Week 5: Santorini and Athens, Greece

On February 7th through the 11th, me and seven other friends took a trip to Greece! First to Santorini,

Sunrise near our hotel

and then to Athens. It was the trip of a lifetime. There were gorgeous beaches, amazing food, and breathtaking views. I could never in a million words describe to you just how gorgeous Santorini was, but if you ever get the opportunity to go, do it. This trip was more expensive than my other trips, but it was absolutely worth it. When we first got to Santorini, the first thing I did was change into shorts because it was 65 degrees and beautiful. Once we got settled at our hotel and took showers, we went out for a traditional greek dinner at a restaurant near our hotel. While we

Red Sand Beach

were there I ordered the most amazing baklava. It was so delicious. After dinner we went to get gelato at a little shop across the street. Two desserts in one night? I don't see the problem with that! The next day we got up really early to watch the sunrise from an open field down the street from our hotel. It was gorgeous of course! Afterwards, we took a bus to the red and black sand beaches and made our way to the village of Oía. The red and black sand beaches were gorgeous in completely different ways. The red sand

Village of Oía

beach was mountainous and rocky and the "sand" was a bunch of tiny pebbles that sort of hurt your feet to walk on, but the view was so worth it. The black sand beach had softer sand, and was a bit bigger than the red sand beach. Some of our group even got in the water at the black sand beach. I wasn't able to get all the way in because my tattoo was still healing, but I did go all the way up until the water was just about touching my skirt. I fell into the water once and ended up soaking half my body but it wasn't too bad since the weather was warm. The village of Oía was filled with a whole bunch of cute white washed houses with blue domed roofs. This is an iconic architectural feature in Santorini and it was gorgeous. Along the alleyways and sidewalks of the villages were a bunch of different shops to buy touristy stuff and a bunch of tiny greek restaurants. We even passed an elementary school! We walked around and appreciated the beauty of the village and hoped to catch a sunset. Unfortunately, it was too cloudy and we weren't able to see a sunset. After taking a taxi back to our hotel, we decided to get gyros for dinner from a place called "Lucky's Souvlaki". They were the most

Whoops!

delicious gyros I have ever had and the tzatziki sauce was phenomenal. I want to drown everything I eat in tzatziki sauce, it's that good. The gyros we got from Lucky's even came with fries inside them.
AMAZING. And they only cost 3€!! After all that we went back to the hotel and drank some wine that we got from Oía. My friend Sarah bought a corkscrew to open up the bottle, but we couldn't figure out how to use it and ended up pulling off the entire neck of the bottle. The wine didn't end up being that good and I ended up giving it to my friend Molly to drink. Saturday we packed up and took a flight back to Athens for a day trip of the city. We took a four hour tour of Athens and got to see Acropolis, the

Acropolis!

Parthenon, and learn about the history and culture of Greece. We also got to see Greek soldiers standing guard outside the palace of the president. Our tour guide recommended restaurants for us to go to for dinner, bartered with the owner to get us a deal, and even took us to a coffee shop where we got coffee for 1.50€. She was amazing! The only downfall of the day in Athens was the fact that it rained the whole time. The receptionist at our hostel told us that Saturday was the first day it rained in months! Just our luck. For dinner we went to a restaurant with enclosed rooftop seating. The food was amazing and you had a perfect view of the Acropolis throughout dinner. Overall Greece was an amazing experience and I would absolutely love to go back one day when the weather is even warmer.

Stay tuned for my next blog for my trip to Venice, Italy!
-Lanna

Week 4: Salzburg, Austria

Snow-Capped Mountains

The Hills were definitely alive when our group of 6 went to visit Salzburg, Austria. Salzburg is the filming location of the movie Sound of Music, the birthplace of Mozart, and a breathtaking city. As soon as we stepped off of our plane we could see the snow capped peaks surrounding us. I have never seen anything like it in my life. Seeing pictures of mountains just doesn't even compare to what they're like in real life. The mountains are so big and beautiful and they completely surround you when you're in the city. It makes you feel so small. After arriving at the airport, we walked 3 miles through the city to our hostel. While we walked through the city, we found lots of cute shops and a couple awesome landmarks. We also found a love lock bridge! Couples from around the world wrote their

Love Lock Bridge

names on a padlock and threw the key in the river below to symbolize their love. It made me wonder what the bottom of the river looks like... We stayed at the Yoho International Youth Hostel in Salzburg and it was perfect!! The rooms and bathrooms were nice and clean, the staff was friendly and helpful, and it was located perfectly in the city centre. They also played The Sound of Music in the lobby every night at 8pm, so I was able to watch the movie before going to see all the sights. After arriving on Friday, we took a nap and then went to get amazing Italian food. After dinner, Molly took us to a brew house to get some beer. I'm not a fan of beer, but the experience was pretty cool!! On Saturday we decided to go to the little village of Werfen to see the picnic field in The Sound of Music. It was a 45 minute train ride and we were in the cutest little village. Unfortunately, it was snowing pretty hard when we got there, and in order to get to the field you had to hike up a mountain. We decided that the weather wasn't quite good enough to hike all the way up there, but we did get to go into a castle

Werfen Castle

that we found on the way! After coming back from Werfen we walked through the city of Salzburg and explored the Salzburg museum. We also got to go to the Salzburg Castle that was up on top of a mountain. We had to take a tram to get there!! The view from the castle was gorgeous. We could see the whole city. We started throwing snowballs off the edge of the castle walls to see how far they would go. Hopefully we didn't hit any locals in the process. After exploring the whole city and walking through the gorgeous Salzburg cathedral, we decided to go to an authentic Austrian restaurant called Die Wiesse for dinner. They had amazing beer and even the sauerkraut was good! Overall it was an amazing trip and I was so sad to leave Austria. I honestly did not think I would end up liking Austria as much as I did, but the experience was amazing and the beauty was unlike anything I had ever seen before. I definitely plan to come back in the summer months when it's a little warmer.

Auf Wiedersehen!! (It means goodbye in German, the language of origin in Austria)

Week 3: Cardiff, Wales

Wow, it has been a very busy few weeks. This post is coming a little late, but better late than never

Lincoln Cathedral

USA tile in Cardiff Bay

right? On the weekend of January 26th - 28th, a friend and I went to Cardiff, Wales for a relaxing weekend in the UK. We started off Friday on a British Studies field trip to Lincoln, England. It was such a cute little town on the south coast of the British Isles and there were so many historical things to see there. We got to see the Lincoln Castle, the Lincoln Cathedral, and we got to roam around and explore the city. The castle was a history lesson that came with an amazing view and the cathedral was the most intricate that I've ever seen. The stained glass windows and perfect carvings all came together to create a magnificent scene. In the town itself there were chocolate shops, art galleries, and museums to visit. All of which were also fun to visit and learn about. From Lincoln, Sarah and I took the train to Cardiff. It was a long ride, but we ended up sleeping a lot of the way, so it didn't seem too bad. When we got to Cardiff we were shocked to find that all the signs in the train station were in Welsh. I didn't know anyone actually spoke Welsh, I thought it was kind of a dead language.

Cardiff Castle

Cardiff Castle Ceiling

On Saturday we went to explore Cardiff castle, Cardiff bay, and the city centre. While exploring, we came across a lot of cute little shops and cafés that we stopped and looked around in. My favorite shop was called Fabulous Welsh Cakes and they sold these little cookies for 50 pence each. They were so good! There was also an abundance of Harry Potter shops all around Wales because apparently Harry Potter was, in part, filmed there. On Sunday morning, we went to get crepes for breakfast and they were AMAZING. I got two crepes. One ham and cheese and the other, nutella and strawberries. It was so good and I hope to find another one of those restaurants before I have to go back to the US. Overall, it was a great weekend in a beautiful city!!                   

Cardiff Castle