Trip to Aegina Part II

As I sit on the balcony of my hotel looking at the sun setting over Aegina, I cannot believe my luck at being here. It is a perfect sunset, over the island, with the Saronic Gulf in the foreground. This island seems too beautiful to be real at times, and then I remember the strange things that have occurred since my arrival, and I am almost sure that it has all been some strange sort of dream.

After checking in and settling into our rooms, Stavros and I decided to explore the island. We left the hotel and wandered down the small road that leads to Agia Marina, the town we are staying in. The town is a 20-minute walk from our hotel. Along the way we climbed down the cliffs at several safe spots to check out the water and just generally explore. Finally we made it into town and decided we were starving. We found an open restaurant with a terrace that overlooked the ocean (as does most of the town) and sat down for lunch. We ate leisurely and VERY well. After our long lunch we decided to explore Agia Marina itself. First we wandered to their empty sandy beaches then down to the supermarket. We bought some chips and snacks for the hotel and decided to head back to the hotel.

We were wandering down the main street on our way to the small road that leads to our hotel when one of the ubiquitous four-wheelers that are rented all over the island buzzed by us. This one, oddly, slowed to a stop in the middle of the dead town, where we were the only people on the street and the man driving called out my name. Shocked, I turned around, only to see an old friend from the small town where I grew up in Florida who had moved to Boston and whom I had not spoken to in 4 years. Tim and I had known each other during the beginning of my senior year of high school and had really not spoken since. Randomly, he happened to be vacationing in Aegina for a few days before he returned to Boston, after a long stay with friends in Santorini. He was there with an ex-girlfriend for some reason, though no explanation was offered, and basically I am still shocked by the whole encounter. We spent an hour walking the beach and catching up, while both marveling at the deep randomness of our encounter. Finally, he had to leave to return his four-wheeler to the other side of the island where he was staying. Stavros and I then walked back to our hotel and fell asleep for the night.

Tuesday April 3

Today we started out our day much earlier, at 9am, for breakfast in the hotel. From there we walked into Agia Marina to try and find an internet café to no avail. After that we decided to visit the ruins on the island of the Temple of Aphaia, which was built in 500 BC to a goddess native to Aegina. It is a remarkably well preserved temple, as it wasn’t destroyed by the Turks and it is relatively new compared to many of the ruins in Greece. We took the local bus up there, about 15 minutes from the town center, and as we are getting off the bus 6 of the other people from our program are sitting at the bus stop eating their snacks before going into the temple. This was decidedly less random than running into Tim, but random nonetheless, as we were the only people who had wanted to go to Aegina when we booked the trip on Sunday. They were only here for the day though, instead of the whole 2 ½ day break like Stavros and I. We wandered around the ruins with them for a while, taking the requisite touristy pictures and then we parted ways, with Stavros and I continuing on to Aegina town.

Our first stop in Aegina was an internet café (where I wrote my previous post), as we both had not checked our e-mails in two days and were DELUGED with them. After an hour in a smoky, airless room we were ready for an outdoor lunch. So we decided to find a place with a patio outside overlooking the port. We happened to luck out ad find a reasonable, local’s hangout with amazing food and fresh octopus hanging from a string outside. We tried their amazing calamari, as well as fried zucchini, tzasiki, and feta cheese. After our lunch we bought ourselves Greek flag towels, to show off our Greek pride and so that we would have beach towels for our trip. (The Greeks can be a bit skimpy on linens, even in nice hotels, from what we have seen so far) Then we went on to the bus and returned to our hotel.

After returning we sat out on my balcony, eating the delicious pistachios that are native to Aegina, and trying complete our reading for our quiz on Thursday. We watched the sun set over the island, and now I am writing my blog entry into word so that as soon as I have internet access I can upload it, without having forgotten a thing. We are both planning on going to bed early tonight, as we want to get to see some more of Aegina town before our ferry leaves at 11am tomorrow, so we will be waking up around 7:30am in order to catch the bus by 8:45 from Agia Marina to Aegina Town. We’ll be there by 9:15 – 9:30amish and then we will need to be on board our boat by 10:30am. The boat should return to Athens by 12:05pm, so that we can make it class by 4:30pm with a large margin for error. We’ll see what actually happens though…