SANTORINI

We took a ferry from Athens to Santorini, which was pretty cool. We were on the top deck and it got kind of windy at times. It was fun to be on a big boat in the ocean water :) Our hotel was about a 30 second walk to the black sand beach which was AWESOME! We loved the beach, but beware of nude women if you go there. They don't care one bit. It was so relaxing to be in Santorini. It was the end of our trip and we loved to just chill, read, go to the beach, and do whatever we wanted!

On the ferry :)

Our second day there we booked a boat tour. It was really sweet! We went to the Burnt Island which is a volcano that we hiked up. There is hot smelly sulfur that still leaks out... We went to a warm spring. We had to jump from our tour boat and swim to it, so it was really cold water until we got to where it was warm! Our last stop was at Oia which was the other side of Santorini. This is where Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was filmed for all you fans! It almost seemed fake to be there! It was soo much fun! This is a famous sunset viewing place, and it was beautiful! I posted some pictures of the sunset earlier.

The Burnt Island

This is a picture of our tour boat


Oia behind us

I'm sorry, but this is AMAZING!



I was in love with this little house! You can't even see it that good, but it is sooo CUTE!

Watching the sunset...

The next day we rented 4-wheelers for 24 hours and drove all around the island! This was definitely a good move on our part! It was so cool to see the island like this!

The Red Beach


The highest point of the island


Just riding along the beach :)


We love our gyros! These ones were HUGE!


I'm standing at the very tip of the island


Random swing that looked out in to the water- beautiful view


This was so much FUN!

At the end of the day we drove along the Black Beach by our hotel and stopped for a treat. I am eating a white chocolate ice cream bar which is delicious!

Sitting at the poolside at our hotel

This is on our deck of the hotel room- you can see the beach behind me!!

SUNSET


Well this is the end of my trip... It was absolutely incredible and even more than I ever expected. I loved it!!

ATHENS

Athens was such a good time! Our first night we got suckered into eating at the first restaurant we came too. My meal was delicious, but I regretted it the next day... Totally got food poisoning and was so sick. I actually didnt feel so hot the next few days, but I still enjoyed my time in Athens.

This was my meal. It is chicken souvlaki (it's like a kabob). It tasted so good, but it didn't treat me very well...

Our second day we signed up for a walking tour through our hostel. We ended up being the only people, so it was a sweet private tour just for us! We loved our tour guide, Michelle, and she taught us a lot of things about the city. Here are pictures of all the places we visited...

Hadrian's Arch

Temple of Zeus


Agora with the Acropolis in the background


Temple of Hephaistos


We walked by the President's house and watched the changing of the guard. It was VERY interesting... I would like to put up a video of them marching, but I have tried to put up a video before and it won't work for me. If anyone can tell me what to do let me know!



ok here is a video, i have a way better one but it's too long and it won't upload

These next pictures are at the Acropolis

The Parthenon- too bad it was covered in scaffolding, we tried to get the best angle possible


View of the city from on top- look to the right and you can see the Temple of Zeus


Porch of the Carytiatids, part of the Erechtheum


The Propylaea


Theatre of Dionysus


Temple of Athena Nike

Try and read that!

That night we went to a garden rooftop cinema, which was awesome. It was on top of a building right by our hostel and the acropolis is in full view when we look to the side! We saw Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. It was ok, but it was the atmosphere that was so much fun!

Here we are at the movie!



Here is Michelle eating a gyro. We LOVE these!! They are so yummy! This was our lunch and dinner for the remainder of our time in Athens. They were cheap and delicious and didn't make us sick.

Stray dogs are EVERYWHERE!!

Michelle and I went to a market the next morning and did a little shopping which was fun. The men loved us everywhere we went! haha It was most apparent in Paris and Athens. It was funny to hear what people would say to us, especially when they wanted us to buy something from them! We had people call us beautiful, pretty, girlfriend, they would tell us they loved us, they would chase us (kinda creepy), etc.

Here is me in the streets of Athens with some merchandise


This is the view from our hostel room balcony

These are pictures from sunsets in Athens and Santorini


Here are our feet all over Greece!

ROMA

After the wretched suffering of the sleeper train we finally arrived at the Termini train station in Rome. We found our hostel, the Sandy Hostel. It seemed a little sketchy at first. We walked in a big blueish door and up it seemed like a million flights of stairs. But it actually turned out to be pretty good. The first night I was in a room without Candice and Michelle, with 3 strangers. I met the boy first, he was about my age and with him was his mom and sister. So that turned out good! I was grateful it wasn't some crazies!! They were so nice to me and they gave us their tour bus passes to use the next day because they were leaving.

The first site in Rome we saw was the Pantheon. It was pretty darn cool. Before we went in we had our first gelato, and it was AMAZING!! It was actually the best we had in all our time spent in Rome.

Eating delicious gelato outside the Pantheon. I had pistachio and hazlenut... mmm heavenly :)

Michelle and I in front of the Pantheon

We had time and some energy for one more event that night, so we went to the Museo Nazionale Romano....LAME. It really wasn't that cool. The cool stuff it did have was fake, they had copies of all the famous works.

We went around finding funny things to make up for the lameness and wasted money

We had a really good dinner. We ate outside and listened to accordian players (they are EVERYWHERE), and our waiter was awesome.


This was our appetizer, caprese, and it was soo yummy!

DAY 2
We got up bright and early to go to Vatican City. We saw it all... the museum, sistine chapel, St. Peters Basilica, and we picked the day of the big mass so we saw the Pope! We were waiting in line for St. Peters Basilica and we met a girl, Liz, from east LA who was there by herself and she became our friend!

The Pope!

Inside the basilica- it was so huge and beautiful

The dome of the basilica is behind us

We hiked to the top of the basilica, the Vatican city is behind me. It was a pretty cool view.

When we were through at the Vatican, we took our free tour bus passes and rode the bus for 2 1/2 hours. It was a pretty cool way to see a lot of things.

We went to the Spanish Steps, and I kinda think they are overrated... We got there and then left because it wasn't much to see. I know we did miss the month of may when all the beautiful flowers are there, so maybe that's why. Our new roommate, Giovanni from South Africa, wanted us to go with him to check out the night life at the Spanish steps... we didn't take the invite. So maybe that's cooler...haha!

The Spanish Steps are behind us...not much to see hu?

The Trevi Fountains were pretty dang cool to see

DAY 3
We went to the Coloseum which was AWESOME! We took about a billion pictures! We also went to the Roman Forum. We totally spotted a mormon family there! We kinda stalked them to try to find out! haha There were 2 boys that looked about our age and their parents. We found out that they are from Utah and just picked up their twin boys from their missions! They picked up one from France and then came to Rome and picked up the other one.

Part of the Roman Forum

We went to the San Callisto Catacombs which were really cool! We didn't really know exactly where we were going, but we met a family who was going to the same place and also didn't really know the way either! So the blind was leading the blind! But we made it!! Yay! We couldn't take pictures in the catacombs which was a bummer, so we just got outside pics. After the catacombs we waited for quite a while for the bus on the Appian Way- one of the earliest important roads in Rome.

Beautiful scenery outside the catacombs

Just chillin on the Appian Way...


We loved all of the columns everywhere we went!


1...2...3... JUMP

Top left, bottom middle, and right middle: Santorini Sunset
Bottom left: Base of Eiffel Tower
Top middle: Roman Forum
Top right: Colosseum
Bottom right: Highest point in Santorini