The Ultimate Spring Break- Athens, Santorini, Rome

Where to begin? This past week was absolutely unbelievable. I'm sure I'll start to sound repetitive when I say that everywhere we went it felt like a meeting place of the world, we were a bit culturally confused when we heard Asian people speaking Italian, and children speaking Greek. For some reason, langauges amaze me! We started the adventure by meeting up in Madrid, needless to say Mom and Jake found me asleep in the airport, but their exhaustion greatly outran mine. We made it to Athens that same day and jumped in feet first. Athens is an extremely dense city with more than 4.5 million inhabitants, unfortunately, 2 million of them are illegal immigrants who don't pay taxes, so you can imagine the burden that has on the economy. We spent the first day wandering the city in awe of the Acropolis in the background. Also we had our first Grecian meal...so good. Souvlaki, Greek Salad, Grilled Octopus, Sarma, Ke-bab, etc...these were just some of the meals we had! On day two, we headed straight for the Acropolis. For some reason, the entire trip we decided to walk everywhere...the ONLY advantage of that was that you get to see really cool things in between your main attractions. Also, I'm going to give Jake all the credit for navigating up front. The Acropolis is an amazing sight, however when you are right there next to it, it lost some of its charm due to the construction. Looking at it from afar was much more impressive to me. It is a constant reminder to the Greek people of their strong roots, I can see how proud it makes them, and I understand where that stems from now. After the Acropolis, we tried to go and see some other ruins, but they all close by the afternoon. Instead we explored the more modern part of town, the shopping street, the street where all the embassies are, and of course the Parliment. We witnessed a changing of the guards, and it was like nothing I have ever seen, they have quite the routine! I took a picture next to one, kind of like people do in London, and then Jake came up to take one with me, and the guard raised his bayonet, and slammed the butt of it down on the groud, this was a signal that only one person can be that near him at any time. Our hotel staff was really great, and the security guard gave us some tips on where to go for a good night life. The line-up for the next day, our last day in Athens, was to explore other ruins. We walked around out neighborhood a bit because there is this amazing marketplace where the shop-owners set-up every day. We only had one mishap here, there was this shop, basically a giant rummage sale, everything was piled on top of eachother, and Jake knocked something over, which caused a few other things to topple and break...for once, it wasn't me that did that. Jake thought it would be best we leave, so we did, but not before the employee started following us yelling, " My friend!" Luckliy Mom and I ignored him, as did Jake. He ended up pretty upset. Needless to say, we avoided his shop the whole rest of the day! We headed for the Ancient Agora, which was at one time, the meeting place for the Greeks. It is really cool because it is kind of like a huge field just packed with ancient ruins, statues, drains, temples, columns, etc. Even though I loved Athens, it can't be compared with Santorini. We went there the next day. We arrived by 6:40am, before anything on the entire island opens. This might be the most daring thing that Mom, Jake, and I have done together. Since we had nowhere to go, it was only a day trip for us, Jake approached a man about a taxi, this man was apparently a hotel owner and offered Jake a room for the day, breakfast, travel advice, and transport to and from the airport for only 55 euro...of couse we took the offer. It didn't strike us as odd until he directed us to his toyota and drove us off into the Santorini night. Luckily, he was completely legitimate, his hotel was very cute, and his children and wife helped him run this one and another on the island. Again, forgoing renting a car, atv, or anything, we walked everywhere on the island..and yes it is even more breath-taking than in photos. The highlight of the sights was when we turned a corner and say the Aegean sea in front of us, cliffs to either side, and directly down, winding white staircases spotted with bars and hotels...the classic Santorini photo. We managed to see several small villages on the island and Kimari, one of the black sand beaches. Normal people would have jumped at the chance to take a mule down the side of the island, through the village, to the port of the Aegean, but no, Jake and I decided to walk the 600+ steps while Mom took in the views at a cafe. By the bottom our legs were shaking and we were relieved to be able to take a cable car back up! I took a lot of photos on Santorini, but they just don't do it justice. A final note on Greece, the Greek people are so nice and warm. They would see that it is my brother and I traveling with our mother and they would smile and look content to see (part) of our family together. I almost wanted to hug all of them.
From Greece, to Rome! Another beautiful city, but completely distinct. The architecture in Rome is much more along the lines of what I would expect, every building is extremely detailed and interesting and more beautiful than the next. We arrived and instead of taking the 60 euro cab, we decided to try the train and metro system....FAIL. Nearly three hours later we were walking into our hotel. We had bought tickets for the wrong train, the metro was so crowded, Mom and I got onto a train that Jake didn't, and we climbed hundreds of steps with our luggage. We spent the afternoon wandering making stops to see the Spanish Steps, several piazzas that my friend recommended to me, and at night, we saw the Trevi fountain, unbelievably beautiful and colossal...it seemed that everything in Rome was awesomely enormous. Day two, we again explored piazzas, and market-places, and took a tour of the Vatican museum in the afternoon. The sistine chapel was another mind-blowing sight, packed full of people trying to be silent and fight their temptation to take photos. At night we climbed (another decision that at the time seemed good) to the top of Gianocolo hill, my friend had recommended the view...and it was beautiful. I have discovered that I dig views. That being said, St. Peter's was next on the list. Bright and early we headed there to spend the entire morning taking in the Cathedral, St.Peter's tomb, and again climbing over 300 steps in the narrowest of narrow staircases to the top of the dome. Of course we saw the Colosseum and the Roman agora later. The Roman ruins are completely distinct from Greek, and equally extraordinary. I really enjoyed Rome, it seemed everything in that city has some significance. And I loved that you could be wandering down a narrow street and then run directly into the most beautiful fountain in a piazza or the trevi fountain, or an ancient Egyptian obelisk. This trip was something that I feel extremely lucky to have been able to experience it, and the only thing that could have made it better was if we could have shared every sight, every taste, every sound, and smell with my Dad and sister.