My journey to Greece was long, I flew through Madrid, over there I was there for a day, and I did not waste any time. I freshened up, left the airport via metro, then found an E-scooter, rented it and drove around Madrid, I went to see the Royal Palace of Madrid and a Museum/ Gallery of the collections. It was gorgeous. After that I walked around the city and ended up having a vegan paella (no, I am not vegan, just allergic to shellfish). Did some more walking after that and went to a bar called ‘Salmon Guru’, most of my time there was spent enjoying those cocktails and talking to the bartenders. I took the train back to the airport and got on my flight.
When I landed in Athens, I convinced Nia to go to Santorini for the day, I did mention this in my pre departure blog but that island is stunning, we went to the beach, rode on an ATV, walked around (a lot).
My first day in Greece with the group was really fun, however, Nia and I got back from Santorini pretty late and we were working on some of the assignments. The morning was rough as I woke up really late and missed the check out time. After we checked out, we asked the front desk agent for a recommendation, trying to find the joint she told us about, we got confused and ended up somewhere else. Regardless it was amazing food, I tried greek coffee for the first time, it was AMAZING. After we then walked around the area and found a cute cafe/ wine bar. Tried a greek sparkling rose from the KirYianni Winery… Divine. The area we were in was cute and had many shops and restaurants.
Some texts stated coming in the group chat that we could have an early check in. Nia rushed me out because she wanted to go back and sleep, low and behold she made me unpack and organise the room before dinner.
We all met in the lobby for an orientation and then headed out for dinner about a ten minute walk from the hotel. The name of the place was L’Amiral. The appetizers were really good, we had bread with an delicious olive dip, babaganoush and hummus, for entree we had a chicken with an orange sauce, it was good, part of my chicken seemed too soft. Other than the olive dip the highlight of this dinner was the dessert, which was a frozen yoghurt atop a cake with oranges and phyllo. The hot topic of the table was the bar we were going to go to and the hike that we were supposed to do. There was a long debate.
After dinner, a couple of us went to a bar called Baba au Rhum, a bar that is highly rated. I had a cocktail that had cheese as a garnish, it was interesting. We were all tired after that and called it a night after reaching the hotel.