cobblestones and places unknown

Okay ladies and gentlemen, you guessed it. I have a new favorite place! I honestly think Greece is going to be hard to top. Our Grecian vacation began with Sey and I spending a lovely 11 hours overnight in the Athens airport. It was definitely a struggle, and we have some funny pictures of each other sleeping awkwardly on chairs and on our suitcases to prove it! At least the airport had free wi-fi, trust me, SUCH A BLESSING. When 11 AM finally rolled around, Sey and I boarded our plane for our flight to the beautiful Santorini Island, Greece! A quick 45 minutes later, and we'd landed in paradise. You know all those pictures you see of Greece, with the white houses and beautiful blue Aegean Sea. Yup, we'd stepped into a postcard.
Our first stop was to find our hotel. The hotel had graciously arranged to pick us up at the airport, and we met our wonderful hosts for our stay- Vlad-something (his name was so Greek, I really could never understand it when he said it) and Mario. They were SO accommodating. We arrived at our hotel, and they immediately offered us free coffee and a large jug of free Santorini wine. Much to our delight, they informed us that anytime we wanted coffee or wine (for free!) during our stay, all we'd have to do is ask. They showed us to our room, and we got a lovely glimpse of the beautiful apartments and cute island where we'd be staying! After freshening up a little, Sey and I decided to go grab some lunch, and on Mario's recommendation, we walked a little ways to Mama's House for some traditional Greek food. I got this delicious spicy feta cheese dip and some cooked eggplant, while Sey opted for mussels with special Greek sauce. It was SO DELICIOUS.
After that, we decided to explore Fira (the part of the island where we were staying) a little. Sey and I were so overjoyed to be there that we just kept taking pictures of everything and everyone. We walked around for a couple of hours and just enjoyed the nice little city. Because we were so tired, we grabbed an early dinner at a picturesque cliffside restaurant and headed to bed early. The next morning we got up bright and early to begin our long trek down to "Old Port", which is where we would meet our boat for our planned cruise to the volcano and hot springs right off the island of Santorini. It was literally like trekking down a mountain, with switchbacks and all! We finally arrived at the harbor and hopped onto our boat.
The view from the boat was breathtaking. The Aegean Sea is literally SO BLUE. When we arrived at the volcano, Sey and I hopped off and began hiking up. The only problem was that it was literally so windy that we could barely stand up straight. We persevered, however, and the view was worth it. The volcano was sooo cool. It was inactive but had last erupted in the 50s. It was nice just to hike around and enjoy the panorama view of Santorini and the Aegean Sea. After the volcano, we hopped back on the boat and cruised to the hot springs. Because it was November, the springs weren't actually so hot, but we docked anyway. A lot of people from our boat started jumping in, but Sey and I didn't bring bathing suits. Finally I decided that I would kick myself if I didn't live a little and jump in, so hopped in, jeans and all! The water was cold, and the hot springs were lukewarm, but hey, it was November and I couldn't have hoped for a cooler experience. The boat ride back was freezing though, and all of my clothes were wet so I couldn't warm up. I was so happy to be back on land!
Instead of making the long trek back up the cliffs, Sey and I opted for a donkey ride instead. This was so fun. My donkey was literally crazy and started bolting up the cliffs, and there were a couple times I definitely thought I would fall, but I made it up safely! We went and took a quick power nap (in addition to having some more free coffee), then Sey and I headed to Oia (the other side of the island) to watch the beautiful sunset. We found an awesome cliffside restaurant and just took in the view for a while. It was truly breathtaking. We headed home happy and ready for the next day of our Grecian adventure!
The next morning, we woke up bright and early in an attempt to see the sunrise. I must admit I saw only a small glimpse through our bedroom terrace before collapsing back to sleep (it was a little early for me, and I was definitely in vacation mode). Two hours later we got up for real, and headed to the nearest rental shop, recommended to us by Mario, to rent an ATV for the day! Sey and I were a little nervous to drive it, so we got the lowest powered one there was. It was so cheap to rent for a whole 24 hours! We hopped on and after a little test driving (I was the one driving primarily), we headed to try and find the black sand beaches (on Kamari beach) on the opposite side of the island. After about a 30 minute drive, we realized we were passing a lot of wineries and had accidentally ventured into winery land! We decided to stop and take a quick tour. We toured the winery museum and learned a lot about the evolution of the wine making process. We also got to sample 4 Santorini wines- they were great (all but the red, too bitter for me!)
We then hopped back on our ATV (don't worry, we'd only taken a sip of each wine!) and got back on the road to Kamari beach. Once we found it, we parked the ATV and stopped at this cool little beachside restaurant, where we ordered Greek salads. They were SO good.

The next stop for us was the beach! The weather was so warm that day, so Sey and I plopped down with our towels and just enjoyed the warm sun and even warmer sand. We even put our toes in the water (this is November, remember?!). We could see other islands in the Aegean sea and the beautiful cliffs of Santorini all around us, so we hung out on the beach for about 2 hours. I even took a little nap! Around 2 PM we decided it was time to try and find our way to Akrotiri, the red sand beach. I think by this time our dear little ATV was tuckered out, and it protested a little as we made the very hilly drive back up the cliffs of Santorini. Only a few wrong turns and 45 minutes later, we made it to Akrotiri. The red sand beach was something I’ve never seen before. The Cliffside itself looks to be made of red clay. The color is so deep! It was definitely beautiful, and I found it interesting that it could be so different from the black sand beach, only a few kilometers away.

By this time, the sun was getting ready to set on Santorini again, and Sey and I wanted a view of the sunset from Fira. We picked a delicious restaurant called Ellis that was recommened to us by Mario (and by mentioning he sent us, we subsequently got a pitcher of wine and dessert on the house- I. LOVE. GREECE). Sey decided to try a traditional Grecian dish called mousaka for dinner, while I opted to stick with pasta. I did try a few bites of hers though, and it was simply divine. Did I mention I love Greek food?

For our last night, Sey and I wanted to pay one last visit to Oia, so we hopped the bus and headed over to the other side of the island. Unfortunately not much was open, but we stumbled upon a party going on in a local bookstore, and hung out there talking with some locals for a while. There was definitely some “local color” there, as my mother would say, in addition to some artist types and even a few authors! We left feeling a bit more cultured. The next morning was our last in Santorini. We returned the ATV, and after getting our last cup of delicious Hotel Antonia coffee, we had Mario drive us to the airport. On the way, we made a pitstop for one last Greek pita!

I will definitely miss Greece. I loved it not only because of how friendly the people were, but also because it is one of the first times on this whole trip that I have felt truly relaxed. Maybe it’s just the island atmosphere, but Greece definitely felt like more of a “vacation” to me than any of the other trips I’ve been on. This weekend I’m off to Amsterdam, and then next week my family arrives, so it should be an exciting few days!!!

arrival in Santorini!

exploring Fira

the long trek down!

after jumping in the water!

Oia sunset

Antonia Apartments

outside our hotel

some Santorini views!

down the donkey track!

dinner

view from our cruise!

the water contrast- so cool!

our boat parked at the volcano

volcano

hot springs!

jumped in!

donkey ride up

more Oia sunset

at our sunset dinner

soooo pretty

down into the winery!

trying the Santorini sweet wine

our ATV ride!

sooo delicious

on the black sand beach

red beach at Akrotiri

Fira sunset

What a busy first day in Berlin! I have to say, I have really been pleasantly surprised. I guess it was because of all I’ve read regarding communism and the Berlin wall, but I imagined Berlin to be a rather bleak city, full of concrete and hideous high rises. As I told my friend Anna today, I pictured Berlin in black and white. I could not have been more wrong. Today was literally the most perfect autumn day- the kind you dream about (or basically just like the beautiful ones I’m used to on Furman’s campus). The weather was cool but not too cold, and all the leaves were changing colors. It was a sight to behold. I’m glad that the weather was good though, because it was a BUSY day. We’re at the point in the trip where we switch professors, so we said goodbye to Dr. Nelsen this week and hello to Dr. Guth. Dr. Guth is really nice, but boy is he active!
We began our day at 9:30 with plans to explore the center of old Berlin. We started at our hotel and walked down the main commercial drag of the former West Berlin, Kurfurstendamm, and began with the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, a monument to imperial ambition and the tragedy of war. We got to see both the old and new versions of the church- the former a politically charged but rather traditional looking cathedral (complete with both religious images AND images of Kaiser Wilhelm) and the latter a sparse, very modern looking church. After that, we hopped on a bus and headed to the Victory Monument, which offered a breathtaking view of Berlin. The only catch was that we had to walk up about 600 steps, straight up. We were all pretty winded by then, but the view was SO worth it. Berlin in the fall is truly a sight to behold. I felt like I was looking out over Central Park in the fall or something, with all of the greenery and the gold and amber leaves falling everywhere. I again just had one of those moments where I thought, “did I ever envision myself being lucky enough to be in Berlin, living this wonderful life?” I really love moments of insight like that. They come at unexpected times, but always serve to remind me to keep things in perspective.
After the Victory Monument, we took the bus down to the Brandenburg Gate, which is located along the Berlin Wall and served as a place for people to pass from East to West Germany and vice versa. We got to see the dark tiles where the Berlin Wall used to stand. Because our class has just read this really moving book (Stasiland by Anna Funder- I really recommend it. A quick read but very, very powerful) concerning the GDR and life under the communist regime, it was a really surreal experience to actually place my foot on where such a symbol of communist repression once stood. It was slightly vindicating as well. While we were at the Brandenburg gate, we got to see a really interesting protest that was a mockery of the current Occupy movement. It involved people yelling out things like “We are the 1%” and “Occupy Tiffany’s!” and even “We are rich, what are you?” Very interesting but also kind of appalling. We then walked to the Holocaust Memorial and took a brief visit through the museum. As befits a museum with that subject matter, it was very moving. I won’t say I enjoyed it, because as always that part of history leaves me feeling nothing but disbelief and sadness, but it was very interesting and well done.
We grabbed a quick lunch and then continued our walking tour, passing Bebelplatz, Humboldt University, the Gendarmenmarkt, and the Marx-Engels Forum (where Anna and I got a lovely picture with the statues of Marx and Engels, hurrah for sociology and philosophy majors!), and ended up in Alexanderplatz, the hub of old East Berlin.
Our last stop of the day was the DDR museum, which was an interactive museum dedicated to life in East Berlin under communism. I’m a little ashamed to admit it, but our group was so exhausted that when 4 or 5 of us sat down to watch an informational movie, we all fell asleep! Someone else in our group snagged a picture, and it’s pretty funny to see. We topped the day off with a lovely dinner of kebabs and then some delicious cake and coffee for dessert. We got back to our cute little hotel (Hotel Astrid- definitely the nicest and biggest one we’ve stayed in so far, minus the cold shower) by 8 PM but it definitely felt so much later. I pretty much collapsed on my bed and headed to sleep, because we had an early day the next day!
Day 2 of Berlin was also a whirlwind. It just happened to be the night of daylight savings time, and my roommate for the weekend, Allie, and I had to get up super early to be ready to leave the hotel by 7:30 to visit the Reichstag. Unfortunately we thought we'd set our clocks back an hour, but we actually hadn't! We woke up at what we thought was 6:20, to find out to our distress that it was actually 7:20 and we had approximately 10 minutes to get ready. Pretty stressful! We got ready and rushed out the door, and were on our way with the group to visit the Reichstag. The Reichstag houses the German parliament, but also has this huge dome that has an amazing 360 degree view of Berlin. A winding staircase with a window view leads you up to the top, which is open air and beautiful! The audioguide we used for the tour was really advanced and would talk to you based on your position within the dome. Apart from the cold (and boy was it cold up there), it was an awesome experience. Berlin truly has so much to offer. I have been surprised at every turn by this city, and it has turned out to be (yes Mom, I know I know) definitely one of my favorites! It's way more cosmopolitan than I thought!
After the Reichstag we walked around the Chancellory grounds and along the river and just enjoyed the beautiful fall Berlin landscape. We grabbed a quick lunch in the main train station and then hopped on a train to visit the Stasi museum in East Berlin. East Berlin was definitely markedly different from the West. It was more sparse, with a lot of concrete high rises. The Stasi museum turned out to be super interesting. As I mentioned before, my group just recently read Stasiland, which is a fabulous and enlightening book about life in the GDR and under the Stasi before the Wall came down. The Stasi museum really expanded upon a lot of concepts in the book. The amount of surveillance that East German citizens found themselves under and the complete lack of any privacy was just absurd. The Stasi (the state security) went to extreme measures to keep the East German citizens under control at all times. Some of the most striking things in the museum included "smell samples"and extreme bugging and surveillance devices. Our tour guide was super informative, and it turned out that the reason he ended up being interested in working at the museum was because when the Stasi files were finally released, he ordered his file and found out that his neighbor was actually a Stasi informant and had informed the Stasi about his and his brother's movements. Like I said, the level of surveillance and the amount of informants the Stasi had was absolutely insane. It makes me paranoid just to think about it.
After the Stasi museum we headed back to West Berlin in time to check out St. Hedwig's Cathedral and the Gebdarmenmarkt with the two opposing French and German churches. The German one housed a museum on German history which we checked out. By then it was dinner time, and a group of us decided we wanted some traditional German fare. I tried the famous German "currywurst", which turned out to be sausage with ketchup and curry on top- surprisingly good! A few of the girls and I couldn't resist heading back to the delicious (and cheap!) cake and coffee place from the night before to top off the night. I collapsed in bed, exhausted again by about 9 PM.
Day 3 of Berlin began with some lectures in the morning. Dr. Guth had arranged for Dr. Joseph Braml and Dr. Nils Oermann to speak to us, and it was really interesting to hear their perspectives on the financial crisis. Drs. Braml and Oermann are scholars, think-tank participants, and have served as advisers to several prominent German politicians. Both have lectured at Furman in the past, so it was cool to hear them.
After our lectures we hopped on the bus and grabbed a lunch in a restaurant in Potsdamerplatz. The lunch ended up taking a really long time and we had to eat our food on the run in order to make it back to our meeting spot in time. After lunch we headed on our way to the Topography of Terror Museum. As we were ambling down the streets of Berlin, who do we happen upon but another Furman study abroad group! It was literally so strange that we randomly ran into them on the streets of Berlin, but I was so happy because I got to see Miss Claire Chipman, a lovely sophomore Chi O! Love seeing people from home abroad.
The Topography of Terror Museum was super interesting, especially if because we were in Berlin, the heart of the German Nazi Movement. The museum was located near the old SS headquarters. It was pretty surreal to be there. Outside the museum we were able to see a piece of the Berlin wall still standing. We got to take pictures in front of it as well. It was weird to be in front of a crumbling bit of a barrier that literally people gave their lives to cross. It was such a symbol of oppression, and here we were taking smiling pictures in front of it. That is definitely the weirdest thing about living in Europe and visiting all of these places- you literally LIVE the history.
Anyway, after the museum we headed over to Checkpoint Charlie, which was the famous checkpoint for travel between East and West Germany. The museum was definitely sensory overload with memorabilia everywhere and was a bit amateurishly done, but it was interesting nonetheless. We spent about an hour there and then headed to meet up with our professor again. Our professor had graciously offered to have Furman pay for a nice dinner for us that night, so we found this delicious nice German restaurant and were all able to enjoy a great meal together.
It is so strange that I literally knew about 5 of the 18 people on my trip before I came. I have definitely now come to appreciate the beauty of meeting new people, even your junior year of college when you’ve pretty much met all of the people you think you plan on. That’s another blessing of this study abroad trip- I’ve made some great new friendships. On the way back from dinner we caught the bus and I had a seriously embarrassing European moment (because my life isn’t full enough of those…) As I was riding the bus back (I was standing and holding onto a pole for balance), it came to a really abrupt stop and I lost my balance and tumbled straight into the lap of the woman sitting near me. Needless to say my group members couldn’t contain their mirth and proceeded to laugh for literally the rest of the bus ride. I was about the color of a tomato and the woman I fell on was definitely less than amused. Oh, the experiences of “Grace” in Europe.
That night we met up with the other Furman group again, and went to a dance club to celebrate Halloween in Berlin! It was a lot of fun, especially when they played some Spice Girls throwback music! The next morning was free time for us, so a group of us decided to head and see if the interior of the Berlin Cathedral was open to the public (it had been closed when we came by with our group). This turned out to be a fabulous decision, as the cathedral was beautiful and we got to visit the walkway on the very dome of the cathedral, which provided us with another beautiful aerial view of Berlin. The weather was once again beautiful, and we stayed up on the top of the dome for a good while just enjoying the nice breeze and the beautiful fall colors.
That took most of the morning, so we headed back to the hotel to meet up with our group and head back to the airport. Some final thoughts on Berlin- it was definitely a wonderful, pleasant surprise of a city. The colors and the atmosphere was truly just breathtaking. The food was great, the people were friendly, and the sights were some of the most interesting I’ve seen in Europe so far. I’m so happy I got to experience it all. I’m writing this from the Athens airport, where it is currently 1 AM. My flight to Santorini doesn’t leave until 11 AM, so Sey and I have a long night ahead of us. The next posts will be all about our Grecian adventure so stay tuned! Pictures will also come when I have better wi-fi!

here are some updated pictures!!