difficult to find – it’s on a huge mountain in the middle of the city – and so we got to see the Parthenon at sunset. Possibly my favorite part of the trip happened when we were listening to a (Rick Steves!) audio tour of the acropolis. We learned that apparently, during the second World War when the Nazis entered Athens, there was a soldier guarding this flagpole, and when the Nazis demanded he remove the Greek flag, he (and I quote) “calmly took it down, wrapped himself in it, and jumped to his death”. Obviously, it’s a pretty tragic event, but hearing Rick Steves unexpectedly, solemnly deliver this line was hilarious and unforgettable. Naturally we couldn’t let it go, and it remained the butt of most jokes for the rest of the week.
We stayed in an Airbnb just outside of the city, in a neighborhood called Markopoulo. It may look like Marco Polo, but when you say it with a Greek accent, it sounds much cooler. The next morning, we flew to Crete, were joined by Collette, and settled into our five day stay in Rethymno.
We were on island time. If I tried, I’m sure I could recall each specific day and night, but I’ll just cover the basics.
While on the island, all of us but mainly Collette decided that we should have margaritas. It was all going as planned.
Step 1) purchase bottles of alcohol (and limes!)
Step 2) open bottles of alcohol
We ran into trouble on step 2. The “tequila” bottle had a strange cap that none of us could figure out. Luckily, our Airbnb host turned up as we were about to begin mixing the drinks. Because technically there were only supposed to be two of us in the apartment, Collette literally dropped onto the floor and, at Becca’s urging, crawled into the bathroom so our host wouldn’t see us breaking the capacity rule. No alcohol had been consumed to this point, this was a sober response.
Our host, affectionately known as “Val” (because we couldn’t pronounce/remember his actual, very Greek name) was about 27 years old, and was immediately interested in our drink-mixing. I realized it was kind of futile to leave Collette hiding in the bathroom, and by the time she came out, we were all completely distracted anyway. Val was inspecting our “tequila” and the weird cap, asking if there was a seal, asking where we bought it, tasting it… lo and behold, Val informs us that instead of the $20 bottle of Jose Cuervo, we’ve actually purchased a $3 bottle of bootlegged raki, essentially Greek moonshine.
He even brought his dad over to confirm his suspicions.
He told us we needed to report the retailer where we bought it (“those Commie bastards”), get the police involved, and definitely not drink it, because it would very possibly result in us going blind.
We calmly took none of his advice. Luckily, none of us went blind. Yet.
Another, considerably less eventful evening, we made a Greek salad and carried it out to a pier to eat it while enjoying the sunset.
And because it was sunset, I requested a photo shoot. But, artistic genius Collette had food in her teeth, and these masterpieces ensued.
My only regret from that night is not taking a picture of the wall we were sitting on. It was spray painted with a simplistic, single-word, eloquently-phrased warning: SNAKES. We saw no snakes, but I thought it was awesome graffiti anyway.
We spent a few days at the beach, which means a few days sleeping in the sun/hiding under layers of anything we could find to keep from getting more sunburnt, because yes, we all got sunburnt.
Also, we got to swim in the Mediterranean.
It was a really beautiful beach, but after a few days relaxing, we needed some activity. So we stormed a fortress. It was a windy fortress, and our only weapons were my selfie stick and Becca’s enormous and insatiable stomach, but we made it through.
The siege began with purchasing our tickets. This was when I realized that I was amused with pictures of me looking skeptical in the foreground. It’s applicable to any background. Watch.
I also got Becca to look skeptical while I tried to climb a palm tree.
Becca is not very good at looking skeptical. I am also not very good at climbing palm trees.
Then we got Collette to look skeptical while I helped Becca climb a small building.
Collette’s skepticism also needs work. Becca’s and my teamwork does not.
We had a lot of fun with this building.
Unfortunately, despite my attempts, I never made it to the top.
Before we realized it made more sense to simply take over the (poorly guarded) fortress, we attempted to dismantle it with our bare hands.
We recognized it would make more sense to keep the fortress intact, largely due to our considerable, but sadly fruitless demolition efforts. So we continued our way to the edge of our newly conquered fortress, only to encounter a new adversary: the wind.
Basically, we just had a lot of fun with the selfie stick.
By the end, I felt like I owed it to Becca and Collette to take a serious picture.
Our last night in town, we took a taxi to a taxi (yes you read that right) that took us to a fantastic restaurant, nestled into the Cretan mountainside. The food was as incredible as the view.
While this restaurant was fantastic, I think the three of us would have been just as content with eating what became our go-to meal, a gyro and gelato.
When our week in Greece was over, we all calmly returned to school in Aix. As of now, we all have our eyesight, and we still talk about how good the food was.
missfrancypants 