Athens

For spring break Lauren, Patrizio and I decided to pack our bags and head somewhere warmer - so we booked flights to Greece. We started the break off in Athens. Upon landing and realizing that we knew NO greek, whatsoever, not even: hi, thank you or please, we quietly navigated our way into the heart of the city by metro. A lot happened over break, so as to not bore anyone with details I'll give you the highlights.

Coolest things we saw: The Acropolis - after studying it for so many years, it was AMAZING to see in person. A lot of it was under restoration and it was so windy on top that small children were actually falling over, nevertheless, there was an amazing view! The old Olympic Stadium with modern track surface, the national gardens with gorgeous fountains and trees, the Acropolis Museum (another disneyland equivalent for me the art nerd), and the temple of olympic with a sprawling lawn surrounding it. Lastly, the crazy market and street vendors (most of whom are illegal and would pick up their blankets full of goods and sprint if they saw a cop).

Best thing we ate: The most amazing baklava! the guy laugh when we had visited the store for the 3rd time in the span of 12 hours. Patriz and I almost died when we were trying to eat while climbing to the top of the Acropolis because we were substituting baklava for oxygen, both resulting in us gagging half way up the hill and having to sit down.

Best story: So being the experienced travelers we are by this point, we had planned and timed everything out perfectly to make sure we didn't miss the closing of museums, parks, stores, etc.. After 2 days of being in Athens the next morning we were planning on catching the 7:30 ferry to Mikonos. So we arranged to check out of the hotel early, arrive at the dock an hour a head of time to buy tickets and get seats. Everything is going as planned when we are on the metro and see a clock that reads 7:15. Pausing, we look at our watches which say 6:15. The time had changed the day before (which we knew) so we thought maybe the the metro station had messed up and accidentally set it two hours ahead. We shrug, don't think much of it, then pass the station where the clock also says 7:15. We start looking around and all spot a man's wrist watch - 7:15. Freaking out at this point, still trying to convince ourselves that the three of us are correct, I pull out my iphone and check the "world clock" app - sure enough, Athens - 7:15. We then realized none of us had figured out that we had changed time zones when we left Italy and we had been living the last two days an hour behind. Thankfully, we saw there was a ferry leaving 5 minutes after our arrival to the port. So we had to SPRINT for literally 5 minutes to the other side of this very large port with all our bags, people yelling at us on from the ferry, Patriz and I in the lead and Lauren yelling, "I'm going to thrrooww uuuppp!" bringing up the rear...