THIRTEEN.

Apollonia Hotel : Crete, Greece

Lauren, Emily, and I docket in the Heraklion port in Crete at what we thought was 6:30am but was actually 5:30 am- just the first of many times we confused the time. We took a cab to our hotel and at 6am checked in about 8 hours early. Thank God its the low season so they could get a room ready as soon as they could so we didn't have to wait around too long. The first whole day there was rainy so we explored around the resort and the all inclusive buffet and bar and napped.

Monday we were SO happy to wake up to sunshine and headed to the beach. We tanned and swan in the Cretan Sea (which was beautiful) and we played beach volleyball with our new friend who worked at the resort, Adnen, and a ton of Germans. We stayed on the beach all the way until dinner time and enjoyed traditional Greek food (they served other food too though). We went to the music trivia night after dinner and even though we walked in half way through I still managed to come in 3rd place. I'm glad I know where my gift is- useless music recognition. The music trivia night turned into a discoteque after so we danced with our worker friends and our little German friend who followed us around.

Tuesday was another beautiful day filled with suntanning and swimming. We found out that a few of our worker friends had been fired and for some reason they believed we could help them since we're American. They asked us to go complain and make up stories why it was wrong they were fired because apparently we're untouchable? They seemed to believe we had some absolute power because we're American... they seemed to forget that we're also 20 year old girls. Tuesday night we enjoyed a four course meal at the Italian restaurant at the resort as a part of our all inclusive package. After dinner we hung in and watched across the universe in our bungalow so we could avoid all of the workers!

Wednesday we originally intended to head into the city centre of Heraklion to explore but apparently it was a holiday so everything would be closed! It worked out for the best because Wednesday was the most beautiful day we had the whole week. The three of us went for a long walk on the beach and I collected sea glass. We passed so many empty resorts and hotels which made us realize how lucky we were that we had such a great resort to stay at and that there were other people at it too! We also saw Greek men riding on horses on the beach which was a pretty sweet sight. Wednesday night we had dinner at the Asian restaurant, also a part of all inclusive, and right after we sat down one of the loudest and strongest downpours of rain came. We actually had to yell to talk to each other.

Thursday was our last day so we woke up really early so we didnt miss a single ray of sun. Lucky for us, the hotel let us stay in our room until 5pm instead of the normal check out time of 12 pm. Thursday was so beautiful and the perfect last day in Crete. We checked out of the hotel and headed to the port to load our bags onto our ferry. We got there early so that we could walk around the city centre until it was time to leave. We walked around and saw the Arab Bzantine wall and the lions fountain among other historic sites. While we were looking for a place to grab dinner I guess we lingered too long in one spot and a lovely, warm drop of bird poop landed on my chest. About 30 seconds later one dropped on Lauren's head. We better have a lot of good luck coming. The owner of the restaurant we were by ran over with napkins and since he helped us so much we ended up eating at his crepe restaurant. It worked out wonderfully because we all had delicious crepes and split a nutella and banana crepe for dessert! We walked back to the ferry after this and stayed on the deck until it left the port and then went to our cabin. We were exhausted so we relaxed and listened to Mitch Hedberg's standup and then went to bed.

Friday morning we landed in the Athens port- confused once again about the time until we realized that it was daylight savings time... I don't want to talk about it. We had perfect timing catching the metro to the airport and getting to our gate. The flight back was smooth and once again British Airways pleased us with a full breakfast and tons of in flight entertainment!

After a wonderfully relaxing week we were all refreshed and happy to be back in London!