A Bahtoe Abroad

warming uppp

So this weekend me and my friends realized it was probably the last time we were all going to be together in the same place so we decided to take a trip an hour away to the swansea cliffs. 

We brought a picnic and walked up these beautiful cliffs that led you down to this secluded beach in which we decided to stop at. We ran around the beach like maniacs and jumped in caves and chased birds. It was such a nice time :D 

we reflected on our experiences over this past spring and how much we enjoyed our time in cardiff. I couldnt of asked for a better time. It was such a great place, you will never see a place like it. 

RUGBY! 

a game that i will probably never will understand, but boy is it exciting in the UK. 

May 2nd was our great VARSITY GAME where my school Cardiff competes with our neighboring Rival Swansea. Cardiff has lost 3 years in a row so the whole city was really pumped and ready to win this year. There was people ALL OVER the street and as we walked down to the millennium stadium we would get evil scowls from anyone in a green swansea shirt. At one point a girl actually spat at us!  ahh the spirit of athletic events! We ended up winning! There was Chants and celebrations everywhere till at least 6 am. People were going crazy! at one point i met one of the players and he offered to take me out to coffee. I declined but now i see his face on posters ALL OVER THE SCHOOL. which makes me laugh every time haha.  Sorry i dont drink coffee! 

MYKONOS

the beautiful island where everyone constantly told me “DO YOU KNOW MADONNA COMES HERE?”

now i know madonna goes there. 

We Got off our ferry from Athens so relieved by the green hills and sunshine. We were immediately greeted by this Blonde woman having at us like crazy smiling. She quickly gave us all a big hug and ushered us to her car. She was the owner of the “mama’s pension house” the place we were going to stay for the next week. It was a beautiful multi story set of buildings and me and emily had our own room with our own balcony that overlooked the ocean and the trail from the building that led us down to the beach. i couldnt of asked for anything better. We actually had a REAL shower for once. In Malta our shower was in the middle of our bedroom strangely with a sink hose that we had to hold against our bodies. So this was a nice start so far. 

We quickly put on our shorts and tank tops and flip flops weve been dying to wear and walked down into down to find some food. 

As you can see it was delicious. For the next few days we just sun bathed, drank greek wine, and stuffed greek food into our faces. We were happy, fed , and tan. It was really great :D  i could of lived like that forever. The locals were so nice. sometimes TOO nice haha. Since it was off season we were the only non-locals on the island we were constantly being approached and offered to have romantic tours of the island on backs of vespas that we nicely declined. It was like all the greek guys wanted to be our version of Kostos from the sisterhood of the traveling pants (haha childhood book reference) .

I couldnt of asked for more! i would go back in a heart beat. 

Greece was probably my favorite places ive been to this whole time abroad. 

It was not the smoothest trip but hey it was exciting! 

The plan was me and my friend Emily were going to land in Athens and meet up with my friend Kaitlin. Me and emily had a layover in Switzerland which was BEAUTIFUL by the way. 

Everything was so expensive though! The swiss frank is just way more heavier than the dollar. so we decided to starve in switzerland. Also, everything in the airport was french or swiss german. Thank god my friend emily spoke french. We were able to navigate around the airport. 

Anyways after our flight from switzerland to Athens once we land i check my phone to find out my friend kaitlin and gang are stuck in germany and won’t be able to get a flight out till the next day. So when it came down to it, me and emily would have to find our way to the hostel alone.

I was really nervous because i was expecting to just follow along with a group of people but me and emily knew that we couldnt just sit at the airport and the best thing we could do is just get to the hostel and wait. We finally found a bus that took us to a square where our hostel was suppose to be at (which we soon found out that we were missing half the directions)  and we began looking for the hostel.  

The thing i did not expect was that NOTHING was in english. NOTHING. everything was in greek symbols so it became increasingly difficult to understand where we were. Then it began to rain… 

I think we walked in the Rain for about an hour and a half and found out that from the square we had to take the subway to another square.. so we ventured off into the subway. Just two Blonde North american girls amongst a sea of native greeks who just stared. 

When we finally found our hostel which was pretty decent itself but the area it was in was not the safest area. The receptionist told us that we should be back in the hostel before 7pm for safety reasons. We didnt argue. We decided to run across the street and grab some food and wine from a small little store owned by a very loud greek woman who yelled at her small but endearing husband and they proceeded to give us advice.

My favorite part was when she said that i reminded her of her daughter with cerebral palsy. Kind of still dont get that one. 

The next day me and emily decided to walk to the acropolis and see what we came to see while we waited for everyone else to arrive. It was quite nice. We ate a ton of Gyro’s and we climbed up to the acropolis to see the parthenon and athena’s temple and all that. it was really great. 

Once we got back to the hostel my friends were already there. We quickly discussed our plan  of island hopping in which the following day we were suppose to catch a ferry to santorini then 3 days later to Mykonos. When my friends went down to book the ferrys they quickly returned and said “GUYS GOOD NEWS! THE FERRIES ARE ON STRIKE!”  we all just laughed strangely because i think we were in absolute shock at how strange this trip was turning out to be. 

So our plans on going to santorini were completely diminished. There was absolutely no ferries going to or from santorini so our best bet was to try to get a ferrie after the strike to any island. we just wanted out of athens which was making us increasingly nervous. Previously that day we walked by a protest in action. It was a little unsettling haha. 

Fortunately after spending a whole day at the ferry service office trying to communicate through the language barrier to basically “GET US OUT OF HERE”  we ended up getting a early morning ferry straight to mykonos. We immediately called and canceled the apartments we rented in santorini and told the one in mykonos that we would like to extend our stay and early the next day we hopped on a ferry to the island of mykonos for the next 6 and a half days. 

LONDON was great! 

Though already living in the UK i have already been to london a few times, this time was a little bit more special because i met up with a couple of old friends and stayed in a hostel. (which was really nice by the way) 

So after flying back from Malta i took a bus to victoria station in which my friend Merrick who was currently studying in italy was going to meet me. We saw eachother from across the way and walked really fast toward each other in excitement. We then ventured into the Underground with our baggage and made our way to our hostel in which my two other friends were waiting for us. It was a great reunion :D! 

We were staying in a 10 person room with 4 other girls we didnt know but we quickly made friends with a Australian girl staying in the room who was telling us how she packed up and left to come live in London with no plan. In a week of her arrival she had already found a apartment and a Job. She was waiting to sign her lease before she could move out of the hostel officially. She was a great laugh! 

Anyways we quickly unpacked and got dressed determined to go out that night for dinner and a trip to the pub. The best part of that trip was probably the time we spent just jumping around the underground. We would just run around like dorks just overly excited to be in each others presences again. 

During the day we went to all the big toursity spots and got a ton of great photos. :D 

it was a great time :] 

Hi! sorry for the late updates i’ve been constantly busy with traveling and school it’s been quite hectic to try to update this blog. 

My vacation was awesome :D 4 1/2 weeks off from school i was able to travel quite a bit! 

The first place i went to was Malta! 

Malta is a small island between italy and africa. Its made up of two islands Malat, and Gozo

I went with two other girls in which we stayed in a hostel which was pretty nice. The man who owned the hostel was some 50 something gentleman who was really nice and catering to us. The funny this was that NO one else was in the hostel so it was like have a 5 story hotel to ourselves! We had alot of fun. the Hostel had a really nice veranda on the roof that we always ended our nights sitting on the roof and looking at the ocean with a few drinks at hand. 

We stayed in a town called Bujjiba (excuse my spelling) which was pretty nice. We spent most of our time there exploring the island during the day which was pretty interesting! we bought a 7 day bus pass that let us jump on any bus at any time. It was like having a V.I.P pass to sit in a Smelly seat next to strange old men who were usually jabbering off into the bus drivers ear in maltese. It was pretty great. The bus system was probably the most unforgettable thing about Malta. The drivers would drive these buses through the smallest streets in the most condensed and labyrinth like towns dodging horses,goats,old people, and other buses. Going up hills and around cliffs would usually result in me gripping the poles, shutting my eyes and making peace with my maker.

Honestly , after the first 3 days my nervous shakes and scared gut feeling disappeared and i got pretty use to it. We would wake up early jump on the bus and venture around the island which only took about an hour just to drive across it. This island was SMALL but beautiful. 

One of my favorite places in Malta was probably the capital of Valetta. It’s architecture and shops made it seem more inhabited and busy than the rest of the island. I got to try some Maltese nuggets which was kind of like this condensed sugar,milk thing which was tasty. Meant to bring some home… but ate it all. oops. sorry

One of our last excursions was to the island of Gozo which you could only get there by ferry. so We hopped on and Gozo ended up being more beautiful than malta itself. We took a bus (of course) to something we heard about called the “BLUE WINDOW” . we got there and it was various cliffs you could either climb up or down and the blue window itself was a cliff with a MASSIVE GAPING HOLE which resembled a window. The water was so crystal clear i almost cried from it being so beautiful (not really, but honestly it was breath taking).  right under the blue window was a deep underwater cave where several scuba divers were. it was all too exciting.