Frog legs, Milk and Beach!

Yassas!! Recently here in good ol' Ioannina, we have been blessed with beautiful weather and have been taking advantage of it. This past weekend we went to the Ioanian Island spent the entire day shopping and getting lost around town. We tried some hookah and even ate FROG LEGS!! Today we had a field trip to the Dodoni Milk Industry who makes World Winning Feta Cheese! It is definitely good stuff. We got to go to the beach and go swimming in the Ioannina Sea and have been enjoying the night life here in Ioannina. Hope you enjoy the pictures and don't forget to keep in touch!

Dodoni

Recently in Ioannina...

Today we had an excursion to Dodoni. It's an ancient Greek theater which is beautiful. One of the girls in the program has an amazing voice so she gave us a little performance... don't worry I recorded it! The acoustics were amazing!! Other than that we just found out that we're going to be televised here in Greece! We'll be video recorded in our Greek class and Traditional Greek Dance class to show the progress of the spreading Hellenic culture. We'll be getting a copy of the program so perhaps I'll be able to post it online. Otherwise I'm just having a good time here in good ol' Ioannina and working on my classes.

Thanks for stopping by!!









The Oak Tree used by the Oracle!!





And of course, the theater itself!

Italy - Part One

Ciao!

Well, I'm officially back from Italy. It was an intense four hour train ride followed by a 15 hour boat ride -back to back. Anyways, we finally made it back to Ioannina and could not be happier. Overall, the ten day trip to Italy was extremely successful and I had the time of my life, I couldn't ask for anything more and would not change any part of the trip. These are some of the pictures. I will post the rest when I get them from everyone else's cameras!!

On April 4th we drove down to Igoumenitsa (2 hours) then took a 12 hour ferry ride to Bari, the Southern Coast of Italy. After arriving in Bari we took a bus to the train station which took us to Naples in 7 hours. You could say it was a LONG day of traveling. After arriving in Naples we checked in to our hostel and had dinner at a cute Italian restaurant next door. We each had our own pizzas which were amazing and then of course, gelato (Italian ice cream). We stayed in an outskirt of Naples which was nice because Naples is a little sketchy. The next morning we took a day trip to Pompei which was a short metro ride away. It took us all day to get through but was definitely worth it!

Here is a picture in Pompei with Mt. Vesuvius in the background.

Once again in Pompei

Hanging out behind the columns in a forum with Katie

It was unbelievable to see how much of Pompei is restored! Walking around with a map, headphones and a camera is not as easy as I thought!

As it turns out - 80% of Rome is still underground because over the years they have built the city up. It's amazing to know that wherever you walk, there was life right beneath your feet.

You can only imagine how excited we were to see the Colliseum for the first time!
- It turns out, the Colliseum is lit up every night when a person is put to death due to capital punishment. I guess you could say - thanks to Texas we get to see the Colliseum lit nearly every night!

The Roman Forum from Palatine Hill where the story of Romulus and Remus occurred and Rome was found. We also got to see Julius Caesars' memorial and so much history!

The Italians love to eat! Their dinners consist four courses! I thought this was bad, but originally, 55 courses were eaten over 16 hours!!! It was considered to treason to reject any spec of food. They had a vomit room so the could keep forcing food down. Can you imagine?!This is picture was taken when we accidentally found the Vatican. You can only imagine how excited and shocked we were. The Chapel is the highest point in Rome, because they are so superstitious no building is allowed to surpass the highest point of the Chapel. The best part of Italy is accidentally running in to places. Anywhere you go you find something unbelievable and then realize how huge it is!

The Vatican Easter Morning! Sunday morning we woke up really early to change hostels - it was impossible to find a hostel for all three nights so we had to switch a few times. After finding our new hostel we ran straight to the Vatican where we stood for four hours and watched the Pope give mass. There were over 30,000 people, even though the Vatican can hold 300,000. I video recorded some parts and as soon as I figure out how to upload them I will post them immediately. Even though I am not Catholic it was an amazing experience and definitely and once in a life time opportunity.

Just a gist of Mass.


That's the Pope in the window in the middle!!


Luckily they had big screen TVs so we were able to catch most of it.


Couldn't leave without posing in front of the Bascillica


Image as we were leaving


Fountain in front of the Vatican


This was our view when we had our picnic our first night in Rome!!! We decided that it was too expensive to keep eating out so we found a grocery store and bought crackers, salami, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and chocolate. We started wondering and found a beautiful park where we sat and made our own dinner and just enjoyed the few. I also bought three bananas and could not have eaten them any faster. If you could only imagine how amazing it was to have fruit and something other than pizza and cheese!!


The Trevi Fountain


Once again - Trevi Fountain

I was really fascinated with the story behind the Trevi Fountain. There are no pumps nor any electricity to run this fountain. It was formed on a spring of water found by an eleven year old virgin. After the fountain was formed based on the spring, a rich young women was found murdered. She went by Caterina. It was said that Caterina's ghost haunted the fountain walking across the second floor every night waiting for her murder to walk by so she could point him out. It turns out, out of curiosity Caterina's husband walked by and the ghost pointed to him, he immediately ran and was found guilty - obviously because he ran. It turns out it was Caterina's niece who looked a lot like her. However, since the the window where she was last seen was completely covered because people would stare the window rather than at service held at the fountain.



The Trevi fountain is lit up at night! It's unbelievable.


After Rome we took a train to Pisa and got there late a night. The next morning we went straight to the leaning tower and left immediately to Florence!

The leaning tower is pretty cool but besides the tower, Pisa does not have much to offer.


In Florence, we had to wait three hours to get inside to the see the David! As you can tell, we had to get creative!

And of course I had to sneak this one in. We got in trouble for taking this picture so I hope you all enjoy it. By no means does it do the piece justice, but it gives you a slight idea. If only you saw how accurate each detail is on the statue. From head to toe, this piece is unbelievable!

I can't believe how much we saw in such little time. We walked from morning to night and spent many nights dancing the night away. We ate amazing pizza and snacked on the best ice cream in the entire world. We had tours of the Colliseum, the Palatine Hill, the Vatican, Rome at night, the Roman Forum and so much more! I cannot believe how much I learned. We were blessed with the most beautiful weather and wore tank tops nearly ever day. I saw the heart of Italy and cannot wait to go back and see more! These pictures do not give the trip justice by any means, if only you could imagine!

I will post more pictures ASAP!