I apologize in advance for the length of this post...
The last hotel we were at had terrible wifi that would barely even connect, so I was hesitant to start a post only for it to get deleted or something. But now we have a 5+ hour layover in Thessaloniki (not Athens, as we thought) with internet! So that's exciting.
Since my last post, we have left Athens and stayed on two different islands: Mykonos and Santorini. These both have distinct and different roles in the Greek islands, but both are very touristy and popular. Mykonos is known for the beach and the partying. Santorini is known for its sunsets and smaller scale and more relaxed environment.
Mykonos started off slightly bumpy. After we got off the ferry, a man with our name on it met us to take us to our hotel. He informed us that our hotel had been changed, without notifying us, by our travel agency. All of the adults were extremely frustrated and infuriated by this, and I just felt bad for the way that they were all yelling at this poor man who literally had no idea what was going on, or anything about our hotel. He was simply the messenger. This exchange made me realize how lucky we are to have so many people working for us and trying to help us on our trip, and we should have appreciated more what they were doing, rather than yelling at them. We were brought to the new hotel, whose staff was some of the nicest people I've ever met, especially here on the trip. They even helped us to try and get our reservation back at the original hotel. We ended up staying there, and it was great. It wasn't on the beach like the other one, but the service was amazing and the rooms were awesome. The people were so incredibly gracious each and every day. The travel agency felt bad about the mix up, and so they offered us a couple of free things at our next stop, which wouldn't have been able to happen without the mix up, and turned out to be incredible. I'll talk about that later :)
We took yet another boat to Santorini, and drove up steep steep cliffs until arriving in Oia, the town where our hotel was. There are literally so many steps you have to take to get everywhere, and the car couldn't take us directly to the hotel. There are beautiful white buildings everywhere, and many churches with blue domed roofs, just like the pictures. We relaxed the first day and then the next day, we left to take a tour around the island, given to us by the travel agency. A man named Gabriel picked us up and said "ok. Do you all want the tourist way or the traveler way?" We said traveler, and we looked forward to a day of seeing authentic parts of the island. Gabriel talked the whole drive about Greece and Santorini's history. The three hour tour was amazing, we drove from one end of the island to the other, and stopped at various points to take pictures.
At the end Gabriel talked about so many cool things to reflect on! The first was about how Turks and other immigrants coming into Greece, especially to Athens, are blamed for the high crime rate. This reminded me of the United States and its treatment of Mexican and other Latin Americans that are coming into the U.S. The profiling going on is terrible, and i'm sure something similar happens in Greece in order to "prevent crime". Gabriel stated that because of Greece's economic situation, people have no choice but to steal in order to feed their families, which happens in any country where there are immigrants or even natives without good jobs.
He also talked about how children are taught to think of Turks in schools and by their parents, and how when he went to Turkey when he was little, he was expecting to hate it, and was pleasantly surprised on the fact that the Turks he met were literally not monsters, because that's what he had bee taught. He talked about how the media sometimes portrays the same thing, and again, I couldn't help but think of the US-Mexico border. It's amazing how even halfway around the world, an issue so great can be so identical. He also talked about how one should trust their own eyes, and not depend on what other people say. This is a practice that I choose to use at Hendrix, and try to encourage my peers to do the same. Because Hendrix is so small, you are bound to have heard about every student and every teacher in some form through word of mouth. Before I make a judgment about someone, I meet them myself or take the class that I've told was "horrible". There are some people that others talk about that I refuse to listen to their input on them because I know them myself and even if they have been "mean" to others, they are always nice to me. He also said how there are good and bad people all over the world, and sometimes politicians make a bad name for a whole group. I could not believe how accurate that statement was for the United States.
I am starting to discover that as much as I appreciate staying at nice places and eating at expensive restaurants, it is not giving me the travel experience I yearn to have. My parents enjoy luxury, and they're lucky enough to have enough to be able to live in the lap of luxury every time we travel. I think I prefer cultural experiences where I can create relationships with people, and the luxury aspect isn't as exciting to me as it used to be. Something else to think about when traveling- what are your goals for travel and also, what should the role of travel be? I think tourism has become huge and yes, it helps economies, but I don't think it gives people the experience they could potentially have in a less- touristy location.
We'll be in Istanbul tonight- I'll probably post when I get to Madrid on Tuesday or on Wednesday!
-Anna
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