Volcano and a Not So Hot Spring

Monday morning was time for a whole new adventure. George, the other owner of the hostel, and quite possibly the nicest person I've ever met, drove us up to Fira so we could take the boat over to the volcano and the hot spring. We opted to take the stairs down to the port and the cable car back up. It worked out really well. It was about a 30 minute walk down so I was super happy to not have to walk back up all of those stairs.

Anyway, this is the boat. I thought it was pretty cute. 

We took a short ride over to the volcano and then had an hour and a half to explore. It was just the right amount of time to walk around the entire thing. 

There's the boat chillin next to the volcano. Pretty casual. 

There's the path. It was clear that the stones on the path had been brought over on purpose, but everything else actually belonged. Monique and I spent a lot of time talking about the differences between this volcano and Mt. Vesuvius, which we had visited only a few weeks before. While the view from the top of Vesuvius was super super cool, the actual volcano itself was better here. There were so many interesting land formations and different kinds of plant life to explore. 

The view was also pretty amazing...even it if it wasn't as high as Vesuvius. 

After the volcano, we took the boat over to the hot springs. The boat stopped and said that we had 20 minutes to swim. If we wanted to go to the hot spring, we had to jump in and swim across the cold water first. We figured it would be an adventure, so we did. The water was quite cold, but honestly not as bad as I thought it would be. What was unexpected though, is that the hot spring wasn't actually very hot. It was decidedly luke warm, but since it isn't isolated from the rest of the Aegean Sea, it couldn't actually be that hot. It was ok though, we were all proud of ourselves for the adventure, and we lived to tell the tale so it was all good.

When we got back to the island of Santorini, we took the cable car up to the top, and Christine and I decided to stop for waffles on the way back. This picture I do have to show to you. I can't  help it. Sorry.

The waffle was great but I was freezing and walking back to the hostel was a bit of a struggle. We got laughs from a lot of the locals who pointed out to us that it wasn't very warm. We felt like silly tourists, but I guess that happens to me a lot here. I'm pretty convinced they only tell us that the hot springs are hot so that they get some entertainment out of the tourists who believe them. It's ok though, I understand. I think I would do the same thing if I lived on Santorini.

After one of the most satisfying hot showers ever, we took a bus up to the town of Oia, on the northern most point of Santorini. They're quite famous for their sunsets there and we thought it would be fun to explore the town a little bit. 

We found the most adorable bookstore ever. 

There were books in all sorts of different languages inside. This one just happens to be in Greek.

Also, there were tons of quotes painted all over the inside. I was a fan. 

Oh, and it just happened to be someone's home. We learned that this British couple had come to Santorini twelve years ago, didn't find a bookstore, and decided to open one. Lots of things have happened in the past twelve years for this couple, but it resulted in people running an adorable bookstore out of their tiny home with some cats who just hang out. 

So back to nature pictures. They're just so pretty.

There's the sun beginning to set. I'm pretty proud of this picture. I'm relying on my phone for all of my photography this trip so I'm always excited when I get pictures like this that are super artsy.

So later that evening I was snapchatting with my brother a bit. This was his reaction when I told him I was in Greece. Sorry Avi, I couldn't resist. 

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For our last day on Santorini, we decided to go back to the red beach. It had definitely been one of the highlights and we thought it would be fun to go back. I was so glad that we did because it was a completely different experience the second day. Tuesday was pretty windy, which meant that there were a ton of waves. The beach looked completely different, and the waves were gorgeous. 

After sitting and being mesmerized by the waves for a little while, Christine and I decided to climb up the cliff to see what we would find. Don't worry, it wasn't actually dangerous. The climb wasn't steep, we just wanted a cool view.

And we found a little cave!

This was the last picture I took on the island of Santorini. It's a view from the top of our little perch. It's kind of hard to tell how far we were, but the beach down below is where we had come from. I think we did pretty well :)

So that's Greece in a nutshell. The next part of my adventure is one more night in Athens and then a few days in Israel. Stay tuned!

More Feta Cheese, Please

So I'm writing to you at the very end of my spring break, wearing my new spiral ring that I bought in Athens. (Ok, I only pointed out the ring because I can see it as I type and I like it, so I thought I'd share.) I hope this post isn't too rambly...a lot happened in the last week, and it's hard to process all of it into a coherent post, so here's hoping...

So...

Friday morning, Monique and I set off on a very long adventure to meet up with Christine in Athens. Long story short, we made it, only a little rough around the edges, and had a full evening to enjoy. Of course the first thing we did was set off to find a view. It wasn't too hard...

This was on our way up to the Acropolis...as you could probably tell by the sign. We walked right next to people's houses on little paths that really seemed like they were private property, but no one seemed to mind that we were there. 

There it is! We couldn't really go inside, it was too late in the evening and they had closed the gate, but we got up pretty close (closer that from this particular picture) and mostly we were just excited to be in Greece!

Something that you won't find in America are casual ancient ruins just laying around. In Athens though, anything goes!

We had a delicious Greek dinner complete with free wine. The people were so so friendly in Athens! Granted, it was a tourist area and their business relies on tourists picking their restaurant over another one that's honestly, pretty similar, but the friendliness was super nice. Also the Greek salad. I did photograph the Greek salad, but I'll spare you because I know I care way more about the food than most people :)

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The next morning, we had to get up super early to go to the ferry. We decided that it would be a cute little adventure to take the ferry from Athens to Santorini. Besides...it was considerably cheaper than the flight we took back. Here is the boat we took. It was complete with filter coffee. Christine and I were super excited about the filter coffee.

Even though the ferry ride was super long, it was like a whole adventure itself. We were able to sit outside and the views were stunning. Also I ended up with a little bit of a sunburn by the end of it...whoops...

When we arrived in Santorini, we stepped off the boat prepared to find a bus up to our hostel. We had our game faces on, ready to attack the next portion of the journey. Much to our surprise though, we found Stella, one of the owners of the hostel waiting at the boat. Apparently there was another woman on the ferry that was also staying at the same hostel, and she knew to contact the hostel to have them pick her up from the ferry. (Later I went back to the hostelworld website and found that they said they would pick you up if you told them where and when.) We reaped the benefits though, and hopped in the car. I was super excited by this! What good service.

And it gets better! She showed us to our rooms, and then brought us coffee. I was already in love. 

After the coffee break it was time to find the sunset. We walked up to the town of Fira, a short 15 minute walk from our hostel and started to explore the glorious island of Santorini. 

There's Christine and Monique!

And that's me...a little sunburnt...

Ok, I know that was a lot of pictures, but how could I pick?? I'm still amazed by how stunning it is, even just going back and looking at the pictures I took.

So random picture: but this was the little panna cotta we got with our dinner the first night. It was too cute to not show it to you. Also, delicious. (I purposefully omitted the picture of my dinner because I'm trying to not obsess about food too much, but it is difficult for me)

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Now fast forward to the next morning: We set off to find the red beach. (It did require a short bus ride. Santorini is a small island, but way not small enough to tackle by foot...we learned a lot about this, but more on that later.)

Pretty sure that's a horse? I feel horribly ignorant that I can't identify all of my animals. It doesn't look like a donkey though, and that would have been my first guess. 

So, one thing that I really liked about Santorini, is that they didn't compromise the nature of the island to make access to places easier. What I mean, is that in order to get to the red beach, you had to hike a little. It was super fun.

The red beach is around the other side of that cliff. 

There's a view from the cliff but the other direction, away from the red beach.

This was what we saw as we started to climb...but the view gets better. 

This. Just this. I still can't handle how cool that is. Absolutely stunning...and that, ladies and gentleman, is the red beach in Santorini.

Oops...out of order...but this was on the way...

So gorgeous. I can't...

So we spent some time at the red beach and then decided to head to the black beach. One of the woman at the souvenir shop told us that we could take the bus or that it would probably take about an hour to walk. We thought walking would be nice, so we set off.

...Two and a half hours later, we arrived at the black beach. I was pretty exhausted from the walk. It's a totally manageable walk but it wasn't what any of us were expecting. We did get to see the southern part of the island though, which is (surprise) gorgeous. 

The black beach was nice, but honestly not as great as we were expecting. We were just as happy to lay down and enjoy a little break though. 

We had learned our lesson and took a taxi back up to our hostel. After a little break we went to a restaurant with a spectacular view of the sunset and the water for dinner. We made friends with the waiter and spent and embarrassingly long time trying to guess where he was from. Turns out, he's Albanian, but we couldn't guess it without a little bit of help. I really need to work on my European geography... 

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So I think I'm going to cut off this post here and save the volcano adventure for the next post. I have a lot more catching up to do after a full week of adventuring! Also, it was a full week of adventuring and I'm pretty exhausted :)

I have a story.

So I think that I mentioned that I met an Israeli in Pompei when I went last weekend? Anyway, he's important to this story. In Pompei, when we parted ways, he gave me his business card and asked me to contact him because he was thinking about coming to Siena. It was true.

Saturday morning, I met him on the street and I spent the day showing him around Siena. It was super cool to feel like I knew my city well enough to show it to another person. We went to the fortress for the view, ate lunch on Piazza del Campo, visited the Duomo and climbed the Mangia Tower. The Mangia Tower is the tower on the Town Hall building. I had climbed the original facade of the Duomo before but it was a new view of the city, and you know how much I like to climb things.

It was also cool to have an excuse to do something touristy in Siena.

Oh, also, it's a bell tower. 

There's Piazza del Campo from above. Isn't it glorious!

And I will never get sick of the Tuscan countryside....

There we are at lunch. He was born in Russia...and apparently doesn't like to smile in pictures :)

After that, I had to meet up with a couple of my friends to plan out trip to the Dolomites in April before going to a soccer game. I know, why would I go to a soccer game? I know nothing about sports. It didn't matter though, it was all about the experience. Italians love their soccer. 

After the game, Sam, Dana, and I, met up with David again and we had dinner and gelato.

Now fast forward to the next morning....

I had been meaning to visit the Synagogue here in Siena for some time now. It just seems like the kind of thing that I should do, no? Well, it was perfect because David asked me if I wanted to meet up with him and go in the morning before he headed to Florence. 

We went inside, saw the sanctuary and heard a brief history of the Sienese Jewish community. Also, it was perfect because, being Purim, they were having a Megillah reading for women, by women. I had to come back. 

Also, bonus, I hadn't worn my Jew skirt in quite a while. For those of you who don't know what I mean, I like to call my long ankle length skirts "Jew skirts." Don't worry about it. So anyway, I put on my Jew skirt and went back to the temple. I was able to follow along in the Hebrew and it was nice to have that familiarity. Also, the first time Haman's name was said and everyone started making tons of noise, I felt like I was right back in my childhood. It was great to be able to participate in a Jewish ceremony whilst here in Siena.

Afterwards, they asked me to stay for lunch and I hung out for a while. My Italian really isn't very good, but it was an excellent time to practice. Then, I decided to stay for their Talmud session and try to learn a little bit. Mostly this was an exercise in trying to pick up 5 to 10 words in Italian but it was still super interesting.

Then....I went to Sam and Dana's apartment to make pretzels. I know, kind of random, but we had been wanting to do this for a while.

Aren't they cute?

And lastly...

My aunt has a friend, whose sister lives in Siena. Think about that one for a minute, it's a little complicated. Anyway, we had been in contact for a little while and had been trying to arrange a time that we could meet. Finally, last night was a night that worked for everyone.

We met at Piazza del Campo and walked together to her home. It was a good thing that she met me because I definitely would have gotten lost if I had tried to find it on my own.

Anyways, I had dinner with Virginia, her husband, and her daughter. We had a great time! They asked me which language I preferred, and I explained that I've been practicing my Italian. The next four hours were mostly in Italian, which was exhausting, but excellent practice. And they were so nice! I wasn't worried about saying something that didn't make sense at all. At the end of the meal, Virginia's husband walked me home, which was so so nice of him! I probably could have found my way back alone, but it was nice to have company for it. 

All in all, this weekend was full of lots of Italian, taking advantage of new opportunities, and...not studying for midterms this week at all. It's ok though, I'm excited about my weekend's adventures.