Coffee, coffee, coffee aka. frappe, frappe, frappe

It's been ages again since I've last updated! From 8th until 25th of this month by life has been busy but perfect! Tuesdays and Wednesdays are usually always the same: in the morning to the hospital then straight to the school to greek lessons. I leave around 7 am and come back at 5 pm, exhausted! Then I still have to go to the gym.. Thurdays I've been going to the other hospital but the day is much easier without the greek lessons.

On 9th I saw my friend Panos and we went to Neo Faliro to some nice cafe place. It was nice catching up with him since the last time I saw him was in Eagina weeks ago. He is still in the army but now closer to Athens but it's still not the same since he is still there almost every day.

On 10th after the hospital me and Miina went to the big street near Viktoria metro station to shop since we are kinda bored with the main shopping street Ermou since it's always so full of people. We also booked a hotel from Santorini. In the evening I watched ice hockey championships from youtube! :D

On Saturday 12th, my day was full of plans! Me and Miina continued our shopping in Plaka and Monastiraki (we didn't buy that much stuff the previous day). Then I went to visit my friend Mido's gym and after to eat. In the evening me and my friends from the hospital met at Egaleo metro station and went to Allou fun park to drive the crash cars and walk around! It was so much fun! I can't remember when I've laughed that much! Then we went back to Egaleo for coffee and drinks near the metro station! With my friend Lazaros we talked about the differences in our education systems and physical therapy in general, and of course plenty of other stuff too! 

 

On Monday 13th I met with my new friend Debbie who is half canadian- half greek. I met her at the school and immediatelly we had so much to talk about! She also plays sports so we really understood each other! I went to coffee with her and her two friends. From which the other one turned out to be really familiar with the island of Poros since her mother has worked there many years so we had lots to talk about! Straight from there I took a metro to Agios Antonios to meet the student friends from the hospital and go somewhere (can't remember the place, but a nice beer restaurant with lots of different kind of beer including finnish beer) because one of them had a birthday! I was home around 00 am. That would never happen in Finland in the school/work week..

On Wednesday 16th we (me and some of the students from the hospital) went to this Pyramids cafe place near the sea, near Kalithea tram station, where you can smoke water pipe. I did smoke since I've tried it once and I coughed my lungs out! Again I was home around 00 am. :)

On Thursday 17th my parents arrived! I picked them up from the metro station and in the evening we went to Pireas to our family friend's restaurant to eat! 

The next week went really fast when my parents were here to visit me. We went to Poros for the weekend and the beginning of the week we spent in Athens, while I tried to show them around Athens and my favourite places here. :)

When my parents left the next Thurday I had so much stuff to do! Gym, make some food, wash laundry, meet my friend and we went to eat and play billiard and also the see the fun park again. I talked with my friend Lotta on skype since it had been too long since we last talked. :)

Let's hire a car and drive to Meteora in one day..

On 6th of May (can't believe it's already MAY!) me, Marie and Karolis from Lithuania went to look for car rental places near Syntagma and compare the prices.. After ten different car rental places we chose one and decided to go there later to rent a car for the next day. Before that we headed to the beach where I accidentally collided into the guys I'd met on the beach some weeks ago.. Mido and his brother with them I could play rackets, it is so much fun!! We left the beach after couple of hours because we had to make it before the rental place closed. The way back from the beach was crazy since the tram was so full that you really couldn't even breath there. One of my friends passed out on the tram and she didn't even have room to collapse to the floor. Scary moment! At the car rental place we negotiated to price down and got a pretty good deal. We had to take the car for two days since we wanted to leave early the next morning, we paid 80€ for the car for two days including everything except for gas of course.

7th of May (Happy b-day for my sister and my friend Saija!) we (me, Marie, Elise, Shiesma and Fahyma) saw at Syntagma at 5.30 am and left to drive towards Kalampaka and Meteora (350km). The drive went fast and we only got lost once for a little while and we noticed it immediatelly.

When we arrived to Kalampaka and saw the huge rocks far away it was already amazing. The thing that makes Meteora so special is the monasteries on the top of the rock towers. We drove up and the view was absolutely breat taking!! I've never seen anything like that!

Elise, me, Marie, Fahyma and Shiesma

There are altogether six monasteries on different rocks. Some of them are not open everyday so if you wanna go there you should check the dates and times when they are open. We visited three of them and we had to pay 2€ each to get in. But it was worth it! The best one for me was the biggest monastery where there are still nuns living there.

Kalampaka

After we had seen everything we wanted we decided to head towars this lake Plastira that one of my coworkers had recommended! It was 58km away and we made couple of stops somewhere (we really didnt know where we were..)  

The lake was actually really difficult to find! We got lost couple of times and there really wasn't any signs to help us. At one point we stopped to ask this old couple for directions, in greek.. I understood some part and they actually ended up helping us! It took us long time to find it but it was worth it! :)

Lake Plastira

We went to two different places around the lake which was huge. We heard that there is this dam somewhere and we wanted to find it. It took us so long! We drove in the curvy mountain roads for ages!

The dam

Amazing view from the mountains

When we left to drive back from the lake we got lost to the mountains and we didn't have that much gas left so it was pretty exciting... The drive back to Athens felt that it took for ever! At some point we thought that not that much left and we saw a sign with 250km! :D When we were finally in Pireus we couldn't find our way to center and it was so frustrating and we were all really tired and it was dark and we were hungry. Also finding a parking place in Athens is quite a challenge..! But we managed to find it and I was home around 11.30 pm! The day was long but again so worth it!! :) 

Let's go somewhere without a plan..

On Friday 4th it was again a free day but this time because of the elections taking place on Sunday the 6th. Here you have to go to your hometown or city to vote so people have to travel. It was also a day that me and my friends (Shiesma and Elise from Holland and Marie from France) from greek lessons had decided to go somewhere basically without a plan or booking anything.. We met at Pireus metro station at 9.30 am and went to buy the tickets to the ferry at 10.15 am to Ydra. Well, the journey almost ended before it even got started since the boat was full and the next would leave at 1 or 2. We decided to walk to the port and just stand in front of the boat if there happened to be that someone wouldn't come or something.. The engines of the boat were already on when finally they told us to run to buy the tickets. We ran back (it took like 3 minutes) and they told that it is full. But there was a rather young captain of the boat so he let us in even though we didn't have seats.. Lucky us! We stand the around 2 hours trip. 

When we arrived to Ydra we went to eat at the port and noticed that there are no cars or motorbikes on the island.. So much for renting a car and sleeping in it.. :D After having eaten we took a watertaxi to Vlichos beach were we spent couple of hours. Then we walked back to the "city" and it was nice sightseeing on the way. But to tell the truth I was a bit disappointed to the island. There really wasn't that much to see or do. Yes, it was beautiful and all but I wouldn't spent there more than a day. 

Ydra

Vlichos beach

Back at the port we found this amazing place with clear water so me and Marie wanted to take another swim there and jump to the water from the rocks! Then we walked around again and went to by couple of beers, took a donkey rides after negotiating the price to half from which it started and then went to sit to this bench and drink the beers and enjoy ourselves! 

When it got closer to the sunset we walked to the other side of the port to this sunset restaurant which was voted by abcnews to world's second best sunset restaurant! We admired the sunset, spotted dolphins and ate little within the student budget (eggplant salad and bread..) .. :P

Dolphins!

Dolphin

After the sunset we went back to the port and started walking towards the beach Madraki 'cause we had found out that it's a sand beach so it would be our hotel for the night.. It took us around 30 minutes to walk there and at some points of the road there weren't any lights so it was dark.. Just before the beach we found some smaller rocky beach with sunbeds unlocked.. We decided to stay there and make ourselves as comfortable as we could.. :D We didn't have any pillows or blankets, we just had our towels and I was the only one with an actual jacket. And it was a freezing night! We slept maybe 10-15 minutes at the time. We hadn't thought that it would be that cold.. And around three o'clock at night, while we were in the middle of nowhere, there came three guys out of nowhere and we were really afraid that they would see us or something. We think they did see us eventually but nothing happened and they left soon. It was scary since our imaginations were going really really fast..! At some point we heard noises on the beach and turned to look and found that a cat was walking on the rocks! 

The place were the guys appeared

Our beds

Morning at 6 am, freezing!

At the port of Ydra we went to one coffee place which at open around 7 am and we stayed there almost couple of hours. One at the time we walked to the toilet with our toothbrushes with us.. We felt homeless and we must have looked really funny! :D 

At the coffee place taking a little nap

We didn't really do anything but sit and wonder about the life at the port. Our boat to Spetses left at 9.20 or something. :) We slept the way to Spetses for maybe 30 minutes and then started to walk around! We found this tourist information place right at the harbour and there was this nice guy who told us what we should do! Well, he told us to see some museums but we preferred the beach.. :P We walked around and finally found this amazing beach were we stayed for many hours!

When we got enough of being on the beach we started walking towards the port and "sightseeing" on the way. There wasn't much to see and the island seemed really dead. We went to look for a restaurant with tsatziki and it turned out to be a challange! :DD We went to at least 4 different restaurants but finally we found a place where we could eat what we wanted. Then we just played cards and waited for our boat to leave back to Pireus around 7-8 pm.

Spetses port

We slept on the boat and I was dead tired when I finally came home but I still agreed on seeing my finnish friend (she dates with a greek guy) in Kerameikos at 11.30 pm.. I went to bed around 2 am and slept really well! :D Our trip was so nice and we enjoyed it a lot! We laughed so much during the two days!! :D Two more islands checked!