Nigga I be getting high eating gyros on a beach

Hey there mes amis,

Let me just say that I should really change my name to Samantha Brown. And the Travel Channel should give me my own show. If someone wants to pitch that to the Travel Channel execs, I'd appreciate it.

Last we spoke, I was a few days shy of fall break and slathered in mid-terms. Now, I'm back and refreshed, and a bit more relaxed.

So let's discuss... Greece is absolutely beautiful, for starters. We flew into Athens last Thursday, with a layover in Munich. That is where the Euro started beating my wallet to a pulp. Since our plane ride to Munich was only an hour, we had a special plane. A prop plane. For those of you that read this and absolutely love planes (and really, most of you are plane enthusiasts), you would have been soooo excited. It was a crazy hour, during which I was pretty much convinced we'd crash. Lucky for me, we didn't! Upon our arrival in Athens, we trekked around looking for our hostel. It was right in the middle of town, with the most amazing view of the Acropolis from our window. The room was perhaps the tiniest thing I've ever been in, but it got the job done, so I have no solid complaints. The next day, we walked around Athens for the whole day...went up to the Parthenon and got a great view of the city. We even saw this place where a picture that was in the World Press Photo Gallery was taken (fyi, I'm obsessed with the World Press Photo stuff). We walked around Athens the rest of the day, and then took a night ferry to Santorini.

Arrived in Santorini at 4am the next day. Our hostel didn't pick us up until 6am, so we made ourselves cozy at this port-side outdoor restaurant for awhile and ate Greek food. We didn't bother to ask why they were open at 4am. Finally, we got picked up, but couldn't check into our rooms for several more hours. We were all tired, so we dropped our stuff in the lobby and walked down 30 meters to the beach, where we watched the sun rise and then fell asleep on beach chairs for a few hours. Santorini was amazing. We were there for 6 days, so we had plenty of time to do everything. Since the season is almost over, a lot of businesses had closed, especially in our town, Perissa. There were some restaurants and bars and stuff that are open for a few more weeks, so we turned them into our local hangouts.
We befriended Marcos, who owns the only bike shop in Perissa that was still open. He said he was lonely, since the island was so empty. We ended up hanging out with him most nights...one night we went over and some of his friends were there having a good time and listening to music. They BBQed us some chicken and gave us wine and made us dance to Greek music...it was a blast. The best day was when Marcos offered to take the four of us snorkeling...we swam about 15 mins out to this little area surrounded by cliffs, where I HELD A STARFISH...and then we went cliff jumping! It was crazy and scary and took 20 minutes to jump off, and I didn't land right, so my backside was sore for a few days, but it was absolutely incredible.
One day we rented ATVs from Marcos and drove around the whole island, which took surprisingly longer than expected. A lot of buildings were in the process of being built, especially once you got away from the water...it will definitely be interesting to see how the island looks 10 years from now. We also did this excursion thing, where we were on a boat all day that took us around the island. We hiked up to the top of a volcano (clearly I had to steal volcanic rock), went swimming in hot springs, and saw an amazing sunset in the town of Ia.
At night, since most places were closed, we were limited to a few bars in Perissa. One sort of sucked, but they kept giving us vouchers for free shots. The other was a bar on the beach...we only bought anything there one night, but every single night they had a bonfire on the beach, which we all went to. There were a ton of Americans studying abroad in Prague there, from different programs. We met a bunch of them at our hostel and hung out with them at night.

Hate to burst your preconcieved notions of me, but we didn't go out and drink every night. The sun wiped us out so by evening, we are all exhausted. We went to the bonfires, ang hung out with Marcos and stuff, but I don't have any of those crazy vacation stories that you all expect me to have (or do I?...just ask if you care...).

Back to Athens on Friday...we were sick of spending money, so we found a guy on couchsurfing.com who offered up his flat to us. We took a day ferry and met some crazy Australians who were pretty much the most fun people ever. We parted ways once we got back to Athens though, and tried to make our way to our couchsurfing guy's apartment. He was soooo cool! His name was Costas, and he's a 25 year old university student. He took us on a tour of Athens on Saturday, which was great because he knew all about the city. We didn't have to be at the airport until like, 2am, so we stayed at his flat and drank and danced and partied with him and his cousins, who had stopped by.
I tried opening a wine bottle and ended up breaking the cork and pushing it into the bottle. We had to use a strainer to pour the wine. I was embarassed.
Jess and I were drunkenly fascinated by all of the trolls and tweety bird things around the flat, so we took pictures with EVERY SINGLE ONE.
Once the time came for us to leave, the guys decided we shouldn't walk to the bus station, so they drove us. Well, the girls got to ride in a car...but there wasn't enough room for all of us, so I got to ride on the back of Costas' motorcycle down the highway in the middle of the night...exhilirating doesn't even begin to describe it. Our arrival at the airport began a 13 hour airport saga. That part was absolutely miserable, but at least I wasn't alone. We got back to Prague yesterday afternoon, just in time to sign up to do some muchly needed laundry and watched some Grey's Anatomy.

This week is pretty low-key...nothing big happening here. A lot of people are having friends visit this weekend, so that should be fun. My friend Liz's German cousin Johannes (whose flat we stayed at during Oktoberfest), is coming for the weekend, so I guess TECHNICALLY I have a friend coming. Next weekend, I'm going to Austria for the weekend, then Hungary and Slovakia the weekend after that (hopefully!). My family is coming the next weekend, and then Ruthie is coming, so that takes us to almost the end. But not the real end, beause I'm staying in Europe and travelling around for a month. Its looking like possibly the Swiss Alps Dec.16-20, then a 10 day period with nothing to do (so come play with me, please...we can go ANYWHERE). I'll be back in Prague for New Year's and to see my friend Erin who'll be in town with her family, and then off to Belgium with my dad for a week. January 8-19 is looking like I'll be reunited with my sister from another mother, Ms. Aimee Weiss, who is studying in Israel all year. We'll be doing up Amsterdam and various others. I know some of you that are reading this love the both of us to death and miss us like crazy, so you should join us!!!

Oh, today I bought a winter coat. For $2.50...that's right, I got my winter coat for less than a pint of beer in America. Be jealous, its cute. With that, I'll leave you with a few fun facts I've discovered about Greece. Miss you guys!

Love and way too many gyros, Melissa



-Toilet paper, contrary to its name, does NOT go in the toilet. Instead, you have to throw it into the garbage after its brief use. Sorta grosssssss.
-Tzatziki is the most amazing thing ever and I'm pissed that I don't have the energy or culinary talent to make it. It was present at pretty much every meal over the past week and a half.
-The Greeks don't like to lose at Rummy, and will go to all extremes to ensure that they don't. And they think its funny when they cheat.
-Gyros are tasty, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
-Just like the Israelis, the Greeks serve their gyros with french fries in them. Makes me homelandsick... -
If you ever vacation on the Greek Islands, make sure its at the end of the season. Everyone wants to give stuff away. Like wine and food!
-S'agapo means 'I love you' in Greek.