The Start to my Second Big Adventure

Wednesday June 25, 2008
We’re on day 5 of the cruise through the Greek Isles. We got on in Athens on Saturday and have been to Kalymnos, Bodrum Turkey, and Kos. Today we are headed to Paros, tomorrow to Mykonos and on Friday we will be in Syros. Saturday we head back to Athens. We got to spend a night in Athens at the most incredible hotel called the Athens Gate. It was beautiful. We got in from London around 11 at night with our heavy backpacks and the bellhop grabbed them and was so very helpful. This is huge because we can’t afford a bellhop!! So we were pretty surprised that this decently priced hotel was so classy. Our room had a balcony that overlooked the Temple of Zeus. It was so amazing all lit up at night. The room was clean with new furniture and décor. The bathroom was beautiful, everything marble and glass. We got a couple of crepes for dinner, and then had a couple drinks at a bar on top of the restaurant. Which, I forgot to mention, our room looks over the temple of Zeus, but the other side of the hotel looks over the Acropolis. It was all lit up and beautiful. We had our drinks on the balcony on the Acropolis side. Well, I ordered a mojito and I think it was the best mojito I’ve ever had. The bartender went outside near where we were sitting and PICKED THE MINT for my mojito. How cool is that? The next morning we went up the Acropolis. It was so cool because it was all so old. The city was established in the 3rd century BC. Most of the ruins from the Acropolis were from about 500 BC. 2500 years old!! After the Acropolis we went down to the ------- and got our lunch. I had the first of MANY Greek Salads. Zane really liked it, I think. After that we had to head to the port to board the boat.The boat only holds like 600 people. Not very big for a cruise line. Our room is small, but we made some adjustments and made it more comfortable for us. There are 2 bars and restaurants, both of which are very nice, a pool and 3 hot tubs. There is also a salon and gym. The hot tubs are great because they are kept at around 90, so you can enjoy them in the heat. The food and drinks on the boat are quite expensive so we are just drinking water on here and trying to eat in the ports as much as possible. The food is much better on land anyways. This boat really is just a glorified hotel. We haven’t spent much time at all on it. Every day since then we have had excursions during the days. In Kalymnos we couldn’t pull the boat up to the dock because of the wind so we took these gorgeous smaller wooden boats in. The only problem there was that it only took you in every hour and a half, so if you missed one, you had to wait quite a while. We went in with our excursion group and saw an amazing monastery at the top of the mountain overlooking the city then we went to the other side of the island by bus to a beach and had lunch and some drinks at a little bar that was open to the sun and breeze. I had another Greek Salad, Zane had an chicken with pineapple sauce on it. It was one of the best meals of the trip. We swam for a while, and I do have to mention that we tried a vanilla milkshake, to test my dad’s theory that no one else makes a milkshake like America does, and he was right. It was watered down milk with a scoop of melted ice cream in it. Not very good. Sidenote- Zane and I are drinking a strawberry milkshake on the boat right now… it is delicious but cost about $8.00. (!!!)So after Kalymnos, next stop was Bodrum , Turkey. We were really looking forward to Turkey, and for the most part, we enjoyed it. The excursion we paid for was a scam here. It was meant to be 4 hours and turned into 7. We got a tour of the castle, which was great, but then we were supposed to get a boat ride out to a couple of bays to swim and snorkel. Well after the castle, the guide wanted to take us shopping. So they loaded us on a hot bus and took us 15 minutes away to this huge jewelry store. They told us this big story about how the best place in the world to buy jewelry is Turkey because they don’t have any tax on it. We walked in and they had this glass wall and on the other side were 4 or 5 stations for cleaning and fixing jewelry. There were 3 guys in there working diligently as we get this big long talk about how amazing the jewelry is there and what a deal it is and how they will give us a certificate of authenticity if we buy something, so we KNOW it’s real. Ha. So they made us stay for like a half hour and they wouldn’t let you go out the doors we walked in, they all said no exit, the only way to exit is through the GIFT SHOP. Ha. So we ignored the doors and walked through the no exit doors to find a bathroom and walked past that glass wall with the stations, and the 3 workers had left as soon as the customers went into the jewelry store and were now sitting in a back room smoking and drinking soda, waiting for the next tour group to get brought through. What a scam! AND what about the gift shop in a jewelry store? Come on. We priced some jewelry out of curiosity. ½ karat diamond for $4,000. No thanks. So we were all really mad that they took us on this extra trip and wasted all of our time. We then took the boat trip and it was amazing. The water was so clear but so blue. We got some goggles from the boat and did a little snorkeling. Not a ton of sea life but Zane did find an octopus! That was neat to see.We met another couple on the excursion that day from Australia. Chloe and Matt are there names. They just finished a 7 day sailing tour of Croatia! That is something that I’ve always wanted to do, so I got some info from them on it. But we have spent a lot of time with them since. We bought a dinner package too, which pays for 4 dinners on 4 different islands at a specific restaurant. In Turkey they took us up the mountain to this gorgeous outdoor restaurant overlooking the city and the sea. The food wasn’t that great but it was such a great location that it didn’t matter. We had dinner with Chloe and Matt and their other friends from Australia Shannon and Nick. Then after dinner we went out in Bodrum. It is Turkey’s capital for nightlife apparently. I’m not sure how much that says though. We had fun but all of our drinks tasted like juice. The city was pretty lively, right on the beach, all lit up. Before our drinks we took a walk through the markets. They were selling all kinds of fake bags and sunglasses, but they were pretty believable fakes. Too bad my backpack is full to the brim. Side note- when we left Denver my backpack was 33 pounds, when we left London, it was 42!! I have no idea how that happened, but we are only allowed 20 kilos on the plane, and it was 19 when we left London. So I can’t be buying any fake bags L Sad. Turkey was great, we loved it. Despite all the scams… drinks, diamonds, bags, it was still a pretty cool experience.After Bodrum we were to Kos, just off of Turkey. We took another excursion , this one took us to Asclepion, which was the first hospital in the world. Asclepius was the god of Health or something like that, and people would come here to see him and be healed. It was up on this hill, so they said the first treatment was psychological, you could see Asclepion from the sea, so when you were sick and arriving by boat, your mind boosts your body and changes your mood to be hopeful, helping you get better. Then there was an area for the patients to be seen, and a temple to pray in. We then went to Zias, a small town up on a hill, for their famous “Cinnamon Drink” which was just a hold glass of water with cinnamon flavoring, but it was still refreshing. Then we went down to catch a boat to a secluded beach. We had a little Greek Captain who was so cool, and once got to the beach, the crew grilled us up some meat and fish and they had 2 huge bowls of Greek Salad with tons of feta cheese. I think this was the best meal of the trip. The fish was so good and the salad was amazing. We had a couple of servings each. Then we went snorkeling, didn’t see much this time though. Lots of very small fish but that’s about it. When we were in the water, the crew was teaching the rest of the excursion group to dance to the greek music. It looked really cool, I wish we could have been a part of that. After that we had another prepaid dinner in Kos. It was so good, it overlooked the ruins of their marketplace. We didn’t get to spend very much time in Kos so I’m not sure what caused the marketplace to have fallen, but they said there were several very large earthquakes in their history. The dinner was so good. We ate with Matt, Chloe, Shannon and Nick again. We had Octopus for our appetizer! And chicken for the main course. The chicken was so good, and we had ice cream for dessert. It was another very very good meal. Afterwards we had some drinks in their bar district and back to the boat. We were a little disappointed that we didn’t have much time to roam Kos, but the excursions and dinner made up for it.We are now on our way to Paros, my battery is about to die so I’ll finish this next week!