Living My Best Mamma Mia Life

Greece... Holy moly do I love Greece... For the entire 5 days, the Mamma Mia album was playing in my head and even on my speaker at the Air BnB. Greece has easily become one of my top 3 countries I have been to. The food, the people, the history?! It was an amazing vacation!

A group of fellow Peace Corps volunteers and I have been planning a trip to Thessaloniki for a few months now. Once April hit and the weather here in the Balkans finally decided to get warmer, we knew this trip was going to be memorable! We took a private van that drove us from North Macedonia into Thessaloniki, straight to our Air BnB near Aristotle Square. It was prime location! Close to the water, close to all of the spots we wanted to visit, and had some spectacular restaurants around. Did it also have a Starbucks near it? Yes... Did I visit said Starbucks while there? Also yes... It was not as good as I remember it...

Not gonna lie? My favorite part of Greece was the food... No shame... I made it my mission while in Greece that I would have as much seafood as possible. Being from Florida and moving to North Macedonia where seafood isn't very popular or accessible, I was craving it. The first night I started strong with seafood orzo that had squid, prawns, and HUGE oysters. I think I had seafood for lunch and dinner every day of that trip and I am so glad I did. A fellow volunteer was in charge of picking the restaurants we ate at and he killed it every time. 10 out of 10. The Greek salads? The fried feta with honey? THE WINE?! Oh man.... My mouth is watering just thinking about it. We even had the opportunity to eat at this family run restaurant and had spit roasted lamb that was so tender and juicy.... The Greeks really know what they are doing in the kitchen.

In between the eating and drinking, we explored the city. We climbed up to the top of the White Tower and had an incredible view of the bay and the city, we went to the Archeological Museum of Thessaloniki and my inner nerd was freaking out... My friends let me go for a few hours to explore the museum which I was so thankful for. If you know me, ancient cultures have always fascinated me. I studied Latin in high school and loved to compare Ancient Rome to Ancient Greece. It gave me goose bumps to see the statues of the gods and goddesses that every day people would worship thousands of years ago, the tablets of ancient greek writing, the perfectly preserved clothes and jewelry... It was unbelievable to see these artifacts that I have only seen in textbooks and online. It gives me chills just thinking about it. It was surreal to be in a city and country that has WAY more history than the US and to be in the birth place of democracy. Something else that blew my mind was the fact that ruins were just casually chilling in between apartment buildings and grocery stores. We spent a full day exploring the hidden ruins throughout the city.

The last full day in Greece, we took a bus to Meteora which is the second most visited place in Greece by tourists besides Athens. Meteora is a magical experience. It is a small town that has monasteries that are hundreds of years old that are built into these natural rocks in the mountains. The monasteries look like they are floating on clouds because you are so far up. Mind you, these large and elaborate monasteries were built in the 1400s and only 6 survive today. The monks had to build them with just ropes and pulleys... It blew my mind to see what they did with the lack of technology to help. We visited two monasteries while we were there. Women had to wear skirts and men had to wear pants since they were still active monasteries with monks that live there 24/7. If you can make it to Meteora on your next trip to Greece, I would highly recommend it!

I fell in love with Greece on this trip! On my next trip, I plan on hiking Mount Olympus and visiting Athens. I can't say enough good things about Greece so I hope you see my pictures and plan a trip soon! :)