Well the past couple weeks flew by! Time is starting to dwindle down and I will be home in 19 days. It is crazy how time flies. I sure will miss this place but I am excited to come home and see all my family and friends and enjoy the holidays with them.
From November 8-10th I spend my time in the beautiful island of Crete. The island is so big we definitely weren't there long enough to see everything but we did make our time there well worth it. We stayed in a youth hostel in Rethymino which was an hour away from the port, Chania. We took an overnight ferry on Friday night that was 9 hours long but it flew by because I slept pretty much the whole time. However, we almost missed our ship and we found ourselves running from the metro all the way to the port. Lets just say we barely made it! We now allow ourselves plenty of time to travel! Anyways, we arrived at our hostel at about 7:30 am and everything was closed except a small bakery where we enjoyed fresh pastries. Then we checked into our hostel, which was definitely not as nice as the other ones we were fortunate enough to stay at, but then we enjoyed all the shops in Rethymino. The streets were small, just like Italy, and shops very close to each other. By the time we were done shopping, we realized we still had plenty of time to explore. So we got on a bus and went to the Knosos Palace which was an hour away in Iraklio. We went to the huge palace which took us a couple hours to walk around because it was so big!! Then we had a late lunch on this restaurant ship on the water. It was a gorgeous view and very relaxing! Then we went back to Rethymino and relaxed the rest of the night. We got up Sunday and it was gorgeous outside so we went to the beach all day and got a little bit of last minute sun for awhile now. Then we got on our ferry Sunday night that left at 9pm and arrived back in Athens at 6am. We definitely did not have nearly enough time to see the island but I would recommend to go visit there. Its very gorgeous and a lot to do and see there!
From November 15-18 I was lucky enough to spend it in the wonderful country of Italy! It has always been one of my dreams to go there and it was everything and more that I was hoping for! I flew into Rome and took a train to Florence that same night. I stayed with a friend in her apartment which was great because then she took us around Florence the next day and was our mini tour guide for the day. The night we got there we ordered pizza, of course, which was delicious and then she took us to a little bar to get a beer. I ran into a friend from high school, which was crazy because I wasn't expecting it at all, but it was nice to see a familiar face! However, we didn't stay out late because we had a long day the next day. We got up early and I got some hot chocolate which tasted like hot pudding. So delicious! Then it felt like we walked around the city like 15 times because we walked so much. lol but it was worth it! We saw the David by Michelangelo, the real one and the many others around the city, went to the rose garden, walked by the river, did some shopping, saw all of the squares, and the Duomo. We went inside the Duomo cathederal and it was gorgeous and huge! We were going to walk up the Duomo but by the time we were going to do it we were exhausted from walking all day and our feet were hurting! For lunch we had more pizza and dinner I had pasta. I can't get enough of how delicious those two meals were! We stayed one more night at the apartment and got up early Sunday to catch a train to Rome. In Rome we did a Hop On Hop Off tour which was very informative and great. We learned about everything in the short amount of time being there and also were able to see it on the bus. However, we didn't get to explore every stop of the tour so we got a close view of the Vatican and we were going to go to the basilica but the line was way too long for the amount of time we had there. So we walked to the museum where the Sistine Chapel was but we got there and it ended up being closed because it was a Sunday so now I wish I stood in that line. But oh well, I will be back. Then we went to the Trevi Fountain and made some wishes. And we also went to the Colloseum and got a great view of that. We got on a plane Monday morning and headed back to Greece. I can't wait to go back to Italy though and explore a lot more!
I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!
:) Kayla
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