Trip to Athens!!

This past weekend I did something a little different compared to my last couple trips. I had the privilege to travel to another country; this past weekend’s destination was…Athens, Greece!!My friends and I did many things here. One of the things that I felt was worth the money was a food tour of Greece. We chose a budget friendly tour which was under $50 and lasted almost 3 hours. During this tour I tried many different foods that I would have probably never tried on my own. These include spanakopita, souvlaki, shawarma wraps in a pita bread (this was by far my favorite), and for dessert we had mystique flavored ice cream and liquor which had a different type of taste to it. The tour guide went in depth with everything we tried from its history and how it’s made which made time go really fast. We were so full we decided to walk back to our room to help the food digest faster. After this we walked around Athens center where we saw many different local businesses, this included leather shops, jewelry stores, bars, many types of restaurants, and even a haunted house which my friends and I did that night. The next day we decided to go to the Acropolis. Surprisingly it was really hot there. I had gotten used to the cold in Italy and I wasn’t prepared for the heat of Athens but it felt nice to feel the sun after weeks of freezing cold weather. We later went for Mexican food for brunch which was a little weird considering we were in Greece but I really wanted to see how Greek portrayed Mexican food tasted like. I was not disappointed by it , they even had carnitas tacos which caught me by surprise, but I was really happy to have food that reminded me of home. Before leaving Greece we went souvenir shopping which was really fun, especially because the souvenirs were really cheap and beautiful. We all regret not staying an extra day in Athens but were happy to go back home after having a lot of fun. This is one of the coolest destinations I have been to so far during my study abroad program. One of the coolest things about being in Europe is how cheap it is to travel to other countries compared to the US. If you stick to a budget you can travel and get a place to stay for under $100. Athens is one of those destinations that is overall affordable to visit especially on a college student budget. One of the things I do think you should do if you’re traveling to another country from your study abroad country is plan your transportation to and from the airport or bus station you’re going to take. Something I learned was that you should always plan to leave a couple hours before your plane takes off because you never know what’s going to happen, your bus could be late, there could be no taxis available at the time you’re trying to leave, and other obstacles. It’s always better to be early to your departure area than late, which happened to my friends and I. We didn’t miss our flight but having to speed through the airport doesn’t make it any fun