My weekend in Santorini

was pretty great.

The above picture is to prove to Papa that I am not, in fact, gaining weight, thank you very much.

But anyway, Santorini is beautiful, unsurprisingly. When we first got there, the place was crawling with tourists, but we went to a museum and chilled on the beach by the hostel (the nicest hostel ever, by the way). That night we went out to a restaurant with some Greek music and dancing, and we met some kids from Australia and the U.S.

Sidebar: I found the greatest bargain ever. I had forgotten to pack my bathing suit, which is a problem on Santorini, because the beaches there are absurdly lovely. So Gary convinced me to just buy one there. I stumbled upon a clothing store that sold bikinis and asked for the cheapest one. The saleslady pulled out this awesome yellow bikini with flowers sewn to it and said that I could have it and anything else on a specific rack for 20 Euros. So I thought, well I might as well get something outrageous. That's when I came across this fantastic brightly colored (predominantly pink) art deco-patterned sundress, which fit like it was made for me. So I bought both things and walked about of the store with my pretty new clothes, thoroughly pleased with myself. I later looked at the tag on the dress: It was originally SEVENTY SEVEN EUROS. And I got it for less than 20. Aww yeahhh.

Sunday was relaxing. A few hours on the beach, a few hours looking around shops, a couple horrifically unhealthy crepes and one delicious piece of cake. Good day, in my opinion.

Represent!
The nicest hostel ever: http://www.annystudios.com/
We paid eight Euros for one night in that beautiful place. The service was fantastic, it was clean, and it was literally about 50 feet from a black-sand beach.

Back from Crete

The trip to Crete was exhausting and, at times, full of ridiculous, but Crete itself is lovely. We did a lot of bopping around to different archaeological sites, all of which began to blur together by the end of it. I'll post some pictures, but don't expect me to tell you where or what anything is.

Some highlights:

This is a monastery we visited. I don't remember where. It was quite beautiful, but unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the church. Lovely murals. I donated fifty cents and lit a yellow candle.
This place was also called "Greece's Alamo," having been besieged for some period of time at some point in history. You can see marks in the walls left from shell casings.
At the moment, monks live here.
I'm a terrible virtual tour guide.




This is a mosque, but I don't think it's used as a mosque anymore. From what I understand, there are few Muslims in Crete. I don't remember exactly the story, but there was this massive trade of Greek Muslims and Turkish Orthodox Christians back in the day, essentially leaving no Muslims in Crete. Any who live there now are recent immigrants, I think. But anyway....
This building looks like it's used for concerts now. It's a great space for it. The acoustics were nice.







A pirate ship! Sort of. Note the lack of sails.
This is in, according to Nigel--the 60-something British archaeologist who became the object of our annoyance, if not outright wrath--the marina, not the port. See, we were meant to meet up with the other students and the bus at the port, which is a place where ships dock, but some of us mistakenly went to the marina, which is where yachts and pleasure boats dock.
How we ever managed to confuse the two is utterly beyond me.
In any case, this pirate ship was in the marina, so it, too, was mistaken.


A beautiful, beautiful synagogue we visited at the end of the trip. One of the top three loveliest places of worship I've even been to.
The story behind this place is nice--and I actually remember it. It was built... um, many centuries ago, and there was, I think, a sizable Jewish community that worshiped here. However, during World War II, the Jewish community in this town was wiped out when nearly all who lived there were taken prisoner on a submarine and perished when the submarine was torpedoed.

In the absence of anyone to maintain the building, it fell into disrepair. I think some earthquakes did a number on it as well. Then, in the 1990's, I think, a man whose name I forget came to this Cretan town to retire, and decided to try to have the synagogue restored. He did a presentation on it in New York, where an heir to the Lauder family (of Estee Lauder), as well as a member of an international preservation society just happened to be present and wanted to help. Between them and a wealthy friend of his, they raised the funds to restore the synagogue to what it likely resembled originally. It is once again in use as a place of worship, and as I said, it is wonderfully lovely. Paper cranes hang from a simple chandelier in the center. Behind the woman in the picture is a tapestry of a tree. And on the walls hang writings in Hebrew. I really loved this place, and I'm so glad we got to see it.

There was also a lot of breathtaking scenery, of course, and whenever Facebook decides to let me upload pictures, I'll put them all up. I maintain that Greek mountains are prettiest mountains in the world. They're part of what made me fall in love with Greece in the first place.

Alright, enough rambling. I didn't actually get any video, so apologies for that. I hope you enjoyed the pictures, and as always, I hope you all are well.

Love,
Marissa

P.S. I almost forgot! I have to rep the greatest restaurant in Crete. It's called Ciao, and it's on Chaldon in Chania. Amazing gyros for not too much money. If you ever go to Chania, do not go to any of the restaurants on the water. They charge too much and the food is all the same. Also their maitre d's are annoying and try to muscle you into eating there. Don't even make eye-contact with them. Walk down Chaldon and find Ciao and eat there. That is my advice.