Island hopping in Greece!!!

Hello to all!

I have so much to write about, get ready for a long post! Where do I even being? I guess I will start writing about my Spring Break in the Greek Islands, then after the past couple weeks in Barcelona. The vacation in the Greek islands was arguably the best vacation of my life. It was absolutely HILAROUS every second of the way (the girls I was with and I always seem to make each other laugh and be goof balls) and stunning. It was a perfect group and everything worked out perfectly.

So last Thursday, I headed to Athens with my three friends (Emily Wondolleck, Sophie, and Emily Bass). We flew through Prague (really out of the way, so it took about 7 hours to get to Athens) and arrived in Athens at about 3pm. Now, let me tell you, Athens is really scary. It was just really ghetto and dirty. I don’t know if that was only where our hostel was, but we were scared walking around. Some advice – if you ever go to the Greek islands go straight to the islands because Athens is so sketch.

But, the Acropolis is Athens is AMAZING. We went there on Thursday late afternoon as the sun was setting and it was absolutely incredible! It was so huge and it was crazy seeing it in real life after always seeing it in pictures. After hanging out at the Acropolis for a while, we headed to dinner in a cute part of the city. The waiters gave us free wine with dinner and we ate SOO much (lamb, moussaka, you name it!) Afterwards we walked around then headed back to our run-down hostel (no outlets, mirrors, or hot water) and got a good night sleep for our long ferry ride in the morning!

On Friday morning, we were on our way to Paros, where we stayed for two nights. Paros was probably my favorite island of the whole trip. It was the smallest island we went to, and not a very big tourist attraction. Also, we went to the islands before the big tourist season, so it was really great not being around a bunch of tourists. Also, during the main tourist season prices DOUBLE everywhere, so everything was relatively cheap to what we were expecting! We stayed at a studio apartment complex right in the heart of Paros a block from the beach. It was a PERFECT place – we had two rooms and a kitchen, so we ended up saving a LOT of money by cooking dinner and breakfast every day.

On the first day in Paros we got a delicious, cheap lunch on the water then headed to a secluded beach about 30 minutes away. It was absolutely gorgeous and we got to see a lot of the countryside. We made dinner then headed out to a couple bars. We met some great locals that showed us around that night and it was super fun bar hopping in Paros.

The next day we headed to a island off of Paros called Antiparos. This might have been my favorite day of the entire trip. We took a small ferry to this island. Antiparos is the picturesque town of Greece. All of the streets were small and narrow and gorgeous. People of the town were all on the streets painting the cobblestone and it was absolutely incredible. We walked around the town all day and hung out at the beach on Antiparos. We got back to Paros later that evening then headed out to the bars again, hanging out with our local friends we met the previous night.

We then made our way to Naxos. Naxos is similar to Paros (not very touristy) but a little bigger. The only downside to Naxos was that it was not very sunny there – it rained a couple times but otherwise it wasn’t too bad. Our studio apartment was also extremely close to the beach with its own kitchen and two rooms. The first day we had an AMAZING meal on the waterfront at a seafood place. It was soooooooo delicious! We then wondered around the town. It was like a maze; there were dozens of tiny streets you could take that all lead to the top of a hill where the church was. We explored all of the streets for a while then headed back to the apartment where we made dinner then passed out.

The next day we woke up early and rented ATVs for the day. We rode the ATVs around the mountainside of Naxos, following a route that the ATV man gave us. We were gone pretty much all day exploring the island. It was absolutely incredible and we had such a blast riding our ATVs. We saw lots of tiny towns and sites around the island that were absolutely incredible. We ended up meeting a bunch of locals later that afternoon, so we had a dinner party that night in our apartment. It was so much fun! We made a HUGE feast of pasta, chicken, greek salad, and wine. Our friends came over and we enjoyed our dinner together. We went to the bars in town after and it was great socializing with people that were from the islands.

We were then headed to the island of Santorini! Santorini is probably the most popular and touristy Greek island (and arguably the most beautiful). Santorini was absolutely stunning! We stayed at incredible villas in a perfect location. We ended up renting a car so that we could drive around the island during our stay. The first night we went to a small town of Oia that was on the end of the island, and known for its beautiful sunsets. Oia was AMAZING. We walked around the perfect little town for a long time, casually looking in shops and absorbing the incredible beauty of the town on the water. This is where I think all of the postcards from Greece are taken. We had a delicious Greek dinner as the sun was setting and headed back to the center of the island where our villa was late that night.

The next day we explored the island with our rental car. We went to amazing black and red beaches, went to a beautiful lighthouse, and explored the countryside. It was incredible (I know I say that a lot but literally I don’t know how else to explain the beauty of the island). We then walked around town and shopped (got a purse!) We went to an amazing dinner that our villa guy recommended. IT WAS TH E BEST DINNER OF THE TRIP!!!! The servers would not stop feeding us!!! We got free wine, free appetizers, and amazing entrée, free desert, and free lemon cellos! It was the best dinner and so authentic, and SOOO cheap for all the food we got. I literally could not move after though. But that never stops me! We then went bar hopping all night and watched the Barcelona – Madrid game at a couple bars (Barca lost L). We stayed out late that night to celebrate our last night in the islands and had an amazing time again meeting new people and running into people we saw in Athens, Paros, and Naxos!

We took a 9 hr ferry ride back to Athens the next day. It was actually a lot of fun because we ended up drinking a lot of wine and making tons of new friends! We played UNO with a bunch of Greek people and Belgium girls. I must say, it was the best 9-hr ferry ride I have ever taken!

The next morning we went back to the Acropolis and hung out there until our flight. Then we cried the whole way back L because our vacation was over.

I will write about the past couple weeks in Barcelona later because I am really tired and that was a really long post. But this weekend I am heading to the Canary Islands (Spanish islands off of the coast of Africa)!!!! We booked an all-inclusive hotel so that will be even more amazing!!!! Get ready to see a new shade of black when I return!!!!

LOVE YOU ALLLLLLLL

xooxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxo

P.S. the pictures of Greece do not do it justice!!!

21 21 21 21 21 21 21!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hola a todos!

I AM 21 YEARS OF AGE!!!!!! WOOO HOOOOOOOO!!!! No more fake IDs or having someone else buy me beer!! WOOOOO I don't think people understand my excitement!!! I have been waiting for this moment for SOOO long I cannot even remember! I am soooooooo excited to return back to the states and hit up the bars! (not like I didn't do that before, but now I don't have to memorize every fact about a fake ID!!) WOOO

Okay now that my excitement is over, I can tell everyone about my big 21st birthday!! So I was in Amsterdam for my 21st and I am SOO happy I chose Amsterdam as my bday weekend excursion! Amsterdam is SOOOOOO beautiful! With all the canals and old buildings I felt like I was in heaven just walking down the street! And it is fully of pot-smoking hippies obviously, so that was quite fun to watch as well. Oh my gosh, I don't even know where to start! It was honestly top 3 best weekends of my life, it was SOOO much fun!!!

Okay, so there was a total of 8 girls that went for the weekend. We looked into hostels but they were super expensive in Amsterdam so we decided to split up into groups of 2/3 and CouchSurf. Sophie, Emily, and I stayed with this guy names Thomas (we called him Tommy) who worked on this boatyard/dock thing so his house was literally on the water. It was so gorgeous and such a nice house. So on Thursday night he took us out to an AMAZING dinner and then we all chilled in the bar afterwards, got to know each other, then went to sleep fairly early because we were pretty exhausted from travelling. But Tommy bought us all dinner and at least 5 rounds of drinks each (as you will see later, Tommy is apparently very rich). It was so much fun and Tommy is super nice but kind of socially awkward so many times we were giggling at his awkwardness. But it was perfect because we got our own room and he worked all day. He would set up coffee and breakfast for us so we wouldn't even have to buy a bagel! It was perfect, and I definitely saved a LOT of money staying with him!

On Friday we got up fairly early and went into town and met up with the other 5 girls. We all went to the Anne Frank house and toured around. It was SOOO cold on Friday and we waited outside Anne Frank's house for about an hour I thought my hands were going to fall off. After the Anne Frank house, we went to a big square and sat at an outside bar for a while and people watched, laughed, giggled, etc. We walked all along the canals that weave throughout Amsterdam (IT IS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL CITY!!!!!) and then headed back to our respective homes to get ready for the night.

On Friday night we decided to walk down the Red Light District. Now let me tell you, that was a culture shock!!! We walked down street after street literally in shock. I wish we could've gotten a picture of our faces and how shocked we were at what was in front of our eyes! Windows after windows were filled with girls in lingerie trying to lure guys into their "room". Some of the girls were cute and actually pretty and some were just hard to look at. But it was honestly so gross; we would watch guys go in and out of the windows, and I swear some of the guys were 14! It was so shocking walking around the Red Light District, and one prostitute even yelled at us for "blocking" her window. After that whole ordeal we went to a bar far away and tried to erase that from our memory. I took a shot of tequila at midnight and it was by far the best shot I had ever taken!!!!!!

Saturday was a beautiful day, not only because it was my birthday, but because the sun came out!!! We literally spent ALLLLLL day in this huge park in the center of Amsterdam. We drank some beer, had a picnic, sunbathed, listened to the live bands around us, chatted, napped, and enjoyed a wonderfully sunny day filled with haze of marijuana smoke. The park was PACKEDDDDDD so we mostly just drank and made friends. And people watched (obviously). It was such a relaxing a great day. I really can't describe how wonderful it was but it was basically a humongous festival in an amazingly large park.

For my birthday night, Tommy took all of us out to a club. He payed for all of our entrances (15euros each) and probably about 8 rounds of drinks for all 8 of us. (This is what I mean when I say that I think Tommy is really rich). It was really funny because he wore this kind of man-purse thing and would just pull out the 50's like they were nothing. The club was super fun and the DJ played the best music ever!! Basically I was dancing on the stage the whole night enjoying my birthday. We stayed out until the wee of the night then passed out at about 6am. It was a great bday night with all of my friends it literally could not have been better!

Hmmm what did we do Sunday? Oh! We went to the Van Gogh museum! Well, I didn't go. We all met outside of the museum and about half of the group went in and half stayed out. I didn't want to pay to go in when I knew I would want to leave right when I entered... it's not my fault I don't like art! Dad, I think when we were in Europe a couple years ago I filled up my museum capacity for an entire lifetime. Anyways, when they were out we went back to the wonderful park we fell in love with and layed out for a little bit more. Then, we continued to walk along the canals and wondered down random streets. We went to a flower huge flower market (Amsterdam is known for its Tulips) and gazed at the flowers (also, not my thing). We were exhausted by Sunday night, so we had a big dinner at Tommy's, then we all watched Black Swan and passed out.

Well, that was my bday weekend!!!! It was absolutely AMAZING and I wouldn't have asked for anything better!!! Well, I think I am getting carple tunnel for now so I am going to stop writing.

but here is a couple things coming up!:
All day in the town of Sitges (45 minutes south of Barcelona) on Friday! We have a big group of about 20 going to hang out on the beach, so hopefully we will make it into a party!
10k in Barcelona this Sunday!!
Island hopping in Greece!!!! I leave in one week!!!!
Canary islands end of April!!! (We booked an all-inclusive hotel on the beach!! aka hello sun, drinks, food, beach, and relaxation!! what else could a girl ask for?!?!?)

ok adios to all!! THANKS FOR ALL THE BDAY WISHES

xoox