Booze and Baklava--A Girl's Trip to Greece

One of the places I have been dreaming about going for a long time is Greece.  So when me and two of my friends from Louisiana started talking about a girl's trip, this was one of the first places I suggested.  Earlier this month, Megan and Leah flew all the way to Athens, Greece, to meet up with me and discover this ancient city and all its baklava.  Seriously, we ate so much baklava. 

We spent a few days in Athens and also went on a cruise where we stopped at several Greek islands.  We even had one port of call in Turkey! 

First up, Athens~~~

Athens is kind of a funky city.  The first apartment we stayed in was in city center.  There were a lot of interesting little shops, a lot of touristy places, and a LOT of graffiti.

Just a few blocks from the first apartment was this unique street where dozens of lamps and lanterns hung from wires connecting the buildings.

Megan found some graffiti she liked near the apartment

In Athens, they even tag the cacti

Signs at the University of Athens show some displeasure with something

Another sign at the University of Athens

It was unfortunate that they also chose to spray paint on the actual building to get their point across.  Later on in the week, we walked past the building again and saw this:

The police had arrived!

The signs were gone, the graffiti was painted over, but the police were present to break up a protest.  We got out of there pretty quickly.

My first full day in Athens was Easter Sunday in the Orthodox Church.  What that meant was that very little was open, but it seemed like a good time to climb the tallest hill in Athens, Lycabettus Hill.  It offered spectacular views of the entire city, including the Acropolis. 

View of Athens from the top of Lycabettus Hill

Zoom shot of the acropolis

Another really fun thing to do in Athens is to visit the Panathenaic Stadium, where they held the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.  I'm always a fan of places with audio tours.

The steep steps were reminiscent of the upper deck of Tiger Stadium.  A vertigo-inducing climb, but worth it!

Part of the tour involved going down this sketchy tunnel

But it led to this neat room full of posters and torches from a number of Olympic Games of the last hundred years.

One of the best things we did was a food tour of Athens.  We were able to taste many different types of Greek food and drinks.  Our guide, Carolina, made the day enjoyable and delicious.

Spinach and feta pies

Greek yogurt and honey with walnuts.  I loved this so much!

Fruit and veggie preserves

Loukoumades (basically beignets with honey and cinnamon instead of powdered sugar)

A visit to the meat and fish market.  It was similar to the one we have in Saudi but didn't smell nearly as foul.

Tasting some Greek liquor

A little mezze to go with our liquor... those lamb burgers were the bomb!

A cheese tasting!  So good!

A variety of Armenian meats

Though we had a souvlaki on the food tour, no souvlaki I ate all week compared to the one I picked up for takeaway on my first day in Athens.  Obviously I chose pork.  I don't know if I was just really hungry, really craving something pork, or if it really was THAT good, but man, that souvlaki was tasty. 

I love it when the French fries are inside the sandwich.  They do this on shawarmas in Saudi, too.

No trip to Athens would be complete without a visit to the Acropolis!  Atop the Athenian Acropolis is the world famous Parthenon, a temple built around 447 BC to honor the goddess Athena.  We went on International Monuments Day (that's a real thing, apparently), so it was free!  Score!

Made it!

And of course, no visit to a world famous monument would be complete without a picture of me jumping!

This took literally 18 shots to nail. 

I even got Megan and Leah to join in on the fun.

Yay the Parthenon!

Ever the dancer, Leah had the perfect jump shot.

We also visited the Acropolis Museum, but unfortunately photography was not allowed inside.  They did, however, allow us to take pictures of their Lego Acropolis!

The Cruise~~~

The travel agency that I booked the cruise through was a little sketchy, so just the fact that there was a boat in the port was a major win.  I was convinced I had fallen for some elaborate scheme to dupe us out of a lot of money. 

Hooray, it really exists!

We boarded the boat in less than an hour (those of you who have been on a Carnival Cruise and waited in line for HOURS know how amazing this is).  Upon boarding, we immediately scoped out the bars.  On a whim one night while planning our trip, Leah and Megan decided to pre-purchase the all-inclusive drink packages, and we definitely got our money's worth.

Taking a short break from drinking to do a little muster practice

Our favorite bar on board, Horizons (usually empty because it was hard to find the entrance)

What the waiter deemed "our spot" after coming to this bar every day and sitting in the same booth

We worked our way through the entire bar menu (minus the Ouzo drinks) in 4 days

The ports of call on the cruise were pretty great!  We got to see Mykonos, Rhodes, Crete, Patmos, Kusadasi (Turkey), and Santorini. 

Sunset in Mykonos on night 1

Right before it got freezing outside

A visit to her house in Kusadasi, Turkey

House of the Virgin Mary

Lovely view of Turkey

Hercules' Gate in Ephesus.  It is supposed to give you strength when you walk through.

Our tour also included paparazzi.  We had fun taking photos of him taking photos of us.

The second library in the world, the Library of Celsus.  The guide was impressed that I knew where the first library was located (thanks, 6th grade curriculum that I taught for 7 years!).

All good tours end in a gift shop, even ones that are outdoors!  You can buy some quality things in Turkey.

All good tours in Eastern Europe and the Middle East end in a carpet shop... at least in this one, we got to see how Turkish carpets are made.

We saw the whole process, from silkworm cocoon to final product.

Finally, there was the room of a million carpets.  At least they gave us booze during their spiel.

Taking a tinder boat to the island of Patmos

Patmos was far less touristy than other islands

In Rhodes we visited the Acropolis of Lindos

On this acropolis was a field of purple and yellow flowers!  Perfect for a senior pic photoshoot.

This was the taxi system on the smaller islands.  We chose to walk.

Rhodes had a medieval town that was pretty neat

In Crete we met this adorable Greek winemaker

He also operated a distillery, making raki, which is about 70% ABV.  It tasted a bit too much like freshman year to me.

We saw some traditional Greek dancers while we enjoyed the wine in Crete.

Our last stop was Santorini, which is a postcard town.

Beautiful Santorini!

The blues in the sky, water, and church domes were just gorgeous.

We had a great trip!  Athens wasn't my favorite city, but I was glad to get to see the Parthenon and eat all the baklava that I could handle.  The islands were beautiful and the cruise was fun.  I was so happy that some of my friends traveled all this way to vacation with me.  (P.S. Now accepting applications for friends to visit me somewhere in 2016!) 

In my quest to see more things in my 6th grade world history textbook, next we head off to Egypt!