I’ve always said that technology is my greatest ineptitude. I think that now, in my present situation, you all will very likely agree with me. On my study abroad journey, I write for two separate blogs-this one and one other, and it just so happens that on my last entry date the two coincided. I can distinctly remember staying up pretty late and sending in one, then the other (I was so proud of myself for fishing both, as well as a philosophy paper that night) and heading to bed. But as they say, nothing’s ever easy. So you can imagine my surprise when I wanted to double-check that I wouldn’t be repeating any stories from my last blog, realizing it was nowhere to be found. To avoid this entry becoming dreadfully long and risking boredom on your part, I’ll simply recount my most recent interesting events here in Athens.
One of the most fun adventures I’ve had as of late was a wonderful day trip I took to Aegina island with a group of friends from my program. Aegina is one of the smaller and closest islands to the mainland of Greece, less than an hour’s ferry ride away. The island is breathtaking, with the clearest water I’ve ever seen, and just on the horizon are other islands close by, mountains on each one. My friends I were able to go up the largest island on the mountain, to visit the temple of Aegina, the islands patron goddess. While the weather on the island was wonderful for the most part, there was a distinct drop in temperature and high winds at the mountain top. A Florida girl born and bred, I was freezing. A little cold was completely worth the breathtaking outlook at the top though. Once we returned to the town below we had lunch at an adorable taverna, where I learned that smoked salmon is about as close to raw fish as you can get while still calling it cooked. I’m not a raw fish person by nature; even my sushi consists of cooked imitation crab. I really did try though, and that’s what counts right?
Apart from Aegina island, my friends and I also planned on taking a train to a separate mountainous region of Greece, Meteora, far outside of Athens last weekend. It was a complete debacle. Originally we’d planned a weekend trip to Zurich, Switzerland, but heard the weather would be less than ideal so we made a quick change of plans. Now, to get to Meteora one has to take a 6 hour train ride from Athens, and from there the hike to the top of the mountain and back is 13 miles; a full days’ worth. We had planned to arrive in Meteora Friday night, hike Saturday, and return Sunday. Little did we know however, that these specific train tickets had to be bought online at least 24 hours before. Unfortunately we only learned this once we had arrived at the train station, luggage in hand, ready to board trains whose seats had already sold out. The down side of this is that our weekend plans had completely disintegrated, The upside, we instead went to dinner and saw Deadpool (pretty great, I have to say) and for future trips, we know to plan ahead. Live and learn, as they say!