helllooooooo!! back again!! i only have a few minutes left on this internet so ill give you guys some brief updates! SO our day off has been the BEST! we were reminded why we are doing this whole farm business and it has definitely lifted our spirits. we had begun feeling a bit trapped at the Sunshine House. but today was completely worth our time working. and i have never felt so independent in my life!! like seriously already this trip has given jess and i the feeling like we can conquer the world. we can get anywhere with the help of the locals and our guide book and our intuition. its very liberating :).
sooo this morning we got up early, took showers, ate some oatmeal, and heading off to the bus station. we then caught the bus into the capital of Evia called Halkida. the bus driver didnt make us buy tickets so we got a free ride! Success!!! Halkida is a small, beautiful city with mountains all around. its sad that not many people will see it because we loooove it. jess and i bought a croissant and some spinach thing, walked around on the boardwalk ish thing on the water and went to a nice outdoor like bar place and drank coffee chocolate drinks while all the greek hotties checked us out haha. this whole blonde hair thing works out nicely!! we then followed some direction in our guide book up to an old turkish fortress on a hill where the view was amazinggg! jess and i could barely grasp it all in our minds. it was so surreal. then we walked back down, checked out a pretty church in the center of town and decided it was time to find a beach to swim. our guide book suggested a cool place called eretria so we figurred that sounded like a nice place and we should see it! so low and behold there was a taxi stand right next to the church and we managed to spit out in greek that we wanted to go to a bus station. Joey- your language book was so helpful today!!! we have been practicing a bunch of greek phrases and we really need them on this island since not a lot of people speak good english. sooo we got to the station in Halkida and i told the lady that we wanted to get to Eretria in greek and we bought our tickets. a woman from behind the counter heard our english and came up and started speaking to us! she studied in toronto and was back in halkida to work. her name was DiDi and she said we could come visit her anytime and she would hook us up with some greek hotties. Succes!! she then took us behind the counter and showed us to all the other workers haha. our bus came in like half hour and we were off to Eretria!! the ride was really pretty along the water and mountainside and only about 20 minutes long. Our farm is right in between Halkida and Eretria. Sooo then we got off the bus, saw a little souvenir shop across the street and peaked around. the man at the counter was soo nice to us, and we got a picture with him and some free magnets hahah. being foreign is success to the max. haha. then we rambled around this cute little town and came out onto this quiet beach with beautiful water and an awesome view of all the mountains. ahhhhhhh it was so beautiful i cant even describe it. its so weird how not many people will ever see that place but it was perfect. so we changed into our suits and hopped in to our first greek water! we swam for a while, played on this floating raft thing we found, took lots of pictures, and sunbathed. after about an hour and a half we decided to head back to Halkida and get some drinks and sit on the water front. on our walk back we passed this little beach side restaurant with all these old greek men sitting there and enjoying the day. when they saw us they instantly starting talking to us in a mixture of greek/bad english and insisted that we come and sit and make their restaurant beautiful haha. sooo since it really wasnt sketch and they were geniunely nice we decided to sit and they ended up buying us two ice cream sundaes hahaha. then one greek old man came and put two flower vases on our table and we sat there and laughed. one man was originially from crete, the other a real Eretrian native, and the 3 others from somewhere around Greece. after our free ice cream we got more pictures and waved goodbye to our greek friends haha. (parents they didnt roofie our ice cream, and no we didnt accept drinks from them calm). Soo then we got back to the bus station, got a bus back to halkida, and got a taxi right here to this internet cafe!! the taxi driver was really hot so he gave us his numbaaa in case we ever needed a taxi ride again. ballerssssssss. so after this we will probably go see what bar we can find on the water, and get a taxi back to the farm later tonight. we are worried if we get back to soon they will make us do some more labor so the plan is to avoid that if all possible hahaha.

ohh, here is another story. after the internet cafe, we were riding back through the countryside where we live on a little dirt path and two teenage greek boys come riding by us. jessica and i insisted that we had to make friends if we were going to be on this farm for a month so we started shouting at them in english hoping they knew something. one of the boys who was 15 (the other was 12 haha) knew a little bit and we ended up riding our bikes with them and maybe creepishly following them in order to make some friends. then motioned for us to follow them and we ended up in front of a church where their two other little teenage friends came up on there back to see these crazy americans hahaha. they were all looking at each other like "what in the worldddddddddd" hahah we must have been so random in this greek farm land. sitting outside the church were two old greek woman (like something out of a movie) and they heard us saying stufff in english so one came up and started talking to us in english. her name was olga (of course) and she translated for us as we told the little kids that we wanted to be their friends haha. everyone was laughing and it was sooo funny. Sooo now hopefully we will see them around and then came come break us out of the Sunshine House once in a while!

ohh one more. at the internet cafe yesterday i was sitting there and this old greek man came up to me and started petting my head and smiling for like 3 minutes while i was just sitting there like ummmmmmmmm hahaha. and then he saw jess and did the same. they like us americans in lampsakos.

haha oh and on the island of evia this trucks drive around and sell fish and they have these big loudspeakers where they yell for people to come get the fish in a scary greek voice. kind of like the ice cream man but greece style. anyways, when jess and i first heard them we both kind of got freaked out and thought it sounded like nazis like rounding up the jews. so now we call them the jew catchers and they come around like everyday and we heard them in halkida today!! they are looking for us!! hahahaha.

okayyy well hopefully the next few days wont kill us at the sunshine house. today def made us happier.

loveeeee,
chelsea annnnnn