Thasos Round 2

So we find ourselves here again....

and I don't just mean once again eating gyros in bed. This is our second and final night on Thassos. We are in the same hotel, Hotel Timoleon. I only took this one interior photo in which Bob decided to make a cameo.

note the two beds --- I mean is that a Greek thing?

Today we did a walking tour of the city of Limenas in Thassos which was four kilometers and about four hours that took us up a giant hill and back down. We saw many sanctuaries to different gods and goddesses and of course beautiful views.

This is the port where we entered on the ferry

Soccer field. I keep forgetting that's the big sport here and not football.

stumbled upon this mantis... thankfully it was a praying mantis and not the much more ferocious preying mantis

and this happened today... I have no explanation

more chickens

Shameless plug for this video titled "Chickens in the Snow" on behalf of Jessi - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzoo1td87y8
Super random but my facebook On This Day throwback thing showed this video, and I thought it only fitting since we saw chickens (not in the snow) today.

I thought I was done with beautiful pictures for today after this morning, but tonight we went to Aliki and saw marble quarries there. I took 83 photos; it was amazing. I will obviously not post them all, but I'll post a few. Some of the group went swimming, but we didn't have our suits, so we only waded in a bit. I did see two sea urchins though, so naturally I was filled with fear. Then I remembered I actually know the words to tell someone what happened and to get help if I did indeed step on one. Bob and I sat on lawn chairs on the beach as the sun set. He said to me "the past few days have felt like we are on a vacation" to which I replied "these 9 months feel like a vacation." I was also able to just sit on the beach and eat an ice cream; sometimes that is enough.

There will definitely be more of these quarry photos at a later point in time. I'll dedicate an entire post to them.

Cool things from today:
While on our tour, we have to walk through people's back yards and driveways and near houses because these ruins basically just have a modern city built on top of them. While we were waiting at the bottom of the hill for the rest of the group, we were standing right outside a lady's house. Her dog was barking continuously, and she came outside. Here I am thinking she is going to come yell at us to get away, but instead she brings out two cold bottles of water and a cup and offers us water. I thought that was the sweetest gesture. Then one of the professors on the trip commented "that's the hospitality you hear so much about". That was my first real run in with that, and it was pretty cool. I'm not sure that would happen in the city though.
Tonight as we were sitting out on these chairs on an island far away from the city with a wide open sky, we saw stars for the first time in Greece. The sky was lit up and beautiful. I'm not even sure when I was last able to see the sky like that. We have a gorgeous sky at my childhood home in Illinois, and the big dipper always sits right on top of our house. I saw it tonight, and even though this is in no way true, I had the thought like there is my house, just off in the distance, not that far away.

Thasos

We have arrived on our first island! We took a ferry over to the island of Thasos today; this ride was my first time on a ferry. We got some pretty neat pictures.

Bob said we should go take a titanic picture on the front. I said I don't think so Bob.

I don't know that I'll ever get over the beautiful views here.

this seagull was our navigator

For much of the ferry ride, I was singing my own version of the "First Time in Forever" song from Frozen which I titled "My First Time on a Ferry". Not sure if you can follow me on that one or not.

Before the ferry ride (1:45pm), we had visited Amphipolis, where we saw a lion statue that is supposed to be part of a tomb as a funeral marker with many other rock pieces from temples, a museum and some ruins from a colony of Athenians and a supposed tomb of a Spartan general, fortification walls, house remnants, and what is left of a bridge. Then we ventured to Thasos where we visited another Agora and museum. Once again pictures of these things to come at a later point in time.

We did walk around a couple streets of the town, but not as much as usual because Bob wanted to go back to the museum. While he did that I played some Pokemon Go. Here are a few pictures of the town including some nice sunset pictures. I am also curious if some sort of festival/carnival is about to happen because I saw some bumper cars being erected.

bumper cars

view of the water from the hotel street

street on the water

We did not get a water view tonight, but this is the view from our balcony in the hotel

sun starting to set

setting more

still setting

almost gone

Bob and I discovered today while eating gyros in bed, that this has become a very common thing. I thought I would capture this routine in action.

Thought of the day:
Pretty much all I drink is water, and I never have any drinks with caffeine unless you count chocolate milk. Today the waiter at breakfast was asking for drink orders and the answers went something like "coffee, coffee, coffee, tea, coffee, coffee..." Then he gets to me, and the conversation goes something like this:
Me: cold water
Waiter: cold water?
Me: Yes
W: No coffee?
Me: No
W: How do you wake up in the morning?
*everyone laughs*
This really made me think about coffee. On this trip we we stop for a coffee break every couple of hours. Greece is full of coffee shops. I can't believe how much coffee people drink. There are many cafes here, and they only sell coffee and a select few treats. There are often several cafes on each street. Other people on the field trip told me that Greek coffee is super strong too. A common thing here is to sit at a cafe for several hours with coffee and just socialize and people watch. Most often you see old men doing this, but all people do it.

Olympiada

Alright people, it is late tonight, so I'm going to try to make it short even though a bunch of awesome stuff happened today. We saw some of the most beautiful scenery today. One site was right on a gorgeous beach and our hotel for the night is right on the water. We also looked at a canal in the morning, so we've been all around the water today. I won't be going into detail today, but I'll hit some highlights.
First off, our hotel and the view from our hotel:

 The hotel we are staying at is Hotel Germany.

or as they like to advertise, the hot germ...

canopy bed... and one bed!

patio furniture

left red roofed building is the hotel

 

this was in the hallway on our floor, so your kid can stay here too, just not in the room

left side view from balcony

straight on view from balcony

me up to my knees in the water on our beach outside the hotel; the water is so clear

 I wanted to include this lady you see here. She is fishing, and was swimming around with flippers and a snorkel. She gave us all gifts from the sea in the form of shells and live star fish. We put them back in the water, and I forgot to get pictures of the creatures.

We made a pit stop today to see one of the greatest things we have seen yet… the Guinness Book of World Records largest block of goat cheese. Pictured here you see a replica not the actual cheese - in case you were confused at how great of condition it is in.

I pet this kitten.

tiny little kitten

Notes about things:

I will post all the beautiful pictures at another time because the internet here is super slow. Here is one little sneak peak(more punning on the barely visible mountains/hills in the background).

The blog got 46 views yesterday, none of which were my favorite sister. Five or so might have been me looking at my own blog.

I should not eat a giant hunk of beef at 10pm, although I already knew that and still did it.

There is sand in the bed from my beach walking, but I’m blaming it on Bob, and he is taking it like a champ.
We got more mosquito spray. The man at the pharmacy (that's where you get things here - a post about those sometime in the future) assured us this was a strong repellent. The container says "jungle", and level 3 out of 4 in the "strong" category. Then we look at it, and there is 20% deet. I don't think this man has even been to the woods in Wisconsin.
Anyone who knows me knows I'm a little (I don't quite know which word to choose here) strange... silly... special...  well regardless, I was being myself and humming or singing along like I usually do when I realized I was walking through ancient ruins with a group of people, so I abruptly stopped. Then one of the other members of the group called me out on it. I've been outed. I guess it's been a couple weeks now, so it's about time they experience what I can't really describe other than to say it's me. (Shannon if you're reading this - no one knows of the Amish side yet...)

Update on our pup - 

wearing a cone to not pick at wound

insists on keeping head straight in air when wearing cone