This past weekend happened to be another weekend of traveling due to a spur of the moment decision to visit the Greek islands. Today it donned on me that of the next 32 days I’ll be in Europe, only 11 of which will be spent in Thessaloniki. I am excited, blessed, curious, and a little scared of all my upcoming travels. But in the meantime, let me tell you a bit about the beautiful island of Amorgos.
Paige and I realized we had a five-day weekend thanks to the observance of Polytechnic Day in Greece (which is essentially the day for students to riot in the streets – hundreds of police officers blocked off the street leading to my apartment, completely decked out in gear and shields. It reminded me of E.T.) Without wanting to miss out on such an opportunity, we booked a ferry ride from Athens to Amorgos without much hesitation or research into where we were going. Someone had recommended it, which was good enough for us.
The ferry took a whopping eight hours, in addition to the six and a half hour bus beforehand. By the time we made it there, we were pretty tired. But even though it was dark outside, I could tell it was totally worth the trip down. There they were, the white houses with blue shutters scattered up the hill.
Thessaloniki, where we currently reside, is not like this at all. In some regards, it could just be another big city anywhere. Some of the architecture is different, the language, and obviously the weather, but it does not say, “Greece” quite like the islands do. In Amorgos we finally got a taste of what that was like.
Everything was slow, and then to top it off, it’s winter so most things were closed. We found two nice places to stay on ports on either sides of the island. We hiked a few miles up to the town in between and explored countless white alleyways. It was beautiful.
We did have a few mishaps with prices though. Our ferry tickets were student tickets and apparently we didn’t qualify though and had to pay more. We also ordered a crepe in one of the open cafes without asking the price and definitely over payed. The taxi from side to side cost a ridiculous 23 euros, which we decided to take only once.
This left plenty of room to improvise as we ended up hiking whenever we could, cooking noodles at night, splitting meals, and hitchhiking. All in all, it was gorgeous and relaxing. This next trip will be entirely different. As soon as my laundry dries, I’ll pack it up again for a week and a half through Western Europe, including Paris, Brussels, Gent, Bruges, Stockholm, Dublin, and London!
Growing Abroad 