The Life of the Greek Baker

My roommates and I had to do a group project for one of our classes and we chose to do ours on the "Life of a Greek Baker" 

We were given a great opportunity to go to our local bakery and watch them- at 5am mind you!- make the dough for their breads and pastries

Not only did they let us make our own frappes but they also let us try any of their products that our heart desired! (Jen, Laura, and I)

Here we all are with Alexandra (the daughter of the baker Lucas) She is a 20 year old working two jobs and going to school for journalism. 

Our only tasks were to try all of the pasteries that we wanted plus unload the pastries as they came out of the oven. 

We learned so much from our time at the Bakery- things such as you go to school for 3 years after high school to become a baker, the favorite items for Lucas the owner to eat are all of the "broken ones" and that the business has to all be family run since in the past he has lost $10,000 from hiring out to different cashiers! On the bright side his bakery is doing very well in the economic hard times of Greece.

We plan on opening our own bakery in St. Joe Minnesota!

As for the rest of my weekend I went to Naflion (the old capital of Greece) and Olympia. Both were very beautiful and I plan on posting photos soon!

Enjoy the fall for me,

Megan

Toga Toga Toga + some other photos of Greece

Megan, Ali, Myself, and Cait all enjoying our Greek Pizza at the Toga Party that I hosted at my apartment

Me and my good friend Kirsten showing off our togas!

Th pool at our hotel in Santorini

 On the sail boat excursion where we cruised the waters of the Aegean sea and we had the chance to go climb up a (dormant) volcano and swim in some hot springs!

 On top of a the volcano!

The donkey that Cait and I had to share...

On our (Cait and my) ATV going towards Oia to watch the most beautiful sunset- I was so busy enjoying it that I didn't even take a picture!

Cait taking a break to enjoy the view of Oia, Santorini

In Oia, waiting for the sun to set

 Where we went cliff diving in Oia. We had to swim out to that island (on the right) which had a church built on it and we jumped off the rock wall into the turquoise waters 30 feet below!

Cait and I drove to the Black Beach of Santorini- notice how it was mostly black pebbles (very hot!)

The sunset from out ferry on our ride back to Athens

Santorini

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to head off on an 8 hour ferry ride to the island of Santorini! Here are 8 great things and 6 surprises that happened during our trip:

GREAT:
1. Watching the sunset over Oia- a neighborhood of Santorini
2. Cliff jumping off some rocks of an inlet cove by Oia
3. Renting an ATV with Caitlin and cruising the streets from tip to tip of Santorini
4. Climbing up a dormant volcano and seeing the smoke rise from the vents (last time it erupted was in the 1950's)
5. Taking a sail boat around the waters of Santorini
6. Jumping off of our sailboat into the sea to swim to the hot springs (which in fact were pretty luke warm..)
7. The breakfast at our hotel!
8. Dancing the night away on Friday and Saturday night

SUPRISES:
1. Arriving at our hotel and then realizing that we lost one person from our group- Gretchen. We found her an hour and a half later sitting at the Fera (the neighborhood of Santorini that we stayed in) bus stop.
2. How small the island truly was- we could get from tip to tip in 40 minutes
3. Getting things stolen on the metro really does happen, we had two from our group get an iphone and a camera stolen... :(
4. Sharing a donkey- one saddle- with Caitlin up the mountain, lets just say that it wasn't very comfortable but it truly was a memorable experience!
5. How clear and blue the water was- when you look down from the cliffs that we jumped off you could see 40-70 feet down into the water. 
6. Realizing that our ferry arrived back in Athens after the metro closed so we didn't know how we were going to get home, luckily we found a 24 hour bus that got us back though but it was a stressful process!

Well I hope that gives you a sense of my trip to Santorini for the weekend, I will share more details in some posts to come!

stories of the apartment

Here are some conversations/happenings that happen in our apartment late at night-

First I will start with conversations that we have in the apartment:
~Who is your celeb crush, guy and girl
~ The wierd things that you are attracted to such as Kody- "Piercings are like sneezes, one or two are fine but five in a row is just annoying"
~ Embarrassing stories- Jen falling off her life gaurd chair (haha but ouch!)
~ Favorite food- (Megan's favorite meal is pizza)
~ Favorite drink
~ Reason we can't eat certain foods
~ Good music

Happenings:
~ Having Nick or Laura play the guitar as we sing along
~ Kate and I attempting to crash a wedding party in the upstairs apartment
~ Having our neighbor boys over for dinners (we just had one to celebrate Chris' birthday)
~ Megan and I having amazing naps, dances in our room, watching our beloved tv shows
~ Sitting in our apartment living room and just sharing each others company
~ Watching Jen and Laura do their work outs in our small apartment
~ Trying to wash our endless amounts of laundry in our tiny kitchen sink
~ Avoiding the bugs that invade our kitchen and bathroom late at night
~ Megan and I eating...
~ Trying to find distractions from our homework

Well that is all that I will post for now but hope to post again soon after my trip to Santorini!

photo update!

Judy and I at the President of CYA's house for a garden party 

The Greek Orthodox church in my neighborhood that we for class we had to attend a Sunday service- very ordinate and beautiful on the inside and even though I didn't understand a word that was said, it was a very touching mass

Stafanos, the Greek man that sat next to me on the bus ride up to the temple of Aphaia on the island of Aegena, he kept trying to set me up with his 29 year old son that lives in Houstan- "what is your facebook, I have a really nice son for you"

The Temple of Aphaia, the only temple for this Greek Goddess in all Greece

On our ferry ride back to Athens from the island Aegena- Beau trying to feed (and in the end successfully) the sea gulls

For class we went to the Archaeological Museum of Athens

On the way up to the Acropolis- the view of the neighborhood of Plaka in the background

Cait and I making the hike up the hill to see the sunset behind the Acropolis

 Our first look at the Acropolis, this is the Temple of Nike with the Parthenon (under reconstruction) behind it

Taylor (pictured), Katie, Brigitta and I on our trek through Monastiraki- which is a neighborhood of Athens, to find the opera singers. We never found them but we found some amazing ice cream instead

One (of the many) amazing dinners that I prepared- egg with craisens, red wine, cheese, tomato, lettuce, spinach, carrot, some jam, cucumber, and some grapes- it was amazing!

Megan- my roommate- being adventurous and trying my carrot with Tahinni (which is sesame seed paste), she liked it by the way!

Syntigma (which means constitution in Greek) square. Shopping, protesting, and tourist sites, and entertainment can all be found at this site in Athens

A common site for me to come home to- Laura playing the guitar and some singing accompaniment by Nick, Jen, and Chris (not pictured). 

Cait enjoying the night life of the touristic neighborhood of Athens, Plaka

breath it all in

"Breath in, breath out" says Judy, an Art of Living yoga teacher.

I, along with a couple other girls from my group had stumbled upon a free yoga class held in the down town Athens and decided to try it out! When we arrived, we were asked to sit on little circle pillows and talk to a someone you didn't know about five things that you love and five things that you hate about life. Here are mine:

Hate:

I dislike that I am far away from my family, I have gotten a little homesick since I have been here

I dislike the stresses of travel

I dislike that I will be gone and I won't be able to see my little niece/nephew until it is a month old

I dislike that peanut butter is twice as expensive here than it is in the states

I dislike our apartment only for the fact that at night we have bugs that crawl all over our kitchen and bathroom (!)

Love:

I love that I made it to Greece with no real problems and that pre-travel was amazing!

I love my apartment mates, they are all awesome

I  love that I have a sister here to confide in and share the joys of travel with

I love that I am able to communicate with my family just enough that I only miss them a little

I love all of the different foods/culture that I have discovered in Greece and I am excited for whatever else I may discover!

After sharing my fives with a stranger (luckily she spoke English!), Judy the yoga teacher lead the class through some meditation. At the end we were asked to have a cup of tea with the others of the class and share a bit about ourselves (they made us all feel so welcomed!). All in all, the experience was something that I will never forget and it definitely helped me slow down and actually breath it all in, that I am in Greece!

Also, last night a group of us finally made it to the Acropolis! We hiked up the mountain (okay it was a hill but still) and watched the sun set down behind the Temple of Nike- we will be going there again with our history class but it was one of the most memorable sunsets of my trip.

Tonight my roommates and I are going to an outdoor theater in the Plaka neighborhood. The theater is unique with a lovely view of the Acropolis to the right of the movie screen. We are going to watch the new release of "One Day" with Anne Hathaway and luckily for us, it will be played in English! After the movie there is a Karoke bar that we are going to check out!

Hope all is well in the states! Much love,

Megan

The Greek Alphabet

Kalimera!

It is Sunday morning here in Athens- a beautiful sun shining day and I have to sit inside and force myself to learn the Greek alphabet. I don't know if you have ever looked at this alphabet but compared to the English one- they are very similar except a P sounds like an R- there is no C, some letters are read with two (such as the Greek letter Theta- it is sounds like TH) But enough about school work- I didn't come to Greece for that!

Yesterday we had the opportunity to go to the Sounio beach and then watch the sunset behind the Temple of Poseidon- both were equally as beautiful. 

Tomorrow will be my first full week of classes- wish me luck 

Here is the Temple of Posiedon

My first look at the Aegean Sea

 On our walk through the park to get to Syntagma square

 the Friday morning market! ( I got eggplant, potatoes, eggs, plums, oranges, wine, and some olives!)

 We had an invitation to go to the President of the Dikemes College (our college in Athens) home for a garden party. Over 100 were in attendance and the food and wine were amazing!

More photos to come- hope you enjoy them!
Megs

Kalimero

Kalimero!

It is early morning here in Athens and I woke up for two reasons-

1. Our power was out in our apartment due to Megan my roommate blowing a fuse with her hair dryer since last night at 9pm and the maintainance man just arrived to fix it at 7:30am.

2. There is a huge flee market on Friday mornings a couple blocks down from my house where they are going to be selling fresh fruit, vegetables, and artisan bread

For the first couple of days I have gotten the chance to explore the city a bit and I have discovered some interesting things about the greek people- such as their love to help an American in need. If you whip out a map on any street corner you will have at least two people ask you if you need help (which is awesome for me!)

I can't wait to update you on my purchases from the market- Kalinita (good night!)

Megan