DAY 3 - Tinos

Aight, so again today we had to wake up early to catch another ferry to the religious island of Tinos. Tinos is famous for the church of Panagia Evangelistria which is where Greek Orthodox make their pilgrimages. We learned that the two most important dates for the Greek Orthodox religion are March 25th (the enunciation of the Virgin Mary) and August 15th (Dormition of the Virgin Mary). Tinos was basically Mykonos only more mountainous and less touristy. We spent the whole day in Tinos. We started by going to see the church of Panagia Evangelistria. I would have taken pictures but they were like NO CAMERAS, so I just held mine in my hand. Alice explained to us that people will make a pilgrimage up to the church on their hands and knees as a way to pray for any problems or just anything going on in their lives. We passed two women making the climb as we walked up the hill to the church. The church was beautiful! It was filled with icons and incense holders and beautifully decorated murals and candles lit as a prayer. I lit a candle as a prayer for all my friends, family, the people in my class and basically just all people everywhere. Greek Orthodox believes in the Virgin Mary or "Pan Agia." In fact about 90-95% of the Greeks consider themselves Greek Orthodox. I asked Alice so many questions about the religion because I love learning about it. She was very informative.

After visiting the church, we sat in a little cafe and had our class discussion/presentation for the day. It was at this cafe that I tried spanakopita which is basically spinage pie. I don't know if I'll ever get it again but it was pretty good. I just kept reminding myself that I should try new things. In our discussion we learned about this crazy, freaky story about this woman that was possessed by the devil and she tried to make a pilgrimage on her hands and knees to get the devil out of her. We also learned about this nun who had a revelation that there was an icon of the Virgin Mary burried somewhere on the island so they spent years trying to find it and eventually found it and the nun became famous. Man if I were that nun I'd be living the good life in that time. After the discussion we took a bus to the top of the island and visited the nun's house and 3 other villages. Apparently there's like 1 million kagillion villages on the island and we visited 3. Oh well, that just means I'll have to go back which is not a problem at all. The first place we visited was the place where the nun lived and died. We also visited the church where she worshiped. We were fighting the bugs like crazy up there! They were these tiny, gross, green looking flys that showed up really well on a white dress if I should say so myself. The views from the bus were incredible! just facebook it. I saw a FOR SALE sign at one of the villages so I got this great idea to ask Alice how much it would cost to own property on Tinos. I was just, ya know, wondering for later...yeah. She told me it would be like 30 euro a month. I was like "DANG! I'm gonna hit that up." She laughed at me.

At the first village we stopped at, the bus driver got off the bus and immediately two kids come running around toward us. The little girl and boy were named Kosma and Claudia and they were twins and they were really cute! They would walk around picking flowers and then randomly giving them out to each one of us. I got a really pretty flower from Claudia - I took a picture of it and posted it on facebook. Then I took a picture with them and posted it on facebook. After that village we went to the second one to see a graveyard. Yeah, it was kind of creepy but cool. After that village we went to the next one and had lunch. It was a cute little place right along the water. I got Moussaka for the first time. Moussaka is kind of like lasagna with cheese, potatoes, eggplant and a little bit of meat. It was pretty good although once again I probably won't order it again. Experience, experience, experience. After lunch we walked through one more village until we went down to catch the ferry.

That night we all wanted to check out the Scandinavian Disco which was in Mykonos. It was definitely hoping! We were all dancing and having fun until after a while it got completely packed in there and almost became impossible to move. So I went outside with Sarah after a while to catch some fresh air. We left at like 3:30am. All I wanted to do was sleep that night. I was exhausted. Plus we didn't have class until 1:00pm the next day so I was excited to sleep. So we get back and once again we fall asleep to the freakin BBC. Oh those British news reporters crack me up.