Hiking (on a real path!)

This morning my roommate Michelle and I slept in, and when we woke up we realized we both had 1 orange and nothing else food-wise. We were hoping the little cafeteria in the next building would be open, so we threw on some sweats and walked over. The building and cafeteria were full of people who were dressed considerably more nicely than we were, so we didn’t stay too long, but I got a yummy sandwich. Michelle can’t eat wheat so she had coffee.
Then, we met up with some of the other girls on the program and went on a hike. At the top of the hill behind our school, there’s a road to go up to an old monastery, but the road continues a lot farther up as well. We walked for a long time and encountered 3 or 4 different old stone ruins, which were beautiful. None of them had any signs or information posted, but I’m hoping my teachers know about Ioannina history because I’m curious why they were built. We actually got pretty tired from the hike but it was beautiful and sunny, and we enjoyed it a lot.



We came back to the dorm briefly to get lots of cold water and money, and then we walked over to Carrefour, the local K-mart, to get groceries. It’s just a mile down the road so we walked there, and we were all starving so we ate in the café they have just outside the store. I paid 2 euros for a fabulous pita gyro with chicken, onions, tomatoes, French fries and tzatziki inside. It was SO good. Then we bought lots of groceries, and I’ve now officially braved the cheese aisle, the milk aisle, AND the yogurt aisle, although I haven’t tried the yogurt I bought yet. We’ll see if it’s sweet or really bitter. I also bought a huge tub of tzatziki which I’ve already started to enjoy.
For dinner, we went to a Mexican restaurant in town. On the bus, I sat in an empty seat next to some guy who didn’t really speak English, but he could ask basic questions. The bus ride was probably 10 minutes, but that was apparently enough time to tell me I was pretty, beautiful, ask for my phone number and ask if we were on our way to a party. I told him I didn’t have a phone and we weren’t partiers. Perhaps if he had actually spoken English we could have been friends, but I don’t speak Greek or Albanian so there wasn’t much potential for any communication haha. Taso keeps telling us that we’re doing our ethnographic study we can’t approach single people of the opposite gender if we’re alone because it’s too forward and considered very suggestive, but I think the rest of the country missed that memo.
Anyways, there’s a road that borders the edge of the lake with a ton of pretty nice restaurants. I decided that paying a lot for my meal would not be so fun so I ate before we went down, but I enjoyed being there; the restaurant was really cute and the food (I snagged a couple bites) was delicious. Expensive though. I’m glad I didn’t buy a meal there. The waiters were also really helpful; they spoke English well and had 3 English menus, which was fortunate since I’m sure a Greek menu would have been impossible.
Everyone in my group has had constant cravings for food from home, (hence the Mexican food choice) and we’ve only been here two weeks haha. They’re also really tired of the buses, which I’ll remind you, are very nice. I’d like to stick them all in Ecuador. Maybe the Puyo Jungle weekend with a tiny 12-seater van and probably 18 people and cabanas with no electricity but plenty of cockroaches would help them to appreciate how comfortable Greece is haha. I think I’ll take a break before I do a bunch more traveling, but I think in a lot of ways I liked South American traveling more because everything is just so much cheaper. For example, we want to go to Corfu, which is an island off the coast, and to get there we have to take an hour bus ride (possibly 2 hours; I’m not sure) and then a ferry, which are 9 and 4 euros, respectively, with the student discount (that’s like 4 times the cost of transportation in Ecuador). Of course, you don’t have to worry about someone slashing your bag, so there are certainly tradeoffs.