Greece – by Anna – 4Laffs.com

In this post I am going to cover Greece. I am going to start in Santorini and end in Athens.

Santorini

We arrived in Santorini on the 5th of February (Caleb’s Birthday). Our apartment was about 20 feet from the sea. On the first day we found out about this thing they do in Greece called a “siesta”. Every day at 2 pm everyone gets off of work for a 3 hour siesta (afternoon nap). Because of that everything is closed from 2-5 so you have to get out early to do anything. Most of the time on the island we spent driving around in the rental. We drove to the top of a couple of hills to look out over the sea and island. We also went to see some ruins from before the volcano erupted. The most major eruption was believed to have happened around 1500 B.C. We also went and walked on the active volcano. As you walked up to the top, you could see the sulfur coming out of the ground. You could hold your hand over the hole the sulfur was coming out of and feel the heat from the inside of the volcano.

On a completely different note there was this bakery like 10 minutes from our apartment with the BEST OREO-CHOCOLATE CAKE IN THE WORLD!

Athens

We got to Athens on the 19^th of February. On the first day our land lord, Pantelis, showed us the local markets and shops. We spent about 3 hours looking in spice, patisserie, and coffee shops. On the 2^nd or 3^rd day, not sure which one, we went to the Acropolis. The Acropolis is a really big hill with the Parthenon and other temples to various Greek gods on top. We went to the Acropolis 3 days in a row. First time, we went to see the sunset over the Acropolis and the rest of Athens. The 2^nd day we actually went on top and walked around the Parthenon and looked in all the other temples. The 3^rd day we went to the Acropolis museum. It had most of the original statues from the temples, and told a lot about the restoration and history of the Acropolis. We also went to a museum of how smart the Greeks are. They had a lot of really cool inventions of the early Greeks. They had a thing that made it look like they turned water to wine. It had two jugs – one you pour the water into, and the other had wine in it with a spout for the wine to come out of. The way it works is the first one you pour your water into is connected to the second one with a tube that is near the top so water doesn’t actually go into the second jug. The theory was that by pouring water in the first jug, air would go through the tube to the second jug, and to make room for that air some of the wine had to leave. So the more water you pour in, the more air goes through the tube, which makes the same amount of wine come out as water went in. So there you have the illusion of turning water into wine. OK, just look at the photos later and it will make more sense.

Also (completely off topic) Athens has this amazing thing called a gyro (pronounced yee-ro, or euro like the kind of money). It’s basically a tortilla with lettuce, tomato, french fries, and cucumber yogurt sauce, best thing ever. -SLaff

Santorini Photos