Kyle’s Journey in Armenia

Better late then never, I wanted to share my experiences in the happy, wonderful country known as Greece. As you may have already guessed, I had a great time there and hope to make it back soon1. For those who don’t follow my musings regularly, 5 PCVs and I went to Greece to run the Athens Classic Marathon. As you can read about in my previous post, the marathon was great, interesting and challenging; I finished it, but it will probably be my last for a long while. I barely have the patience to sit and write a blog post, so you can imagine how 5 hours of running nearly drove me insane 🙂

Being said, our trip was split into three segments: pre-marathon rest in Athens, post-marathon groaning in Athens, and a true vacation on the island of Santorini. The first part was largely uneventful, although we did get to take the tram throughout Athens to the registration center. While the tram itself was forgettable, the surrounding businesses were not: we made it loudly clear that we were spoiled Americans deprived of luxury in the third world as we passed non-other than…

Yes, a western grocery store. Complete with cereal, kettle chips, salsa, you name it. And we bought it. And it tasted soooo good. So in between bowls of cheerios in our apartment, we visited the Parthenon, which looked like it was wearing braces from all the scaffolding. I have a disdain for reconstructed sites (such as Ephesus), and this, pun intended, ruined the experience for me. But here it is, in its steel-enclosed glory:

The rest of Athens was pretty nice, with some nice neighborhood restaurants, amazing road-side gyros, attacking pigeons, and a visit to the National Archeology Museum (whom we convinced we were still students by brandishing a Peace Corps ID – suckers!). The thing I enjoyed most was the friendliness of the people, and the genuine service you received there. Cars don’t honk or drive in the wrong lane/on sidewalks. Store owners help you and say thank you and don’t ask why you’re not married. And people don’t look at you funny as you walk down the street. The only thing I was disappointed about was the sheer amount of graffiti on everything, although this is probably a byproduct of the Olympics being there in 2004.  There was even graffiti in Armenian!! Speaking of the Olympics, we also dropped by the Olympic complex in the late evening. The whole place is huge, with so many stadiums, but you could still feel the energy of the Olympians in the air. It was breathtaking (unfortunately so much that I forgot to take pictures, so these will have to do).

Tuesday we decided to skip town and take the ferry boat to the island of Santorini. Santorini was blown apart by a volcano in the 16th century BC, and what remains is a beautiful caldera, picturesque white-washed houses with blue domed roofs, and one of the best sunsets I’ve ever seen. The ferry ride itself was quite comfortable – much like a modern cruise ship, without the bowling alleys. We found one hostel that was still open on the beach side of the island. Most of the island’s economy is tourism, and tourist season ends mid-October. While this did mean the tourist bars were shut, it did mean we had the place largely to ourselves, which was nice on our BRAND NEW FOUR-WHEELERS:

Ok so not quite new, but rented. We had two full days on the island, and we explored the whole thing! One of the coolest sites was the red sand beach, which was actually covered in sea-weed. We picnicked there one day, and the brave decided to swim in the not-so-warm Mediterranean.

The island is home to some really cool architecture and has some nice wineries, but mostly we explored the roads, ate delicious seafood, and waited for the sunset each night. We watched from two sides of the island – the first on the southern edge, near the lighthouse, and the second from famous Oia (which as you can see from this picture is usually packed). We had the place to ourselves, and the views were really all they were cracked up to be:

Overall, it was an amazingly relaxed vacation, and a great break after the hustle and bustle of Our City. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and that end was boarding the 40 year-old Russian plane at 1:30 in the morning back to Armenia, not sleeping, losing my voice, and waiting in a cold bus station for 2 hours for my 4 hour bus ride home. Of course I’m happy to be back, but I think the pilot on the way home summed up how bittersweet it is by saying, “We’ve now arrived in Yerevan. The temperature is 1 degree. Welcome home.” Touche.

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