So, I am not at work cause you know what!
Mission#2, or #1 of my job = educate people about Romania...which as a Peace Corps volunteer...I did do a lot last year...and anyway, I went to Greece, so *check* that off my list and here we gO!:
Here's is the night train we took from Istanbul to Greece. We went not to Athens but to Thessaloniki (2nd biggest city and not a touristic destination, bo).
Sleeper train from country to country.
So, the scenery was way way pretty. The soil there is reddish which was interesting.
Our ride lasted until like 9am, so I had time to enjoy the view from our window. Look at how those clouds roll over those mountains.
This was the first station I saw with the greek alphabets and all!
So that was that. Apparently blocks aren't just limited to Romania. With my new experiences, I can safety say that the US is spoiled with all it's room because at lot of Europeans reside in apartments. Even in Austria, they have shared houses (even though these houses look like million dollar mansions).
THE OLYMPICS was here!!! That's cool.
Yeah...on this trip we stayed at 1 hostel, many trains and 1 hotel. Here's the view from my window. It was stuffy but it wasn't expensive and it was the best bed of the whole trip.
Okay. Well after we had washed ourselves (no showers in trains) we went out to explore.
We saw a statue of Alexander the Great *yay*, then this tower *yay* and there was this church and that was it. People weren't so helpful to us tourists and I had 3 people really rudely reject my plea for directions. I don't think it was racist, just people not wanting to help us. *shrug* That'w how we felt and it was unanimous.
So someone really really recommended us to go to Pizza Hut in Tess. and so we did. It was expensive and ....way way not worth it. Sorry adviser. On THE other hand EVERYONE, everyone was drinking this foamy brown thing.
So I wanted one too.
I got one, it was expensive I guess, but it was authentic. It was a: Frappy. Basically instant coffee and water and blended. It's way popular here. Nalgene bottles, milk bottles, EVERYWHERE!
I didn't see babies drinking Frappies though.
It was alright. Needs more sugar and some dairy (in my opinion).
It was bright and sunny, then the sky feel. More like a bucket of water was tipped over, but it was a warm rain.
So here's a small lake that wasn't a lake. And some pretty flowers that maybe are Greek, who knows. I'm not a flower expert: Botanist. (I'm watching 30 rock...sorry if this text may be a bit weird. Disclaimer).
Emily attempts to walk through this cute park without getting wet feet.
So....yeah, that was a cool first day, but I really didn't want to be there a 2nd one and we were all of accord: SO! We took a trip to the bus station to see if we could find a ride out of this city and out to the country (the pizza adviser had also suggested these monistaries on top of some mountains, but it would be a 3 hour drive...or 4 hours? I've forgotten).
Here is where we were and wanted to leave. It was a pretty beach, but it's more of a harbor becausde there's a drop-off and no beach.
We found out that it would be 35 euros per a person for a trip there and back. We sat and pondered. 70x4=140 euros.
Then, after much serious pondering (30 mins). Emily got a great idea!! Let's rent a car!!
As PCVs we aren't allowed to rent cars in PC serving countries, but Greece doesn't have any peace corps volunteers. What's more: as US citizens we're allowed to rent cars with our licenses if we're older than 25: Nils and Emily and both know how to drive stick! (the majority of Europeans drive stick = I need to learn!).
After all that hard deciding, we decided to treat ourselves to a nice meal.
We continued to follow our list, given to us by adviser, and we think we went to the correct restaurant. We had baked cheese which was pretty yummy.
Tasted like some kind of hot cheese dip that would be good with triscuits (I had to look this word up, I'd forgotten such things existed...and yet I used to be addicted to them...yum).
Heehee. So we ate some normal and new stuff. Guess which food I ordered.
Top left: pork and stuff, think it was sauteed, and top right: skate = some kind of edible shark, bottom left: greek salad, and bottom right: dessert of some kind of jelly and nut and crumbly grains (tasted light and crumbly..in a jelly sort of way).
I had ordered the skate =) of course. Tasted fishy...and lemonyzesty, and it had soft bones, but it was a slimy texture and I ate it, but it was weird and I don't think I'll order it again.
Bum chica bow bow. Here we go our next day! 60 Euros for a car! We filled the gas ourselves. I think the total cost was 90 euros by the end of the evening, plus bridge tolls.
Yes, we rented a car, and no, we did not drive to Athens.
See the moutains we're heading towards. Looks cool eh?
So for this trip, we stopped at a store and bought food. Cheese sandwiches, juice and weird chips. Romania = sour cream and dill, in the US we eat = sour cream and onion, and Greece...= sour cream and oregano. Weird.
The landscape was really cool to me cause it's so different from Romania's and California's landscape. Trees grow out of rocks and they're all crooked looking. These trees reminded me of the mythology that two people were so in love that as they got older they became trees and were intwined together for the rest of eternity.
Then we saw a bundle of stones atop a hill. We never did found out what it was...
Guess what this is!!!
Really? No! Really? YES!!!!
AHHH!! We really found Mount Olympus! and dude, it is a far hike. We didnt' have a lot of time to spend there, but maybe again one day. I would love to hike it there. I bet it's hard to get it, or it wouldn't have been chosen as the spot where the gods lived.
Weird Mt. Olympus organisms.
We had to pay a pretty large toll (I guess not as bad as in the US now-a-days) to get over something, and people were handing out advertising to us. That's something new to me.
You know what Other craziness I saw!?
Solar panels EVERYWHERE! On every house and building. Even on top of shacks and barns.
And to the horizon we saw peaks, broken ones. This rock was cool too.
Road was nicely kept for tourists.
Pretty?
View between the monasteries.
The were a sight. Magnificent and old, just like things you thought would exist in movies but not in real life, but here they are.
Amazing to wonder, how they could have been built: lots of work and lifting.
Stairs leading up to a monastery. Emily and I atop a plateau peak.
Hee. Here's our traveling group of 4.
World at their feet.
A hah! and a solar panel hiding! Found ya!
I had to change into a new shirt and Emily put on a skirt (and later I had to borrow one too). Istanbul, Greece...it seems like every holy place we'd been asked to change clothes to be more feminine and conservative even thought they were touristic.
Here we go. Into the tunnels, up the carved stairs and into the mountain monasteries.
I don't know what this means, but it looks like my name.
See. Had to borrow a skirt to go in.
Some info, and view from the top. Don't it look philosophical? Does to me.
Yep, it was cool just to be there. There, I did feel more able to banter about the meaning of existence. If only I had a toga on.
View from the tipity-tip-top.
Here they celebrate "Martisor" too. It's the celebration of the arrival of Spring. It's on the 1st of March traditionally boys give girls these red and white entwining strings with a charm to wear on their breast or as a bracelet. We celebrate it in Romania, and I knew about Bulgaria, but I didn't know that Greece celebrated it too. Some regions of Romania tie these strings in trees, and apparently so does Greece.
We got to see other parts of this 1 monastery: water jugs and wine making.
*sigh* Europe. Wine.
Lookie, and Chinese gords. I thought only us Asians used them. Maybe the Turks introduced them? There was also a room of bones and skulls..........we felt like it was unappropriate to take a picture. It was a door with a small window and the room was filled with selved bones...........
Modern day technology has made it easier for the remaining monks to transport necessary services. yay for them! whew.
I also got some pictures of a couple flowers growing up there. Here are Greek flowers:...flowers found in Greece (maybe not natives, just tourists):
Here's the Greek flag, you may have seen it at the 2004 Summer Olympics.
This was a niche at the base of the mountain on our way down. The monasteries all close at 4:30pm....so we didn't have time to see the nunnary or anything else fun. Oh well. It was a bit of a drive back. We did encounter a herd of goats along the way, and Nils almost ran over a turtle, but he didn't flatten it.
I found the street signs highly amusing on this journey. The second one...lol.
Here we were, going on the train for the next destination. 2 days in Greece = we didnt' see it all, we didn't see a lot, but we saw some good stuff and got a small taste. Thanks Greece!
Of course, I had to have 1 more Frappy before I left, even though I didnt' really like them all that much: powdered coffee, fluffed with water. BUT everyone drinks them!!
Mission#2, or #1 of my job = educate people about Romania...which as a Peace Corps volunteer...I did do a lot last year...and anyway, I went to Greece, so *check* that off my list and here we gO!:
Here's is the night train we took from Istanbul to Greece. We went not to Athens but to Thessaloniki (2nd biggest city and not a touristic destination, bo).
Sleeper train from country to country.
So, the scenery was way way pretty. The soil there is reddish which was interesting.
Our ride lasted until like 9am, so I had time to enjoy the view from our window. Look at how those clouds roll over those mountains.
This was the first station I saw with the greek alphabets and all!
So that was that. Apparently blocks aren't just limited to Romania. With my new experiences, I can safety say that the US is spoiled with all it's room because at lot of Europeans reside in apartments. Even in Austria, they have shared houses (even though these houses look like million dollar mansions).
THE OLYMPICS was here!!! That's cool.
Yeah...on this trip we stayed at 1 hostel, many trains and 1 hotel. Here's the view from my window. It was stuffy but it wasn't expensive and it was the best bed of the whole trip.
Okay. Well after we had washed ourselves (no showers in trains) we went out to explore.
We saw a statue of Alexander the Great *yay*, then this tower *yay* and there was this church and that was it. People weren't so helpful to us tourists and I had 3 people really rudely reject my plea for directions. I don't think it was racist, just people not wanting to help us. *shrug* That'w how we felt and it was unanimous.
So someone really really recommended us to go to Pizza Hut in Tess. and so we did. It was expensive and ....way way not worth it. Sorry adviser. On THE other hand EVERYONE, everyone was drinking this foamy brown thing.
So I wanted one too.
I got one, it was expensive I guess, but it was authentic. It was a: Frappy. Basically instant coffee and water and blended. It's way popular here. Nalgene bottles, milk bottles, EVERYWHERE!
I didn't see babies drinking Frappies though.
It was alright. Needs more sugar and some dairy (in my opinion).
It was bright and sunny, then the sky feel. More like a bucket of water was tipped over, but it was a warm rain.
So here's a small lake that wasn't a lake. And some pretty flowers that maybe are Greek, who knows. I'm not a flower expert: Botanist. (I'm watching 30 rock...sorry if this text may be a bit weird. Disclaimer).
Emily attempts to walk through this cute park without getting wet feet.
So....yeah, that was a cool first day, but I really didn't want to be there a 2nd one and we were all of accord: SO! We took a trip to the bus station to see if we could find a ride out of this city and out to the country (the pizza adviser had also suggested these monistaries on top of some mountains, but it would be a 3 hour drive...or 4 hours? I've forgotten).
Here is where we were and wanted to leave. It was a pretty beach, but it's more of a harbor becausde there's a drop-off and no beach.
We found out that it would be 35 euros per a person for a trip there and back. We sat and pondered. 70x4=140 euros.
Then, after much serious pondering (30 mins). Emily got a great idea!! Let's rent a car!!
As PCVs we aren't allowed to rent cars in PC serving countries, but Greece doesn't have any peace corps volunteers. What's more: as US citizens we're allowed to rent cars with our licenses if we're older than 25: Nils and Emily and both know how to drive stick! (the majority of Europeans drive stick = I need to learn!).
After all that hard deciding, we decided to treat ourselves to a nice meal.
We continued to follow our list, given to us by adviser, and we think we went to the correct restaurant. We had baked cheese which was pretty yummy.
Tasted like some kind of hot cheese dip that would be good with triscuits (I had to look this word up, I'd forgotten such things existed...and yet I used to be addicted to them...yum).
Heehee. So we ate some normal and new stuff. Guess which food I ordered.
Top left: pork and stuff, think it was sauteed, and top right: skate = some kind of edible shark, bottom left: greek salad, and bottom right: dessert of some kind of jelly and nut and crumbly grains (tasted light and crumbly..in a jelly sort of way).
I had ordered the skate =) of course. Tasted fishy...and lemonyzesty, and it had soft bones, but it was a slimy texture and I ate it, but it was weird and I don't think I'll order it again.
Bum chica bow bow. Here we go our next day! 60 Euros for a car! We filled the gas ourselves. I think the total cost was 90 euros by the end of the evening, plus bridge tolls.
Yes, we rented a car, and no, we did not drive to Athens.
See the moutains we're heading towards. Looks cool eh?
So for this trip, we stopped at a store and bought food. Cheese sandwiches, juice and weird chips. Romania = sour cream and dill, in the US we eat = sour cream and onion, and Greece...= sour cream and oregano. Weird.
The landscape was really cool to me cause it's so different from Romania's and California's landscape. Trees grow out of rocks and they're all crooked looking. These trees reminded me of the mythology that two people were so in love that as they got older they became trees and were intwined together for the rest of eternity.
Then we saw a bundle of stones atop a hill. We never did found out what it was...
Guess what this is!!!
Really? No! Really? YES!!!!
AHHH!! We really found Mount Olympus! and dude, it is a far hike. We didnt' have a lot of time to spend there, but maybe again one day. I would love to hike it there. I bet it's hard to get it, or it wouldn't have been chosen as the spot where the gods lived.
Weird Mt. Olympus organisms.
We had to pay a pretty large toll (I guess not as bad as in the US now-a-days) to get over something, and people were handing out advertising to us. That's something new to me.
You know what Other craziness I saw!?
Solar panels EVERYWHERE! On every house and building. Even on top of shacks and barns.
And to the horizon we saw peaks, broken ones. This rock was cool too.
Road was nicely kept for tourists.
Pretty?
View between the monasteries.
The were a sight. Magnificent and old, just like things you thought would exist in movies but not in real life, but here they are.
Amazing to wonder, how they could have been built: lots of work and lifting.
Stairs leading up to a monastery. Emily and I atop a plateau peak.
Hee. Here's our traveling group of 4.
World at their feet.
A hah! and a solar panel hiding! Found ya!
I had to change into a new shirt and Emily put on a skirt (and later I had to borrow one too). Istanbul, Greece...it seems like every holy place we'd been asked to change clothes to be more feminine and conservative even thought they were touristic.
Here we go. Into the tunnels, up the carved stairs and into the mountain monasteries.
I don't know what this means, but it looks like my name.
See. Had to borrow a skirt to go in.
Some info, and view from the top. Don't it look philosophical? Does to me.
Yep, it was cool just to be there. There, I did feel more able to banter about the meaning of existence. If only I had a toga on.
View from the tipity-tip-top.
Here they celebrate "Martisor" too. It's the celebration of the arrival of Spring. It's on the 1st of March traditionally boys give girls these red and white entwining strings with a charm to wear on their breast or as a bracelet. We celebrate it in Romania, and I knew about Bulgaria, but I didn't know that Greece celebrated it too. Some regions of Romania tie these strings in trees, and apparently so does Greece.
We got to see other parts of this 1 monastery: water jugs and wine making.
*sigh* Europe. Wine.
Lookie, and Chinese gords. I thought only us Asians used them. Maybe the Turks introduced them? There was also a room of bones and skulls..........we felt like it was unappropriate to take a picture. It was a door with a small window and the room was filled with selved bones...........
Modern day technology has made it easier for the remaining monks to transport necessary services. yay for them! whew.
I also got some pictures of a couple flowers growing up there. Here are Greek flowers:...flowers found in Greece (maybe not natives, just tourists):
Here's the Greek flag, you may have seen it at the 2004 Summer Olympics.
This was a niche at the base of the mountain on our way down. The monasteries all close at 4:30pm....so we didn't have time to see the nunnary or anything else fun. Oh well. It was a bit of a drive back. We did encounter a herd of goats along the way, and Nils almost ran over a turtle, but he didn't flatten it.
I found the street signs highly amusing on this journey. The second one...lol.
Here we were, going on the train for the next destination. 2 days in Greece = we didnt' see it all, we didn't see a lot, but we saw some good stuff and got a small taste. Thanks Greece!
Of course, I had to have 1 more Frappy before I left, even though I didnt' really like them all that much: powdered coffee, fluffed with water. BUT everyone drinks them!!
