Kalispera guys!

It's wednesday afternoon and i'm sittin on my backside in Elly and Reem's apartment working on the readings. Actually, taking a break from the readings. It's insaaaaanely hot here in Athens right now... monday marked the beginning of their first heat wave and today it's definitely over 100 degrees. Insanity! So instead of romping around the city I'm sitting inside like a cow getting fanned by the air conditioner as is the rest of the country. So I don't feel so bad!

It's kinda hitting me that we only have ten days left in Greece. This weekend we're taking an excursion to Volos in Thessaly and we're going to be toured by one of Greece's leading experts in pre-modern greek economics. Supposedly on saturday (dad, you would like this!), we're taking an old locomotive up the side of a mountain near volos. Should be a good time!

Last weekend we had one of the most amazing weekends in recent memory. Gab, Reem, Ellie, and I met up with Jason and Lindsey in Mykonos! Mykonos is known for being one of the biggest party spots in the world, so I wasn't really sure what I was getting into. But I'll tell ya, Mykonos was swarming with beautiful people from around the world ready to have a good time and dance their little socks off. On the ferry over my friend ellie met a guy from south africa and he told us about a concert happening at paradise beach that night. So when we got on the boat we were on a mission! We found our hotel after waiting forever for a taxi, ate a wickedly expensive dinner at the base of the port, and headed out on a wild goose chase to Paradise beach club near the center of Mykonos. It cost 30 euros, and I really wasn't keen to go in (I'm becoming increasingly thrifty like my mumsie). But once we got inside we had the absolute BEST time!! Liana and I have been dreaming of dancing in a european club since like elementary school, and this was definitely it. I was bummed she wasn't there with me, but there is always a next time. So anyway, we got to see this DJ called AfroJack, a dutch DJ who is one of the best and most famous in the world. And for good reason! His mixes were amaaaaazing and it was so so so much fun!! He came on at 3am (welcome to mykonos) and by about 4am jason and lindsey had had enough and were ready to go. At that point, us girls jumped into the middle of the crowd and eventually made our way to the very front, right next to afrojack! You could absolutely feel the energy of the people in the crowd; quite literally the place was pulsing with every beat. About an hour later, afrojack busted out a bottle of champagne and sprayed it all over the people in the front few rows (ie. us) and we basically took a shower in champagne. Giddy with excitement, we danced until around 6.30am when we realized the sun had come up and we had better get home. Definitely a really fun night!

The next day we woke up around noon after sardining-it in with four of us girls in a queen-sized bed. We rolled over to the beach, soaked up the sun, and totally enjoyed ourselves. It sounds really weird saying all of this, and I almost feel like it didn't happen. At around 8.30 we left the beach and got ready to go out for dinner. We ended up in the main center of town at an incredibly busy restaurant. We revived with some food and later gelato, and later ended up at a club called Space. We had heard it got busy at 1am, but when we showed up at 1 it was dead as a doornail. So we all hung out for a little and it eventually got busy around 2.30 or 3. Typical! I only had one drink so I had a really great time, but one of my friends had one (or in this case a zillion) too many and ended up shmammered. In any case, Reem had a friend from Saudi Arabia who was in the same club by chance, so we got to meet him and his friends. Later I danced with his friend from Jordan who was about 5 feet tall and reeked of grey goose. But all of them were really nice! Anyway, to make a long story long, we finished up the night with a chocolate crepe and got home in a taxi around 5.15am.

Our ferry the next morning left at 9.50am, soooo we were essentially sleepwalking to the boat. But the bright side was we were going to NAXOS!!! Now, for those of you who have yet to experience it's glory, Naxos is one of The most beautiful places on the face of the earth. It is the largest island in the cyclades and it largely still preserves its countryside. Definitely lest touristy than Mykonos, Naxos boasts gorgeous beaches, a quaint little town, and fantastic seaside restaurants that all look like little outdoor living rooms. Again, I wished liana could see this... there were naked lightbulbs around nearly every corner (necessarry in the liana allison utopia). Even though we were only there for one night, we celebrated Jason's 26th birthday, went to the beach, went shopping, ate amazing food and gelato, and had fat smiles on our faces like never before. Honestly, it was like a dream world. I looked into real estate on Naxos and it was incredibly affordable given the recent economic crisis. So I think from now on if anyone ever wants to give me a gift I'm going to ask for a donation to the Allison-wants-to-buy-a-house-in-naxos fund. It's that cool!

On Sunday we left for athens on a 7 hour ferry ride across the aegean. It was incredibly long but equally gorgeous. When we finally got to Pireaus, it was 1am and and we hopped into a taxi cab that ripped us off like no other and practically tried to kill us on the way home with his crazy macho driving. Lame.

The next morning we had class at 9 and I surprised myself with my bright-eyed and bushy-tailed-ness. After all, we had just had the weekend of a lifetime!

It got even better.... last night a few of us saw a modern ballet performance at the Odeon of Herodes Theater at the base of the Acropolis. I had one of those moments when you're smiling and you don't know why. Everything felt so alive sitting in that theater with the stars above us scattered across the velvety purple sky and the acropolis standing majestically behind us. The ballet itself was incredible too. I'm just in awe of how cool life can be.

I hope y'all are doing well, I'm sending everyone my love and good vibes.

Ps, I had some rather existential thoughts about greece this afternoon and i thought I would write a blog about it, so maybe that's to come!

xoxox Allison