Ronda, Sevilla, and Cordoba

Hey everyone!

After being here for over 2 months, we still have not written about our experiences in Ronda and Sevilla (February 2-4) and then to Cordoba (February 19). Our bad!

RONDA

The weekend before we started classes, we left early Friday morning and went to Ronda. Ronda is a super small and beautiful city about 2 hours away. When we got there, the sun was shining and it was nice and warm. We spent the first hour walking around with guides (who happened to be the three teachers that IES has for the art and architecture classes). We began by looking at an incredible view of the the hills. There are tons of olive trees here, and they were just beginning to bloom. It was so nice!

We continued on a paseo called "The Paseo of Ernest Hemingway"...It was cool to walk in places that may have given him the ideas that he included in his books. I couldn`t stop talking and thinking about The Sun Also Rises. It was really nice! Our paseo was beautiful and took us right to the Arab baths. We got a tour of it (because it wasn`t in use in the winter) and walked all around it. It is a really neat system and we get to try it out in Morocco in a few weeks...super pumped!

After the paseo, we all met up and had a picnic lunch where we started. It was a little sad because all of the other students who have señoras had 3 sandwiches, fruit, cookies, and extra snacks to eat. I took bread that we had saved from the dining hall, some oranges, and I think yogurt (or something) and tried to make something of a lunch for us. It was pretty lame, but not to worry Ken, nobody went hungry :)

After lunch, we met up at the Bullfighting ring, and went inside. Most of the Spanish cities have them, but we had never been inside one before. We got in and immediately took pictures of ourselves pretending to be bulls and the bullfighters, etc. (It is funny because before we went in, the Spaniards told some students that the Americans always take pictures pretending to be the bull...they didn`t really understand that.) Anyway, we again were guided by the teachers and we heard all about the customs and the beauty of the bull fight. It seems interesting enough--pretty gross, but culturally beautiful, so we will all probably go in April or May when they are in Granada.

We left Ronda, and headed to Sevilla.

SEVILLA

Sevilla is absolutely beautiful. There is a beautiful river and nice architecture. We arrived in the early evening and had a few hours until dinner. We walked along the river a bit and noticed people paddle boating (this will be important later). Afterwards, we got ready for dinner and as a group of 90, we went to this beautiful catered dinner. It was a really nice night, and afterwards we all went to bed.

The next day, we had tours of the Alcazar castle and the gardens, and the cathedral. It was absolutely spectacular! The gardens were amazing and there was even a maze of bushes (I found out later that it was only fun for me because I actually could not see over the top, and everyone else could). Everything was beautifully crafted and it was truly a sight to see. The cathedral was also incredible. It was a mixture of Islamic and Catholic architecture (historically, it was created during a time when everyone was getting along, so the king had a mixture or architects work on the cathedral) and it was beautiful. We climbed over 30 flights of stairs to reach the top of the tower, and it was worth it for the view. It was amazing!

That night there was a flamenco show and a soccer game at the same time. Nathan and a few others went to the soccer game and the rest of us went to the show. The show was really cool, and an awesome experience. I maybe would have preferred the soccer game, but oh well. While Nathan ran through town to get to the stadium, he bumped into some fans who were headed there as well. They gave him an extra ticket that they had, and Nathan sat with them. After the show, the game was still going, some of us headed across the river (where there were less Americans) and went to a great tapas bar. We had a lovely time, and then Nathan met up with me after for a later dinner, and then I was too tired to go to another bar, so we headed back to the hotel. Sadly, Brad was sick and stayed in bed to sleep that night. He didn`t miss too much.

The next morning, we had an amazing all-you-can-eat buffet (consisting of different types of eggs, breads, churros, fruits, cereals, yogurts, and juices). It was delicious. Brad was sick so Nathan and I brought him some food. We finally all got up and decided that we had to go paddle boating. It was super fun, except that it started raining, and then pouring for a bit. The rain subsided, but nonetheless, it was crazy! Afterwards, we pretty much ran to see the Plaza de España, a beautiful area of buildings and parks. We ran out of time, but we got a nice look of the outside. It was definitely worth seeing.

After that, we ran back to the bus, made it just in time (not enough time to drink the Starbucks that I had been craving, but oh well).

CORDOBA

The final trip to blog about is our day trip to Cordoba. Nathan has his internship on Fridays, so only Brad and I went on this one.

We got on the bus at 7 in the morning and left for Cordoba. (Side note, on the bus, we bet what time we would be there, and I split the pot with a friend...made a euro, nice!) Anyway, we first went to Medinah Al-Zahara an old Arab city.

We walked around the ruins for a few hours. It was really beautiful. It was really neat to see what used to be a city now in forms of ruins. We learned more about the Arab culture before they were kicked out of the area, and a bit of history about later on. Mostly, we just appreciated the pretty views and remaining architecture that were all around us. (Historical note, Cordoba was the top city in the 1000`s...Athens in the BC`s, then Cordoba, and most recently New York in 2000, pretty cool).

Afterwards, we jumped on the bus and headed straight for the Jewish Quarter in Cordoba. We made it to the synagogue just before it closed and looked inside. It was very small but very beautiful. We walked around the area a bit, and then headed over to the mosque. We had free time for lunch and paseos, and then met back up to tour the mosque. The mosque was absolutely huge! Inside was beautifully created with tons of arcs (which represent palm trees) and other really neat and traditional Arab architecture. It had been taken over by the Catholics later, though, so there was a lot of Catholic influence around as well. Mosques are generally darker and don`t have super high ceilings, so you can easily tell that the stain glass are newer elements. The most interesting part is that right in the middle of this incredible mosque (which you cannot see even until you walk right up to it) is this HUGE cathedral. It was really interesting to compare the architecture styles and see how grand the cathedral was. Super crazy!

We visited a castle afterwards, which was really fun as well. The climb to the top of the tower was a bit treacherous, but really cool and worth it for the view. It also inspired our idea to bring Laser tag to the castles of Spain. (just wait, it will catch on!)

Well, that is all for now. Stay posted for stories from France and the UK.

Granada = Pomogranate = Granade

Alhambra - crazy cool castle, picture taken from IES building! located across from our buliding

Plaza Nueva - where IES is

Plaza Bib Ramblas (sp?)

Catedral de Granada 5 minute walk from IES

Sorry - there are some technical difficulties that have prevented us from making a photo album of Granada. I'll try and add some individual pictures so you get the idea. I got a hair cut, you have been warned. - Brad

Hola. Thurs and Fri orientation in Granada

Our first weekend in Granada we went to the Alpujaras (aka Sierra Nevadas) for a hike (for those of you from Colorado they are more like local foothills)! It was a group trip with all 80 or so of us and we had the option to go on the ‘easier,’ lamer hike or the super cool ‘harder’ hike. I think you all know which one we went on. It was gorgeous (hopefully there will be pictures soon). We stopped half way to eat our packed lunches… everyone else has host families that pack them delicious meals like bocadillos/sandwhiches made with bread, cheese, jamon, and love. We however, had to settle for leftovers and such and thus get bocadillos of just bread and cheese (and carne for me) sin el amor. Then on the way down we walked by this 90 year old man who has been living by himself there for scores of years… he was very cool and I wish I would have had the chance to sit down and talk with him and learn about his life, but alas we had to march on. It was a lovely hike.

Finished up Orientation and went to Sevilla from Friday to Sunday (more on that another day). Then classes started that next Monday (just IES classes, University classes didn’t start until two weeks later!). (we have Friday’s off from class!) Read below for explanations. UGR = University of Granada

Brad’s schedule (and haircut from above):

Monday:

Spanish – 10:00-11:00

Islamic Civ. – 11:00-12:30

Teatro/Theatre – 12:30-14:00

Lunch/Almuerza/Cena/Ciesta

Volunteer at Colegio Ciudad de Los Ninos – 16:00-19:00

Tuesday

IES Consejo (advisory commitee) 8:15 – 9:00

Spanish – 9:00-10:00

Spanish view of ‘the other’ – 11:00-12:30

UGR – Sociology of Education – 17:00 – 18:30

Wednesday

Spanish – 10:00-11:00

Islamic Civ. – 11:00-12:30

Teatro/Theatre – 12:30-14:00

Lunch/Almuerza/Cena/Ciesta

UGR – Sociology of Education – 18:00 – 19:00

IES futbol – 20:00 – 21:00

Thursday

Spanish – 9:00-10:00

Spanish view of ‘the other’ – 11:00-12:30

Brooke’s schedule:

Monday:

Spanish – 10:00-11:00

Islamic Civ. – 11:00-12:30

UGR – Anthrolopogy of Ethnicity 13:00-14:30

Lunch/Almuerza/Cena/Ciesta

Spain and EU – 17:00-18:30

Tuesday

Spanish – 9:00-10:00

Spanish view of ‘the other’ – 11:00-12:30

Lunch/Almuerza/Cena/Ciesta

Spain and EU – 18:30 – 20:00

Baile/Dance class – 21:00 – 22:00

Wednesday

Spanish – 10:00-11:00

Islamic Civ. – 11:00-12:30

UGR – Anthrolopogy of Ethnicity 13:00-14:30

Lunch/Almuerza/Cena/Ciesta

IES futbol – 20:00 – 21:00

Thursday

Spanish – 9:00-10:00

Spanish view of ‘the other’ – 11:00-12:30

Baile/Dance class – 21:00 – 22:00

Nathan’s schedule:

Monday:

Spanish – 9:00-10:00

Islamic Civ. – 11:00-12:30

Lunch/Almuerza/Cena/Ciesta

Practica/Internship class – 18:30 – 20:00

Tuesday

Spanish –10:00 – 11:00

Spanish view of ‘the other’ – 11:00-12:30

UGR – Music Criticism 13:00-14:30

Lunch/Almuerza/Cena/Ciesta

Capoeira (Martial arts/dance) – 18:00-19:00

Baile/Dance class – 21:00 – 22:00

Wednesday

Spanish – 9:00-10:00

Islamic Civ. – 11:00-12:30

Lunch/Almuerza/Cena/Ciesta

Practica/Internship – 16:30-19:30

IES futbol – 20:00 – 21:00

Thursday

Spanish - 10:00 – 11:00

Spanish view of ‘the other’ – 11:00-12:30

UGR – Music Criticism 13:00-14:30

Capoeira (Martial arts/dance) – 18:00-19:00

Baile/Dance class – 21:00 – 22:00

Friday

Practica/Internship – 9:00 – 14:30

Group stuff:

Everyone has a Spanish language class each morning. Brooke and Brad are on the same schedule and Nathan is on the opposite schedule. B and B usually eat breakfast together and often join Nathan on his early mornings so we can get to school early and do some work. Though there are buses running in the mornings that take us pretty close to our classes we usually end up walking. It doesn’t take much extra time to walk (about 30 minutes walking) and it’s a nice way to start the day. On the way back up, however, we sometimes take the bus (at least I do..) because it’s uphill and sometimes takes a bit longer/I am more tired.

None of us are in the same Spanish class but we have the Islamic Civilizations and Spanish view of the Other classes together after our language classes. Our Islamic civ class is awesome, we love our teacher dearly (El Indalacio – some call him the Spanish version of Robin Williams. He is very enthusiastic and kind. He eats at the cafeteria/comedor up in our residence hall every day for lunch. Every day, and he has been doing it for the past 4 years! So sometimes we get to eat with him up there which is great. He has very red glasses). We are also in that class with two of our good friends up here, Erica Selding of Colorado and Brian Manning of Yale. Our other class we have together is Spanish Other which I think will end up being a very interesting class. It’s going to talk a lot about immigration as well as the formation of the Gypsy communities in Granada/Spain.

Depending on day to day plans we have, we usually try to meet up for lunch at our comedor in Carlos V (residencia). Often we’ll eat there around 2:45 depending on where we are coming from. We also sometimes have time before or after to take a ciesta/nap, and we also have the option of eating in the Comedor or taking our food to go and eating/saving it up in our room.

Every Wednesday our program rents a soccer court (hard court kind of like an outdoor basketball court that is meant for 5 v 5 soccer with goalies). We go every week and usually have from 15-25 players show up! Afterwords we usually go to a bar for some drinks/tapas and/or to watch a soccer game on tv.

Brad’s Stuff :

Colegio Ciudad de los Ninos (School of the City of Children) is a pretty big partially residential partially day school that I (Brad) am volunteering at on Mondays. It is in a poorer part of Granada and works with a lot of immigrant families/kids as well as with families from Granada that can’t afford to keep their kids in their houses throughout the whole week (need to work or whatnot..). I think it is going to be a great experience and I’m really looking forward to it. I have been twice so far, once to ‘interview’ and once to actually help out (this past Monday). I started out helping kids with their afterschool homework time.. a couple kids were working on math and a couple on english homework. After that I played some basketball and then some soccer with kids. I really had a great time with them… there was one boy from Belize who spoke English pretty fluently and was working on his Spanish. Other than that there were a lot of Spanish speaking kids and a few that were immigrants with pretty good Spanish. The ages I worked with were from about 10-16 (though the colegio has kids from like 6-20 in different buildings/programs). The director of the school, Paqui, has been very nice to me. I met up with her for the interview and then met her the next week at a cafeteria before my volunteering started. I ended up sitting down with her and two teachers for about 45 minutes which was great. We spoke (in Spanish) the whole time about us/Spanish politics, futbol, the education system/their school and more. Also, after volunteering, Paqui offered to drive me home which was great (otherwise I would have taken a bus and walked another 20 minutes or so). We stopped by her house to pick up her husband and 20 year old son. They were all really nice and she invited me over to dinner another night. Her son is studying computer programming/technology and I may meet up with him to be intercambios (interchanges - going out for coffee or whatever and practicing our Spanish/English with eachother).

My University class is called Sociologia de Educacion and is going to be talking about the creation of Education systems in Europe, general sociology of Education and where it came from, and also some comparative information about different education systems. I am in it with another student on our program from Colorado, Erica Seldin, and we think we are going to really enjoy the class. It doesn’t seem to difficult and the teacher seems friendly and approachable… though sometimes she talks a little too slow and repeats herself a bit. This may seem like it would be a good thing when one is taking a class in another language, but falling asleep in a Spanish class is just as looked down upon as it would be in a class in English (if that makes any sense to you..). Anyway, there is also a student cafeteria across the street where there is delicious fresh orange juice for only 1.40 Eu per large glass! So far I have always gotten an OJ and water before class, and I think, for the most part, I have also indulged in a juice after class as well. Mmmmm….

On Tuesdays I have to go early to meet with the IES Consejo, a group of 5 students and the director and assistant director of IES. We serve as the intermediary between students and the IES program/staff. In our meetings we talk about upcoming event possibilities as well as give feedback on everything IES. It’s… interesting. I think I would run the meetings a little different, and the other members of the consejo are interesting/diverse group of minds/people as well, but overall I think it will be a cool experience. Plus it’s another cool outlet/real life way of practicing Spanish which is always nice.

Nathan :

Practica – Cines del Sur, they have a film festival in Granada the first week of June with films from the southern Hemisphere. They show the films all around Granada. It’s an awesome organization and the people are great, but Nathan’s hoping to do a little more interaction with directors and such. As of now he has been doing more computer work: ej- transferring Word document file to Excel. Apparently the staff there thought he did an amazing job with that. Go Nathan! It’s located pretty close by our class buildings, in the center of Granada.

Capoweira – It’s a Brazillian Martial art that encorportates Dance, singing, martial arts, and musical intstruments. Nathan’s class is from 12 – 20 year olds and most of the students are younger kids/beginners (though some of the little guys are pretty good). On Saturdays sometimes Nathan goes to the open practice sessions where he does more advance things (the music’s faster, more advanced moves). He also checked out an advanced class where the beat was twice as fast and thus everything else – dance, music, singing – was twice as fast. He has purchased a Capawaira pants and t – shirt as well as a Brazillian adidas jacket – “quite the Brazillian wannabe” Nathan admitted.

I will add that I have seen Capowaira preformed by two Oxy students (who actually are both on our IES program!) and it’s a very beautiful and cool looking martial arts/dance. I’m excited to see Nathan do it sometime.

UGR – Contemporary Musical criticism. Music Journalism kind of. He has to go 8 concerts and do write ups on them. He also has to learn about the development of Musical Criticism. He is in a group with two Denmark women/chicas and they have group work every week. Maybe more of an update as things continue.

Brooke:

UGR – Anthropologia de Etnidad (Anthro. Of Ethnicity). So far she has watched a said and disturbing movie on Rwanda – and that’s it so far. It was in Spanish subtitles in African language dubbed over in Spanish. It was really hard to understand with another language in the background. She is in it with about 4 other IES students, “it will be fun – hopefully.”

Brooke and Nathan :

Dance class – Ritmos Latinos – Latino Rhythms. Originally they thought they were just learning Salsa. Then the next week they found out that the previous week they had already learned two dances and that there were two more remaining. It’s in the basement of the Granada Basketball Arena, they are the only ones in the class below 30. Ages range from 30-50 ( Brooke: “55 -that old couple is kind of old” - Brad: "I dunno, 55 isn't that old.. i know plenty of people around that age and they are quite young" ). They have mastered Salsa and Merengue and they still are going to learn the Mchleduahl and the Cha Cha Cha.

We still have to tell you about our recent trip to the south of France as well as some other trips around spain, but we'll save that for another time. Adios.

GRANADA

I do apologize for Brad´s super speedy and not super informative blog...but that really was mostly what happened outside of orientation sessions that lasted most of the day.

After speaking to my mom the other day, I realized that many of you still have no idea what our living situation and the environment is like in Granada...so here it is!

We left Malaga in the late afternoon and came straight to Granada. The ride was beautiful and relatively short. We dropped off all of the other students to meet their host families and then we continued by bus to our dorm, Residencia Carlos V. Miriam (we love Miriam) brought us into the office and helped us take care of lots of logistical things. Then Nathan, Brad, Christina (another IES girl) and I were escorted by the office woman to our rooms, which happened to be in the same hall. As the woman showed Nathan and Brad their rooms, Christina and I met 2 girls who live in the hall. They are from some part of Spain that speaks even faster than Andalucians so I was pretty lost. Miriam introduced us and then I awkwardly put my hand out to shake Nuria´s hand, and she went in for besos....it was awkward. (sorry for people who had to read that story for the second time).

Anyway, the rooms are really nice. Brad and Nathan share a HUGE room and Christina and I have little rooms that are very cute and nice. We all have a bathroom, refrigerator, and microwave as well. I wish that American dorms were this awesome! We also get our rooms cleaned every Friday. We spend that first night hanging out, and Miriam ordered us a pizza.

The next day we were delighted to have delicious residencia breakfast. (Ken, this part is for you) Every day we can eat toasted bagettes with any combination of tomato spread, butter, jam, cheese, and ham (math nerds who are reading this, that means there are 128 different combinations of bread toast). Furthermore, there is always one type of cereal which is usually pretty bad, but for a week we had frosted flakes...yum! Then there are 3 different types of donuts, and best of all...MUFFINS. They are the most delicious muffins in the world. Finally, there is a station with coffee, milk, hot milk, hot water, tea, etc. (again, so many mathematical options). Brad gets cocoa, I get coffee, and Nathan has been making tea. In all, it is all quite delicious.

Anyway, we arrived in Granada on Thursday night, and Friday morning we met at the IES center to continue with orientation. IES is about a 30 minute walk away from the Residencia, and it is very close to the center of town. It is located in the Plaza Nueva and there is a great view of the Alhambra from the "terraza." Anyway, orientation class was meant for a bit of grammar review (before the big placement test), to get us familiar with important vocab, give a bit of city orientation, and to get us out and speaking with Spaniards. We would have a variety of assignments such as "go order coffee and find out what the different types of coffee are here" or "go fake shopping at _____ store" etc. We would also meet at night for Paseos and walk around to beautiful places that we probably would not have explored on our own. In all, it was beautiful.

The first week was a great way to explore and enjoy the town, and the FREE TAPAS that come with drinks at night. (If you didn´t know, Granada is the only city in Spain that does this, which if for no other reason, makes it the best!)

That is all for now. We will be posting soon about our individual experiences and more places we´ve seen.

Malaga - speed blogging

Tengo una cita en diez minutos entonces solo puedo escribir en este tiempo. So... this is going to be a SPEED BLOG (cause i only have 10 minutes, maybe less, before i have to meet with our dear friend Miriam, a spaniard who works at our program and is in charge of all student activities. She is amazing and we all love her a lot! More on that later.)

Malaga - We took the train from Madrid to Malaga. It was a nice ride. Pretty, and we had a table with four seats so we could relax. And play gin. or some game.

We arrived at the train station and tried to find our way to the hotel, which was a little bit farther than the ínformative man at the information booth told us (if any of you are ever in charge of hiring the people to work at information booths make sure they are actually informative, please). Hmm an unecessary paragraph, not a good start to the speed blogging.

Went to the hotel, IES staff was waiting to say hi. They were nice. Met up with some poeple we knew from home/i knew from school. We got there just in time to put our stuff in our room and make it back down to leave with the group for lunch. Since we were already 60 by that time, (translates better in spanish) we obviamente had to split up into different resteraunts. We went with a group of about 12 people (highlights of these people are Brad, Brian Manning from Yale, Rocio Sumillera de Espana). After lunch, walked 5 minutes to the beach. Water was cold. We talked and learned that Brian was pretty cool and that Rocio was pretty good at Spanish. Walked back to hotel.

From hotel we went to the Picasso museum (he was born in Malaga you know). It was interestante. So we went there and saw picassos... I think the art I did as a niño was comprable to the art he did... i guess he just peaked later than me. What a shame.

Some of us went out to a bar. It was fun, met some new people. Bed.

Next day amazing buffet breakfast (call me if you want more details Ken, it was amazing! but no time.. speed blog).

Next thing i remember is lunch... also amazing, kept bringing us food-tapas and alcohol and juice and delicious. Took bus to Granada. Hooray! Sat next to Rocio and Javier (director of IES and teacher of my theatre class). Dropped people off at the gym where they met host families. Miriam took us to the Residencia Carlos V.

And look, we´re in Granada! There ya go. more later. including pictures. Tell your friends, new blog is out!
-Bradley Samuel Ross

Madrid and Toledo (1/20-1/22) written by Brooke ( with prelude/preface by Brad)

Preface: Alrighty, welcome back to some awesome blogging. Let me seee.. First things first:

Which one of these is not a law/practice in Mykonos:

There can be no chain stores/restaurants - CORRECT (just found out you can manipulate text color/size)
We actually came across a starbucks sitting atop a hill. It was glorious and very american.

Houses must be painted white with colored doors/windows -WRONG
All those pretty pictures of white houses with colored doors/windows are beautiful by law! The law also guarantees that....

Houses must be 2 stories tall or less - WRONG

Everything is closed on Wednesday afternoons - WRONG
In addition to Sundays everything closes on Wednesday nights. Hard to say why.. i feel like i asked at the time but since it's been so long since we've actually been in Greece i seem to have forgotten the reason.

Nextly, i would like to thank all 4 of you or whatever poor showing we had for the previous contest in which the best blog reader would be mentioned for eternal fame in this very blog. Of the few attempts that were made a couple stood out. The runner up will remain annonomous but (s)he posted:

doc in the back sippin on yac.

Very inciteful and concise.

And the winner with the unanimous vote (from me) is my very own Aunt Donna with her poem 'Untitled.' A very excellent piece using the classic ABAB construction typical of the quatrain poetry.

And now I present to you the fabulous Brooke L. J. :

Hey all of you blog fans. Sorry about the lack of contact with you all. Things have been busy and exciting, which is great news....we can assume.

The theme of this blog has changed slightly now, to less of a “play by play” of our travels, and more of our thoughts, special events, and views on life (we are deep like that). The other side note is that while we are in Spain, the keyboard is a bit different, so I am going to start utilizing the upside down question mark...?¿?

Anyway, as for Madrid, it was fun returning to Spain from Greece. While it was difficult to transition from the Greek phrases such as “parakalo,” “efaristo,” and “ya sas” (which means hi, but was used by Brad for pretty much everything such as “hi,” “bye,” “follow me,” “please,” and “I love the Greek scenery, it´s amazing!”) and back into Spanish.

We decided that we were going to stay in Madrid for our two nights before we headed to Malaga, so we immediately searched for awesome activities in the city (although very little could top Bella y la Bestía) and we found out that Real Madrid was playing Atletico Madrid that night! For those of you who aren´t up to date on your Spanish fútbol standings, Real Madrid is 1^st in Spain right now, and Atletico is 4^th. CRAZY COOL!

So we found this amazing sports bar and restaurant called “Locos para Fútbol,” the craziest and most awesome place to ever watch soccer. There was a 10 euro cover charge to get in (with a free drink), but it was well worth it for the atmosphere inside, and the opportunity to watch the game, which otherwise we would have not been able to because literally every bar or restaurant with a TV was packed with fans from both teams. The game was amazing, and it ended in a 1-0 victory for Real Madrid. After the game, we went to a horribly over priced restaurant, where the glass of Sangria that I ordered came back as a pitcher. Best 10 euros I ever spent?¿? (side note, that sentence was written solely for the use of the upside down question mark...(side-side note: i liked the restaurant, though the portions were small. I shared some sushi and terrayki chicken in case Ken was wondering - Brad))

The next day we took a 30 minute train ride to Toledo to spend the day exploring. Nathan had remembered visiting an incredible cathedral and a Jewish quarter, so we were pumped to see it. (side note, the trains in spain are AMAZING and all who want comfort travel should do so by train...this is not sarcasm. The seats lean back without intruding on the personal space of the person behind you...increíble!) We got off the train and went straight to the cathedral. When we walked in, we were absolutely in awe of the mere size of it, not to mention the beautiful art work, details, and oh so much more. (sorry to say, photographs were not allowed, so we have no examples, but OMG...amazing.) The best way to describe it...an alacrity!

Afterwards, we headed over to the Jewish quarter. It was nice to see Jewish paraphernalia in Spain, along with the synagogues. Unfortunately, since it was a Monday, the major synagogue was closed to viewers, but we were able to visit another one. From an historical viewpoint, it was interesting to see the changes from what was a synagogue to the current view, being that of a church. From a Jewish viewpoint, it was sad to see the few remains of what once was a lively and prosperous culture.

We then continued our walk around Toledo (after stopping for Mazapan) in search of the Parador, an incredible hotel that is government owned and in many Spanish cities. The walk took us on a beautiful sunset tour around the city. There was a spectacular view of the inner city, a city full of castle-esk architecture and beautiful bridges, amazing!

We finally found the Parador, snuck inside for about 3 minutes, and then had to book it back to the train station (another beautiful walk...if only we had known about “paseos” back then, it wouldn´t have seemed so bad---paseos are spanish walks that are taken regularly for fun). We made it just in time to grab some more mazapan “to go” and headed for Madrid.

Tomorrow is Malaga...

North Face Forever!

1/17-1/20

To begin, sorry for the delay of this post. The next ones should come more regularly.

Also, since the poll is closed on the trivia question about brooke we are able to inform you that the answer to the question of what food brooke found that she would eat every day if she could is...... Stuffed Grape Leaves!! congratulations to the few of you who didn't pick baklavah which she decided was too much (it's soaked in honey in Greece.... drenched and dripping honey)

We arrived in the Athens airport at 7:30 in the morning. We were greeted by a man holding a sign “Jacobson” and took a taxi to Hotel Economy. As we drove through town, we saw a variety of super chic hotels (and some dump-looking ones) and I kept hoping our hotel was nice, or somewhere in the middle. It turns out that Hotel Economy was a pretty sweet hotel that was pretty nice and in a great location.

When we left Mykonos, we were bummed about leaving too early for their delicious complementary breakfast, so when we made it to our Athens hotel in time for breakfast, we were overjoyed and immediately went to eat. The food was pretty good…there was coffee, delicious hot chocolate, steamed milk, and a couple of juices. Best of all, there was water. For the food, there was cereal (that tasted horrible), delicious toast (and a toaster!), and the finest in canned fruit. They also had breakfast cakes, which I personally liked, and ate way too much of. (Ken: Brad ate all of it, in case you were wondering.)

We took a nap afterwards for a few hours, and woke up fresh and ready to go around 1pm (or 13:00 if you will). When we first arrived at the hotel the quasi-kind attendant gave us a map and circled some of the premier historical sites in Athens. Deciding we didn’t want to miss any of the goodness, we embarked after our nap for the archeological museum, filled with priceless treasures from Greece’s glory days over 2,000 years ago. I think we all remember how great those days were.

In 2004, Athens hosted the Olympics, and the city began a massive amount of construction and renovation in order to prepare itself for the massive influx of judgmental foreigners and television cameras. The archaeological museum was a part of this effort, and it disappointed no one (except for the French, of course). We were thoroughly impressed by the museum’s massive collection of statues, busts, vases, and pretty much everything and anything that would fit on a pillar. The museum itself was impeccably designed, especially the museum café, which was full of awesome modern architecture and design, a marked contrast to the museum’s ancient collection. The gift shop was also quite cool, and provided us with a few decent to above average reading materials FOR FREE. Once we got over our shock and awe at the museum’s generosity, we left the gift shop and the museum very satisfied.

After our delicious museum experience, we walked towards the neighborhood of Psirri which our book (the MTV travel Europe book…the only book worth being called a book) said was an “up and coming” hotspot in town. The neighborhood didn’t disappoint, full of quirky and interesting shops, made all the more beautiful by the dusk light. A couple of highlights of this gem were stores dedicated to one of Greece’s professional soccer teams (one store even had an inflatable chair---CrAzY)., and a street with a series of upscale restaurants.

Although all of these restaurants were quite nice in their own way, one particularly caught our fancy. It was called the ice grille, a beacon of warmth in a world that’s oh so cold. The restaurant featured incredible ice cream with real pieces of fruit or chocolate and even baklava served with every scoop, as well as an incredibly chic and modern upper floor. After surveying our options, we decided this was the place for us to eat, sat down upstairs and surveyed the menu. Our server was a tall and sheepishly handsome young Greek (not as handsome as Nathan of course, because nobody is), who had a penchant for conversation and witty one liners. We chatted with him for a bit and then placed our orders, but unfortunately he returned with bad news instead of food: the restaurant was out of chicken. Grief stricken, we returned back to the street in search of another restaurant.

We found one at the bottom of the street, and what it lacked in style, it made up in atmosphere. It was a homely, family sort of place, with pictures of famous patrons (or just regular Greeks, how many Greek celebrities do you know?) plasterd to the walls. There was also a live band, which was very cool. We ordered some delicious food, and after the meal were treated to a dessert of yogurt, honey, and fruit. We were a little reticent at first because we thought it was mistakenly placed on our table since we did not order it, but at the urging of our waiter we dug in, and it was quite tasty.

Not having our penchant for dessert completely satisfied, however, we returned to the ice grill for some ice cream, which they did have (we saw it through a glass case so we were pretty confident). The ice cream was wonderful, and we went downstairs, where our old friend (we’ll call him Mr. Awesomakos), the waiter who served us before. As we were standing in front of the register, Mr. Awesomakos noticed our matching North Face jackets. He pointed to each one and then declared ‘North Face forever!’ And so it was.

After ice cream, we returned to our hotel, and very quickly fell asleep. The next morning, we woke up early and immediately went to breakfast. We ate the usual: bread, hot chocolate, and canned fruit for Nathan. Afterwards, we headed back to our room, got cleaned up, and left for our busy day of touring.

We quickly headed to the Acropolis to start our day. We began by hiking up a hill and finally reached the entrance and location to buy tickets and enter. We started by walking around the beautiful sites of temples and the ampatheater, and then we headed up and saw the Parthenon. It was really incredible because we were at the top of a huge hill, so not only were there beautiful ruins, but also a fantastic view of the city, which literally surrounded the Acropolis and was absolutely huge. It was truly a Pythagorean experience…it just felt RIGHT.

Afterwards, we wandered back down and walked through the Agora, the former center of commerce. It was another beautiful place to see and it was amazing to read about the history behind the Agora and the frequency of change that occurred in Athens throughout different ruling civilizations and time periods.

After visiting the Agora, we decided to travel towards another historic site, the Temple of Zeus. On the way, we noticed on our map that there was a synagogue nearby. We found our way to the synagogue, which was unfortunately closed except for two days of the week. We got out our cameras to take pictures of the synagogue’s façade, and were immediately approached by a police officer and another man who was not in uniform, who asked to see our passports and student IDs. We showed these to him and showed him our Jewish star necklaces, which we had usually kept tucked under our clothes just in case. When the man not in uniform saw our stars, he pointed to the police officer, who nodded in approval who told us they were just trying to protect the synagogue and that we could take pictures. It was a scary experience, but looking back it’s comforting that the synagogue was so well protected.

We continued on towards the temple of Zeus, and on the way saw the Parliament building, where we can assume very important business takes place. The building had several ceremonial guards standing in front, whose outfit and footwear was awesome, although it probably would impede with them actually dealing with a real crisis, should one occur. We took pictures with them, and they remained perfectly still throughout, which is pretty impressive. Since the Greek army (to our knowledge, but who knows?) doesn’t do anything especially meaningful, the guards were most likely Greece’s most highly trained, diligent soldiers.

Near the Parliament building and on the way to the temple was the Greek botanical gardens. Although it was winter and not a lot of flowers or trees were in bloom, the gardens were very well designed, vast and ordered, with statues and sculptures throughout. We wandered through the garden and made our way over to the Temple of Zeus.

We entered into this beautiful and after maybe giving our tickets to people who “scammed” us for a free entry (it is hard to say if they worked there or just wanted to use us to get in…) we walked over to the huge pillared temple, the majority of which had disappeared over the years, except for a few pillars and part of the roof which rested on top of the remaining pillars. It was hard to picture what the complete temple must have looked like, but the remaining structure was still pretty impressive. There was also a pillar that had fallen over and broken into cylindrical segments, which was very cool.

After we walked around a bit, we headed back towards the shops. Then, Nathan spotted the most amazing find of all time…A PYTHAGORAS T-SHIRT. Yes, it is true. It is an authentic Greek shirt and it is of one of my all time favorites, good old Pythag. It was definitely a relief to get something “mathy” our of Greece, and now I will have it forever! After I bought my shirt, the boys were jealous and wanted to be “European” as well, so we went into a couple chic and trendy European stores: The Pull and Bear and Bershka, homes to deliciously tight jeans, pink shirts for men, and European sweatshirts. We spent a lot of time there and the boys happily each purchased a shirt, and Nathan even bought two. (Pictures will be posted shortly of the overwhelming deliciousness.)

After a great day of shopping we only had one more craving to satisfy…so we headed for another Gyro (by that time our most favorite food). We bought delicious Gyros and since there was not a place to sit and eat, we went into the nearby (and very fancy) McDonalds to eat. Our Gyros were delicious (except that I couldn’t finish mine, again). Satisfied, happy, and very full, we left for our hotel and finally we able to use the internet. We pretty much just surfed the rest of the night, played a bit or checkers, and watched music videos on TV. A fun time was had by all, and we happily went to bed, excited for our next and final day in Athens.

For our third day in Athens, we had already visited many of the ancient historical sites, so we decided to hike up Lycabettus hill, which overlooks the entire city. The hill was a farther walk from our hotel than any of the other sites which we had visited, and so we got to walk through some areas of town which we had not yet seen. The most exciting of these was Kolonaki, full of ritzy shops, restaurants, and clubs. The neighborhood even featured a Jamba Juice-esque smoothie shop, which we frequented happily.

The hill itself was a nice climb up a concrete path, with many seating areas on the way up which provided great looks of the city. The top of the hill was equally incredible, providing a view of the entire city, including most of the places which we had visited up to that point. It was a nice final sight to cap off our time in Athens, and once again demonstrated how large Athens was, as buildings stretched for as far as the eye could see in all directions. The top of the hill also provided an ideal backdrop for the start of Brad´s promising modeling career. Wearing fashionable European t-shirts also never hurts.

After descending from the hill, we toured the Kolonaki area a bit more, then went for dinner and coffee to a café which was near our hotel. We bought some food and ascended the stairs to the second floor of the café, and found to our surprise that there was trash piled everywhere, on all of the tables and on parts of the floor. It was as if the employees of the restaurant simply forgot there was a second floor to the restaurant, and the patrons were none too keen on reminding them. Not wanting to be the whistle-blowers ourselves with our limited Greek, we went across the street to Everest, another café which is part of a Greek chain. Everest was much nicer and cleaner, and provided a good view of the plaza across the street. We drank our beverages and talked there for a while, and then returned to our hotel to sleep for our very early plane flight the next morning. All in all, Athens was a very fun city with some great cultural sights, and delicious Gyros and baklava at every corner. We left the city excited to return to a country where we could communicate in its ´mother tongue,´ and looking forward to the start of our program.

Mykoyes please

*Please don’t be shy in commenting on our blogs, or just saying hi. It’s nice to know who reads it and to hear from you. I’ll write a question at the end so you feel obliged to comment and answer it. Oh and send emails. Plllllease (theamazingtres@gmail.com). You can do both if you’d like. I’ll mention the best email we get in my next blog thus giving you eternal fame.*

We seem to have made a habit of throwing off our sleep schedule. It being the ‘off-season’ there seems to be an absence of night life on the Greek islands… or life in general for that matter. Point being we went to sleep late and woke up later.. I think.. All I know is that by the time we woke up we had about an hour before our ride took us to the airport (conveniently our ride was the same person who drove us to our hotel, was in charge of television programming during breakfast, and seemed to be the general operator of our hotel). Though we only had about a half hour, I had a busy day planned for us. We had to go into town, check the electronics store for something (next to “The penguin has spoken” laundry store), go to the souvenir shop, make it to lunch, and grab some baklava before our trip to the airport. We succeeded in all of our tasks except the baklava. I assume there will be more of it in Athens. Took the flight from Santorini to Athens airport. Got some zinc from a very nice lady in the airport pharmacy. Got some delicious food. And then boarded our next flight to Mykonos.

Let us take this time to give thanks to Brooke who single handedly organized our trip to Greece! She found a great company and reasonable rates and (so far) everything has worked out swimmingly. Props to Brooke.

When we got to Mykonos there was a travel representative waiting with a sign “JACOBSON.” It also had another name of some kid who was on the same flight as us (and happened to be going to the same hotel as us… very suspicious) We followed her into what seemed to be pretty much a personal vehicle and she drove us to Hotel Elena. The mystery boy went into her co-worker’s car, but we all went to the same place. She was very nice and along the way she told us a couple awesome facts about Mykonos.

Trivia Question (no cheating):

Which one of these is not a law/practice in Mykonos:

There can be no chain stores/restaurants.

Houses must be painted white with colored doors/windows.

Houses may only be two stories tall or less.

Everything is closed on Wednesdays after noon.

She also told us that it’s beautiful here and that youngins like ourselves would enjoy the night life and the beaches, if it were the season for either of those things… Mykonos is a gorgeous little island. It’s crazy that these islands are complete ‘ecosystems’ (or whatever) within themselves.. that people can be born, raised, and live here permanently. (Like in Santorini all the kids took buses from around the island to go to school in Fira).

Anyway, we got into Mykonos in the evening (Kalispera-good evening) and checked in to our hotel. It was definitely a step or two (or like ten) up from hotel Margarita. Really elegante (Spanish, not a misspelling) and beautiful. Having recently arrived on this gem of an island, we did the natural thing: took a nap. And apparently at like 9pm (21:00) Brooke came by to wake Nathan and I up… but Nathan kept sleeping and I said “I’ll do whatever you want to do,” half asleep… so we slept into the night. (Kalinikta – Good night).

Having had a solid nap of about 4 hours followed by a full nights sleep, we were well rested for the day of adventures ahead of us. And what better way to start the morning (Kalimera – Good morning) with a delicious breakfast buffet. In additional to the bread, butter, jam, cake, and coffee/tea of your average breakfast, this buffet actually had real food to offer us! Fresh eggs, meats, cheeses, fruits, pastries/croissants, cereal and the like. It was delicious, to see the least. (And in case you were wondering, Ken, I had all of the above on my plate(s)). After a delicious and filling breakfast our first inclination was to take a post buffet nap, but our consciences/brooke told us otherwise. So we decided to go out and explore. The women from the night before as well as the hotelerista told us we should walk to a beach. We had the choice between generic-named beach and Paradise beach. I have no idea why we chose the generic-named beach, but we did.

Along the way we passed through a beautiful little area with homes/shops all around. We stopped in and out of a couple shops and then made our way down to the pier/beach. You could still tell that we were out of season but the lack of open shops, but it was still more lively than Santorini. We walked a ways down and around the pier. Found some crazy windmills (aka the power plant of the ancient Greeks). We also saw, from a distance, some important island with Ancient Greek ruins. Unfortunately ships only run there on Tuesdays and Saturdays or something, so we missed it. But the windmills sure were cool. We continued walking along the coast for quite a ways. We ended up at another beachy area that was pretty deserted. We also found a hotel being built/repaired. (Pretty much everything on these two islands was trashed/messy/being repaired.. we feel like they go crazy with their hotels every year and end up repairing and rebuilding and cleaning them in March before tourist season. ) Lalala

Following the coast line we saw a soccer-esque stadium with many a people in it and decided to investigate. As it turns out it was a soccer field filled with school children running amuck. We decided it was kind of sketchy for three tourists to be chilling with all the school children and decided to move on. We went to the beach on the other side of the island (clearly a big tourist spot on season) and found that off-season it was a bus stop for the kiddies! Apparently Greek children go to school until about noon where they have mandatory recess for an hour where they go to the bakery and play on the futbol field.. then they take the buses home. Brooke should be a teacher in Greece (math is the same in every country… or is it language. Shoot.)

We eventually left the school bus stop intent on exploring more of the island. We walked up a massive hill and found an abandoned hotel (abandonded cause of the off-season) and found a place on top of the hill to sit and look at both sides of the island at the same time! Brooke thought it looked like the sound of music hill. We continued up the hill, stopped for some coffee/drinks, and tried to find our way back to our hotel. We eventually did (find our hotel). It was a long, but beautiful walk. I won’t bore you with the details.

After we returned to the hotel and used the internet a bit, we decided to find a place for dinner. [while we were using the internet we watched Olympic prelims for women’s volleyball where I met Glinka, an amazing/huge Polish volleyballer. She is really, really cool.] We asked for directions to a good place and tried to follow them (Nathan and brooke got the directions, in case you were wondering) and ended up at the pier by the same place we had lunch (oh yeah, we had lunch at the pier area). There were 3 restaurants open.. one was the one we had lunch at, one was ritzy and above our means, and the other was our remaining option (as brooke would say, settling is settling.)

It was kind of a little barish/café. But it got the job done. We came in and found a pasta-monger eating pasta in the corner. There were also two middle-aged plus men playing backgammon at a table. And a man or two at the bar. We found a seat and were served by a nice man. He kept rifling through the tv stations after we had ordered, until eventually he found the futbol game! It was a Greek league game (and once it started a couple more people came in). The owner spoke to one of the new arrivals in Greek as he sat down.. the only thing I could pick up was probably ‘Yasas’ and ‘Lua-Lua.’ The later I had never heard before, and they both laughed when they said it. Soon we would be introduced to the greatness of Lua-Lua… Well now in the story actually. Within five minutes or so of the game starting the forward from the Olympikos scored!! His name: Lua Lua. He was a baler, to say the least. We finished our food and returned to the hotel to finish the end of the game. I think Nathan and broooke went to bed and I stayed up to watch the game (ended with a score of like 6-1, Lua Lua had at least one more goal. Ballin’ )

Then we woke up early and flew to Athens. (too early for breakfast I’m afraid, it was quite sad.. I think brooke took it the worst actually.)

Athens was nice. Very nice, see one city and you’ve seen them all I say.

In Athens we saw a really nice 5 star hotel, and Nathan suggested that there are now 6-star hotels. Ever heard of them? Have you stayed in one? Discuss.

Hotel Margaritaville

(Don't forget to fill out the trivia question on the top left!)

As we speak I am blogssaging … blogging while receiving a massage. It’s pretty much the greatest thing in the world, other than bloggercising, of course. During the past two days we’ve been in the picturesque island of Santorini. The landscape looks like it could have been a painting instead of reality.

We started off our journey to Greece in the same way every culturally sensitive traveler should, by learning several important Greek words from our handy phrase book which Brad provided. Much to our dismay, despite a several hour layover in the Athens airport and a couple plane flights, the only Greek words we managed to pick up were please/you’re welcome “parakalo,” thank you “epharisto,” and hey! “ya sas.” I was hoping Greek worked a little like binary, with all other Greek words being some combination of parakalos, epharistos, and ya sas’, but unfortunately this was not the case either. Thankfully, pretty much everyone we came into contact with spoke some degree of English, so we got around just fine.

Santorini also provided us with our first taste of Greek culture, which is pretty awesome to say the least. Our first experience was at breakfast our first day on the island, at our hotel, Hotel Margarita. Breakfast was served in the main room of the hotel, a room which also contained a flat screen tv broadcasting the latest in Greek morning programming. We ate fairly lengthy breakfasts, so we were treated to many fine programs. While we couldn’t actually understand what was going on in the shows, we felt we got a pretty good taste of their content.

The finest of these programs was beautiful in its simplicity. For those Greeks who preferred to hear the news instead of read it, Greek television obliged with a program which consisted of someone reading the newspaper and pointing to the headlines. Another fine offering seemed to be some kind of expose about people who choose to place their clothes in plastic bags before putting them in suitcases. Shocking indeed!! If this television didn’t prove scintillating enough, there was a periodic noise coming over a loudspeaker which sounded like a low budget leftist political party spreading the good word. Doubting that the Greeks had political parties, or government for that matter (since government staples such as town halls, police, or fire stations were nowhere in sight), we inquired the meaning of the loudspeaker noise to the hotel attendant, who spoke English pretty well. She informed us that it was a fishmonger (a man who sells fish with a weight minimum of 200 lbs.) yelling ‘fresh fish.’

After we ate breakfast, we set out to explore the island. It became pretty evident that we were on the island ‘out of season,’ since most everything on the island seemed to be closed. This was exacerbated by the fact that our first day on the island was Sunday, so many shops were closed which usually stayed open during the off season. With most of the normal attractions closed, we decided that the best way to explore the island was to walk from the biggest town, Fira (where we were staying), to the second biggest town Ia, which our travel book said was a 6 mile walk which should take about two hours.

Before leaving, we stopped so Brad could play an especially cruel claw game, which provided three chances with a big claw and three chances with a little claw, each going for a different section of prizes. The little claw clamped tightly to the prize until it reached the top, giving a false sense of hope, then immediately released the prize before it moved forward to the drop area, preventing anyone from ever getting the prize. As for the big claw, Brad had his eyes set on a soccer ball toy with a spring attached to the bottom. For the hilarious results … see for yourself(video to be posted eventually - brad).

After playing the depressing yet hilarious claw game, we started off towards Ia, but were slightly put off by the fact that we were seemingly going the wrong way since the coastline was on the opposite side of us that the book said it should be. Confused about this detail, we decided to ask a few people in Fira about how to get to Ia, one at a small market and another at a gas station. They reinforced the notion that we were headed in the right direction despite our instincts, although they seemed utterly perplexed at the idea that we were planning to walk all the way from Fira to Ia.

Also in Fira, we picked up a couple more members of our party, in the form of stray dogs, who we named Poopsmith and Baxter. We met them on a main street, and after we did little more than acknowledge them, they refused to leave us. Poopsmith was the more loyal of the two, remaining right beside us and displaying a penchant for walking on the short stone walls on the sides of the road. Baxter was a born daredevil, darting in front of cars and only barely moving to the side as they approached. While they seemed very much like stray dogs at the beginning, by the end they seemed a lot more like pets, and so it was very sad when we needed to say goodbye.

The walk didn’t disappoint, with beautiful houses, rolling hills, and breathtaking cliffs and ocean views. The walk was longer that the book said, though, and by the time the 2.5 hour mark rolled around, we were feeling pretty hungry and slightly disgruntled. After 3 hours we finally made our way into Ia, and, after asking around and getting escorted for part of the way by a very friendly senior citizen, we managed to find a restaurant that was open. Baxter darted off, never to be seen again, but Poopsmith followed us into the restaurant and laid down right behind our table. The restaurant owner shooed him out once, but he dutifully reentered.

The place mats of the restaurant had a more detailed map on them than the map our book, and we discovered that we had taken a road which snaked around the other coastline than our book suggested, and thus added a few miles to our journey.

Our food was delicious (except for Brooke’s pizza), and after we finished the restaurant owner gave the rest of the pizza to Poopsmith and called a cab for us to get back. The cab took us along the road which we should have taken to begin with, and the drive back took less than 10 minutes. During our conversation with the driver, he asked us if we had walked to Ia from Fira, and then snorted with laughter when we answered in the affirmative. Since we didn’t really see anyone else walking on our trip, this sentiment seemed to be warranted among the locals.

Once we returned to Fira, we headed back to our hotel, and, exhausted, took a nap for a couple of hours. Brooke tried to wake Brad and I up to watch the sunset, but we declined, opting for sweet sweet sleep. After our nap, we went out for a night on the town. However, being that it was the off season, the ‘town’ for us consisted of an internet café. This was no ordinary internet café, however, but a 24 hour gaming zone, where we saw people playing Counterstrike, World of Warcraft, and my personal favorite/addiction, Warcraft III. Through a combination of skype, working on Brad’s resume, and a vending machine named Snakky, we somehow managed to spend 5 hours in the internet café. Exhausted, we immediately went to bed after.

The next day, after our awesome previously described breakfast, we decided to take a bus down to the south of the island, where there was supposed to be an exquisite red beach and some nice ancient ruins. We decided to take a bus down (an option which we didn’t have the day before since it was Sunday), and walked down to the bus station in the center of Fira. Unbeknownst to us, the next bus to leave (at 2:00) coincided with a nearby school being let out, and so the bus was nearly filled with schoolchildren returning to their part of the island. Not wanting to stand out too much as Americans, Brad and I decided that the only true way to blend in was to speak solely in Spanish. We were feeling pretty smug until a girl sitting next to us began to play a Greek version of “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira, which we did not understand much of.

Luckily, the bus let off soon after, before our masterfully crafted disguise unraveled further. We walked from the bus stop towards the beach, and about halfway down we ran into an Austrailian couple at another bus stop, waiting for the bus. We said our hellos and headed towards the beach. Much to our dismay (especially Brooke’s), the red beach was more like a ‘dark pile of stones,’ a bit disappointing, especially compared to the incredible beauty of the rest of the island. Due to the rather lackluster nature of the beach, it was surprising that there were several restaurants and bars around the beach (all closed, of course), all referring to the beach in their names. Maybe, in the end, the beach was as out of season as the restaurants around it.

Not to be deterred, we found a hiking trail a few hundred meters past the beach, which led up a hill. From the top of the hill we had a great view of the caldera, and, some nearby islands. The view was stunning, and the sun reflecting off the water was beautiful as well. We sat there for a while, and then headed back up to the bus stop where we had seen the Australian couple before. Surprisingly, we arrived to find them still there, waiting for the bus.

We began talking to them, and discovered that they had done the same walk which we did, and also took the same wrong road. They also had the same reflection that there was no one else walking on the road. Based on this conversation we determined that they were basically the older version of us. The couple also commented that the sunset was exquisite the previous day, which did not please Brooke very much, especially because at this point the sun has clouded over, so the sunset prospects were not very promising.

The bus came a few minutes later, and we walked back to our hotel. After we got to our room, we discovered that none other but the same Australian couple was staying in the room next to us. We were very surprised, but we probably should have seen it coming in retrospect. After talking to them for a bit more, we put on some warmer clothes and headed up the hill to watch the sunset. Although the sunset itself was not all that amazing, we climbed to a rooftop at the water’s edge, which provided spectacular views of the cityscape, the water, and the clouds, so the experience was incredible. After watching the sunset, we ate at Goody’s (a Greek fast food restaurant which I liked but Brooke and Brad did not), spent a little more time in the internet café, and then went back to our room to sleep.

Much like blogsaging, all good things must end, and Santorini was no exception. What Santorini lacked in activities, it made up for in breathtaking views, as the pictures hopefully conveyed (pictures to be posted eventually –brad). Next stop and next post: Mykonos.

Going to Ελλάδα (Greece)

(We just made two posts so if you'd like to read them in order go down to the other one first!)

We went to bed around 4:00 last night and woke up at 8:00 to get ready and head to the airport to go to Athens. We spent most of the night talking to the man at the front desk of the hostel to see if we could store our extra luggage there. He kept saying that it was probably going to happen, and then that he was 99.99% sure, on and on, and that he had to wait for his boss to come in. It turns out that the wrong boss came in and we would have to wait until morning. He said he would leave a note for the next man who worked the front desk to talk to the boss when he came in. So anyway, at 8:00 in the morning, we woke up and got ready. Brad went and talked to the front desk man, and of course he had not received a note, and he quickly told us that we couldn’t leave our things in the hostel storage while we were gone.

After that, we frantically brought our equipaje (luggage) with us to the metro to go to the airport. Brad informed me that he heard that it takes about an hour to get there…I panicked, since I had planned for a 30 minute commute without extra luggage to lock in the airport. After I freaked a little, we decided to get a taxi. (When we left the airport from Madrid, we got stuck with two taxis because we couldn’t fit all of our things into the trunk of the taxi, so Nathan hid until we actually got a taxi and then popped out to come with.) Brad flagged down a taxi and we rushed up to him to load the car. He was surprised by how much stuff we had but we convinced him to let us put our bags in the front seat and on our laps.

Once we were in the taxi, we made conversation with Miguel…..

(Brad's interjection)

So, there we were. Stuck at our stupid hostel with all of our bags because someone lied to us about storage and bosses and weightlifters. He had told us as long as we weren’t hiding bags of cocaine or Saddam Hussein that we would be fine.. he lied. We ate our free breakfast (Ken: Specifically we had a choice between a croissant or Donut or cornflakes, coffee or Hot Chocolate, and Orange Juice. That means there are 6 breakfast options. 12 if you include juice or no juice. We all went with the Croissant/Hot Chocolate/ O.J. option.).

Our plan was to take the metro to the airport, put our bags in la cosigna (baggage storage) and get to our flight by 11:30. It was 9:00am. It takes 1 hour to get to airport by metro. At this time Brooke started kind of “freaking out”, kind of a strong word.. but yeah. I believe the phrase “We don’t have enough time” came into play. And that’s when my upbringing kicked in… so thanks parents for making me freak out about being late to the airport and missing my flight.. which has never happened before. Somehow I got in my mind that that we were going to be late and get screwed over and blah blah.. so I think I thought that our flight left at 10:30 by the time we left the hostel. Or maybe I just thought it was an hour later… either way I thought we only left ourselves one and a half hours. So we started kind of worrying, and decided to flag down a taxi by the metro stop rather than go into that unknown underground abyss. I am very skeptical of Spanish Taxi drivers, no offense to anyone who reads this blog and happens to drive taxis in Spain. We were about to give up hope and just take the metro when all of a sudden, like an angel from the heavens, drove up our dear friend Michealangelo. In English: Michael the Angel. He was awesome. He loaded up our stuff.. yeah, all three of us actually can fit in one taxi, go figure. He was really friendly and helpful, spoke with us a bit. I even trusted him enough to discuss tips with him and what would be normal tipping amounts for, say, restaurants… or taxis.. Needless to say we tipped him, for possibly saving our lives. At that time we went in the airport, found La Cosigna, stored our bags (Brooke checked in and checked our one big backpack, it’s Northface by the way. Quality. Represent.) And then me and Nathan rushed up to check in, had a little trouble with the machines so we went to real life people who got us our tickets. Then I actually had the time of the flight in front of me, and found out our flight was at 11:30am and it was only like 10am… Again, thanks parents who influenced me in making me worry about this. You know who you are. (Ed: Brooke, the metro would have taken an extra hour.. we actually would have been late.) But now I know to trust our instincts. (end brad)

We made it to the airport (side note: Madrid Barajas Airport is the nicest airport ever. It is even better than the light up tunnel in Chicago O’hare) and spent some time wandering around, checking out the shops, and then we went to our gate. We found the first drinking fountain since Philadelphia, and promptly filled up our bottles. Then we boarded the plane to Atenas (Athens). I immediately fell asleep and since the plane was fairly empty, Brad moved to his own row in the back once we were in the air. I woke up to some delicious Kosher airplane food, which consisted of crackers, orange juice, applesauce, and they came around with fresh bread. I was impressed by the service. After we ate, we immediately fell back asleep for until the announcement came that we were starting our dissent into Athens. Nathan and I were really out of it, but Brad said that the islands were absolutely beautiful from the plane. I guess we will see pretty soon…

Once we got our bags, I was disappointed to find that I didn’t get a stamp in my passport because we didn’t leave the European Union. Lame huh! Nonetheless, my spirits quickly lifted when we were met by George, a Holiday Tours representative with our flight information and itinerary for the next week. He showed us all of our documents and answered questions. I was very impressed by him, and thankful that the tour we booked was in fact not a scam… (Brad comment: I think we all were.)

So now we are waiting at the gate to head to Santorini tonight. I am personally so excited to see the Island and spend time in a sunnier climate. As Nathan tells me, “the rain in Spain falls on the plain,” i.e. Madrid, so I am ready to get to the sun. Brad and I are typing now, and there was a small child talking really loudly. I made the comment that the kid sounds like he is speaking gibberish but it is probably Greek, but then Brad confirmed that it was gibberish…Weird.

It is time to go wait to board the plane.

Αντίο (Goodbye in Greek),

Nathan, Brad, and Brooke

P.S. Get ready for Gorgeous pictures of Santorini, and…
THE HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS TOUR-Archimedes, here I come!