Leaving Tolon and Moving to Patras

5/19/11

Location: Patras

Today I got up and made sure that all of my stuff was packed and then I brought everything downstairs. I ate breakfast and enjoyed the beach view from the dining room. After eating, we all loaded our stuff onto the tour bus and left Tolon. I was really sad to leave because it was such a great town to be in. We traveled to Ancient Corinth; the bus ride took about an hour. We got out and were able to look at the old ruins of the city. It was a big area to explore and they had a museum filled with artifacts. We spent about 2 hours looking around and then got to walk around in the more modern area of the city where there were souvenir shops and restaurants. I spent some time looking around and going into some of the shops. I thought it was really cool that I could still see some of the ruins as I walked through the more modern area of the city. Then we ate at another traditional Greek restaurant for lunch called Marino’s. We ate a few different types of meat, Greek salad, and pasta. The food was really good and there was a lot of it. Afterwards, we got on the bus for about 2 hours to go to Patras where we’d be staying the next couple of nights. Once we unloaded all of our stuff and settled into our rooms, some of us went into town. I was told that the main part of the city was for tourists. It was definitely an experience because we had to park the bus at a shipping dock and get out to walk into the city. I was a little uneasy walking around so I stayed in a group with a lot of people. There were a lot of different things that I saw. At the port we got off at there were illegal immigrants trying to sneak onto some of the boats and I saw a homeless camping ground. I stayed close to some of my friends just to make sure that everyone got back okay. It was definitely an experience and a culture shock from what I had seen in Greece before. We finally got back on the bus and went back to the hotel for dinner. After we ate, I stayed up and watched some South Park with Keith and then talked with some friends before going to bed. It was a long and interesting day but I’m still enjoying everything that I get to do.