It's a Greek Turkey Wrap!

Again, it’s been eons since I’ve updated this, but I’m back in the States now and I just feel I should round it up smoothly. So first, I’ll say goodbye to Spain and then tell a cool tale or two about Greece and Turkey. Get ready for thousands of words.

My last few weeks in Sevilla were unbelievable. I spent as much time with my friends as I could and studied a bit for my final exams. More of the former. We spent days lounging on the roof of the study center and nights gathering by the river and bidding “buenas noches” to our favorite bartenders. I took my camera out for a spin to revisit some of my favorite places in the city so I’d have permanent images of the Keith Haring couch in the furniture store window I passed every day and my favorite Moorish building that looks like a very tall gingerbread house. There is so much that I will miss about Sevilla. The Spanish people are wonderful and the Americans in my program are unforgettable. The good news about leaving is that I can always go back and visit the Spanish people and I get to take my Americans home with me! (Well, close anyway.) I had my last meal with my Señora Julia and crossed the Guadalquivir River one more time before I left very early one morning and said “hasta luego” to Spain. Good thing about “hasta luego” is that it implies you’ll be back one day. And that I will.

It cushioned the sad blow of leaving Spain to know I was heading out on a rather fantastic trip. My next adventures brought me, my friend Abby from our Sevilla program, and my friend Emily from home, to Greece!

Abby and I endured a hellish day of traveling from Sevilla to Madrid to Athens. We lugged half a semester’s worth of stuff through train stations and airports and finally sat on the metro from the Athens airport into the city sweaty and beat. The train car slowly started to fill up and we knew we’d eventually have to move our luggage from the extra seats we claimed. However, we didn’t quite expect to be barked at in Greek to stand so these women could park themselves as we stood crammed against the walls of the car with our bags piled around us. Then, as we were leaving the car in the metro station, some woman yelled after me in Greek and threw a grocery bag full of deli sandwiches at my feet before the doors closed. As if getting a large stack of paper-wrapped poultry thrown at me wasn’t bad enough, now Abby and I had to live with the guilt of depriving some poor, absent-minded bloke on the train of his sandwiches!

We eventually arrived at our hostel in Athens, luckily located in the heart of the city so we could avoid further transportation hooha. Emily would arrive the next morning, so Abby and I cleaned up and went out to get ourselves some good Greek grub. I found after a few meals that there was very little bad Greek grub. We were quite content. Then we crashed.

Emily arrived the next day and the three of us packed as much ancient Greek fun as we could into our days. We went to the Acropolis (Parthenon, Temple of Athena Nike, Dionysos Theater, Herodeion), Filopappou (the Prison of Socrates, Filopappou Monument, the PNYX), Ancient Agora, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, Hadrian’s Arch, Zappeio and the National Gardens. Everything was pretty close together, so we really got to explore as much as we wanted. One day we spent an afternoon getting somewhat closer than our parents probably would have approved to the banking district. We saw the changing of the guard (an amusing little dance two armed guards get to perform to ogling and mocking tourists) at Parliament and then moved on past bullet-ridden security booths and window-shattered apartment buildings to see a protest in front of some government building, complete with a full police team on standby. I had to at least try to take some pictures, so I risked it and then got shouted at by approaching police so we made a u-turn and boogied out of the conflict zone.

Athens was a historically rich and exciting city, but we had islands ahead of us so we weren’t leaving in tears. Ferry to Santorini. Van ride up cliffs in the late afternoon sunshine. Staying in our own, PRIVATE hostel room just two minutes from the beach. Santorini made us proud.

For our first day we rented ATVs and buzzed all around the island. It’s a really popular thing to do there, which is great because it’s a pretty big island and there happen to be pretty gorgeous things to see at every which side of it. We rented two ATVs and the three of us braided every few rides so we’d each get time to drive. After zooming around a gorgeous island on an ATV for two days, I’m seriously considering buying one. SO FUN! We drove around to little hilltop (completely blue and white) villages and checked out a few beaches. We went to one called Red Beach. It’s just down the shore from White Beach- I asked if in between was a Pink Beach but the ATV guide didn’t find that very funny. We had to hike over a rocky edge to get to red beach, but the small, secluded space was way worth it. We spent a few hours playing in the sun and surf before eagerly hopping back on our ATVs and heading to Fira, a central town that promised good shopping. Fira was way touristy, but also offered some stunningly postcard-esque views of white building covered cliffs and the volcano in the caldera.

From Fira we returned to our mission to see the sunset from Oia (spelled about 29384 different ways but pronounced Ee-yah). It was a pretty far drive and we ATVed the whole way. I drove and I’m pretty sure my right hand was bordering on carpel tunnel syndroming. Still, the drive was way worth it. The town was very charming and clearly more upscale than where we stayed. After a lovely sunset, we jumped back on the ATVs for a much longer drive home. We had stopped in other cities on our way there and it was daytime. With the sun gone it got really cold and I drove again so my hand had to hold the gas lever down for over an hour. It was quite adventurous steering along cliffs as cars overtake you (it felt fast to me, but I guess 55 km/hour is slow for a car) and you strain your eyes to see the road signs directing you every which way across Santorini. Still fun though. And on our way back we picked up some extra large gyroses and sat waiting in the restaurant for them without removing our giant helmets. Yeah, we like to leave locals with a good taste of Americanism wherever we go.

Other events in Santorini included having to stay there an extra night due to a *scheduled* ferry strike (no biggie, we liked Santorini), lounging on the black sand beaches indulging in way too expensive strawberry daiquiris, swimming in said black sand beach water and marveling at the completely smoothed over stone bottom, and watching movies about Greece (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Mamma Mia) when it rained. We loved Santorini.

Alas our travels took us elsewhere and soon we were in Paros! Paros is far less touristy than other islands, particularly Santorini and Mykonos. However, there are still quite a few hotels, stores and restaurants due to its large port and the fact that ferries very infrequently run directly between Santorini and Mykonos. That’s kind of why we decided to stay there one night. Our “hostel” was run by a German guy who lived upstairs with his girlfriend and toddler, and they had a great sunroof, but it rained the whole 16 hours or so we were there. We did get to enjoy a mostly dry stroll through the cute little village.

The next day our ferry arrived in Mykonos and we grew increasingly frustrated waiting for the car from the hostel that was supposed to pick us up. We waited, we were hungry, we had crappy weather and then we couldn’t even check into the hostel for 30 minutes after we got there so we went to wait on the beach and then had to leave because the hostel’s private beach charged eight euro per beach chair. Ahh how the traveling does eventually wear on one’s cheerfulness. We tempered our mild crankiness after checking in by getting a good meal and heading into downtown Mykonos. There were lots of narrow streets filled with shop after shop and it was a bit of a puzzle keeping track. I think we all made at least a few purchases, but other than that and looking at windmills, we found little else to do. Back to our beach hostel for a rest and some dinner before our Saturday Night in Mykonos! So what we’ve heard about the low season in Greece is that you get the nice views and pretty weather minus a million other tourists blocking your sunset. Well, the bad part is the weather isn’t necessarily nice. It has to rain sometime, after all. The other thing is, as a college student, you expect a certain level of nightlife. The short of it? We were so feebly impressed by the evening’s social offerings that we spent the night lounging in our room and went to bed early. Overall, we enjoyed Mykonos, just had some bad timing.


We were sad to leave Greece, but, like bidding “adios” to Spain, it was easier knowing that we were moving on to a fantastic, new spot! Hello, Istanbul!


Turkey was kind of different than any place I’d ever been. Sure, our hostel was located in a super touristy spot very close to the Blue Mosque and the Arya Sofia, but it still felt very much like a Muslim country. It was soooo hot the whole time we were there and, well, I couldn’t make myself wear pants. I covered up to enter the mosques, but my sundresses and blonde hair were a calling card for an American. And to tell the truth, that got quite annoying after a while.

Still, I’d put up with that any day for all that Istanbul has to offer. Abby had only two days there while Em and I planned to stay longer. We packed as much of Istanbul as we possibly could into those two days. We saw the Blue Mosque, Arya Sofia, Galata Tower, the Hippodrome and of course made our way shopping around the utterly massive Grand Bazaar. One afternoon we decided we’d like to have lunch across the river, so we took a ferry and stepped off into Asia!! It really wasn’t very different, just more modern. Still, it was cool just knowing we were on another continent. While Abby was there, we also allowed ourselves two nights of good eatin’. We approved of one recommendation in Abby’s travel book. The second restaurant we found as we headed out to eat around 10pm on a Monday night. It was a rooftop of a hotel and we were literally the only patrons. We charmed the waiter and got free grape leaves and a ridiculously delicious meal! While we waited for our food, he even allowed us to climb to the empty rooftop above the restaurant balcony and we had the most stunning view of all of Istanbul at night. Definitely one of those unique, never-forget travel moments.

After Abby left, Emily and I slowed our pace just a bit. We did more walking and wandering and made friends with some great people from our hostel. Jamie from Hong Kong was traveling alone so we toured a few new places together. We made it to the palace one afternoon and spent a while strolling the gardens and then ogling the beautiful architecture and jewels displayed inside the palace walls. We took an afternoon breather enjoying the sun at our hostel’s rooftop terrace and beginning a multi-hour card marathon with fellow hostel buddies. At nights we never left the hostel- all our entertainment was built in! The rooftop bar attracted all guests so there was always a great international crowd up for cards, hookah, and even dancing.

One day Emily and I had a truly Turkish experience- something everyone says you should do when you go to Turkey and you kind of agree, but don’t really know why. We spent an afternoon at the Turkish baths and now I know why those who’ve tried it encourage it. It’s luxurious, awkward, private and literally muscle-wrenching, and that’s about all I’m going to share. Like those before me, I’ll say you have to experience it for yourself. But I am oh-so-glad I did it.

After Em left, I had one final day in Turkey without any of my travel companions, but with new hostel buddies. Jamie and I went out to explore some new places. We found ourselves back at the Bazaar to spend some last Lira and then got a Turkish ice cream. The flavors of Turkish ice cream are familiar. The texture- not so much. The ice cream man had a ball flipping the cone upside-down to show us silly foreigners that the ice cream simply would not fall out. Enjoyable. We took our sticky cones and wandered away from the city center towards the water and found ourselves in the fishing district. Fishing boats were parked next to fish (salesmen? butchers? Hmm…) built next to fine fish restaurants. We strolled the boardwalk for an hour or so taking in the salty coast and then before nearly succumbing to the sun and heat, wound our way back to the hostel for some rest. My last night in Turkey was incredibly fun, but surprisingly a little bittersweet. All the people at the hostel had been there five days like me, so it was kind of like saying goodbye to camp friends that I know I’ll never see again. I guess that’s all part of the fun of meeting fellow travelers.

My trip home the next morning was long, but simple. Other than getting halted by security and bomb searched (my iHome was a suspect), the flights were smooth and I was soon watching my dad and sister pull up to O’Hare with hugs and a big, empty trunk.
Home Sweet Home.

And this is how I’ll end my blog. It’s been long and I’m sure boring for some at times, but I’ll at least always have this to remember all the fun, wonderful, spontaneous, thrilling adventures I had while abroad. And more than anything, I think it will serve as motivation to get my butt working so I can buy myself another plane ticket for a distant destination. Hope you enjoyed, thanks for reading!