Athens, Ireland and home!!

The ferry arrived in the morning at 8am after a night of sleeping in chairs and Andy on the ship floor. We thought we had about 9 hours to kill in Athens when we later found out it was actually more like 12 hours…our flight didn’t leave till 1030pm. We wandered around….a lot. We went to Acropolis and saw the ruins.

It was all very interesting to see, but it was a super hot day outside and we were extremely tired. For lunch w had some bad gyros (which was a sad way to end our greek food experience). The rest of the day we walked around, shopped around, saw some more ruins and flew out around 10:30. Andy scored a free sandwhich on the plane and we got into Dublin at 2am. We spent that night in a 16 bed hostal. I think we woke the whole room up when we came in and set up our beds.
In the morning we took a 5 hour busride to Cork, the city that Andy is studying in. Cork was a gorgeous city although a little cloudy and rainy.

Andy and most of the people in his group had finals that week so they were studying and taking tests while I was there. Although I couldn’t really hang out with them too much during the day, Andy was able to show me around his campus and we were able to go out at night. Andy took me to his favorite pub across the river and bought me a beer called the “Blarney Blonde!”

The next day Andy had two finals so I went for a run around Cork. It was a great way to see things and it was a beautiful morning with good weather! After Andy finished his tests we went and got ice cream and mini donuts at this new place near his apartment. That night we went to a club in Cork and I had my first Guinness. It was really fun seeing what Andy’s study abroad experience was like and meeting everyone in his group! I left super early the next morning on a plane from Cork to Dublin and then Dublin to Madrid.

When I got back to Segovia there was a huge full rainbow behind the aqueduct. It was so beautiful and a perfect way to come back to Segovia.
The next day I spent with my host family. We went for a walk around the city because it was gorgeous weather. We made our way to Carmiña’s house and had lunch with some of the family. After that we sat on an outside terrace and got coffee and met Dani to say goodbye to her. That night we watched the pursuit of happiness in Spanish and I stayed up super late packing.
It was a pretty long day of traveling but when I arrived in Minnesota some of my roommates from St. Ben’s were there as a surprise to welcome me home!! I cannot believe it has been 4 months, but I am so excited to be back. I had the most amazing experience and these memories will last a lifetime! ☺

More Italy and Greece!

Easter Sunday- I was rather disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to look for my Easter basket this year since I am not at home, so Andy and I brought Easter to our Florence hotel. We hid each other “Kinder Eggs” (chocolate eggs with a surprise inside!)

Great way to start the day! We found a hostel for the night in the city because we didn’t want to have to go through the whole bus thing again, but when we went to wait for the busses into the city we were informed that they weren’t running because of the holiday….so we had to call a taxi. 50 euro later we made it to Florence and our hostel.

During the day we walked around again and finally made it to Gusta Pizza!! The wait to get our pizza was close to 1 hour because there were so many people in the restaurant, but it was so worth it! Andy and I split a magherita pizza ….it was delicious.


After that we did some more shopping and walking around. Later that night we got gelato at the same place and then sat on the Ponte Vecchio bridge to listen to this guy playing music. My favorite one was “Don’t worry be happy!” ☺

Monday morning we took a really nice train to Milan. Unfortunately, Andy left his coat and sweatshirt on the train so we had to wait to get them back. We caught the train at a different stop and the conductor met us to handover Andy’s things….lucky boy!

After that we took a train to Costronno, a little city outside of Milan, to stay at a Bed and Breakfast for the night. It was a super cute place and definitely a new experience. We ordered a pizza to the house and in the morning we were very excited for out “traditional Italian breakfast”, but it ended up being some plastic wrapped scones. The rest of the day was another full day of traveling….
We took the plane from Milan to Athens, Greece then got on an hour busride to the port. Then we were on the ferry to Santorini, and island of Greece, for the rest of the day and night. The ferry was a lot nicer than I imagined. It was very big with a bunch of different restaurants and sitting areas. We were there so early that we picked a really good spot next to some outlets, which ended up being the hot commodity that everyone was searching for throughout the night. The bad thing about our spot was that we were by this super crabby lady with the smelliest feet in the world!
We arrived in Santorini at about 2am and Stavros, the owner of our hostel, was there waiting to drive us to our place to stay!

After catching up on some sleep we went and got some groceries and went into Fira, the capital of Santorini. There were tons of touristy and fun stores and we spent some time shopping around and discovering the beautiful city.

That night we got drinks and some bread with olive oil at a restaurant that overlooked the water and the rest of the island. The island and city was so beautiful all lit up. After that we walked around and stopped in a few bars. We watched the Real Madrid vs Barcelona soccer (futbol) game and listened to some great oldies.

The next day was not very nice outside. In the middle of the island it was very smoggy, damp and pretty chilly. We rented an ATV and drove around the entire island.

First we went to the southern part of the island. Perissa beach is a black sand beach and we were planning on spending the last 4 days of our vacation there, so we found the hostel we wanted and booked it with the people. Then we went to red beach and it was absolutely gorgeous out with not a cloud in the sky. We sat on the beach there for a little while and took in the sun! Then we continued even further down the island and went to this lighthouse right at the edge. The views were gorgeous. For dinner we got some two euro gyro pitas and attempted to see the sunset in Oia, which is the furthest city north, but I think we just missed it! It was really a bummer because it took us about 45 minutes to get there and it was really cold! We drove back a different way then the way we came. It was all along these cliffs that winded around a mountain. It was super scary, especially in the dark. But Andy was having so much fun and the views were incredible!

The next day we moved to our other hostel, Stelio’s, in Perissa Beach. It was a pretty lazy afternoon, which is exactly what we wanted. We laid out in the sun at the pool for a little while, watched some Modern Family, went to the grocery store and made some pasta dinner.

The next day we went to the black sand beach and it was beautiful outside!! ☺ This was a perfect relaxing way to end our travels since they were usually go go go. That night we saw tons of busses driving through the city and they were all honking and making tons of noise. We found out it was all for a wedding! We had pasta again for dinner and ate it on our balcony. During dinner there were some very intense fireworks going off for the wedding, which really added to the ambiance of our meal! The rest of the night was filled with the office and modern family episodes.

Santorini was amazing but it was really strange because there were so many bars and restaurants not open since there were not many people there. I guess the common time for tourists is in the Summer, but since its an island I just assumed it would be popular all year round. It would be really cool to see how different the island is during the summer because I am sure there would be a lot more going on everywhere.

The next day we had to check out of our room at 11am but we were not getting on the ferry back to Athens until 2:30 am…so we needed to kill a lot of time. We rented an ATV again so that we could cruise around the island. First we went to Red Beach, but it was supperr windy so we went back to Perissa Beach to lay around because it was very sunny and not windy there. Andy and I got some fun beachy drinks to celebrate our last day. We both got extremely burnt…we only had a tiny bottle of sunscreen because it was very expensive all over Europe. (so if you are ever going there, definitely bring your own sunscreens).

After a day in the sun we took the ATV into Fira to walk and shop around. We were trying to finally catch the sunset, so we attempted to walk around until about 8pm, but it was so windy and chilly. The other bummer was that it was very smoggy out…I think we were basically in a cloud because our bodies and hair were super sticky and damp. (It was a gross feeling and we stayed that way for a while because we had to sleep on a ferry..then spend a day in Athens..then a night in a hostal and we were not in Cork until 2 days later to finally shower…ick!) The smoginess blocked us from seeing the sunset so we were fine getting on the ATV to get back to the coast where it wouldn’t be as windy and cold. The ATV company gave us these huge jackets to wear and they really came in handy during the ride back. On the drive back we finally saw the sunset!!! Up in Fira we were too high and were not able to see it through the clouds….so on the way down to the coast we saw the whole thing basically! I was very excited we finally succeeded. We went to Dinner at the restaurant Aqaurius along the beach in Perrisa. We each got a pasta but neither of us were able to finish …they gave us sooo much! The service there was really great though and it was a perfect last dinner! They surprised us with free dessert ☺ Stelios, the owner of our hostal, was able to drive us to the port at 10pm so we ended up waiting around there for a while but it was better then getting a taxi! We didn’t sleep that well on the ferry that night….Andy laid across the floor of the boat and I was on a chair… but it was nice to get there overnight and arrive in Athens in the morning!