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I am currently so tired it's a little ridiculous, so my apologies if my blog this week doesn't make too much sense. I've basically spent all of today in bed (looking up possible flights to Amsterdam, Rome, Paris, Prague and Budapest) since I haven't really slept more than an hour or two for the past week. Yesterday, we got back from Crete at about 6 in the morning and got to Athens around 7ish but I decided to stay up for the rest of the morning which turned out to be a terrible idea when I fell asleep at my friend's apartment for a movie marathon/birthday pregame next door.

Crete was absolutely incredible. I didn't want to leave until I remembered that I'm going to Munich next weekend (assuming the air traffic controllers aren't on strike still). There was so much to do and see: archaeological sites, ports and fishing villages, shopping, great restaurants, bars, shopping, lighthouses, castle-like places, shopping, etc.

We got there at around 7:30 in the morning and my bus went immediately to the site of Knossos, probably the most important site for Minoan culture.

A lot of it is reconstructed and it's super crowded so it's basically like the Disney World of ancient Greek sites. It was interesting but so filled with tourists and none of us had slept on the boat ride over so it was a little tough to enjoy. After Knossos, we went to the town of Heraklio and had lunch and visited the Archaeological Museum which housed many of the famous artifacts and frescoes found at Knossos.

 Minoan art was often unstructured, asymmetrical and naturalistic like this octopus vase.

 The famous snake goddesses found in a store room in Knossos.

 A boar's tusk helmet (similar to the ones described by Homer in the Iliad)

 The actual fragments of the bull leaping fresco (there's a reconstruction where they found it in Knossos)

Statues of Hades with Cerberus and Isis/Persephone. These two goddesses were often combined and both the placement with Hades and the headdress (half-moon is a symbol of Isis) show aspects of each.

Of course, my favorite part of the museum? The friend I made outside:

After the museum we went on a walking tour down to the harbor and were released from there to do whatever. We went back to our hotel for siestas (one of my favorite parts of Greek culture) and to clean up for dinner. While we were hanging out in our room though, we kept hearing all this barking. I looked out of our glass doors onto our 5th (American 6th) floor patio and found a puppy!

We had absolutely no clue how it had gotten there but it was trying to get to the dogs across the street. She was adorable and played with us for a while. We eventually figured out that there was a random shirtless man skulking around on the roof next door and that the dog was probably his but he wouldn't respond to us when we called him. Eventually he came and got her though and we just made sure to lock our doors that night.

After dinner, we went into a bar a few girls had stopped into earlier in the day and hung out there. It was just a few of us at first but as the night progressed, more and more CYA-ers showed up and we took over the entire bar. It was really fun and I made best friends with the bartender. Also, the bathroom was basically the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets:

(I'm holding the Elder Wand -one girl got in a sword fight with the bartender with some decorations which is how we got the wands- in that... Yeah we're nerds)

The next day, we went to Phaestos which is another major Minoan site. We were supposed to go to Gortyn and Kommos also but as it was the first day of fall (the wet season), it started to rain and we were spared.

Instead, we went straight to Matala for lunch and swimming. Matala was really cool and is apparently somewhat of a hippie colony. Hippies used to gather and stay in the caves up in the cliffs and they still come back each year (although now the head of archaeology has sectioned off the part of the cliffs with caves in them). We got to go swimming which was fun but resulted in numerous near drownings for me because of the huge waves.

Afterwards, we had the evening free and hung around in Heraklio some more although this time only my bus was left. The other two buses had already moved on to the next town. The next day it rained again so we saw one museum and one site, although we were supposed to go to Archanes, Fourni and Vathypetro. I'm actually not sure which place we saw (whoops). We had lunch and shopped in a little touristy town though which was nice.

(this is a wine/olive press from the one site we did make it to)

And this is the view. Basically all of Crete is this epically beautiful.

Afterwards we went to the Arkadi monastery which isn't ancient but is basically like the Cretan equivalent of the Alamo. It's really interesting but I'm too tired to explain its history and significance to Crete but here's the wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkadi_Monastery.
And here's a picture:

The next day we were supposed to go to Samaria Gorge but because of the rain it was too dangerous. This was unfortunate because it would have been really cool to go but also it meant that we didn't have to be woken up at 5:30 in the morning and hike like 10 miles. So instead, we all got our exercise by once again going out and taking over all the clubs in town. We danced basically all night and my legs STILL hurt. The next day, instead of going to the gorge, we went to a Pirate port(?) and then were let go for lunch.

Then we had the rest of the day free to wander and shop until our 7pm ferry ride. My friends I shared a cabin with and I all wanted to go up and explore our boat (the one we rode on the way over was really cool and had bars, shops and a casino) but as soon as we sat down in our beds we passed out. Thankfully, I woke up at around 4:30 and turned off the lights and remembered to set an alarm (we were supposed to get there by 6am).

So, that's my Crete trip pretty much. Now I just have to make it through one more week of class and then I'm off to Munich!