Phew. I feel like so much has happened since I wrote last. We've been to
two ports and will be arriving at a third tomorrow, so I figured it was
time I finally wrote again. The title of the blog today has a funny
story to it, but basically I was having an awful day and the three
things that made it better were ice cream with a good friend, seeing
people in white pants, and then a gorgeous viewing of Santorini as we
were sailing from Crete to Kusadasi. Clearly it is little things that
can make me smile :)
I'm really not sure where to begin since I did a terrible job writing
after each port like I have been intending to do. I have a cold right
now which is not making things fun and the ship is super rocky, so I
wouldn't be surprised if we have some sea sick students tonight.
Buuuuuttt, we get an ice cream cake tonight for being awesome so I am
SOOOO excited for that! Okay, back to what I've been doing for the last
couple of ports.
As some of you know, our original itinerary included a stop in Istanbul.
With everything that has been going on there, ISE had to make the quick
decision to change our voyage. In rerouting us, we got two ports for one
and even though I was really disappointed not to be going to Istanbul, I
was excited to be headed back to Crete and Kusadasi (I visited both
ports in 2009). Because of everything that had been going on
personally/professionally which i vaguely wrote about in my last post, I
decided to use Crete to relax and spend time with my other friends on
the ship who aren't RDs so that I could really separate myself from work
as much as possible. Crete was AMAZING. The first day we spent walking
around Heraklion which was the part of Crete that we docked in. The town
was really nice and we did a lot of walking. We ate lunch at a delicious
Greek restaurant that one of my friends found in Lonely Planet and I had
Moussaka which was absolutely amazing and I could literally eat every
single day. I'm so excited that we are headed back to Greece tomorrow so
that I can have even more yummy Greek food. After lunch we took a public
bus up to Knossos Palace which was nice, but pretty disappointing
compared to other places I've been to. It was still nice to journey a
little bit out of the main port area and do something "cultural." The
rest of the day was spent wandering the city center some more, doing a
little shopping, and then having a happy hour drink. We went looking for
dinner after happy hour, but ended up finding a rooftop bar with a
gorgeous view and had another drink instead of eating. I was with such a
great group of people who kept me smiling and laughing all day which was
exactly what I needed.
The second day in Crete four of us decided to head out of Heraklion and
go visit another part of the island. Our main goal was to eat more
delicious Greek food and find a beach to relax. We made a last minute
decision to head to Agios Nikolas which was on a postcard that someone
had bought the day before and looked really pretty so again we braved
the public bus (which was actually a very organized, easy to use system)
and headed on about an hour and a half journey across the island. When
we got to Agios Nikolas, I looked around and realized that this was the
port my ship had docked at in 2009. I was excited to be back because I
really loved the town. We took a walk down to the lake area in the town
and then found a great restaurant for lunch where we did indeed have
even more delicious Greek food. The funny thing about any SAS
participant is that when we find restaurants and cafes that have good
wifi we will sit there and not talk to each other because good wifi just
doesn't exist on the ship and that was the case with where we went to
lunch. Our waiter was super nice and talked to us about his life and
what he does before work every day and even recommended a beach for us
to go to. We were hoping for a sandy beach, but it ended up being a
pebble beach. That was okay with me though because nothing will compare
to the white sand beaches in Pensacola and the water was so clear,
beautiful, and absolutely wonderful to go swimming in. I even wore my
bathing suit and didn't care who saw me in it or what they thought (yay
for me!). It was seriously the perfect day and just what I needed after
all the craziness that was going on.
We had one day at sea between Crete and Kusadasi which was my super
crappy day on the ship. I will say this, in the past two weeks I have
learned that I have absolutely amazing and caring people on the ship
with me who are ready to literally fight for me if they needed to. It
has been wonderful to be surrounded by such a caring family while I work
through everything. When I was super upset I had a co-worker come find
me and just chat, and then after that I had another one take a break
from work and buy me ice cream on the 7th deck which was amazing (hence
the ice cream in the title) and then another who yelled at me to make
sure I got a white pant sighting to make me smile :) Our captain made
the decision to sail through Santorini so that we could all see the
island that evening and I appreciated that so much. It was what I needed
and to see students looking at the amazing island for the very first
time brought a huge smile to my face. I'm so much more excited to go
back to Santorini this week now!
We arrived in Kusadasi on Thursday and spent two days in that port.
Because I had been to Kusadasi before, I decided to add another field
program and served as the liaison for it. The field program went to
Ephesus, Pergamum, Gallipoli and Troy over the course of the two days.
It was a lot of driving, but was well worth it to see different places
and to go from one continent to another twice in one day!! I had been to
Ephesus before, but it is such an incredible place and somewhere I think
if you get the chance to go to, you need to go. The layout of the city
is incredible and there is just so much history there. Pergamum was also
an interesting city to visit and we had a great view of the acropolis
from the city ruins. We spent the night in an AMAZING hotel in Cannakale
which is where the horse that was used in the movie Troy is currently on
display. A student didn't show up for the trip, so I ended up getting my
own room which was nice because I had another chance to just be by
myself and relax. During the trip we also got to eat a lot of different
Turkish food which was a really nice bonus.
The second day we got up and took a ferry over to Gallipoli. I literally
could have spent both days just going around Gallipoli. It is such an
incredible place and to think about what happened there is unbelievable.
For those of you who don't know, Gallipoli was an eight month campaign
during World War I that resulted in over 500,000 casualties. Throughout
the peninsula you can see many monuments, memorials, battlefields and
trenches. I really do not think we spent enough time there, but I am so
thankful to have had the opportunity to go to a place where so many
people gave their lives. We also got to go to a new museum about
Gallipoli that was a simulation center where we through about 12
different rooms to learn the history of the campaign (of course it was
told through the lens of the Turkish). I am really glad that we went to
this before we headed out into the battlefields so that the students on
the trip could really understand where we were going. After Gallipoli we
went to Troy which was really disappointing, but still neat to see
especially with all of the stories that surround Troy. We arrived back
to ship very late last night and due to my cold I went to bed almost
immediately.
Tomorrow we arrive in Athens (technically Piraeaus) and will be here for
the next four days. I'm on duty the first and last days, but I get to
spend time in Santorini in between and I cannot wait to be back in
Santorini :) There are some concerns about a strike happening on the
16th, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly
getting to and from Santorini.
I'm sorry this post has been kind of all over the place, but with the
cold medicine, rush to get something posted before we get to the next
port, and my putting two ports in one post made for a scatterbrained
Lynsey. I'll be coming to you from Greece again tomorrow :)
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