Last Days in Greece

In Greece your wine glass is never allowed to be empty. I learned this at our farewell/birthday dinner for our host-dad, and boy did I do and say some embarrassing things! Almost fell into the sea. Twice. Woke up close to tears from a particularly nasty bruise on my knee and surmised that its presence must've been due to me tripping from the dock onto the boat and almost into the water the night before. Its not my fault - the Greeks know how to get a person drunk!

Here are some miscellaneous photos from our time on Kefalonia:

Ready to scrub some mildew.

We would spend our evenings sitting outside with either tea or wine, while listening to music and writing in our journals. We crafted these candle holders out of lemon rinds to protect the delicate flames from the wind.

Speaking of wind, there was a wind farm on the island!

The boat:

There are a lot of fun memories associated with this bathroom and its hand-pump toilet, none of which I will go into here.

Our host-family sent us off with bottles of their homemade olive oil and we took the 8am ferry back to the mainland.

Watching trucks load from the top of the ferry. Kinda of like a wolf shirt... but a wolf truck! Love it.

That rope was HUGE. Must've taken absolutely forever to splice like that.

Bye, Kefalonia!

We explored some crazy-looking baklava on the ferry. SUCH a mess.

This time we booked a different, more centrally located hostel in Athens. We had three nights in Athens before moving on to Istanbul. Our hostel this time around was much nicer, but it was jam-packed with obnoxious Americans, also on Spring Break ("Duuuude! No more ouzo for you!" and the like at 3am or thereabouts.)

Athens is really dirty and decrepit and our hostel was not in the best part of town, to say the least (this isn't a picture of our hostel, just a really worn-down building.) The first day we saw these creepy little gypsy kids running about with no adults in sight. Walking around we came across a little diner called "Joy's" where you could buy a deliciously greasy gyro for 1.50 euros. One day we went there for lunch then came back for dinner (our record was three times in one day!) Looking out the window we noticed that a lot of the women walking around outside in their trashy heels and makeup looked familiar and that they had been there while we were eating lunch. Upon closer examination, we realized that they were prostitutes. Oh.

Walked up to the Parthenon and whatnot because as students, we didn't have to pay. All that stuff is cool if you're into your classic Greek and Roman history, but since neither of us were, it was more just like something to do. Also, there were way too many tourists.

The beginning of what would become a Baklava Feast in Istanbul.

We met up with a friend from Sussex and went on a hike to the top of one of the hills/mountains.

Goofy-looking trees.

Did not realize there would be cactus!

On our last night in Athens some jerk followed us for a long time on our way back to the hostel. When he got close enough to say something to us (in Greek) Emily turned to him and said "No, fuck off." We sped up and crossed the street. Although nothing happened it shook us up a little and further cemented our view of Athens as nowhere anyone needs to spend three nights in.

Then it was on to Istanbul.