Greece

Well... as amazing as Rome and Italy were, it is time to move on to the next country... GREECE!!!!! Sorry for the delay in updating this. I have gotten quite a few emails of worry, hoping that I made it ok, which I did!!

I flew into Athens, but my flight arrived in the middle of the night, and I had to wait at the airport for about 10 hours for my friends flight to come in. It was not very fun to sleep in the airport. First, when I arrived, I made a few phone calls to people back home and mistakenly had taken out my journal at the pay phone. Then, on accident, I left it there. I realized it about 5 minutes after I had walked off, but it was long gone. I, of course, freaked out because it has all of my detailed memories of this trip, people I've met, contact information, and whatnot. I began crying, out of sadness, but probably out of exhaustion, too. The employees at the airport were confused and tried to help, but it was no use. I finally calmed down, but I'm still pretty bummed out!

Jen (my old roommate and friend who is traveling with me through Greece, Athens specifically) finally made it to Greece. Her flight was delayed an hour, and then it took about an hour for her to get through customs. But I was so happy to see her!! I've been having a wonderful time on this trip and have loved every second of it, but have missed people from home. So, it is nice to have her here with me this week. She studied last year in Athens, so I feel like I have a personal tour guide!! We've been all over Athens, mostly on foot, and let me tell you ... it's a big city!!! The first day she was showing me where she used to live and the school she went to. Then, we tried to find a pay phone so she could call home (because she had not told them she made it yet...) but had a lot of trouble. Then, of course, like in every other country I've been in, we got lost. But it was ok. We both were just tired and sleep deprived.

Yesterday was a lot of fun. We went all over Athens during the day and looked at some of the many ruins throughout the city. We climbed up the Acropolis, which has just amazing views, and ended the day taking a bus 0ut to this one ruin about 2 hours outside of the city to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, we didn't actually watch the sunset because the last bus to take us back into the city left before it was down. But it was still really pretty, right off the coast, with crystal clear blue waters.

Athens, and Greece in general, is much different than the other European countries I've traveled to. Some things are similar, but for the most part, Greeks have a very different culture. It's wonderful and different. The Greek women are awesome. They are so helpful. The Greek men, well, they are very pushy, like to rip you off, and are perverts, but we just ignore them. Today we are meeting up with a girl I met in Italy, so that will be fun. And Jen keeps telling me all the places she wants me to see. Unfortunately, we don't get to stray too far from Athens because of time and money. But tomorrow we are going to some of the closer islands around!! I'll just have to save some of the more popular islands, like Crete, for another time since it is about a 10 hour ferry ride from Athens.

The weather here is extremely wonderful. Blue skies with no clouds in sight. The downfall is the heat. Not that I mind hot weather, but at 9 in the morning it's already in the mid 90's and gets well over 100 in the afternoon. Let's just say we drink water constantly!!! I will try to give more updates soon!! I hope everything is going great back home!