MYKONOS

So the adventure continued and on we went to Mykonos and what an adventure it was.
We knew that we had an early morning ahead of us because we had booked a 7:30am ferry, so we could take advantage of our stay in Mykonos, but we had no idea how early we actually had to be awake.
The alarm on Mel's iPhone woke us up at 4:15am in Athens, and we headed- in the dark- to catch the train at 5:15am. It was so FUN dragging a 50lb suitcase in the dark down a sketchy alley in Athens...good times. Anyway, so we boarded the ferry had no where to sit, so we sat in a cafe for 5 hours, and arrived in Mykonos at 1:30pm. We had arranged to get a lift from the port to the hotel, and after some searching, we realized that they weren't there to get us. I made a quick phone call and three minutes later the nicest man, Andreas, came to get us.
It was once we arrived to the hotel that we realized that we were in for some of the best days of our trip.
The hotel was situated on top of a hill, so we had the most spectacular view from our hotel room. The rooms were perfect too! Our shower, I kid you not, could have fit the four of us in it at once. Besides the amazing rooms and daily breakfasts in the dining room (YUMMY Yogurt & Honey), we quickly became very comfortable with the hotel staff who was constantly there to help us with anything we needed. They were all so friendly, we were all so sad to leave on our last day.

Here are some highlights from the trip

DAY ONE
- Afternoon at the beach (Agios Stefanos). There was sand whipping us in every direction. I was covered in it by the end of the afternoon. Definitely a treat to get it all out of my hair
- Late lunch at an Irish Pub
- Appaloosa's for nachos and drinks at night after exploring some of the shops

DAY TWO
- Paraga Beach (sipping Mythos beer by the ocean)
- Shopping in town for souvenirs
- First Greek Baklava from a local bakery

DAY THREE
- Paradise Beach
- Oven baked pizza & ice cream for lunch at the beach
- 'Verdana' for drinks (Peach daiquiri) for the sunset. We had the opportunity to take tons of pictures of the sunset and the famous five windmills
- Walking around and shopping in Little Venice
- Gyro and fries for dinner at Jimmy's
- Clubbing at 'Down Under' bar; sticky finger shots, tequila, good looking Aussie doorman, dancing, funny pictures and laughing

Random Memories:
- Sitting in the room talking
- Catching up on the Internet (Hooray for free-wifi)
- Amazing hotel staff (If anyone plans on travelling to Mykonos anytime soon, go to Rhenia Bungalows. HIGHLY recommended by the four of us!)
- Their pets! PUPPIES <3 and turtles in the garden
- The walk up the hill to get to the hotel; gotta exercise those glutes haha
- Topless Italian women at the beaches...quite the sight.
- The view of the city from the hotel
- All the hilarious gay men (James, this made Mel and I really miss you!)
- Getting free shots in every restaurant/bar we went to! (Dear Montreal, this never happens back home. Just saying...)
- People thinking that we're Australian ("Oh, you're Canadian! That makes sense, Canadian's read on the beach!" ...Which is all we did.)

As always, here are some pictures for you to look at!
Hope Montreal isn't missing us too much
Love,
Agnes

Kefallonia

After spending the last 8 days (August 9- August 17) in Kefallonia, a small village that my Giagia (grandmother) grew up in. I won't write about each day just yet but here are the highlights from our vacation to Monopolata, Kefallonia and its surrounding villages.

Beaches that we visited:
- Xi
- Petani
- Makris Gialos
- Skala
Skala was by far my favorite beach (and I think the girls would agree with me when I say that). Unlike the other beaches that we visited, this one was covered in little rocks. Even the sand was composed of small rocks. We spent hours enjoying the sunshine and scavenging the shore for the "pretty ones" to bring back with us.

Kefallonia Bus Tour: On Saturday we spent the whole day touring Kefallonia by bus. We saw:
- Myrtos Beach
- Assos
- Fiskardo (small town that is known as a tourist attraction for celebrities)
- Agia Efimia
- Melisani Lake
- Drogorati Caves
- Agiou Gerassimo Monastery
- Robola Winery
Best part of the day: Taking a boat ride through the Melisani Lake (bluest water ever!) and exploring the caves at Drogorati. We had to climb over 200 stairs to see this sight, but it was definitely worth it.

Things we will remember:
-LAUGHING. It was a daily ritual but happened most when we were exhausted and ready for bed
- Experiencing Panagias holiday at church with Melissa and Giagia
- Reading a lot at night and just relaxing
- The view from the house of the city especially during the full moon
- Evangelia's hugs and her big blue eyes in her glasses
- Chocolate icecream and Robola wine
- Washing our clothes in the bathtub
Food we ate:
- Gyros from the village restaurant (delicious and very affordable)
- Mousaka from Oasis restaurant in Lixouri
- Homemade meals. Both my Giagia and Thia Evangelia are excellent cooks so on the nights that they made us food, we were very thankful
- Homemade meals (part 2): We shopping in Lixouri and bought a week's worth of food and took care of ourselves on most night. We made three meals/day and took turns cleaning up too. Best roommates ever? I think so.

Things we didn't like so much:
- The taxi drivers that my grandmother relied on/ taxis in general
- The winding roads (The girls took turns feeling nauseous and taking Gravol)
- My grandmother's wakeup calls (WAKEUP, turns on light. OR grabbing my hand). Let's just put it this way, we were always on time, and she was convinced that we were always going to be late.
- The lack of things to do. You can't get anywhere by foot, so everything that we did was during the day, leaving us with very little to do at night. It was alright though, we spent tons of time reading.

People that we met:
My grandmother would introduce me to every single person that we saw. At first, it was nice to see how proud she was to introduce me to her friends and family, but by the end of the week, I couldn't remember anyone's names because I had met so many people. That being said, the VIP award goes to Lambros who took us on a roadtrip on Sunday to Makris Gialos and Skala. Not only that, he also gave us a ride to Lixouri yesterday when the bus didn't show up. He was just overall so pleasant to be around! We actually spent over an hour with him last night just talking around our kitchen table. We laughed a lot! He probably thinks that we're a little "coo-coo bananas" (to quote Selina), but that's alright.

Things that we will miss:
- My Giagia: She was just too good to us!
- Thia Evangelia & Dionysis; They are actually so adorable
- The quietness of the beaches (Mykonos and Santorini are touristic hotspots so we're expecting CROWDS)
- The friendliness, love and generosity of family

Words the girls learned:
- Loulouthia = Flowers (Selina's favorite word)
- Kali mera = Good morning/Good day
- Efharisto= Thank You
- Para kalo= You're welcome/Please
- Karpouzi= Watermelon
- Oréo= Nice
- Ne= Yes
- Oxi= No
...Among MANY others! They're awesome.

Books we read this week:
- One Day by David Nicholls (Kate)
- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Selina; Agnes is reading it now)
- My Name is Memory by Anne Brashares (Melissa)
- Withering Tights by Louise Rennison (Melissa)
- Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Halfway done; Melissa)
- The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Remaining half; Agnes)
- Something Blue by Emily Giffen (Agnes)
- Looking for Alaska by John Green (Agnes; Selina is reading it now)

I am not going to post a lot of pictures, but I wanted to give you a taste of Kefallonia and some of our adventures










I'm upset that this leg of the trip is over... It was so nice to really experience the culture (it wasn't so foreign for me, but the girls have never really been introduced to this kind of thing). I'm going to miss the family I met.
At the same time, I am so excited to see Mykonos and Santorini. My alarm is going off at 4:15am, so we can get ready for our 7:30am ferry. Mykonos, these Montreal girls are coming!

Good night my loves,

S'agapo (I love you)
Agnes xoxo

Hello from Athens

Yiasou! "Hello" in Greek

So, I'm actually writing this blog from Athens! As promised, I said that I would keep in touch as often as I could so here is my first post after my first day of travel.

After a morning of rushing and last minute packing, we departed on a nine hour flight this afternoon from Montreal at 4:20pm. Although I was quite discouraged by the length of time we were about to spend on the plane, I have to admit that it went really fast. Besides the overcooked yet raw pasta for supper, and the fact that I didn't sleep AT ALL on the plane, everything went super well.

We landed in Athens at about 9:10am, got our passports stamped and made our way to the baggage claim. After picking up our luggage (that did make its way to Greece, we were a little worried), we made our way to the exit. There my uncle Elias was waiting for us with a sign "KATSOUROS". It was like a scene out of a movie really. As some of you know, I have never met the family that I am staying with, so it has been quite the experience getting to know people that I have heard of but never met.
There, we proceeded to wait for Vangelis to pick us up, since he is a taxi driver. We all think that Montreal drivers are insane, well, he was driving 160km/hr down the highway... Yeah, it was a joy ride.

We then arrived at Elias and Georgia's house in Athens, where we will be spending our night in Athens. They welcomed us right away with open arms, tons of filakia (kisses) and FOOD. For lunch we had pork chops, rice, greek salad, spanakopita, tsaziki and cheese. We were stuffed. I just want to take a moment and say how DIFFERENT the spanakopita here is from the one at home... Oh God. HEAVEN IN MY MOUTH.

I'm not going to lie, this whole day has been stressful for me. Although I am able to speak Greek and read the language, it has been tough to adjust to ONLY speaking Greek and being the translator for the girls. My relatives don't speak English and the girls don't speak Greek. It's quite the culture shock for them but I have to admit that they have been working hard at picking up some key phrases thanks to Kate's phrase book. (Mel, how do you say Thank You again?)

After having lunch, my cousin Christos and his girlfriend Dimitra along with their friend Nickos, took us around Athens to see the Acropolis. Because it was so hot, we did a lot of the sight seeing by car but we took the time to stop at Dionysis cafe to have an iced coffee and lots of water with the Acropolis and Parthenon in the background.
Afterwards, we spent hours sitting on the living room floor planning our trip to Kefalonia since we are leaving tomorrow and there is a lot to do and know before departing. I'm going to get to see my Giagia (Grandmother) tomorrow, and I am pretty excited about that.

We ended the night with a light supper, Greek salad (all of the ingredients come from Vangelis garden), bread and the neighbours blaring Greek music. The weather was beautiful so we took advantage of it and enjoyed the night on the balcony. I was telling the girls how I feel so spoiled. Everyone has been super nice and helpful, not to mention that we haven't spent any money yet because everyone has been so generous.
So far, our first day has been a big success. I have been awake for the last 32 hours, and I am not even that tired. The girls are currently knocked out (it's 10:37pm here), and our alarms are set for our 6:30am wakeup tomorrow. The adventure continues!

Random funny moments of the day: The last hour of our flight, we were so deliriously tired that everything was funny & Selina getting gum on her jeans and washing the stain out with oil and then scrubbing them in the tub.

Here are some pictures from today:

View of the Acropolis and Parthenon from the Cafe

The girls and I sitting in front of the Acropolis and Parthenon enjoying our coffees

Christos & Dimitra! AMAZING couple and genuine people. We had so much fun with them

The Parthenon! They are doing some construction on it right now

FREDDOCCINO! Coffee and chocolate blended drink :) Delicious on a hot day

Two Words.

A magician waves his wand and says "Abra Kadabra" before pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

A couple says "I do" at the alter to proclaim their love and become husband and wife.

A person responds "You're welcome" after hearing "Thank You."

A girl says "Call me", after having her first date with a boy.

A sign reads "Watch out" when faced with danger.

A friend gets "Carpe Diem" tattooed on his side, reminding himself to seize the day.

A social activist proclaimed "I believe," while seeking equality among people

A daughter wishes to hear "I'm sorry", but knows that she never will.

Tuesday Breakfast

What I'm dealing with...

Dad complains that I am making too much noise in the kitchen while making breakfast. "Why does it have to be such a process?", he says.

I continue to make my breakfast which consists of:

Egg Whites (1/2 cup) 60 calories
Grape Tomatoes (small; 7) 4 calories
La Vache Qui Rit Cheese 22.5 calories
Whole Wheat English Muffin (1/2) 65 calories
Double Fruit 4 Citrus Marmalade (Light; 1 tbsp) 20 calories
Source Vanilla Yogurt (1/2 cup) 43.75 calories
Clementine 35 calories
TOTAL 250.25 calories
Water 650ml

I devour everything. It was delicious, and healthy.

He gets up from the couch, and finishes a bag of chips.
It's 10:08am
Just saying...

What have you done today to make you feel proud?

Remember when you were a kid? You were young, innocent, afro-haired (or was that just me?) and bursting with creativity and curiosity. You were carefree, and the simplest things made you happy. When I was in kindergarten, my elementary school was having a craft fair during the holidays. One afternoon, my teacher took the class down the hall to the gymnasium where the fair was being held, and gave us some time to browse through the many trinkets for a Christmas present for our parents. I seized the opportunity to buy my Mom something pretty. Spending my 50cents that I was given for my lunchtime snack, I bought my Mom a pink (albeit quite tacky) necklace. I was so happy with my purchase, and was anxious to give it to her on Christmas morning. I remember the feeling I got that day when she opened up the package and saw what I had bought for her. I was proud to have made her smile, and even happier when she offered to wear the jewellery all day.
17 years later… Just a couple of days ago, my Mom was cleaning out a drawer in her room, and she came across a box of old souvenir-style jewellery. The pink-beaded necklace that I had bought her at the age of five was amongst the collection. When she showed it to me, she had a sparkle in her eyes, and I was brought back to the moment when I gave it to her. I remember feeling genuine happiness on that day. I was proud that I made my Mommy happy, and that I had bought her something special. Why is it so hard nowadays to experience the joy we did as children?

As I grew older, I never really knew what it felt like to be proud of my accomplishments. Despite the fact that I consider myself an optimistic and driven person, I am often quite hard on myself. I try my hardest to keep a positive outlook on life and embrace what I have been given, but sometimes life’s twists and turns get in the way and I am thrown off course. Then one day, you just have to wake up and say “This is it. I’m done with the excuses. Let’s do this.”

I’ve always been a fan of the reality show “The Biggest Loser” but it was only lately, while I was sweating-it-out on the elliptical, that I took the time to listen to the lyrics of the song ‘Proud’ by Heather Small. The song thrills, excites and inspires me. So many of the themes contained within the lyrics- overcoming fears, grabbing freedom, believing in possibility – resonate with the deepest parts of me to this day. I also think it’s a timely reminder to do something significant every day. I mean it, every day. This might seem like a daunting task because we all have routines that we follow on a daily basis, but I want you to take some time out of your day to do something to give you that proud sensation. The same feeling I got 17 years ago when I gave my Mom that necklace.
Lately, for me, I am incredibly proud with my change in diet and incorporating exercise in my everyday routine. I have been fighting to lose weight for the longest time. I have tried fad-diets and detox regimes, and nothing has ever worked permanently. I am the poster-child for “yo-yo” weight loss, and I can honestly say that I was ashamed to admit it. Then one day, I made a decision to change. Change is good. I’m not on a diet, I’m altering my lifestyle. When people ask me what’s my secret, you know what I answer them? “Nothing. The secret comes from within you. Eat well, exercise, sleep and smile.” For once in my life, I am proud of myself. Things can only get better from here. I may have lost the battle here and there, but I have won the war.

Whether it be from helping an elder cross the street, having a successful day at work, getting a good grade on an exam, seeing the numbers drop on a scale, or making a loved-one smile, be proud of what you have accomplished, and the journey it took to achieve what you set your mind to. So what if you have one bad integrity day? Don’t tell yourself you’ll do it again and just succumb. Make the next day better. Commit to something and follow through. That will raise your integrity and self-esteem and the feeling that it brings will make you want to continue on that path. Be proud of yourself; you’re all you’ve got.

“I'm on my way
Can't stop me now
And you can do the same”
--Heather Small, Proud

Taking a break...

I'm taking a break from studying because I just came across a couple of Tweets from Biggest Loser contestants that really got me thinking.
They mentioned in their comments that they have gained weight ever since the finale. It made me realize that everyone goes through a slump sometimes and we just have to remember to get back on our feet and keep going.

Since summer school started, I haven't been paying much attention to ME.
I wanted to lose a bunch of weight before my trip to Greece, and instead of doing so, I gained some more.
My last day of school is today, and tomorrow I am going to get back on the bandwagon. According to my calculation, I have about 7 more weigh-ins before I get on that plane.
Logically speaking, that means I can lose about 15lbs before I leave. Realistically speaking, I want to lose more.

I have 46 days to really concentrate on me. Do things that I like to do, and things that I have been meaning to get done but just haven't had the time.
I hate saying that: "not having enough time." There is always time... But I often find myself not prioritizing my time right. The time I spend watching a favorite TV show can be spent outside running. The time I spend on Facebook can be spent cleaning my room.

The other night, I dreamed that I was chosen to go on the Biggest Loser (how awesome would that be?). I know this would never happen; first because it's an American show and second because I am not big enough to be on it. Yes I am unhealthy, but there are other people out there that are far worse off than I am. Why is it that, they are able to overcome their weight loss issues and I can't? In addition to the physical changes that I need to make, there are lots of psychological adjustments that need to happen as well.

Let's see what the next 46 days has in store for me...

P.S. Send me good vibes on my exams today. Freedom awaits.