Agia Marina-Chania-Piraeus Day 8

June 21,2010

Day 8 Agia Marina-Chania-Piraeus

Another earlyish day for me today.  Again I got up and got ready for the beach and then woke Trevor up.  This time we watched the butterflies on our balcony for a while before heading down to breakfast.  Breakfast was just as yummy as the day before.  I couldn't eat quite as much, having eaten way too much the night before.  After eating, we headed back to the room, observed some more butterflies, then headed down to the shore.  Again I managed to grabbed front row seating.  The day was looking really nice, and no clouds in the sky this time.  I decided to hang out on the beach until just before check out time at noon, and then met up with Trevor in our room where we grabbed our stuff and went down to check out.  I headed right back to the beach after we checked out.  Someone had taken our seats by that time, but that wasn't too much of an issue.  I just sat one row back.  Most of my day was spent reading again.  For lunch, we ate the chocolate cake!  It was awesome.  It wasn't too long before we had to go get ready for our bus back to Souda to catch our ferry.  We were able to use the spa showers, since we had already checked out.  I ended up having an issue because I had brought my bag into the shower with me and while in the shower, the lights were turned off and when I tried to leave the shower the other door to the girls change area was open and there was a man there.  Thankfully he moved and so I went to close that door, which turned the lights on again.  I found out my bag was soaked because water had leaked out of the shower.  When I tried to move my bag, it fell and my cosmetics bag spilled all over the floor.  It was a bit of a nightmare, but I finally made it out alive and clean.  We headed down the street to catch the bus that went back to Chania.  It came after a little while and it was packed.  Trevor and I ended up having to sit in different spots on the bus.  I sat by some creepy guy who kept looking at me and talking to himself.  Thankfully the ride wasn't too long.  Once in Chania, we thought we would buy some food for the ferry back, but the stores didn't seem to have anything really good to eat, so we caught the bus back to Souda.  Our ferry was already there.  We went in, again, via the fancy escalator.  This time we got cabins.  Because we didn't want to spend too much money, we ended up getting the gender separate cabins.  When I went into mine, I was the only one there.  In Trevor's there was a man there already.  Our cabins had 2 bunk beds and an ensuite bathroom (with shower!).  So cool!  We decided to wander around a little and to check out our food options, because we were starting to get hungry.  We got to see a bit of the sunset, but because my dress kept flipping up, I opted for the indoor option.  At 21:00 the ferry started moving and their restaurant opened and that's where we had dinner.  I had a traditional Cretan pasta with cream and nutmeg and Trevor had some other pasta.  It was good and filling.  After eating, we decided to separate and head to our cabins, because the ferry would dock at 05:00, so we wanted to get some sleep.  At my cabin, the family that was sharing with me was there finally.  I was in a room with a Grandmother, mother and son (I assume under the age of 12 which is why he was in the girls cabin).  I got into my top bunk bed and got ready to go to sleep when all of a sudden I heard this awful noise.  It wasn't too long before I found out that the Grandmother in the bunk below mine was vomiting.  Her family didn't seem as concerned as I was, so I tried to relax.  Unfortunately, this went on for some time and they even called a doctor to check up on the lady.  Thankfully after a little while, I was able to drift off to sleep.  

 

Agia Marina Day 7

June 20, 2010 

Day 7 Agia Marina 

My birthday!  I can't believe that a quarter century has passed!  It's unbelievable!  How does time go by so quickly as you get older?  I can't even imagine it feeling like it's going by any faster, and from the sounds of it, it does!  Wow.  Anyways, our morning started off wonderfully.  I woke up with no trouble, put on the sunscreen, got dressed and woke up Trevor.  We headed down to the breakfast that was included with the room.  Amazing.  I love buffet breakfasts.  It allows you to try so many things and they all seem to taste so good.  After eating way too much food, we headed straight for the beach.  I wanted to claim a front row seat!  There wasn't any trouble there, seeing that the beach was pretty empty.  Our hotel didn't have a ton of beach space, but it was definitely plenty.  Unfortunately, you had to pay for your seat, so Trevor spent most of the time not in his seat.  In actual fact, the lady only came by once to get money and then never bothered to come back, so I paid for my seat, but later when Trevor came back, he could sit in the seat next to me without paying.  The weather was strange this day.  It started out really sunny, but then it got windy and cloudy and for a while looked like it was going to rain.  Thankfully, Trevor used his quantum mechanics and pushed all the clouds away and by the end of the day it was beautiful again.  I spent all day listening to the waves, reading my book and just enjoying the view.  It was so wonderful.  There were people walking by offering massages, but they were a little pricey, so I decided I wouldn't get one.  At the end of the day, I went into the pool for a while, then headed to our room to change.  On our bed I found a lovely bottle of Cretan red wine and a card from the hotel wishing me a happy birthday.  We got ready to go, and headed down to the buffet supper (not included in our stay).  It was as yummy as breakfast.  I can't believe how much food I ate.  Once stuffed to the brim, we headed back to our room.  I noticed that I had forgotten to hang my clothes, so I stepped out on the balcony to hang them and when I returned, there was Trevor with a cake and candles in his hand!  It looked incredibly tasty.  Unfortunately, after eating the amount of food at dinner that I had, I had no more room for cake.  Luckily we had a fridge in our room, so we stored it there for the next day.  After, I was presented with my present.  So exciting…we're going to Croatia!!!  Not only did I get to spend my birthday on the beach, but my birthday present is a week on a beach!  So awesome!  After all that food and all the excitement (and all the sun), it was time for bed.  Another beach day to get ready for!

 

Pireaus-Chania-Agia Marina Day 6

June 19, 2010                                                                             

Day 6 Piraeus-Chania-Agia Marina 

We had planned to wake up early this morning (sort of, around 09:00), but it didn't quite work out that way.  We got ready then headed to a super market to get some snacks for the ferry.  After buying way too much food, we walked to our ferry.  We had planned to be an hour early for the ferry, but ended up being only about half an hour early.  We walked up to it and were put on a very fancy escalator with chandelier and bell boys.  They directed us to our unassigned seats (we had purchased the super economy seats which really meant that we were in a lounge area with metal lawn chairs and plastic couches along the edges.  At first it seemed super hot, but once the ferry got moving, it was actually quite comfortable.  For most of the ride, we both read.  The ferry was pretty big and the views along the way were so pretty.  The sea was so blue at one point and you could see the sun rays in the water.  I was getting super excited for my birthday beach day!  After the six hour ferry ride, we were there!  We had to do a little investigating to figure out how to get to our resort, but after asking a few questions, we were told to catch the bus to Chania and from there a bus to our resort.  I had thought we would be docking in Chania, but it turns out we docked at Souda, a little ways from Chania.  We grabbed the bus into town and after dealing with the grumpy bus driver, we walked to the bus station and caught our bus to get us to Agia Marina.  This bus was like a coach bus, so it was really comfy.  Once we got off the bus we had to walk a little ways, but finally we were there!  Thalassa Resort.  It was so exciting.  The resort was so pretty!  It looked like the fancy resorts in Mexico.  Our room was really nice too with a balcony and two rooms!  It was amazing!  It was getting late, so we decided to first check out the super markets right across the street to see if there was anything cheap to buy.  When we didn't find anything interesting, we headed to a pizza place and grabbed a pizza to take back to the room.  They offered us a shot while we waited too!  Back in our room, we ate our dinner on the balcony.  After that we headed to bed.  I was super excited about the next day!

 

Thessaloniki-Athens-Piraeus Day 5

June 18, 2010

Day 5 Thessaloniki-Athens-Piraeus

The border crossing at 02:00 was not exactly a pleasant wake up call.  Like last time, we got marched out of our bus and made to stand in a line up.  We probably stood there for 30 minutes waiting for everyone to get stamped.  This part was just the exit stamp.  A few people were having issues.  The guards singled people out and even held onto one girl's passport for a while.  They were eventually okay.  After using the bathroom in duty free, we got back on the bus to drive about 150 m to the Greece side and were marched out of the bus again.  This time it was so that we could get our entry stamp for the EU.  At this stop we started talking to a girl from the States who had been traveling for a while.  It made the time go by much faster, which was nice.  It was a bit cool out, but pretty soon (probably another 30 minutes) we were back on the bus and heading to Thessaloniki.  We got a few more hours of sleep before being awaken at our final destination.  Here, we ended up sticking with the American girl for a while since we were all heading to the train station anyways.  We bought tickets to get back to Athens and then chatted for a while.  She described our method of traveling as "traveling as a sport".  I found that really interesting.  While chatting, we found out she works for Couch Surfing, which was really cool.  We parted ways after a while and Trevor and I decided to head to Goody's to use some free internet before our train came.  We ate some food, used the internet and then caught our train.  This time the train was awful.  It was crowded and uncomfortable.  I don't think the people sitting across from us actually had tickets, because every once in a while someone would come by, mention that it was their seat and then would say nevermind.  The fact that we had people sitting across from us made the whole experience more uncomfortable.  But we survived and made it into Athens around 18:15.  At this point we needed to figure out how to get to Piraeus, the main port of Athens, where we would be catching the ferry the next day.  After finding out that there was a 24 hour metro strike, the route we had planned to take, I managed to find out that you could take the train over there.  So we waited for the train.  It almost seemed like it wasn't going to come, and when I asked the guard standing on the platform, in his broken English, he tried to tell me that that's how it is in Greece.  It wasn't too much longer when the train finally made its way into the train station, thankfully.  Piraeus was a couple of stops away and once there, we went on a hunt for our hotel.  Along the way I bought some delicious looking cherries from a street vendor.  We found our hotel after a few twists and turns.  It was a much nicer hotel than we usually stay at (although the price made it a lot less nice) at least in the lobby.  Once settled into our room we headed to the Anek Lines office to pick up our tickets.  Along the way we grabbed a quick bite to eat and then headed back to the room where we got ready for the next day.

Istanbul-Greece Day 4

June 17, 2010

Day 4 Istanbul-Greece/Turkey border

We got up pretty late this day.  We were obviously tired from the lack of sleep the night before and the long day of walking in the heat.  I woke up noticing a few mosquito bites on me (that would turn into a lot of bites by the end of the day).  I wasn't very happy about that, but nothing I could do about it at that point.  We headed out of the hostel sometime around 11:00 and walked back across the bridge, buying some fruit and a street vendor bun along the way for breakfast.  Almost at the point where we were going to start our touring for the day, I realized I had left my SD card back at the hostel.  Trevor, being the wonderful husband that he is, rode back to the hostel while I waited for him at the gardens near the palace.  When he finally came back we walked over to the palace, but decided not to go in.  We took some pictures and walked around.  We noticed a crow-like bird attacking some cats.  The cats were eating and as we watched, the bird nipped one of the cats in the tail!  He attempted to do it again a couple more times and even stole some of the food.  It was pretty funny.  We walked out of the palace grounds and headed in the direction of the Hagia Sofia.  As we walked we saw a watermelon vendor and the watermelon looked so tasty so I figured why not buy some.  He was being outrageous, charging 4 euro for a little tray of watermelon and I noticed that for one of the women he let her buy it for 2 euro.  I figured I would pay 2 euro, but he wasn't budging for me.  So I sent Trevor in to see if he would drop the price for him.  He wouldn't and then noticed me standing off to the side, he gave me a thumbs up.  I don't know if that was his way of telling me, "nice try working the system".  I didn't like that.  We went in search of another watermelon guy.  While Trevor went off to get some watermelon, I went to mail some postcards.  Trevor came back with the watermelon, that was very tasty and refreshing, and as we were sitting there, we got approached by two guys who were practicing their English.  They asked us a few questions, took notes and then went off.  We decided to check out the mausoleums that were free of charge.  They were really interesting and in one there was a shroud that had covered prophet Mohamed's sarcophagus!  After that we made our way toward the sea.  We just started heading in that direction hoping that we wouldn't get too lost along the way.  At one point we knew we were close, but there were train tracks blocking us.  Thankfully, not much further, we found an underpass.  We then crossed a highway and ended up right near the sea.  There were a bunch of men swimming or hanging out on the rocks, because there wasn't a beach.  We sat down on one of the benches and hung out for a while.  We watched as a cop van came close to us (driving on the side walk) and asked a guy selling tea and cold drinks out of a bucket, for something to drink.  Then one of the cops decided to get a henna tattoo and got a nearby henna guy to go in the back of the police van to do the tattoo.  After that entertainment, Trevor figured we should get some seafood food and we walked along a strip where there were restaurants.  We ended up picking one and ordered some calamari.  As we waited for our snack, Trevor noticed something in the water (we were sitting right along the water's edge).  It took us a while, but figured out that it was dolphins!  There were two and they would surface every once in a while.  They did that for about five minutes until some local boys decided to swim out to them.  After that they were nowhere to be seen.  The calamari was really good and I'm glad that we decided to try some.  It was then time to head back to the hostel because we would have to catch the bus in a few hours and we were quite a ways away.  We started making our way up a hill and passed an area of empty touristy restaurants.  Here I found a cat interested in coming up to me.  He was super cute.  Continuing our way up we found a place where we grabbed a bite to eat.  It looked a little like a kebab place.  We got this sandwich filled with meat.  It was all right, but not the best thing I've ever eaten.  We also grabbed some Turkish delight and a piece of baklava across the street.  All of it was pretty cheap, which was nice.  You could tell this part was a little less touristy.  As we continued up, we realized that we were getting pretty close to the Grand bazaar, and ended up going through it one more time, checking out all the crazy stores.  We went down an area that sold snaps for clothes.  The whole store was different sizes of snaps!  Crazy!  We then grabbed a seat for a little while in the shade just to take a break, but because Trevor and I sat in slightly different areas because of how the shade was, I ended up getting approached by a restaurant owner who called over a son/nephew/friend who was about my age.  I had to explain that my husband was sitting just over there and the guy asked "are you sure?" to which I replied "yes I'm sure" (no, not that clever, but clear at least).  The restaurant guy then gave us free tea.  Trevor refused, so the tea was given to a guy sitting next to us.  I drank mine and then we headed over to the pet area again and looked at the adorable (though not necessarily very healthy looking) animals.  It was then back to our hostel to grab our bags.  We took a few more pictures along the way, grabbed some food and went into the hostel to grab a shower.  After getting cleaned up and using a little internet, we headed back towards the bridge to catch the tram which would get us to the bus station (with a transfer).  At the transfer Trevor grabbed a kebab.  We got to the massive bus station just after 21:00.  After checking in and giving the bus people our bags, we walked around a bit then settled into our seats.  The kebab was disgusting!  It was tasteless!  Definitely not good.  At just after 22:00 we started our journey back to Thessaloniki.  Once again we had TVs on the backs of the seats, though I didn't bother with mine.  We were also offered tea and coffee, a snack and water and pop.  After taking in a little food, it was time to take in a little sleep before the dreaded wake up at the border crossing.

Istanbul Day 3

June 16, 2010

Day 3 Istanbul, Turkey

 We got into Istanbul around 07:00 and found out where to go to catch the metro and started heading for our hotel.  We had to do a bit of money exchange, but we didn't see any exchange places.  I was super grumpy, hot and had to use the bathroom.  Trevor was wonderful and put up with all the complaints during our ride to our hotel.  We ended up having to transfer twice, once that we knew about and the second time because I guess there was an issue that caused the train only to go to a certain point and you had to go to the other side of the platform to catch a train that continued onwards.  It was so packed.  We had to push our way in.  It was definitely rush hour!  We got to the stop that we were directed to and went on a hunt for our hostel which was tricky to find.  We found it, but even then it was hard to know for sure that it was a hostel, except that a bunch of young people were standing outside of it.  We met the spaced out hostel guy who told us that after we tour around we will have beds, though it was interesting how he designated the beds to us.  He pretty much just sort of said 'well these are going to be your beds, I think' not really knowing who was staying and who was leaving.  We had a shower and headed out to explore Istanbul.  We decided to walk over to the main area, near Hagia Sofia.  On the way we saw a man weaving a blanket using an old loom.  It was incredible to watch.  We also saw some criminals in handcuffs being put in jail (we assumed).  That was less cool, especially since we didn't even know what was going on and practically walked right next to the guards and the criminals!  Anyways, along the way we searched for an info place, but had a hard time finding it.  As we walked around and took pictures of the garden area by the Hagia Sofia, we were stopped by two girls who were practicing their English.  They asked us some questions and took our picture and went on their way to find more tourists to practice on.  We headed to the Blue Mosque.  The inside was really pretty with really nice tiling all over the walls and ceilings.  After, we headed for a park bench and I nearly fell asleep, but we got up and started heading towards the Grand Bazaar.  We managed to find the info place then and we grabbed some info on what to see and then headed to grab something to eat (I was hungry).  The food was okay.  We had kofte, which are basically oblong meatballs.  We had tried them before in Egypt.  We also had corba, a lentil soup I think.  It was then off to the Grand Bazaar.  We made it, after a lot of walking.  It was incredible!  It's a huge indoor market.  It has a ridiculous number of shops and you can easily get lost.  Each area seems to have a theme of what it's selling.  You turn one way and you see tons of shops with leather jackets.  Another aisle will have silver, another will have tourist stuff.  After wandering a little I wanted to find the spice market.  It took a lot of effort.  We ended up going by the pet area of the Grand Bazaar, first.  There were tons of baby birds (ducks, chickens, and quail I think).  The hamsters in most of the cages didn't look so good.  The kittens were cute and so were the puppies.  It was crazy how they were selling the animals.  After some time spent looking at baby animals, we were back on the hunt for the spice market and after asking for directions, we made it.  It really wasn't anything exciting, just another area in the market, but this time with spices, dry fruits, Turkish delight (which we tried and it was pretty good).  We kept wandering up and down when all of a sudden I turned and who should be standing  two metres away, but Daniel Dae Kim (Jin from LOST)!  I sort of freaked out and told Trevor to guess who it was which caught the attention of who I assume to be the body guard.  This guy was super tall and didn't look like someone you should mess with.  I panicked and ended up not going up to Daniel.  Instead and I just kept rambling to Trevor how I shouldn't bother him because he probably doesn't like crazy fans.  He seemed really happy and he was with "the body guard", his wife and some other girl (maybe "body guards" girlfriend/wife?)  So off we went on our way.  After a little while, Trevor managed to convince me to go and talk to the actor so we headed back to the place where he had been, but it was too late.  So next we headed for the ferries, because we figured we should go to Asia since Istanbul is the only bi-continental city in the world.  We hopped onto the ferry and took a 10 min ride over and spent most of our time in Asia napping on a bench, grabbing something to eat and then having a difficult time trying to figure out how to get back.  We asked a ticket lady if the ferry was going to a certain place and she said no and told us to take a bus.  What we learned soon after, is that the ferry that was leaving would take us really close to where we wanted to go, just not to the place we had asked about.  But it wasn't until I asked where that ferry was going that we found this out.  Meaning, it makes more sense just to ask where the ferry is going than to ask will it go wherever you want to go.  So silly.  We made it back to the European side by ferry and decided it was time to grab some more food.  We went back to the market and bought a pizza like thing and then went and got ourselves some tea and relaxed a bit.  Finally, we were getting tired, so we headed back to our hostel, on the way grabbing a street vendor corn on the cob.  Here we finished off our evening talking with some of the hostel people in the upstairs lounge area and heading to bed in our packed room.

Athens-Thessaloniki-Turkey Day 2

June 15, 2010

Day 2 Athens-Thessaloniki-Turkey

We woke up pretty early, around 08:00 to get some free breakfast.  Waking up was hard after coming into the hotel around 03:00 the night before.  After grabbing a simple, but good breakfast in the completely empty breakfast room, we headed to the train station to find out if we could get to Istanbul, Turkey.  After a tricky conversation and being sent back and forth between windows, we ended up buying tickets to Thessaloniki.  Trevor ran to get some food while I read, waiting for our train.  It was super hot, so it was nice not moving around.  The train arrived and we left at 10:50.  The ride was uneventful.  At first there was a guy sitting across from me, but he moved to another seat and Trevor and I ended up with four seats between the two of us.  We got in to Thessaloniki around 16:00 and went straight to the line to try and get tickets to Istanbul.  First we found out there was a problem with the train so there was no train to Istanbul, but there was hope.  There was a bus.  We headed to the next window that we had been directed to, this time found out the train was destroyed and we were given info to take the metro to a square to buy bus tickets to get to Istanbul and the lady wrote it down (using the Latin alphabet).  When we went to buy metro tickets, I asked the guy where the metro was.  He laughed and finally explained that this (the bus depot) was the "metro" and that they would have a real metro in 10 years.  He told us which bus to take to get to where we wanted and we headed over.  Being silly, I didn't bother to ask the driver to tell us when to get off and we ended up missing our stop and walking over a kilometer back.  At least the walk was along the water.  The view was nice, but the walk was HOT HOT HOT!  We finally made it to the place (with Trevor's excellent sense of direction), and after much discussion, bought the tickets to Istanbul.  We had a bit of time so we wandered a little (not too much, because we were cooking) and ended up in Goody's, a fast food joint, where we grabbed dinner and hung out.  They offered beer with their meals, so of course we ordered a beer.  We sat and chatted for a couple of hours until it was time to head over to catch our train.  We had to be at the bus at 21:30.  We got there early and hung around and finally bordered the double decker bus (so cool!) that would be taking us to Turkey.  We changed our seats at the start so that we could sit at the front of the top level (to watch out the front window), but headed back to our seats soon after because we knew they would be taken at the next stop but didn't know when that would be and I was too anxious to stay.  We were served tea on board, an unexpected pleasure.  All the seats had their own screen/TV, also nice, unfortunately ours didn't work.  No worries, I ended up finishing one of the books I brought along.  After finishing, I tried to fall asleep, but very soon we were at the border.  We were told to unload.  We got our exit stamps from the EU and headed back onto the bus.  I started to settle in when we stopped and were told to unload again.  This time, the Americans and Canadians were sent to a different area and we had to purchase a visa.  Apparently a Canadian has to pay 3 times as much for the visa!  We bought the visas and then back to line up so that we could get an entry stamp into Turkey.  Finally we got back into the bus (it was close to 02:00 at this point) and we got to fall back asleep.  It was quite warm on the bus, so the sleep was not as pleasant as it could have been.