when i first got home i was extremely greece sick. things got better once i started school and now things are fine. i miss greece terribly and cant wait for the day i get to go back. so maybe this isn’t much of an update but id like to think this would answer most of the questions. i dont know if this blog is dead to be honest but i know ill always come back and read it whenever i miss it.

Rome was amazing i had a greaaat time and besides santorini it was my favorite place that i visited.

here are the links:

Vatican and Castle Santangelo:

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=843909022/a=164679515_164679515/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Colosseum Night and Day:

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=843910022/a=164679515_164679515/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps:

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=844633022/a=164679515_164679515/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Pantheon, Piazza Navona, and Campo Fieri

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=839680022/a=164679515_164679515/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

i also am gonna post some pictures from i got form other people from various moments on the trip as well as pictures from an art show, the archeology museum and the benake museum of islamic art.

My journey started on thursday as we got on the ferry and went the 5 hours to santorini. each ferry we get on is better and better. so we get there and this huge guy picks up at the port to take us to our hostel. He is BLASTING will smith. it was so much fun, i seriously sang to getting jiggy with it, men in black, miami and then he played this amazin song that goes, “?I was made for loving you baby, you were made for loving me”, i knew this weekend was going to be amazing just by that there ride, so we get to our hostel and then i pretty much knock out.

The next morning we woke up and hung out at the beach the whole morning. then at around evening we went to a wine tasting. it was my first real wine tasting and i had a lot of fun. three of the wines were rather gross but two of the desert wines and one of the whites were really good.  i bought a bottle to bring back to the states for i guess my family although no one drinks and im not gonna drink a whole bottle for myself. maybe ill save it for a special occasion. After that i had, you got it, MEXICAN FOOD! ok more like tex mex but hell a greasy shell with meat and nacho cheese and im game. i totally felt sick after plus ill admit i had gotten a little woozy off of drinking 6 glasses of wine! not full glasses but i definitely wasnt only sipping it when i had to pay for it. we then went to take the bus home and it drove past us. yay. not so we had to take taxis although 2 girls ended up hitchhiking, it was rather funny.

The next morning we woke up and went on a boat tour.  We started out at the port of perissa and then we went to the port of fira which then sailed onto a volcano. an active volcano. i walked on it. it was creepy yet entriguing at the same time. i ended up not walking up the whole way to the top becuase i was lazy and also cuz it flat out was like a mountain trek. i thought i signed on for a baot tour not a hike! after that we went to this little island of thiras which used to be connected to the main island of santorini but was destroyed in a earthquake during the minoan civilization.  we then went to OIA! pronounce like (eee-uh).

I rode a donkey up the hill. it hurt, i got slammed into the side of the wall a few times. i mean it was fun but it was also pretty heinous at the same time. i dont know if ill ever ride one again. so at the top of oia is the place with all the white buildings and the blue domes. look at the pictures i cant say much else. we then went home and ate thai food! it was like eating in california but on an island. excellent

then on sunday we rented atvs and went exploring, we went to a red beach, we went to a light house and then we went back to oia and ate dinner for kelseys bday and watched the sunset. the next morning i woke up and ate thai food again! it was honestly such an awesome trip! maybe ill have more to write later but for now here it goes:

shakeitkatie@yahoo.com  password: greece2009

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=662175022/a=164679515_164679515/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Well in mykonos we arrived on a friday night and basically got settld in. on saturday we rented 4 wheelers and drove around the whole island. it was so beautiful. then at night we went out and had dinner right on the water. then i came back and slept on the beach until 4 in the morning. i woke up with more bugbites than i could count. i will post a picture about it later.  on sunday we laid out at the beach and played games. i had the worst strawberry margarita, it tasted like a snowcone. i actually liked snow cones but not with tequila apparently. that night a few of us went night swimming, it was sor gorgeous but it was also dead scary becuase we couldnt see anything! well the next day was monday and wwe went home. when we got on a metro a fight broke out right next to us. we had to like run and jumo off. it was straight scary. then becuase we were nervous we missed our stop and we had to take two mor lines to get back to where we were supposed to be. that part was not fun and my heart was beating like crazy but im ok now. and it was fun.

rememebr shakeitkatie@yahoo.com  and greece2009

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=616100022/a=164679515_164679515/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Again my trip started out with a walk over the Corinth Canal. I have decided that im going to go bungee jumping off of this. i know i said it before but i will do it! then we headed over the ancient myceanae theatre, the cool things baout it is that it is still in use today and they have a festival there that starts in june so maybe ill go and see some cool stuff there later.

we then headed on over to the actual ancient mycenaen palace which was as i said earlier mainly only cool becuase of the history/myth surrounding this place. it had one big wall aroun it which was named after the cyclops so it is the cycloptic wall and then it even has an inner wall. there was an ancient burial ground where there were a lot of bodies were found. some historians believe that these people are actually the real agnemnom and his wife clitamystra but other argue that the dates are more than 300 years apart.

this was a shorter trip than all the others and we really didnt go that far away but im also sad that it was my last trip like that. also today marks the official 6 week point and that also means that i only have 6 more weeks of being here. im really anxious becuase i feel like i wont have enough time to do what i want to do but hopefully ill still get to see alot more stuff!  here is the picture link:

Mycenae

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=495201022/a=164679515_164679515/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish

username: shakeitkatie@yahoo.com

password: greece2009

all i can say is wow! this was island number 1 on my trips that i have had planned and all i can say was amazing. it wasnt exactly beach weather or island weather but none-the-less it was so exciting and so beautiful. also this is pretty much the first time i have been on a boat for any long amount of time. let me jsut say i was not thrilled and i had to sit with my head in between my legs quite a few times. any ways more details after the jump!

so my day started at 5 in the morning as i rushed to take a shower and then catch the metro to catch the bus that takes us the the port rafina.  so we get on the boat and then we arrive at batsi. we then couldnt find our hotel when we got there so we walked up and down all these stairs until we finally found it. and it was really nice with a kitchenette and everything. we only paid 11 euro each to stay there one night. so after we got settled and cleaned up we went to the beach. it would have been fun except it was cloudy and cold. i traded m swimsuit for some shoes and went on a mission to find this church. it took all day for us to reach the top and the church but it was so pretty when we got to it. that night we went out to this little island or like kinda bulge of land and watched the sunset. it felt soo close it was amazing. i think i took some awesome photos personally. then we walked and got some food at this restaurant. there was only locals as it was a holiday weekend and not quite summer season and a greek song came on that so many people loved and hey started dancing, even he older ladies got up. i tried to get some pictures but as usual, im not that great with a camera. and i also ate a stuffed tomato, and i really liked it but everyone says the tomatoes here are way different than the tomatoes in the states soo i think i might just like greek stuffed tomatoes.

the next day we went across the island to andros town and pretty much just explored. theres a rock island with an anciet castle that we climbed to. there is an archway that the boats used to use to get the island but we used it as a bridge and climbed over to the island. after we were on top, heather and kelsey and i saw this large rocks in the water that looked accesible so we climbed down and more like slide down on my butt the side of the mountain. it was crazy, i was on these rocks basically in the middle of the ocean. it was soo beautiful. i also had a awesome view of the light house. then came time for me to climb back up. and well i had to swing my foot over and then i had to have heather literally push my butt up! then the part where we slide down, i had to climb back up and somehow during that time i completely crushed my toe. it was bleeding pretty bad, i had to go put my foot in the ocean when i finally got back to the top and then down the other side via gateway. after that this lady flora with her granddaughter vaglia were pulling urchins out of the water, flora then took some sea snails and put the on the urchins and i got to watch a urchin eat, it was crazy and i have a few pictures where i tried to catch it. she then decided to take us around the whole andros town and show us all these cool sights. she was awesome and so nice.

then it was time to go home so were go back to batsi and catch a bus to the ferry and then we got stuck in the smoking section so i had to like do the put my head in between my knees and then hold my breath thing again. then when we were fianlly at the port, there was only one bus going back to athens and we tried to get on it but we couldnt and after like pleading they let us get on it but we had to sit on the ground. worst hour of my life, they turned off the lights and i was like so delirious i couldnt stop laughing and all these people were like angry at us. then we were trying to find  stop close to our house but like dummies we forgot to look that part up and then we recognized the tgifridays! and were screaming stasi (stah-see) to the bus driver for him to stop and we were finally home. all in all. id give it a 4 out of 5 mainly becuase i didnt like the ferries and because it was freezing half of the weekend. well here are the pics divided up into two days becuase i take way too many pointless pictures. also jsut a note, im using snapfish to back up my photos as well so if i have 10 similar photos and you dont want to look, dont feel bad just pass them by, i am just trying to save all my pictures in case something happens!

username: shakeitkatie@yahoo.com

password: greece2009

Day 1-

 http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=470409022/a=164679515_164679515/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish

Day 2-

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=471223022/a=164679515_164679515/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish

hope you enjoy!  im going to mycenae on friday so expect a few more pictures!

in other news, i had my first greek test today! seriously not bad at all. i finished in like 10 minutes. im not cocky by any means but when it comes to foreign languages i tend to catch on very quickly. i like greece and the fact i get to use it alot around here is cool, also the people who speak greek LOVE when you try to talk to them in greek and then they use there english on you, today i helped a man get to the grocery store!

well thats it for now but expect a post tomorrow because i already have another trip on friday!