Turkey Day! (Not Thanksgiving...)

Greece is now behind us and we will be in Turkey tomorrow! Today is “Turkey Day,” a free day where we don’t have classes but we have lots of optional programs to attend. Apparently there is going to be good food, too! I haven’t written in three days, so here’s what’s been going on:

Three days ago (Friday) we had an SAS trip for Greek cooking lessons.  I was excited for it, but it ended up being kind of lame.  We weren’t taught how to cook at all. Our group of 40-some was split into 5 teams, each at a different table with lots of ingredients. Each team was given a menu and the ingredients in each dish (just the ingredients list, not how much of each). We were given 5-8 minutes to prepare each dish, and one of the chefs walked around with a finished dish for us to try to make. So we basically just threw things together. I definitely don’t know how to cook, but at least I know that when something calls for salt, it means a little bit, not the palmfuls that people were chucking into the salads. Yum. The trip was from 1100 to 1400, so we thought that we would be fed lunch after the lessons, but we were expected to eat what we made. I tried a little spoonful of each dish, but I wasn’t really into eating a meal out of stuff we threw together in 5 minutes. Steven and I signed off the trip at the end and took the metro to Monastiraki, one of the main squares in Athens. We grabbed a very satisfying lunch there: we shared a “cheese pie” (basically fillo dough filled with cheese), and we each got souvlaki (pork on a skewer).  Yum! After lunch it was the search for the sandals. Both Shaara and I read the same girl’s Summer 2009 blog before coming on the trip, and the girl went to this famous sandal shop in Athens where they custom-fit these leather sandals for you. It was actually only a couple blocks away from where we ate lunch! The shop is very “hippie” with lots of paintings and eclectic decorations all over the wall. And leather sandals EVERYWHERE. A guy handed us a “menu” of sandal styles to pick from and I tried a few on before picking one. They adjusted the straps to my feet and I was done! They were fairly cheap too—only 27 euros. Steven got a pair of sandals, too! I need to break them in, but they are already comfortable and they fit perfectly! We hailed a taxi and asked him to stop at the Hard Rock Café before taking us to the port. I literally ran into the store, bought my guitar pin, and ran out in 30 seconds because our driver couldn’t park on the street. Fun times! (if any future SASers happen to be reading this, the sandal shop is at 2 Aghias Theklas Street in Psirri. Or just go up to a local, point to your feet and say “sandals?” and they will tell you where to go).

On Saturday we had a free day, so we had gotten ferry tickets ahead of time to go to Aegina, one of the closest islands to the Greek mainland. The boat we were going on was called “Flying Dolphin” and it was actually a hydrofoil! It went really fast and glided on top of the water. We got to the island in about half an hour and then realized we didn’t really know what to do. The man who was selling us the ferry tickets told us to take a bus to the other side of the island to a place called Aghia Marina, so off we went. The port area was full of shops and people, but the middle of the island seemed to be run down and abandoned. Apparently very few people on the island spoke English, because when we asked which stop to get off, no one could help us. We finally asked a couple “marina?” and they said they were going there too. So we made it successfully. There was a dress shop at the place the bus dropped us off so we decided to shop a little bit. Steven got a pair of swim trunks and I got a couple of dresses. The store owner started talking to me in Greek (everyone thinks that I’m Greek because I have really tan skin now) but thankfully she spoke English. We went to a few other shops before deciding it was time to eat. I had read on WikiTravel about a cheap but delicious restaurant called Pita Tom, so we went there, but they said we wouldn’t be able to get gyros until 1pm (it was noon at the time). So we decided to do dessert first and went across the street to a snack bar to get ice cream with this warm brownie kind of thing. I wanted baklava but the place didn’t have it =(. We then went down to the beach. The sand was absolutely scorching, even through the beach blanket I had. We parked ourselves very close to the water and I ran in. I was expecting the freezing cold water like in Capri and Croatia, but the water was so warm! I could have stayed there forever. I wish we had someone else to sit on the beach watching our stuff because Steven and I had to take turns going in the water. After about an hour on the beach, we went back to Pita Tom for some much-needed food! I ordered a feta cheese “salad” and a gyro, Steven got a stuffed beefsteak. The feta cheese was delicious, just a nice brick of cheese covered in oil and spices. The gyro was even better, with tender meat, tzatziki, and even French fries! Steven’s dish was kind of like a meatloaf thing stuffed with cheese and tomatoes, he said he really liked it but I would take my gyro over his any day! After lunch we went to a little grocery store, I picked up some snacks and a frappe “maker,” basically just a cup with a top to shake the frappe in. The frappe is the “specialty” coffee drink in Greece, and it is basically instant coffee, water, milk, and sugar, served cold and very frothy. So I got the shaker and a can of Nescafe instant coffee and I am ready to make my own frappes! Then we waited about 40 minutes for the bus back to the port. Apparently the bus only comes every hour. Our return ticket to Piraeus wasn’t until 7:15, but we got it changed to 5:30 because we couldn’t find anything else to do. On the ferry we met an older couple from the US who were just in Turkey and were now in Greece, so we told them all about our ship and where we were going. When we got back, we just bummed around on the ship and enjoyed air conditioning and free food.

Yesterday was another free day, but we had to be back on the ship by 6pm so we decided not to go into Athens and just stay in Piraeus. Big mistake. Being Sunday, absolutely EVERYTHING was closed. Restaurants, shops, pharmacies, everything. Well, the sex cinema was open, but that wasn’t a destination we wanted (there was a man hosing down the chairs outside when we walked down that street—eww). So we went back to the port terminal, where some shops and a snack bar were open, and we ate lunch there. Pork wrapped in bacon on a stick = delicious!! We went back to the ship to write postcards and then ventured out a little later. I think we saw two restaurants open, everything else was still closed. We wanted to find a grocery store so I could buy some olives, so we asked someone at a snack bar. They said the main market was closed but there was an Asian market a few blocks from there. No olives there (I think the only reason it’s called Asian market is because it’s owned by Asian people, it was just a regular grocery store) but I got a box of “Nestle Fitness” cereal. It’ll be a nice change from tiny boxes of Special K and cornflakes. So our second outing was a bust, and we went back to the ship to bum around until dinner. I’m mad I didn’t get any olives!!!!

Special comments/actions of Greece:
-“I really do like this Greek style of gyros”
-People were trying to send postcards with stamps from Italy and Croatia.

Turkey tomorrow!!!!!!