my greece trip 2024!

so i went on this trip for my school's special programs, so it was with a group of around 17 students, and three teachers :-) we went to athens first, then to a couple towns in crete, and then back to athens! it was really fun sightseeing and walking around everywhere, and it was also my first time traveling outside the United States! It was also odd to be around the same people for so long, but we managed ☺

3/20/24 - 3/22/24, the trip there

so it was a 12 hour flight to istanbul, with a one-hour layover into athens. the flight left 2 hours late. so, naturally, we missed our layover :( then we had to stay in the istanbul airport for 12 hours, because the next flight that had 20 seats open was at 2am! fun! after already being sleep deprived on the flight there, everyone had started to slowly become delirious... we also got some food vouchers for free, and i foudn out one of the juniors on the trip went to my elementary school! crazay! she knew my sister,, but not me because i hadn't transitioned yet (and i would never tell her my deadname...)

other than that the flights were good, i had never been on a flight for that long so it was definitely weird, but we ended up missing our first day and getting into athens at around 4am ! so i got 4/5 hours of sleep that night :-)

3/22/24

3/23/24

waking up in heraklion, me and my friend lila were late leaving our room :( i think its fine if i mentuion her name, i roomed with her and we spent practically the whole trip togetger.. shes super nice ^_^ anyways the breakfast was a bit small, and we went to knossos, a ruins site with a palace and the oldest paved road in europe! there was also a museum nearby that was very beautiful to see :-) later that day we went back to that same square that we had breakfast in, and it was alot more crowded! later we also went shopping, and i bought a very pretty necklace !! then we drove to axos, which is where we'd be staying for 3 nights... very gorgeous it was probably my favorite leg of the trip..

that night we went down to the town square and explored for a little bit! it's a pretty small town, with only 727 people living there, so we felt pretty safe :-) you could see the stars really well, and we went to some cornerstores too !! there were a few things, like these guys were speeding up and down this street and honking at us, and also there was a stray dog that was running at us :( but other than that it was really fun! that night we also talked a lot and i found out she might start dating our friend, so that's crazy!! i also told her ab some stuff that happened earlier in the year, and i kind of regret it now :( but its okay thats jst life ^_^!

3/24/24

this day we went down to rethymno, and it was GORGEOUS!!! the water was so clear, and the town was so beautifuL! i forgot what we did that mornig, but in the afternoon we went to a crepe place for lunch and then waded in the water! i collected a lot of seashells that i later gave to my sister! we went to some jewelerys tores too, but we didn't have time to go to a filo dough place :( but its okay because on the drive back i finally listened to kimono my house by sparks and it was really good!! me & lila walked around axos some more that day, and later we washed some clothes in the sink but it took way too long since we could'nt figure out how to drain the sink :( the shower in our room was also really weird, its a 'wet shower' but neither of us had ever used one before, so it was really weird... i also bought some candy for souvenirs and also for myself!

3/25/24

on this day we went to a local farm and made cheese! we saw lots of sheep and it was rlly cute :-) we had to milk goats but i didnt do any, and then the guy put like 15L of goat milk into a pot and boiled it, and then put like 1L of vinegar so it turned to curds ! it was really yummy! then we made some lunch and some cheese pie thingys! afterwards we went back to the hotel and rested for a while, lila did my makeup and we watched some of buffy the vampire slayer! we then went to a woodworking shop and i bought a coaster with some resin for my mother!

3/26/24

on this day we went to chaina! we stopped at an olive mill and a monastery, where i bought 100mL of olive oil at both places :-) one for my mother, and one for my girlfriend's parents! the monestary was really beaufitul, i couldn't take phhotos inside the building but there was also an orange tree orchard !!! then we went to a botanical garden and it was goregous! apparently they have plants for all different climates, and its the only garden in all of europe that has that ^_^ sadly we couldnt walk thru all of it, because we had to get to our hotel!

that evening me & lila explored chaina a little! we went to a thrift store and i saw a spice girls CD there! i bought a laser pointer there and we played with some of the street cats there and it was super cute ^_^ the town was so pretty, and the water there was also very clear! we also got gelato for free later!!!

3/27/24

this morning we took a jet back to athens! it was only an hour long flight, but before this I had never seen an airport so small! after landing in the mainland, we drove a while and then went to the temple of poseidon! it was so beautiful!!!! that was another place i was really looking forward to going, and we took lots of photos :-) in the photo i included i'm the one second to the right, wearing cargo pants ^_^ U can barely see me though because my hair covers my face... it was so windy there.. On the way back to our hotel on athens i redesigned my homescreen, and played lila figure 8 by elliott smith!! she really liked it :-) we also walked around town laterr, and i think that day we made paper pins at a crafts cafe!gfvbfvbfvbfvbfvbfvbfvbfvbfvbfvbfvbfvbfvbfvbfvbfvbfvbfvbfvbfvbfvbfvb ⇦ that was my cat but i dont wanna delete it.. i also don't remember nthe names of any of the places we went to, so if i ever find out i'll definitely put them!

3/28/24

this was our last full day in greece! in the morning we saw the changing of the guard at parliment, and learned about how everyone in greece is requried to do a year in the military unless they have a way out... our tour guide got out because she went into univeristy, and her friend that we met got out ended up doing a year in the navy at an office job?? odd to think about that ,, becuase in america its totlaly optional... anyways her friend Angel walked us through this neighborhood that was suffering from gentrification, and he talked about pollice brutality in greece and how a 15yo (MY AGE) boy named Alexandros Grigoropoulos was killed by police in 2008 and all the riots that happened after that in that area,,, it made me cry to see the memorial and i did tear up jst now thinking about it... again i know about all the problems with police in the US but nothing over there, its very awful that its been happening :( for lunch we got gyros for the second day in a row, and two people i was with ended up ordering beers and they weren;t even carded,,, i did have a few sips and it was jsut as bad as i remember... then they started acting like they were all tipsy and it got kind of old... going shopping afterwards was fun though! i got a magnet for my grandma :-) later that day we went to a zine place and we all made zines! i made mine about the trip i was on :-) i didn't end up finishing it though... ill put the scans here though!

for dinner i finally ended up having hummus!!! it was also the day before someone on the trips 18th birthday, so we all sung him happy birthday and i ended up being in a polaroid he took of his friends! i don;t know why i was in it considering i barely talked to him thugh... but it was fun and walking back to the hotel was fun too! i think on this day me and lila were talking to people on the street from the balcony in our hotel,a dn we started waving at a guy across the street from our balcony and he waved back! it was really fun :-)

3/29/24

we woke up at 5:30am! to get to the airport! however me and lila forgot that we were supposed to leave at 6:15 and not 6:30, so we held up our entire group for 15 minutes... oops... anyways the flight back was good, i watched like a whole season of the good place and listened to music with her :-) i played her some TMBG, oingo boingo, and some talking heads too ^_^ she ended up liking she's an angel so thats great! we also did almost miss our layover back to cali, and we had to go through security twice at istanbul because america has stricter policy :( and i also got misgendered a lot in the process :( but its okay it happens... it was nice going home again, and when i stepped out the airport it was much windier and colder than it was in greece...

all in all it was a very nice trip though, and i'm very happy i went onit!!! i learned a lot about greece and just life outside america,, and i feel really lucky iwas able to go on it!!! im rlly gonna miss it though... thank U for reading about it!!!