The new loves of my life: Hostels and Greece

Hello all!

I finally found time to sit down and tell you all about my extended weekend which was all too wonderful. Right now it is POURING rain and storming and we already went out for gelato AND we do not have class for the rest of the week so I am in the perfect mood to blog so sit back and enjoy!

Thursday night....Halloween....end of midterms week

On Thursday evening everybody was so exhausted and drained from tests and many hours in the library. Midterms were over, it was Halloween, and the weekend was here. We all deserved to have some fun and fun is what we had! A group of us went across the river to Trastevere (remember its the hip side of town where all the young teenagers hang out and where all the bars and the best gelato stop is?) and went to the Harry Potter bar. Apparently Halloween is a bigger deal here than I thought! People went all out in terms of face makeup and many people were dressed in costumes and there were even people walking around on stilts. I couldn't tell if the majority of those dressed up were students like us studying abroad or if they were Italians but never the less it was a rip roaring time in Trastevere on Halloween night! Our plan was to be back before 1 am cause some of us had to get up earlyyyyyy for Greece the next morning but you all know how that goes when you are having a good ole time.... so I didn't get back into the room until around 2am and wasn't in bed until 3. We all had a lot of fun letting out the steam from the week of midterms and just being crazy and enjoying ourselves. Weekends in Roma (without lectures and tours) are the best...Cheers!

GREECE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!

Two hours after I put my head on my pillow I had to get up to take a taxi to the airport for our flight to Thessaloniki Greece. I was so so excited to go to Greece but with just under three hours of sleep it was so hard to get up. I quickly cured my tiredness with a nice cappuccino from La Tazza D'Oro. Cappuccinos always do the trick they have something magical in them and they always make me feel FANTASTIC, especially when they are only 1,20 euro and especially when you don't have to wait in line for them. There were eight of us Saint Mary's girls going to Greece so we all caught a ride in a taxi and headed to the airport. The flight went well nothing unexpected although it was my first time flying on RyanAir which is a lower budget flight so when we safely landed in Greece they played a victory tune on the loud speakers as if to say "Yay we landed safely, whew that doesn't happen a lot" and than everybody on the flight started clapping. That had me laughing let me tell you. I mean its always good to applaud a safe flight and a successful landing right? Just have never experienced that before! It was so different landing in Greece where the language was not even close to being decipherable. Like you know when you are studying a language and you know it but also kinda still struggle with it sometimes but you can figure out what something is saying based on other words around it or the look of the word? Yeah NOPE not for Greek, I didn't even know how to begin trying to say those words on the signs at the airport and the billboards that we passed as we took our taxi to our hostel. I had to tell myself to switch Italian mode off and stick to English...at some points during the weekend in Greece Italian words snuck out...old habits die hard I guess :) We reached our hostel after about twenty minutes on the road...

HOSTELS, oh how I love thee.

Little Big House was the name of our hostel, if that doesn't make you smile and feel good right off the bat than I don't know what does.... but anyways it was situated pretty far up in a quiet, yes QUIET little neighborhood on the side of the hill. We got out of the taxi and walked up the steps, through the cutest little bright pink (very Greek) gates and into the little outside seating area. Right away I was in love. There was a lower sitting area and then above that a terrace with lantern lights of different colors. I love lantern lights and I love terraces (our albergo home in Rome has terraces that we all love dearly). We needed to check in so we walked into the reception area and the happiest, most smiley woman comes to greet us. She said hello and introduced herself as Vicky and then paused and said in her Greek accent "you are the ones who are here from Rome right?" and than she went on and said each of our names like she new who we were. Wow I was amazed and so impressed. This lady, oh so perfect. Red hair and a style that was so European but also so hip and trendy... one day she wore overalls and totally pulled it off... yeah that was the type of style she had. Vicky was the best. She told us to make ourselves at home, sit on the terrace and relax while she made a very authentic Greek refreshment, frappes. After our drinks she showed us our rooms and went over the map of the city showing us where to go and what to eat, what to see and the routes to take. Our rooms exceeded all expectations I ever had about hostels. This hostel was only about two and a half years old and you could definitely tell. Everything looked so new and clean and was all so cute. One word to describe this hostel and it was cute. The winding staircase had little candle lanterns along it and along one of the walls the quote "there's no place like home". The rooms had little kitchenettes in them and the black bunk beds were perfect, even the curtains had little houses on them. Our hostel set the bar so high for our hostel expectations and I also have a newly developed appreciation for them. Hostels are so diverse and have so many interesting people that stay at them, you get to meet wonderful hostel owners like Vicky and all for a student friendly price. Hotels walk in a very shallow light compared to the hostel and the experience we had at Little Big House. We relaxed only for a little while because by that time it was already around 3pm and we were not about to waste our time when we had all of Thessaloniki to experience!

Our hostel, oh so cute!

We made our way down the hilly streets and found a caffe that Vicky told us had the best gyros. And oh my they were the best. I have never had one before and it was incredible. Like totally 100% perfection, all the tastes blended together perfectly, pork, onions, mustard, french fries, and some other things I cant remember because I scarfed it down way too quickly. We sat outside at the caffe and so by that point we were all noticing the beauty of the Greek population. Wow they had a look to them that was very different than the Italians. They had the looks and man did they have the style. Men and women in Greece dress so much more European than in Rome. If we didn't feel like we stuck out too terribly as tourists in Rome man we stuck out like a sore thumb in Greece. Everybody knew we were tourists because Thessaloniki is not a touristy place and so everywhere we walked we got looks and it was pretty funny. I just wanted to be Greek for those two days I was there. Own some black ankle boots, black fish net tights with the jean shorts and a cute top, with the shades and the Greek strut. Yup that was one of the many styles of the Greek girls.... oh well I was American I couldn't change that and I didn't have money to buy a whole new outfit so my outfits would have to do.

After gyros we went down through the city and to the water. On our way we passed a group of people that were Greek dancing in the center of a little park area while people watched and dogs dozed on the sidewalks. Thats another thing. Dogs are everywhere in Greece but they are almost like humans I swear, they cross their palms when they sleep and apparently they wait for the light to turn green before crossing? We made our way down to the water and the sight was simply amazing. The sun was setting on another evening in Greece and there were boats on the water and people walking up and down the sidewalk on the shore. It was a little chilly, but chilly was perfect. We sat on a curb in a park and watched people talk and dogs play. Eventually we made our way back up the streets and into the neighborhood area near our hostel. We decided it would be a nice evening to just relaxing and so we found a place that sold wine and beer and we each got some wine and walked back to our hostel.

The rest of our evening consisted of sitting on the terrace with frappes and bottles of wine, meeting hostel mates, sharing stories and talking the night away. The lantern lights were glowing and the Greece air was nippy but I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Life was at a standstill for those two hours we were on the terrace enjoying each others company and it was a blessing. After terracing it (we now have a verb for when we go up on a terrace....terracing is what we so intelligently call it) we wanted some food so we walked up even farther away from the town, up and up some steps until we reached the top of the city and were able to see everything below us and oh boy everything was glowing and the boats on the water were peacefully floating way out in the distance. We found a quiet place right on the edge of the hill and we ordered our food (I got a Greek salad and it was superb! No lettuce just cucumbers, onions, olives, tomatoes and large chunks of feta cheese with a light dressing). We called it a night after our dinner and made our way back to our hostel and climbed into bed.

Thessaloniki Greece, view from our hostel

Next morning we got up and thoroughly enjoyed our buffet breakfast at the hotel. Toast, coffee, orange juice and some authentic Greek pastry with cream cheese inside of it. Lets just say we took our time eating our breakfast. At 11:30 we met a guy who gave us and some other hostel mates a FREE walking tour of the city. We covered a large part of the city and the guide told us about the historical part of the city and some more modern parts, we visited a chapel that contained one of the two portraits of Jesus without a beard in the whole world so that was really neat! We walked through neighborhood and down little staircases, we passed orange and pomegranate trees and spent three hours experiencing Thessaloniki with a very informative tour guide. In the evening we walked back into town and found the eating district with many cafes and restaurants all with seating outside. We had our meal which was interesting.... it was like a soup with meat and potatoes... I don't think it was what we were expecting but hey every new eating experience is worth it right? We got visited my many a people and animal while we were eating including a dog who had eyes that just pierced our souls so we decided to feed it some meat, and we had little children come up to us and play on their accordions and than plop their hand down for money. We had to shoo multiple children away. There were musicians to be heard throughout the whole meal and people walking by.

After dinner we decided we wanted to find a nice relaxing bar along the water for some drinks. There were so many cute little bars and cafes situated along the water and they were all so inviting with their music and comfy couches that they had set up outside. We decided to go to one that didn't look to expensive but that was still very welcoming and cozy. We ordered strawberry daiquiris and chatted and continually reiterated how entirely blessed we were and how amazing our existence at that moment was. Our time in Greece came to an end way to quickly, but I was just so grateful I was able to go and spend my time their with friends.

Friends and a wonderful evening in Greece

Sunday morning we woke, had our buffet breakfast and took the taxi to the airport and headed back home to Rome. I already made an agreement with my friends that I will be going back to Greece after I graduate from college. It is already calling me back...the peacefulness and beauty of the country has to be experienced again, plus all of the Greek food that I didn't have time to eat... yeah I will be back. Even though it was a short trip it was totally worth it, all of these little side trips we take will be invaluable and this is the time we should take advantage of traveling. Traveling is adventurous and the bonds you form with the people you travel with are the greatest...not to mention the opportunity to travel from Greece to Southern Italy to Switzerland and than to Austria and Barcelona all within two months time will not likely ever happen again with the prices we are traveling at.... traveling is becoming something I am really growing fond of, it sure is tiring but at the end of the day I am the happiest gal and always feel so glad for the opportunity.

Greece was successful and I miss it already. I also missed my home here in Rome so it was nice to return to my albergo home last night and eat gelato which I missed out on for two night...two night too many.

Today was our only day of classes for the week. Tomorrow we are taking a five day class trip to Southern Italy. I am looking forward to it and all of the places we will be going (Naples, Pompeii, Capri, Paestum and other places I cant remember).

I do believe that this Wednesday marks our half way point of being here in Rome and I only have one thought going through my head. I do not know how I will be able to leave this place.

Its 1am, I still need to pack and we gotta get up at 6am tomorrow. I always do this to myself but I love blogging and my blog readers more than packing and sleep.

Ciao!