Two weekends ago my friend Alex and I went to Santorini. We had to get up at 4:45 to make it to the port on time to catch our ferry. The ferry ride was extremely long (8 hours!) and we had deck seats so we were constantly getting sprayed by water and since the sun wasn't up for some of the trip it was also really chilly. But when we got to Santorini, the ferry ride was definitely worth it. Santorini is so beautiful! It's exactly like all of the pictures and movies. Santorini is actually a lot bigger than I expected and there are two main towns, Oia and Fira. Alex and I stayed in a hotel near Fira that was in a great location and only about 5 minutes away from the main area. We opted to stay in a hotel rather than a hostel after coming back with bedbugs from Crete (thanks CYA for putting us in dirty hotels!) We didn't do much Friday when we got in because it was almost 4:30 when we checked into the hotel but we walked around the area with all the shops and restaurants which was really neat. For dinner we had fried tomato balls and beans in tomato sauce, which are traditional Santorini foods. Alex wanted to go to a club Friday night but we walked around and mostly everything was empty because it's starting to be off season in the islands.

Saturday we got up early and took a cable car down to the old port. Then we rode donkeys back up to the town, which was really fun but also smelly. Saturday afternoon we went to SantoWines and did some wine tasting. The views from the winery were really spectacular you could see almost the entire island and the volcano. Plus the wine was pretty good. After the winery we took the bus to Oia which is the more traditional town on Santorini, with all of the white houses and blue roofs. Alex and I kept trying to see if we could figure out the spot where Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was filmed but we think that it was filmed on one of the other islands that is part of Santorini. Saturday night we watched the sun set over the caldera and had delicious gyros from a Greek fast food chain and I also had Ferrero Rocher gelato.

Sunday we just walked around the island a little before our ferry left. Santorini was definitely very touristy and I heard more American accents there than the entire time I've been in Greece, but I would definitely go back. I didn't get a chance to go to any of the beaches but I heard they were fantastic.

Last weekend I stayed in Athens and was able to explore more of the city. Thursday night I went with some people to the James Joyce which is an Irish pub in Plaka. Most of the kids from my school hang out there every weekend, but I think it's kind of funny that we're in Greece and they end up at an Irish pub. Friday, my roommates Sybil and Alex, and I took the metro to the shopping mall here. I was expecting the mall here to be much different but it was just like an American mall, if not better. They were handing out free food everywhere! We got free loaves of bread, boxes of cereal, and gouda paninis. All of the stores were very expensive but I will definitely go back for all the free food they hand out. On Saturday Alex and I went to Filippopos (I'm not sure if this is the correct spelling) Hill, which is a park/hilly area behind the acropolis. It was very quiet and pretty up there and we had a nice picnic. Here we also saw Socrates prison, which is the cave where he supposedly died.

I've also been seeing more things around Athens with my classes. Yesterday for my Monuments and Sites class we visited the Agora, which was the ancient market place, and we're going back there again tomorrow. With my Athenian culture class, I've also visited one of the Athens cemeteries. Cemeteries are strange here in Greece because they're very overcrowded so people usually just rent plots for 2 or 3 years. Then when the lease runs out they exhume the bones of the person and put the bones in a special box. Finally, yesterday I went to a Greek Orthodox service with my religions class. I had no idea what was going on because of all the Greek. Although it was interesting to see what a Greek Orthodox service was like it got boring after awhile like most other churches.