efharisto! kalispera!

so its been quite a while since ive updated this thing. my sincerest apologies. life here has just been insane crazy and so busy. whenever i’ve actually had a minute to myself i’ve either been writing a stupid paper or sleeping. its been fun, let me tell you. anyways, this will probably be the longest post of life, but i’ll try to keep is as brief as possibly while making sure i don’t miss anything important. hopefully i’ll remember everything that happened. thats what i get for doing my papers before blogging after trips. poor choice.

anywhoot, let’s see where i left off. wow. birthday weekend. longgg time ago. so we went to venice for my birthday weekend and it was pretty awesome, not gonna lie. friday night we all went out with silvia to irish village in ostiense which was such a crazy awesome good time. i def want to go back soon. we woke up mad early saturday morning (like 4am early - i might as well have not gone to bed). four hours later, on a train, we arrived in bella venezia. one girl megan was supposed to come with us but never made it to the train so she decided to stay home. her loss. anyway, we got a bit lost in venice and couldnt find our hostel but eventually we did and it was a cool little apartment thing with a kitchen and all these beds and a common area. it was so cool! so we settled in a bit, got lunch, then took a water taxi over to the island of murano where they make glass. the island was really pretty, and we bought soooo much glass stuff. its so gorgeous there. i cant even explain it. one place even let us play dress up and try on a whole bunch of jewelry. good times! it was quite cold near the water, which made me sad, but whatevs. we took the taxi back to the main island and then the girls cooked me dinner in our apartment (gnocchi, chicken, salad, cheese, wine, the works!) and it was soooo yummy. then it was time to ring in my birthday!! we went to a discopub near our hostel called dogado and danced and drank in my birthday. i wound up getting free drinks from this older business man from holland, which was a bit sketch at first but it was fine bc then i didnt have to pay on my bday! lol. i got a dogado which was an amazing little concoction of rum and all these fruit juices. yummm. i was wearing a tiara that laura had let me borrow for the day which was fun but also weird bc everyone kept asking me if i was getting married. i should have said yes - maybe i would have gotten free food too! lol.

sunday was my actual birthday (yay 20!!) so we got up, had breakfast, went shopping a bit and such. i took a tiny nap bc i wasnt feeling well at first, but then i was better so it was all good. we saw the ponte rialto which is redic gorg and then we shopped at the rialto market, which was the death of our bank accounts. i got lots of presents for people, and lots for me too! haha. then we got some lunch and hit up piazza san marco. i fed the infamous pigeons there. that was an experience to say the least. i freaked out when they all attacked me and they were all up on my arms and shoulders but it was so fun. thank god they didnt shit on my coat. anyways. then we found a really nice gondolier named franco and took a 45 min gondola ride around venice!! it was absolutely beautiful!! it was such a great way to spend my birthdayy! it was a bit on the expensive side but it was def what i expected it to be. after that we walked around a bit more, went out to dinner, then went back to the square at night. gorgeous. we hit up the famous harry’s bar, which is where they invented the bellini!! i had one there and it was by far the best bellini i’ve ever had! sooo yummy! then we went to sleep bc we had to get up mad early again monday morning to head back to school for philosophy class. funn. all in all it was a great weekend. venice is beautiful, and one of my favorite places i’ve been in italy so far. i got a bit homesick bc i really missed being able to celebrate with my whole family and all of my friends, but i honestly cant complain because i mean, come on - who gets to say they spent their 20th birthday riding a gondola in venezia?

the next week was a blur. mainly the usual - get up, eat, go to school, class, eat, italian, home, eat, homework, sleep, repeat. we finished our italian class on thursday and friday which made me very sad. no more italiano with mario! =( i miss him already. i kind of just want to sneak into one of his other classes just to hear him say “coraggio!” or “oh gesu!”. i got an A in the class (i found out yesterday) so that’s two for two woop woop. we left italian early on friday after our oral exams and me, laura, jess, teresa, erica, and liz headed over to athens greece for the weekend!!

greece was one of the most gorgeous places i’ve ever been, and it was the most amazing weekend of life. we got in to athens after midnight and it was about 2am or so when we finally checked into our hostels, after viewing some transvestites and a possible whorehouse on the way. we got a free upgrade to the studio apartments = amazing room with kitchen and tv and common room. we make our way up to the third floor and encounter an unconscious man lying outside our door. laura screamed like a banshee while jess laughed hysterically for a good 15 mins. obvi he was drunk and sleeping half on the stairs and half in front of our door. awesome. then we get into the apartment and cant figure out how to put the lights on. 20 mins later laura and teresa go back to the main building to ask how to put the lights on/ if theyre even working and erica figures out that our card key needs to be in so we can put the lights on. honors kids man. needless to say our first experiences in greece were pretty comical.

we wake up early the next morning, have breakfast, meet our unconscious friend for real, then head out for some touring. we walked up and around the acropolis (we got in for free!! yay student visas!) we saw the parthenon (it was being renovated so there was scaffolding booo), the temple of athena nike, whole bunch of other ancient worship buildings and temples. we climbed up on top of rocks and took top of the world pictures. that was a good time. we toured the agora ancient market and walked throughout the ancient ruins there. it was soooo cool! i love that stuff, and it reminded me of the forum in rome. then we hit up lunch - had lamb and potatoes! - and then we walked over to plato’s academy. we read symposium, meno, and republic on the steps of his institution, which was pretty nerdy/awesome of us. it was so weird and surreal to be reading the words of the man who created this school and where his philosophy was taught to others a bajillion years before us. interesting feeling. then we headed back to the hostel, showered up, and headed out to the recommended god’s restaurant. holy shit what an amazing dinner. i had moussaka for the first time, and it is my new obsession. it’s eggplant lasagna with lamb potatoes and cheese in it. it is AMAZING. i also tried baklava for the first time, which i also really liked. the waiters liked us so much that they gave us free bottles of wine (which was so good btw) and a free round of tsiporo shots, a typical greek liquor thats sweet and licorice tasting. im a big fan. god was very good to us that night lol. then we bought more wine and baklava and had our own symposium. we climbed up to the top of the acropolis and had the most amazingly gorgeous view of the city of athens before us. i cant even put into words how amazing it was. i had never seen anything like it. it felt like the world was at my tiny fingertips, allowing me to do with it whatever i pleased. i was speechless just sitting there on the rocks staring at how beautiful athens was. we continued to drink more wine, talking about life, love, study abroad, family, everything. it was one of the best nights of my life. hands down. it made me feel so grateful for everything and everyone i have, and really made me realize how incredibly lucky i am to be here. the view of athens made me feel so insignificant and small. it was very grounding. and the view was just breathtaking. i wish i could have taken pictures, but they just wouldnt have been able to capture even a smidgen of the beauty i saw. we just sat there for over an hour just talking and looking over to the temples on the hill all lit up, and the lights of the city still alive and awake. it was just so .. ahh i cant even explain it. it’s just one of those things i will treasure in my heart forever, and only those girls sitting on top of those rocks with me that night will understand.

the next day, we found out while eating at god’s, happened to be a public holiday - oxi day! it’s the day when the leader of greece told mussolini no (oxi) to his request to invade neutral greece during world war two. i’m not exactly sure why there is such a big holiday to celebrate this one particular word, especially considering that mussolini invaded shortly after anyway, but whatevs. me, teresa, liz and erica went to the parade in the center of athens in the morning which was really cool because there were marching bands and men of the armed forces and all of the school kids in the city marched in the parade as well. then afterwards we went shopping at the montisraki (spelling?) flea market, which took forever to find bc we didnt have a map and no one seemed to know what we were talking about. then we had lunch, did more shopping, and headed back to the hostel for happy hour at the backpackers bar. our bartender friend nick from australia had laura make me a “suicide bomb” and even though i still have no idea what was in it it was absolutely yummy! two of those and i was feeling perfecto. afterwards we headed out for dinner near the center of athens and i had amazing moussaka once again (im telling you i’m obsessed). our waiter spoke italian which was really cool. then we did some touring after dinner. we saw the arch of hadrian and the temple of zeus. we happened to stumble upon fashion week in greece as well (i honestly dont know how these things happen to us) and we snuck in to a fashion show near a greek temple. it was soooo awesome!! i took lots of pictures, obvi. the models were just so surreal-looking and the dresses were absolutely gorgeous. im going to need to get me one lol. after our little vogue sesh we went to the old olympic stadium. i wont go into detail about what exactly went down but lets just say i got some amazingly awesome pictures out of it and a good cardio workout lol. after a little more touring we went back to the hostel bc we were really tired. we ran into nick again at the studio apartments as he was closing up the bar and told him we still hadnt had ouzo (the alcohol greece is known for) and so he opened up the bar just for us and gave us free shots of ouzo!! it was just the six of us and nick in the bar listening to the rolling stones and drinking ouzo. it was soooo awesome. then nick took us up to his terrace apartment and we had the most amazing view of athens lit up at night. we could see the acropolis and all of the temples and hills and everything. then nick took out his guitar and he played while we sang and danced under the athenian stars on this amazing terrace. it was one of the greatest nights of my life. i cant even describe to you how amazing it was. honestly. all i can write is this one particular quote said by nick to us that night on the terrace, “now you’ve done the roof, you’ve done Athens. Now all that’s left is the rest of the world.”
we woke up the next morning and were really sad about leaving greece. we said yasu and efharisto for the last time and left athens in the afternoon monday. we arrived back in rome, we gave our history presentations in class on tuesday morning and then we were off to newcastle that afternoon!!

alright i’m breaking this up into multiple posts otherwise this will just be ridiculous and no one will read anything.