Napflio

So now that i finally have the name right of where i was staying in greece i can finally tell you more about what i did and saw i have probably forgot a lot of the details so i may have to blog again after consulting my journal. so here it goes...

Friday we visited Myceane (i studied the myceanean culture in college, history of world art 1) and i saw the lions gate which they are very famous for as well as the Agemenmon death mask which was the ruler during the peak of the culture as well as pythos and dun dun dun my favorite greek vase, i forgot what style it was but it has an octupus on it, wow wow wow, it's so cool when you study something and then finally see it in real life! then we went to another ruin and saw them reconstructing some doric columns from a temple of zeus, not so great. by this time i am really sick of greek salad and tomatoes in general!

Saturday A.M. we went to the market in town bought some vegetables and local wine (aka the year on it was September 2006 and it came in a 1.5Liter water bottle!) then after that we went to the beach and with a map not to any sort of scale tried to find some art galleries. later in the afternoon we went to Tolo, basically the "sandy" beach area where there is about oh 5 feet wide! this was also the night of the rain storm in which it started raining as we were driving back from the beach and we waited in the car to prevent absolute soaking and when it did let up and we got up to walk to our apartment the streets were flooded and the water was about 2.5 inches high!

Sunday: we tried to go to a gorge, but we had bad driving instructions so we didn't make it:(sadface). but we did make it to the castle in our own town of Napflio and it was absolutely cool the foretress built in the 18th century by the venetians. lots of climing and the windows were angled so that arrows could go out but not much could come in, it was also devised so that if it was infilatrated there was a way to defend the part that hadn't been infilatrated.

Monday: I made the family Crepes and then we went somewhere i think but i can't remember to be continued...

Tuesday: My family put me on a bus from Nafplio to Athens. Well guys i can't believe it but Athens is more dirty then Dublin! i didn't think it was possible what with all the drunks but with the sand and the dogs and cats and the people on the tiny antique streets and the ugly european modern buildings not a place i would recommend spending a lot of time in, i would go to Nafplio, just gorgeous, or an island or something. so once at the bus station i took another bus to the city center, for 50 cents! and i had a combined ticket because then i had to take the metro from where the bus dropped me to Montastaraki square where my hostel was. well on both these bus rides i noticed a girl traveling by herself which after we got off the bus i took the opportunity to ask her if she was looking for her hostel and where it was, we were at different hostels but within a 7 minute walk of each other so we got on the metro and went to our prospective hostels but then we met at the Acropolis at 4pm! yeah instant companion Chiara from Milano, another italian! so she was 19 and just starting at the University this year and she loved greek culture, and alexander the great! so we had things to tell each other about the Parthanon and and the theater etc. but i was so impressed 19, only knowing a bit of greek navigating greece on buses by herself! wow. so then we had dinner together looked around the city a bit and then out for an ouzo to finish the night. this is a traditional greek alcohol in which it is clear but you put ice in it and it turns foggy. it is made from aniseed and tastes nice if you get a good one. i had a bad one on saturday, it didn't turn foggy when you add ice.

Wednesday: i got on the bus at 2:30am to get my flight out of athens at 5am i didn't do much research for flights and only paid attention to the first flight out of dublin, oops! the bus ride with no traffic takes about 45minutes to the airport! and on the way to the airport i saw that someone had gotten hit by a car on the highway, yikes not the last image i wanted in my head of athens but...so i made it to the airpot and checked in for my flight. once again i fell asleep b4 the plane even lifted off the ground but i woke up in time for my greek vegetarian meal, this one was a lot tastier then the irish one with a little spanikopita as well as a sesame seed vegetable thing and some yogurt with honey. once in prague, i had 3 hours in the airport, ugh! so i slept for about 2 and then went to find out where my flight was leaving from. once on the plane i was thinking to myself, just once on a flight i want to sit next to an attractive young guy! yeah! and bingo i did, but unfortunately he didn't speak much english at all only Czech bummer! so since they didn't have a vegetarian meal for me on this flight i just had a beer at 10am in the morning! i know terrible. and the 2 Czech guys were saying just beer! and i was like well i'm going back to dublin so i thought i would get an early start. but they didn't get the joke. but then toward the end of the flight they were a little drunk so they started trying to talk to me and teach me some Czech words they were flying to dublin in order to watch the Czech republic play Ireland in football. by the end of the flight i was excited to get off the plane and get on a bus to a familiar place. so i got home and ate some lunch at about 1:30pm then i hopped back on another bus to the Botanical Gardens, which was absolutely beautiful i learned all sorts of useles facts like the banana is not a tree but the largest herbaceous plant in the world. i have no idea what that means google it! so then i got home and went out for a tea with francesca went to our house for dinner and then out for a hot whiskey.

Thursday: i got up and went to an art exhibition about the deforistation in the US, but looking at it critically it just looked like some photos of trees to me! then i went to the book of kells! finally, and i have to say i was not so impressed, i was rather disappointed, i studied it in school so i was really excited but in the end they did a poor job of the little pre book of kells, history of the world at that time, tools used, pigments etc. it wasn't it irish which every museum i have been to has it in irish and english which is a nice feature and they took images from the book and blew them up on the walls so they were kind of pixilated once you looked at them closely. and then the book, well they have taken the book apart and have 2 books made, one with the images and one with the text, not so cool. but i did see the very first page of the book of kells, so in latin it says in the beginning there was the word of god and the word said...so on and so forth kind of cool to see the first page. not really worth the 7euro but i think it is a requirement when you are in dublin that you see it. later on in the evening i made a yummy vegetable lentil pie with goat cheese, very nice. then we also had some chocolate salami! fran made it while i was away with the special italian biscuits that you can't get here in dublin, but you can in greece so i brought some back with me for her. so good day.

Friday: Cork today, i accidentally deleted my info for my flight on monday to paris, oops so i had to call ryan air and get my flight info, thanks for nothing ryan air, they are not helpful at all and they hang up on you as quickly as they can! but i got the info and i am ready for monday and paris, with my european language book! so ciao for now i will write more about greece later.

xoxo,
christie