Yamas!

Thursday night, my friends and I decided that we needed to celebrate the long weekend. So how do you do that in Greece? You eat! We walked down to the taverna by the ocean and ordered saganaki (fried cheese), Greek salad, meatballs and fries. Everything was delicious! The manager sat and chatted with us while we defended our food from flies and beetles. In fact, one beetle got so aggressive that it decided to attack and flew in my face, hitting me right on the lips! EEK! Our new friend Jack, the most loyal and friendly dog on the island, sat and ate with us. Then, our dinner turned into an evening of music and dancing! We received a free half kilo of this rum and honey that smelled like old lady perfume but had a very sweet after taste. For all the Americans back home don't worry, I'll try to get the name of this so you all can have a taste! The manager let us plug in our friend's ipod and we sang and danced. Then, we left, started walking towards the Shark Club, ran into our teachers who were heading to the taverna so we decided hey! We should join them! So we walked all the way back while I chatted it up with Pam Houston. Well as it turns out, the taverna had closed in our absence so we turned right back around and a few of us left for the Shark Club where we started the dance party! We had a grand old time and I even got to bust out my Spanish and Greek while talking to a Brazilian guy! I felt so smart and talented until I remembered that people from Brazil don't speak Spanish, they speak Portuguese...whoops! Jack stayed the whole night and kept a look out for his new favorite owners. Jack escorted us back and slept right outside our door after we fed him some cheese and crackers. He's such a perfect dog :) We were woken up around 11am the next morning by Aliki asking us if we wanted to travel to Sikamia and visit a monastery! So, we gathered up some water and powerade, and forced ourselves into the rickety van. We arrived at a monastery that was built in 1400 and it was absolutely beautiful! There is one monk who lives there by himself who was very quiet but also very friendly. After roaming around for about 45 minutes, we left for the beaches of Sikamia at 12:30 and didn't leave until 7:30! During that time, we swam in the ocean, some girls went snorkeling, and we had a delicious lunch of stuffed zucchini, saganaki, and meatballs. For dessert, we were brought fresh from the garden watermelon! That night, I enjoyed my lucky number 7th gyro!! Don't think I'll ever get tired of those things! All in all, it was an exhausting but beautiful day!