Florence

Well we made it to Florence safe and sound!

after finally arrivng to athens from santorini we had a few hours to find a flight to Rome, that was entertaining to say the lest. We didn't have a flight or a place to stay. We got home to Athens around 5:30am and had to be out of the apartment by lunch time. It was def the most unplanned part of the trip that's for sure. Although I think that the next 18 days will be very unplanned and were just gonna go with it. Basically we need to find things to do before we head off to Cyprus.

Florence is absolutely amazing, no wonder everyone says you should see it! Yesterday we got to take the train for the first time since being here in Europe. It was a pretty nice train, and fast too, it only took an hour and a half to get from Rome to Florence which is good, because it takes three hours to drive there. Yesterday we didn't get here until around 4 and didn't have a tough time finding the hostel they sent us very good directions which made it easy. Although its not quite what I expected because it looks like an apartment building from the outside, you have to buzz in and there's more then one hostel in the building. Although we got lucky and ours in on the first floor! Which means we don't have to lug our massive suite case up a million flights of stairs. Our room were staying in has 5 beds and it ended up being all girls. We made two friends one from Australia and one from whales, we all went to the Hard Rock Cafe last night, it was so good! I'm so glade we finally found one after we attempted to find it in Madrid and in Rome and couldn't. The beds in the hostel are actually super comfy and the shower is hot and the bathrooms are nice! Yay! Score!

Today Kristy, Courtney and I all went out to explore the town. We went to the huge church today with a bell tower that you can walk to the top of. Might I add it doesn't have a lift and it's 418 stairs! It was was worth the walk though just to see the view! The city from above is absolutely amazing. After this we wondered around the town to find this bridge that has what looks like houses or shops, it turns out that it is a bridge full of jewelry shops! It was very cool, if you google Florence that is most likely what will come up. This is a city that you could spend hours just walking around and never ciese to be amazed at the things you see. After our wondering we went to the huge royal gardens which were really cool because its in the middle of the city but you can't actually see it because is behind the royal apartments and walls surround the whole thing. The gardens were very pretty even though its not spring time. We actually seen trees that looked like the womping willow tree from Harry potter! It was awesome because you all know how much of a Harry potter geek I am. After the gardens we decided to head back to the hostel because we were out all day.

Lots more traveling around Italy to do! There are so many places that I wanted to see that I didn't think I would get the chance. I'm so glade that I am!

Santorini

Yesterday we set off bright and early to go to santorini. We left the house at 6:15 and caught the ferry at 7:30. We were off for a 8 hour ferry ride to the island. Luckly I accidently packed my sea bands so I could wear them so I wouldn't get sea sick, any big boat gives me seasickness, little boats no problems. But I never ended up feeling sick so it turned out ok, we bought out tickets for the ferry the day before and didn't know you could pick seats, and if you didn't pick seats you could not sit in open seating which consisted of chairs in hallways, and chairs and tables. We found seats when we got on but didn't know they were assigned so we ended up having to move and couldn't find anywhere to sit by this point because all the sets were taken. We ended up having to sit outside and it was a little chilly. We stopped in three othe ports before we got to santorini, which was neat to see other islands even if from afar. We got of the ferry and found the bus we needed to get to our hostel, took the bus and had very detailed instructions on how to get there. We had to walk a bit which was ok by me, and while we were walking everyone was saying hi and welcoming us, and one women our age probably stopped in her car and asked us where we were going, we said caveland and she pointed us in the right direction, although we already knew how to get there. Everyone here is so very friendly, it's amazing.

Caveland the hostel were staying in is very cool, it was built in the 1700's and they are tipical cave houses, which are really cool! We learned that santorini actually has no water supply and they have to have their water shipped over! Apperently this is very expensive and I can understand why, so water conservation is huge here. We were also told that most of the Greek islands don't have water of their own. Also the island is so small and has such a low crime rate, hardly any at all actually they only have one police station for the whole island, which means if you need the police you need to call them the day before so they can get there, aka they are lazy. But it was nice to come somewhere and not have to worry about weather it's safe. Yesterday since we didn't get in until 4:00 we went into the nearby town fira and wondered around and watched the sunset.

Today we went to a volcanic island on a boat tour, we hikes the volcanoe island and then got back in the boat and went to a hot spring. In order to get down to the port you have to take a able car or walk down almost 600 stairs. When we got back you can take a cable car to the top or a donkey, we went for the donkey, it was so fun! Hilarious! After this we rented an ATV which you can drive on the streets like a car. We only rented a 50cc, which only goes 12kmh up hill! Ohh well at least it gets us around because on Sundays the buses stop running at 2:30. We took the bike to a volcanic beach, then we were on our way back and the bike started to lose power we were like ohh no whats wrong! Wee out in the middle of nowhere and don't have a phone...yup we just ran out of gas, he didn't tell us to get gas when we rented it. Luckly we were close to a gas station. After this we went to the other side of the island, to Oia which is world renown for its sunset. We wandered around for a while then watched the sun set, it was beautiful and the town is so beautiful. It was the part of santorini that all the google pictures show! It was amazing, everything I wanted it to be and more. I want to come back here in the summer when everything is open, because right now it's not tourist season so most shops an restaurants are closed. But enough things are open to see and do. Tourist season actually starts this week so we just missed it, however a cruise ship came in today so everything will be open tomorrow just for the day.

Did you know...

Santorini has more churches then houses, more donkeys then men and more wine then water...

There are actually over 400 churches on this island, and most have blue domes, and the island isnt that big, you can drive a ATV from one end to the other in a day, actually in pretty much an hour, and this is on a ATV that doesn't go faster then 45kmh so it would take way less time in a real car. More adventures tomorrow then back to Athens until Wednesday. Off to Italy again, to see Florence, Venice and Milan! Since we only seen Rome last time.

You know your day is bad when

Well after Delphi Kristy wanted to go to this hot spring, which sounded really awesome. So we got directions and decided to give it a try...

Attempt one: we left the house a little later then usual, we got to the bus stop and the police shut the road down, which ment the bus never came. All the buses stopped running beucase there was a big protest going on in front of the government building. We waited at the stop for a while and hoped it would come but it didn't. We wandered down the street to see what was going on, we ended up accidently seeing the changing of the guard which was really awesome to see. It's quite the production, after that we tired to figure out what people were protesting about but al their signs were in Greek. So we stood around and noticed that the police were standing around with their shields, which looked intimidating so we decided to head out. On the way we asked someone what they were protesting about and they said everything, if you can think of something you can protest it. Honestly I'm surprised that's the first protest we ran into since we've been here, just because of how bad things are for Greece as a country right now. Since we couldn't go to the hot springs we went for lunch instead at our fav resturant.

Attempt two: we left the house early and got on the subway to get to the bus stop that we needed, when we were getting off the subway steped on kristys flip flop and it broke, this was the first bad thing to happen to us that day. She fixed her flip flop with band aids and we decided to go buy a new pair since band aids wouldn't hold long. While shopping for flip flops we bought some frozen yogurt which turned out to suck bad. It was really sour like it has been in the machine to long...yuck. After this we hopped on the subway to get to the bus stop again and waited for the bus, got on for a few minutes next thing we know we come to this stop and everyone stars getting off. We've learned from experience that when this happens that means its the end if the route. A man seen us sitting there and told us that it was the last stop. We asked the bus driver how to get to the lake and he said we needed the other side of the road, back a few blocks though... So feeling pretty defeated we sta down fr a moment and were talking about what we should do and this man asked us if we needed help, we said no thanks and he asked us where we were from so we said Canada, then he asked us to go for coffee..might I add he was old enough to be my father it was super creepy. After this we said screw that and decided to give up and go home because we didn't think we would be able to find the right bus stop. We hopped on the subway and went home, we went to the grocery store and bought junk food, because we wanted to turn our day around, we were walking back from the grocery store and guess what? There's no power on the block...so we were like great we came home to relax and watch movies and the stupid power is out! It was complety sunny and hot out by the way so not sure why the power was out. We got to our building and luckly somehow our building is on a different grid! So we had power! This was probably the worst day we've had so far. Nothing went out way.

Attempt three: today we tried to get to the lake again ans finally made it! We asked someone which bus stop we needed and were it was and what side of the stree we needed, got on the bus asked the bus driver if the bus went to the lake, he said yes. We didn't know which stop to get off at so after a bit we asked the bus driver and low and behold it was two stops away! We got off and found it no problem! Yay! The only down side? It was super windy and not very warm because the wind was from the north. But we went swimming in the hot springs away. The water was a little cold at first but once you were in it was nice. We met a very friendly, good looking guy there who chated us up for a while. After this we read about these fish that live in the lake that are really good for your feet and dead skin. They suck your feet until they are clean, you can actually pay for this treatment at a spa which we were going to do because it was highly recommend. What a weird feeling that was having these tinny fish all over your feet sucking on them, needless to say I think the people there at the spring were having a good time watching us freak out about it. After a big you kind of get used to it, it wouldn't say it feels any different but you get used to it. It was actually really awesome and my feet feel great! But at last of course this day couldn't go without a hitch...we got to the subway station and there were signs up everywhere saying that the subway won't be running for the next few days because they are going to strike...and of course we were planning on taking the subway tomorrow to the port to get on the ferry. We had no idea even if a bus ran that far from our apartment. We got to our subway station and there were no signs up, we asked and they say it was just the other two lines that won't be running, yay! Thank god we can get to the port tomorrow, beucase we have to be there for 7:00am. Should be a good adventure this weekend, off to santorini!

Delphi

We went to Delphi yesterday, it was absolutely amazing! It ended up being such a nice day out too! It was actually hot hiking around the mountian which was awesome. I thought maybe beucass we were so far into the mountains that it might be cold but it wasn't. 

We got directions to the bus stop from our landlord and she said it wa 600meters from our apartment, yeah that was not 600 meters from our apartment. She told us it was very easy to get to from the apartment...hahah she doesn't know how ability to screw stuff up and get lost. And surprise surprise we didn't find if easy! We took her directions and everything. Eventually we had to ask someone where it was and all they said was its down that way and pointed left. So we walked that way and eventually came across it. We got on the bus, and I didn't really know where the bus would drop us off at once we got to Delphi, I was kind of just going with it. We got dropped of at the beginning of the town and seen a sign that pointed to the sanctuary and we found it not problem! We didn't get there until 1:30 beucass it was a three hour bus ride, and we didn't realize that the place closed at 3:30. So we had to rush a little but we ended up seeing almost everything, we didn't get to see a part of it that was quite a walk frm where we were, but we could see it from the top of the hill so it was ok. I was Hoping to get to go into the museum that is there but they also closed at the same time so we made the sacrifice and just seen the runins, which were amazing to see. 

After we seen everything we were told that the town is really nice to walk around in and explore, so we did just that except most things were closed...it seemed like the town was hurting from the economic ression. Some store were open but not all of them. We had to get some food beucass we were starving, we found a restaurant...yeah that as the worst meal we have bad so far. Who makes pizza with cheese slices? Wtf! All in all it was a awful meal, but I guess we can't win them all. We ended up having way to much time to kill until the last bus came which kind of sucked but I would have rather have too much time then rushing and not enough. 

All in all had an awesome time and the drive to Delphi was beautiful! We passed a town that was built into the side of the mountian I really wish we could have stopped there beucase it was beautiful. We also passed a really old beautiful bridge that I wish I could have gotten a picture of. 

Jail bait

I know what your all thinking...I suck at updating my blog. Sorry guys but honestly we haven't been up to much here, the city doesn't have much to offer. Most of the things to do and see are out of the city. But have no fear were are venturing out this week, so there will much to talk about...I hope. 

I swear we have the best landlord ever...not only does she come clean our apartment but she brings us food to try too! The first thing she brought was cheese pie, up its exectly what it sounds like. And today she brought us these pastry things with cheese in them. They sure do like their cheese here! She also keeps giving us ideas of things to do which is awesome because weve been having a hard time trying to find things to do. I think she is the first landlord that has actually given us suggestions on things to do. She's very hands on and loves to stay in contact with us. She's probably the nicest person ever! It def makes up for the showe head not having something to hold it up. We have gotten pretty good at it though...what's life without a little challenge. 

So Kristy and I finally broke down and did some real shopping. We have been holding out buying things because our suite cases are already almost over weight, but we decided instead of not shopping that we would just buy another bag and put both of our stuff in it, because it def won't fit in our bags. It should be fun have two suite cases, two backpacks, a camera bag, and a another little suite case when we go to the airport. But if we don't fly with easyjet again we can use the little bag as a carry on instead of paying extra for it. 

Kristy and I have been finding ourselves checking out jail bait often here...what you may ask is jail bait? Well it's hot guys who are def not older then 18. We spot them and say hey he's hot, then we look again and realize they are jail bait. Come on where are all the hot guys our age! Hahaha just so you know we're not trying to be creepy but sometimes at first glance we can't help ourselves.

Today we went to the national archeology museum, it was amazing! Once again it was awesome to see a lot of the things I have studied. This museum had most of the stuff that I remember studying which was nice, and some things that I have been dyeing to see in person. We spent a good a part of the day here and afterwards we went to the cafe for lunch. We were sitting eating out lunch and these cats kept wandering around they were so cute! I gave one of them a piece of chicken and he sat there the whole time and begged for food. He kept wacking me with his paw(no claws) as if to say feed me more! He was adorable, just a kitten too. I had a cappuccino with hot chocolate and whip cream, I've never had that before and it was actually really good. I've had coffee a d hot chocolate before but it was not the same but good none the less. Their coffee here is def better then ours at home. Italy and Greece have the best coffee out of all the places we've been so far. I've finally become a coffee drinker...but I still haven't been able to sway Kristy over to the dark side yet. She at least tries it though so that's a step! Bahaha we are both getting very good at trying new things and most of the time turns out for the good and we like it. Now If only we could find food at e grocery store to cook! 

Greek cooking class

Kristy and I loved our cooking class in Rome so much that we thought we would give it a try here in Athens because we have been liking Greek food so much.

The cooking class was fun but not as good as the one in Rome, it wasn't very hands on it was more of us watching her while she explains things then actually getting to do it ourselves. I enjoyed what we learned to make but I wish I could have done it my self. We made tons of greek dishes, we made; eggplant pies, dill and feta pies, cheese and ham pies, (might I add these are little pies not actual size)  eggplant salad, eggplant appitzer with roasted red peppers, red pepper dip, Taziki, eggplant dip, beet root dip, and lamb. Everything was very good but unfortunately my stomach was very upset that might so I couldn't eat much which sucked. We also got to try their house wine which was red, and wasn't to bad. We didn't love it but it was ok. Greeks like to order a lot of small dishes to share with the table instead of individual meals for each person. We've been doing that lot while we've been here, it's a great way to try a lot of new things as once. We didn't end up eating everything we cooked because we made a lot of stuff, and she was worried we didn't like it but we did. That's one problem Kristy and I have here is that we usually never eat everything and its a huge problem for the waiters because fhey think you didn't like it. We're constantly getting asked if everything is ok, or if we enjoyed it. I just want to be like its not that we didn't like it, neither of us are big eaters! They don't understand that we've tried to tell them that Canadians don't usually order or eat that much when they go out to eat, they don't seem to believe us. We were going to stick around for some live music at the restaurant we cooked at but I ended up feeling to crappy.

Yesterday we didn't do much because I still didn't feel good, but we ended up going to another movie. We seen Oz, it was good! I really enjoyed the way they made everything play out.

Sorry for the short blog today, but we haven't been up to much lately were running out of things to do here in Athens. But next week we will be doing to the islands and Delphi so there will be more to write. Please stay tuned!

Life's a beach

Got to spend the last two days at the beach! 

We decided on Monday that we would try and find the beach, so we hoped on the subway and took it to the very end, where the harbour is. We got there and I thought maybe it would be like the Halifax waterfront and we could just walk around there but it was just ferry ports so we figured we should as someone how to get to the beach. We stopped in one of the ferry places and they told us what bus we would need and that the stop was near the church. Clearly not knowing out ability to get lost. Well we walked for a bit and found a few church's but no bus stop with the bus number we needed, we asked a guy at thr newspaper stand and he told us exectly where it was. We hoped on the bus pretty much not knowing where we should get off because all the women said was you will see the beach and you can get off where ever you feel like because there is a ton of beaches. So we did just that seen the beach and hoped off. The beachs on Athens aren't super sandy but more rocket but still nice. However this time of the year they were kind of dirty because its not high tourist season. We found a good spot to set up our towels and figured we would give the water a try. I was def a lot colder then I thought it would be, warmer then our ocean but no by much really. We spent most of the time laying on the beach just relaxing and people watching. More like creeping on the hot guys hahaha, which there was actually quite a few. We ended up meeting these two guys while we were there and talked with them for a bit, until we went home. 

We went back to the beach yesterday but it turned out to be very windy, it was warmish but not bathing suite weather so we just sat in the beach or a bit and read, sometimes that's just as nice as going to the beach to swim. After the beach we were going to try and find a surf shop we passed on the bus on the way to the beach, so we got off at the subway stop that we thought we needed and waited for the bus. But we ended up getting to cold so we whet home and got changed and went out for dinner. We went back to the crepe place we found the other day, it was packed! It turns out we were just there at down time last time because we had a hard time finding a seat. Our food was delicious like always, we do love our crepes! 

Note to self, no one takes credit card

Sorry everyone, it's been a few days since I've updated because lately we've come home late and I'm to tired to write it.

It rained the other day so we sought out the mall, yup it's literally called the mall no other name. We ended up finding it with no problem, only because you can take the subway right to it. We shopped for a while and the first round though we didn't really find anything that we liked, but we did another lap and had a little more luck. We stopped at this one store called BSB and we were both trying stuff on, I was having a little luck but Kristy wasn't. So the sales women decided to take it upon herself to find Kristy something she would like. Needless to say some of the stuff she came back with was hilarious. After shopping we found that there was a movie theatre in the mall, that actually plays non dubbed over movies in English! It was nice to see a movie after not seeing any for almost tree months.

The next day it was saposed to rain so we went to the acropolis museum that they just built a few years ago. It was a very cool museum, it was built on top of ruins which you can see through the class floors everywhere in the whole building. It was really neat to see many of the sculptures and pottery that I've only studied in books. We spent a good few hours here, readying everything and seeing everything. However it never did end up raining, oh well what can you do. After the museum since it wasn't raining we decided to go of a walk around plaka, then we went to dinner to the place we found the day before. Thr Greek Canadian that tried to get us to eat there was ecstatic when we came back. He was a very nice guy, we didn't even end up looking at a menu. He recommend us things that he thought we would like. It was nice, it's one of the first places we've eaten that we've had really good service. We got Taziki dip with peta bread, fired zucchini patties, cabbage rolls in a lemon dill sauce, and wine of course. We were hoping that they would have sweet wine in Greece like they did in Rome bu unfortunately they don't. But they recommend there most popular wine and I endddd up being really good! A little dry but not to bad. After we ate everything I asked the waitress if they take credit card and she said unfortunately we don't because of the economic crisis. Ohh shit and this was all either of us had. So we told her this and she said don't worry, how much cash do u have I said all I have is 5€ so she was like ohh ok. I guess she would have let us leave if it was close to how much our bill was. But 5€ was def not enough. So the owner came over and seen that we were a little upset about it, he told us not to worry and that he would call his friend to walk one of us to go to the bank machine. At least he was very nice about it, and really didn't seem to upset which was good.

The next day we had a late start and ended up going to this place called cookie land, which we've seen a few times on many walks through the area. I got a cherry cupcake which was prob the best cupcake I've ever had! Ever! After this we did some shopping and then went for dinner at the same place again. We knew they had live entertainment that night and we wanted to hear some live Greek music. The music ended up being awesome, not that I thought it was going to be bad but I wasn't sure that to expect. It was all locals at the restaurant which was nice instead of being in a touristy area.

Yesterday we went to a parade for carnival, somehow we ended up being in each country in time for carnival. The parade was boring its not really my thing, but it was cute seeing all the little kids dressed up in their costumes. They don't celebrate carnival here as much as the rest of Europe. It really just started to be a big thing a few years ago. It ended up being a really nice day, warm I didn't even need a jacket! So we might head out to the beach sometime this week!

Gotta love having bodyguards

Today Kristy and I decided to go to the mountian that is saposed to give the best view of the city, which it defentily did. We took the subway to the stop we were saposed to get off at to find the mountian, and you think a mountian wouldn't be hard to find...well let me tell you it was. We stopped and looked at our map, which we never leave the house without. We were looking at it and this old man walked up to us and asked us where we were tiring to go, we showed him and he pointed us in the right direction.  We we began our search, we got to the top of what felt like a million stairs and the road that was saposed to have the train to take to the top of the mountian was a dead end...we walked to the end and found so,e stairs and figured this just be where were saposed to go. Needless to say we never found and damn train. We ended up hiking up the hill, which had pretty good walking paths. We got about halfway up and stopped to take in the view, while we were standing there we seen a cat so we watched the cat for a minute only to find...a turtle! Yup that's right I said a turtle, I'm not really sure how a turtle got up the mountian and to where it was. We got to the top and the view was amazing, even better then the view from the acropolis because this was higher up. You could see some of the greek islands, and the whole city. There was also a little church at the top of this mountian which was unique.

After our hike we went to this neighbourhood called plaka, which is basically a huge shopping district. Kristy and I weren't really I'm th shopping mood so we jus womdered around and took in the sites. Early that morning I had found a crepe restaurant which I knew was in plaka and I knew the street. We we got out the map and figured it out, haha yeah this area is not the most straight foward with the streets because most of them don't make any sense and change names halfway down the street. After walking around for about 25 mins we stopped to look at the map again, and low and behold another man asked us if we needed help. He showed us where to go and asked us how we managed to get so far away from the street we need, leave it to us. On our way to the road we found these two dogs who Kristy stopped to pet, from then on we had bodyguards on our walk. Now I don't mean they just followed us, the barked and bit at any man that walked by us, including people on scooters. But if women walked by they had no problem, we stopped a few times to check our map and the dogs would stop and sit down and wait for us, they followed us all the way to the restaurant, and when we went to go in wined and cried when we did. I have a feeling they sat outside the restaurant for a bit because we found them down the street a bit when we left.

We had the best crepes at this place, since we've been in Europe, and we have had many so far. There was a lot of different variety that I've never seen before for crepes. We liked them so much we both ordered two, but they weren't very big and we were starving. We wondered around for a bit after lunch and got asked if we were sisters once again. Since we've been here we've had so many people ask us if we're sisters. After this we met a Greek Canadian who owned a restaurant, he asked us where we were from and as it turns out he was born in Toronto. The cooks who work for him apperently are two 60 year old Greek women who have cooked their whole lives. Apperently they have live music, so I think we're going to check it out sometime while we are here.

The acropolis

Today we ventured out to the acropolis, which was absolutely amazing to see in person! After studying it for so long it was awesome to finally see it in person. We actually managed to find it with no problems at all, yay score two for us! Somehow I feel like we're getting too lucky finding these things so easily...knowing our luck it probably won't keep up lol we have a knack for getting lost.

We spent a good few hours actually taking in thr sites, not only was it amazing to see the temples and runins on the acropolis but the view from the top was amazing. After seeing the acropolis we ventured down the slope and seen the ancient agora, the museum, the roman agora, the library, and a few more temples. Seeing all of the ancient pottery from the different time periods was awesome, because we spent so much time studying them. However I did find that there wasn't that much information in the museum about the items you were seeing, but that was ok for me seeing as I already knew what they were. On the way into the acropolis we also got to see the theatre of Dionysus which at one time held 9000 people, however most of it now is over grown.

After we seen all the sites we decided to grab some lunch and try real Greek food for the first time. It was very good, Kristy and I both enjoyed our meals. I had lamb with Greek yogurt, and tomatoes It was good, but very heavy. The meat tatsted a lot like donair meat that we have at home.

The city of Athens is so much different then Rome, the part we have seen so far has been very dirty and run down. We thought there was a lot of poor people begging in Rome, well Rome has nothing on Athens, even little kids are begging for money, it's such a sin to see kids as young as 4 begging people for money. But I'm not going to write it off just yet because we have not seen a lot of the city, we have only seem the area around the acropolis. I have found that Greek people have a little better idea of personal space, on the subways they don't actually try to get on top of you whoop!

More adventuring for us tomorrow!

More to add hahaha, so today I had to use the shower that doesn't have a holder for the shower head, had to wash my hair with one hand, that was a task and a half I must say. The shower has a high tap so I tired to sit down and let the water rise my hair but halfway through the water started to only come out of the shower head. Also hit my head on the hot water heater when I was shavi g my legs. Another perk to the apartment...no plug for the sink in the kitchen, so washing the dishes is tricky. To anyone who needs to wash their dishes without a plug, no need to fear just use and upside down cup! It works a little, sometimes the water drains a bit but its better then squirting soap on every utensil and washing it like that.

Athens

Made it safe and sound to Athens today, and get this we actually didn't have any problems! Can you believe it? Cuz I can't.

The flight was short and no one passed out on our plan this time which is good. We flew with easyjet again even though we said we would never fly with them again, there just the cheapest airline to fly with even though their bag nazis. What airline only lets u have one carry on, including a purse, if u have a purse they make you put it in your other bag!

We decked this time since we have such bad luck finding our apartments that we would get them to pick us up, which went off without a hitch. The lady Eleni is prob the cutest little lady I've ever met, she's so nice and very helpful and speaks great English! She showed us how to use everything and made sure we got hooked up to the Internet before she left, which was nice because our last apartment the Internet ended up not working and we had no way to contact the people.

The apartment is nice however it's going to be quite the adventure, the stove and oven is very tiny, I mean it's a toaster oven with elements on the top! I've never seen such a thing before. Also there is nothing holding a shower head to the wall... Should be interesting washing out hair with one hand. We also can't keep the hot water on all day because the building is to old. It kind of sucks not being able to wash ur hands in hot water. Ohh well other then that the apartment is nice, although we only have one chair and no coach...but we have a balcony which in this case means were on the top floor, which means no noisy ppl living Bove us, like in the other apartment. We didn't adventure our very far today because everything is closed on Sundays in Athens apperently. Except a bakery that is on the corner...we went there today and all of their stuff looks so good. However we did learn that all the archeology sites are free on Sundays which is good to know, cuz we need to save as much as possible!

I'm not sure what were doing tomorrow other then going to get groceries, perhaps we will venture into the city centre.

Pompeii

I'm not quite sure why people think that just  because they are speaking to me in Italian I will magically understand it. It's like ohh ok wait hold on, your speaking Italian? Oh now I get it! This is sometimes even after we tell them we speak English. Cracks me right up.

Thursday we went into the roman fourm because the other time we only just walked by, and I couldn't be in Rome and not go inside the fourm! It was very neat to see it all up close, they even had archeological sites set up where they are still digging which was cool to see. I really wouldn't  want to be in charge of digging anything around here for construction, it must take them three times as long as it would anywhere else. They only have two subway lines for a reason, they started building the third but they've run into so may remains of stuff that they have to keep excavating before they can continue with the subway. The third line was saposed to be open on 2006...that did happen...the next saposed date was 2012...that didn't happen. I'm not sure it will ever happen. The roman were big fans of building temples on top of temples, if one was destroyed they would build it again on the same spot, so when they are digging they aren't just finding remains of one they are finding layers upon layers of ruins.

After the forum we decided to get some lunch at a place we eaten at before becuase they has the best pizza. we ordered a pizza to share along with roast potatoes, and eggplant! thats right i said eggplant. we also got a bottle of wine to go with our lunch, yes we drank a whole bottle worh our lunch. we are really embracing italian culture, have to have wine with our meal! after this we decided to wonder around and do some shopping. Along the way we found some petty cool buildings and piazzas we haven't seen yet, that is the beauty of Rome no matter how many times you walk around you are always going to see something different. The city is not all that large but there are so many tiny winding side streets that you never seem to see it all. Don't get me wrong the man in tourist attractions are a must but wondering around you will get a better sense of Rome and the beauty of it. Once we were done shopping we felt like having some galato, so we wondered around for a bit until we found a place which really isn't hard because they are everywhere. We found this one place it looked good so we walked in ordered our ice cream and at down. We ate it then we got our bill...it was 50€ for the both of us, we both almost fell of our chairs, we could not believe it! It was absolutely rediclous, there was nothing I mean nothing special about the ice cream we got, it was no different then any of the other ones we had which were never anymore the 3€ for one! The weird thing is, is that it wasn't even in a touristy area, and it wasn't a fancy place either! Needless to say that is 50€ we will never get back and it was such a waste.

Yesterday we got up bright and early, (5:30) and went off to the city of Naples and then Pompeii! We decided to take a bus tour because I had heard about the very high crime rate of Naples and we didn't want to chance it by ourselves. Our group was a good size not to big, I would say around 22 people. The drive to Naples of beautiful, it was all mountains covered in snow, even though we were going south. We stopped in Naples first and went to the archeology museum there, it was amazing. Our tour guide said we had an hour and that the museum was not that big, we Kristy and I thought ok so it won't take us long to see it all. HAhahah oh how wrong we were, we started with he paintings and there was so much info to read that it took us a half hour just to do this part, so we had to rush like crazy to see the rest. We actually didn't get to see everything, we were almost to the exit web. Our guide came around the corner and was looking for us. Apperently we were the last ones back,  I guess we were the only ones who took our time to see the stuff, because everyone was done early. There was mostly stuff from Pompeii at this museum but there were also tons and tons of statues from the Roman bath we went to a few days before, which was really neat to get to see it all. Everything for Pompeii was so well preserved it is almost hard to believe that the stuff is over 2000 years old. There was also what our tour guide called the naught bits room...now it's exectly what you think it is, it's like Cosmo magazine but painted on walls. Also there was many faciallces, which apperently are a symbol of good luck. Many families would have these above there doors if their houses. All the naughty bits we seen were from the brothels, which there was 25 of them in Pompeii, yup 25! This was only a town of 20,000 people, however it was a seaport so sailors like their brothels. Pompeii blew me away, I've watched many shows and documentaries on it and studied it in school but it far exceed my expectations, it's hard to get and idea of how big is is from the tv,and how well preserved it is. It was one of the most amazing things to see.

Now the town of Naples, that is quite a site to see,not in a good way. It's the most dirty, nasty, rundown place I've ever been to. It's like the equilant of the Bronx in NYC, including the high crime rate. It's no somewhere you would want to go alone that's for sure. But it was a good experience to see it, and I really enjoyed the museum.