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!