First, we woke up very early to leave for the airport on Friday morning. We flew (a very long flight) to the Athens airport, then took the public bus to Syntagma Square to check into our hotel. It was a Best Western, and we didn't have any problems with it. Then we walked to the Acropolis sites and climbed the whole area. It had such an amazing view! Thuy took lots of pictures of us, but I also tried to take landscape pictures. We tried to take our traditional jumping picture, but we actually got yelled at by one of the workers. He said something like, "No AHHH, this Acropolis, not futbol club"... The Acropolis is a sacred site, so he thought we were being disrespectful. After that, we walked through the streets in that area because they had tons of little shops and lots to buy. It reminded me of a Greek Swap Meet - it was super cute. Afterwards, we decided to go back to the hotel and plan out the weekend. We were all pretty exhausted from the morning travels, and we needed to wake up early to catch the ferry, so we went to bed around midnight.
The next morning we went to Piraeus Port to buy our ferry tickets for the Flying Cat (that was seriously the name of the boat). The only available ferry was for 10pm, so we went to find breakfast and waited for the ferry. That ride was pretty long, but also comfortable. When we got to the island Hydra, we were all very excited. It was beautiful! Our hotel was super close to the port, which had all of the stores, restaurants, and bars, so we checked in then left to eat lunch. Afterwards, we took a boat (our private boat) to the beach, but it was super pebbly! It actually hurt our feet, but we went in the water anyway. After a while, we couldn't handle the pain so we all laid out in the sun and fell asleep for about 2 hours, but none of us got sunburned because the clouds protected us. When we woke up, we took the boat back to the port, went back to the hotel to shower, and had a nice dinner on the water. Then we were excited for the nightlife. We ended up getting gelato/ice cream, then bar hopping along the port. The first bar we went to had pretty common but strong drinks. I ordered a "Coco Loco" which consisted of vodka, rum, tequila, coconut milk, oranges, mangoes, and strawberries. It was super strong, but pretty tasty. There was supposed to be a dance party at that bar later on in the night, so we went to some other bars to see what they had. One of my friends thought I would like to try a Jägerbomb, so I ordered one, and it was actually yummy. That was the extent of the night since the first bar's dance party was pretty lame. We went back to our hotel room and threw our own dance party! But then went to sleep since we were going to the second island in the morning.
On Sunday, we woke up and caught another Flying Cat to the island Poros, after doing some souvenir shopping. That was a pretty quick ride, especially since we were wide awake to see the beauty that is Poros. We were so excited to go to the beach and explore this island that we didn't realize how far our hotel was from the port, but we ended up walking about half way. Our apartment was super cute, and the manager was so nice to us. After we checked in, we went straight to the beach, but it was pretty windy and a storm was coming, so we only stayed there for a little while. We were also hungry, so we went back to the apartment to shower, change, and find a place to eat. We found a nice little place and then got ice cream afterward (of course). Then we continued taking pictures and grabbed some coolers for the night, since we didn't want to pay for drinks at bars. We had another dance party while the girls uploaded pictures, then went to bed so that we could wake up and catch some sun before heading back to Athens the next afternoon.
The funny thing is that I was the only one who woke up at 8:30! So I went to the pool to lay out, but I brought my water and grabbed a toastie from the cafe so that I wouldn't be dehydrated. After a while, I went back to wake up the girls and take my shower. When we were all packed, we checked out and the hotel manager got us a cab so that we wouldn't have to walk all the way back to the port with our luggage. We did a little souvenir shopping and picture taking before the Flying Dolphin (bigger boat this time) docked to pick us up. That was a long ride like the first one, so I was able to sleep for most of it. When we got to Athens, we went back to that Swap Meet in Syntagma Square because some girls weren't finished shopping, but we also grabbed some snacks, more ice cream, and waters. Then we took the bus to the airport and said goodbye to Greece. It took a while to get back to the Stanford House in Oxford because of the airline bus schedule, but we finally made it at 3am, and then I started my paper right away. Overall, it was an amazing experience, and I'm so grateful that I was able to go to Greece! Hopefully someday I'll be able to bring my family to the place I visited!
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