July 15th

Today we woke up and caught the bus to Cape Sounio. The bus ride was long, but beautiful. It wound along the coastline and you could see all the Greeks enjoying the beaches everywhere! The cape had a great view and it was so awesome. We ate lunch at the rip-off restaurant at the cape (there were no other places) and then explored the Temple of Poseidon and the other hilltop. Both overlook the beautiful sea and it was really cool. We took lots of pictures and decided we didn't want to wait so many hours for the sunset, as the buses stopped running at 9 and there was nothing else to do at the cape to keep us occupied. We caught the bus back and then walked around Athens some. We tried to meet up with Kostas for dinner again, but we never made it. We tried to walk to Omonia Square to find a bus ticket kiosk to ask someone which bus to catch from there, but no one was there and no one at the stop would help us. So we checked the stop names on the lines there for our stop and couldn't find it. Then we looked at another bus stop going the other way near there and still couldn't find the stop name. Then we followed the other set of directions he gave us, and took the metro to the Evangelismos stop and found the bus number he told us to get on, 224. We asked the bus driver if it went there and he said yes and no multiple times, so being optimistic we went with yes. We rode 224 in the right direction for a while and never aw the stop, so eventually we asked people on the bus for help. There was a lot of greek chatter until someone came up and tried to help in broken English. We wrote the stop name for her and she said "OOH" and then talked to the bus driver. Both of them said it wasn't on that bus line. So she helped us to the bus stop going the opposite way. We were already late for dinner, so we were about to text Kostas to tell him what had happened, and Ryan's phone died. So we had to just wait for the bus 224 again, and took it back to the metro and then back to the hotel. With Ryan's phone plugged in, we texted and e-mailed him and then went out to dinner since we were so hungry. We had a terribly frustrating time. UGH.

July 16th

This morning we headed out in search of terminal B so we could get a bus to Delphi. We took the metro closest to the terminal and then walked from there. We walked for a long time, but eventually made it to the stop. We bought our tickets and then ate lunch and played cards. The ride to Delphi was 3.5 hours, but luckily the bus driver stopped at a hotel for us to have a break JUST when I was about to pop. We got to Delphi, and since we couldn't find any room in the few hotels on Hostelworld and had decided to wing it, we started walking toward the thousands of hotels around. The first hotel we came to gave us basically a 50% room discount and we got the double private ensuite hotel room for just 34 euro (what we've been paying elsewhere for a 4 person dorm ensuite). We were really happy with the price and the look of the room, so we stayed. We spent the rest of the day walking the few streets of Delphi and explored some of the shops along the way. We were finished with the town in about an hour, so we came back, took showers and headed to dinner. We ate at a restaurant that had menu specials and we had Sole fillets, Mousaka (like eggplant lasagna), homemade wine, greek salads and desserts for a good price. Our table was near the balcony that was open to a great view of the mountains, lake and valley below Delphi. Our room at the hotel has a good view too, but this one was certainly better. We watched the sun set during dinner and then watched it turn to night and watched the stars come out over a beer and coffee at the cafe bar next door.

July 17th

This morning I woke up early and ate a little breakfast from the buffet (which the hotel owner's wife discounted for me). I got onto the hotel's internet and checked my e-mail to see that Jenna and Justine (Phi Rho Alum from another chapter, traveling Europe) had e-mailed me yesterday saying they were in Athens and thinking about doing Delphi today. I called them and they caught the 10:30 bus here so we can all go see the ruins together today. We all had lunch together and walked around the ruins of Delphi. It was so nice to meet people so close to home and Phi Rhos! The ruins were really cool. There was a big stadium, the temple of Apollo and the temple of Athena and some treasuries. After Jenna and Justine had to catch the bu back to Athens, Ryan and I went to the museum. We decided it was the best museum we'd been to. There was a huge sphinx that used to sit on top of a very tall column in the middle of the city to protect the oracle from evil. It was SO beautiful! In the museum, we saw all the decoration that went with the temples and treasuries as well as neat treasure they found buried under the marble floor near a temple. There were miniature carvings that were amazing and lots of great artisan craftmanship. Also in the museum was a bronze statue, very well preserved (buried during an earthquake and hidden from looters), that was the driver of a much larger bronze chariot with horses. Also, a column top that held an egg shaped thing that is supposed to mark the center of the universe at the top, was gorgeous and had three dancers sculpted who held up the egg. It was really neat. We loved the museum. We came back into town, spent lots of money on souvenirs (including a gorgeous olive wood ladle for us) and ate a cheap but delicious dinner of gyro pitas. In the morning, we're heading out to Thessaloniki!