One Nutella crepe will cost you 4 hours.

After getting in pretty late the night before, I slept until 10am then Shea and I went out to shop for our last day in Athens! We walked from the port to the train station (which is pretty far). Most students take taxis but it’s not worth it. Plus, it’s exercise and fun to walk past shops and people! After getting off at the right stop, we walked up into the square where alleys shoot off in every direction full of shops and cafes. We picked one of many to walk down and just browsed. We wanted to look around and get a good idea of what we were going to be getting and then come back after we thought about everything. Towards the end of one alley, we found a cute, breezy café where we could sit in the shade and watch everyone go by. I got a pizza and Shea got a Greek salad. I have eaten so many Greek salads, I’m going to miss the real thing when I go home!

After hanging out and talking about what we want to look for in particular, we started our daily walk down all of the packed streets full of music, people, and wonderful shopping! I know I said Barcelona had good shopping, then I said Italy’s was better, but I must say… Athens shopping beats them all. There were sandal stores full of leather shoes, jewelry stores, kitchen supply stores (random, but they were everywhere), pottery, snacks, painting shops, clothes, and everything in between. I bought some tourist-y shirts that have the Greece flag on the front with some cool Greek prints. I also bought a few bracelets that have the Greek eye for friends, and a really nice gold ring that has an Alexander the Great coin on top. There were so many music stores throughout Athens and they all had beautiful, very expensive traditional instruments. Since we have a music room at home full of worldly instruments, I had to buy a bouzouki/baglama, a traditional Greek instrument that comes in many sizes and is in all of their music. I played a bigger one in my music class for fun and my teacher showed me some chords and structures. He studied with one of the greatest performers on the bouzouki so it was really cool learning from him! When I went in all of the music store, I would bargain around and try and find the best price for the best size and model. I finally found the perfect one for a great price in the 4th store that we went to. I even got a few picks that have the Acropolis on it and a case for free to go along with my new instrument! It’s a small version and is all black with white knobs. It is really pretty and I can’t wait to learn how to play it! I will bring it to class next time and maybe Dr. K can perform something on it or teach me more about this traditional Greek instrument! After shopping, we had about 2 hours to get back to Piraeus. We stopped and got gelato (you should’ve known this was coming) and I decided to get something really random for my last day- pistachio and watermelon. It sounds strange, but I think it’s my new favorite combination!

We hoped back on the train and it felt like forever to get back to Piraeus! This was probably because we were so tired and we knew it was the last time we’d be on public transportation stressing that we got to the right place. When we arrived, we saw a crepe shop and HAD to get one last Nutella crepe. I was talking about getting one all day long! We had about 30 minutes to walk a really far walk but we couldn’t resist this opportunity. Sadly, the lady making them took her sweet time and answered her phone and chatted while we waited for her to make our delicious crepe. It would have been alright if we weren’t in such a hurry! We walked pretty fast (probably looking ridiculous for all of Piraeus to see), while eating crepes with Nutella all over our faces. Once we got close to the ship, we had 5 minutes so we ran! We waited in a long line but got counted late by 4 MINUTES. This results in “dock time”, meaning we have to come back to the ship 3 HOURS early on the last day in Turkey. I think it’s a harsh punishment for 4 minutes but I can’t do anything about it. It was worth the Nutella crepe :)