Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Mycenae and Nafplio and Tolo, etc.

I am not as exhausted today. 

Yesterday I seriously passed out right after I posted that blog (8:30, y'all!), so I'm a bit scared to reread it. Who knows what I posted?! 

 Today I'm not as tired because I fell asleep at 8:30 last night and slept 9 hours despite waking up at some point in the middle of the night to a massive charley horse. So much I woke up and yelped. It twinged throughout the night and into the morning, but it's aight now, probably because I've driven most of today and only walked like 4 miles instead of 10 or whatever.

 So today! Maybe I'll do an hour-by-hour recap to see if I can write more, like, how time goes... 7 a.m.: Breakfast. Two toasts with strawberry jelly, an egg, and some Greek yogurt and peaches. And two cups of coffee with all creamer and sugar. 

 8:00 a.m.: 8:50 a.m. To be exact. Our car rental driver showed up and dropped us off at the car rental place to sign papers. Then I drove us to the highway and out of athens. I went in planning to be a "defensive" driver because I hear Greek drivers are crazy. I became an "aggressive" driver. I no longer follow speed limits or drive in my lane. I like to take up two lanes now. Maybe tomorrow I will try passing people on winding curds and in no passing zones, eh? Today I did a few three point turns and random side of the road stops. So baby steps!

 9:00 a.m.: Pee stop one. 

 10:00 a.m.: I noticed our hood wasn't properly latched so after my mom's insistence (nagging), we stopped at a gas station and they were so nice and put some greaser or something on the latch and it worked! For free. I also got my first Greek coffee. Something called a...um...freddio? Something? It was better than German coffees. They had alcohol at the coffee counter so I had a short moment where I worried they'd put Baileys in my coffee because the ingredients of the freddio were in Greek so I was ordering blindly. So I sniffed it before I tasted it. Definitely no alcohol and it tasted like an iced mocha. Win!

 11:00 a.m.: We finally arrived in Mycenae at about 11:40 a.m. It's in the middle of what felt like nowhere, but there were hooooards of tour groups milling around like ants. I kept trying to dodge them. Not as impressive as the Atropolis in Athens but cool. You have a great view of Nafplio from there! I posed with rocks. 

 12:00 p.m.: Still in Mycenae.

 1:00 p.m.: Lunch. Coke. Two cherries. An apple. And Lays potato chips I bought at a vendor in Mycenae. 

 2:00 p.m.: We have our first and only driving confusion when I followed signs to Epidaurus. There's the ancient theater Epidaurus and a new town called Epidaurus and Rick Steves says to be careful not to go to the new town, so when I didn't see the town near the THEATER Epidaurus on the winding road we were following, I thought mane we were going the wrong way. So we tracked back to Nafplio. Turns out I was right, though. The road was right. We're just gonna go there tomorrow. 

 3:00 p.m.: We arrive in Nafplio and Rick Steves wins again! IT. IS. LOVELY. Beautiful streets, a beautiful fortress at the top of tons and tons of stairs (I wasn't allowed to climb...), beautiful ocean. Lovely. 

 4:00 p.m.: We drive to our hotel in Tolo. Beautiful view! I plan to spend tomorrow morning before Epidaurus Part 2 at the beach. Wee!

 5:00 p.m.: Back to Nafplio for dinner. I am not adventurous and got chicken souvlaki and a Greek salad again.

 6:00 p.m.: Wander around Nafplio. 

 7:00 p.m.: On the way back to Tolo we stopped for baklava. The piece was huge and delicious. I could only egg a few bites. 

 And now here I am typing this blog post. I am too annoyed with the iPad keyboard to type anymore tonight, but I'll do a picture post in a second.

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