παραλίες

What would Greece be without it's beautiful beaches, or παραλίες? I couldn't tell you the answer to that, because we got to see plenty of them! :P

The beaches in Greece are SOOOO amazing. And, because there aren't really rough waves there, there were several times during the trip where we all went to the beach, swam out as far as we could, and just hung out!

The first beach we visited was in Aegina, and the water there was so salty that if you went limp in the water your whole body floated to the top! It felt kind of weird, but it was really cool! At one point, Joe and a couple others decided to swim out to some rocks, and me, Katie, Sara, Kelly, and Kimiko followed suit. Some of us only made it out to the first set of rocks lol, but it was still awesome!

Katie and I in the Mediterranean Sea :)

most of the girls at the beach in Aegina

Another awesome part of Aegina, besides the beaches, was their pistachios, which are nicknamed the "peanuts of the sea." These really hit the spot after a long day at the beach!

Sam graciously offering me some pistachios on the ferry back from Aegina

We also went to a beach in the amazingly beautiful island of Santorini. I was very excited for this day-trip, since I have learned about the geological features of this island before. Although I didn't see as many white houses with blue roofs as I had hoped, the black-sand beach more than made up for it:

Me, at our beach-side restaurant in Santorini, before heading into the water

Black sand in Santorini, one of the many results of volcanoes in this region

We also visited the beaches in Crete, which was also pretty awesome! The beach pictured below was slightly different from the others we went to, in that it had changing areas, a shower to rinse off in, and pretty wooden planks to help your feet stay out of the hot sand (all of which was much appreciated!).

Sam and I relaxing in the water

Patriotic planks in Crete

Every single one of the beaches we visited in Greece were amazingly beautiful, and made for some memorable moments within the group. So, you could imagine my excitement when I found out "a fake Greek beach" was being brought into Central London while I was there:

Me, my cousin Shadi, and her friend Anne at the "beach" in London

This "beach" was definitely one of the funnier things I saw in England. The people there went all out, bringing picnic baskets, and laying out in their bikinis. I don't blame them for wanting to take advantage of the heat wave that was going on at the time, but this was still a rather unusual situation lol. But it reminded me of all the amazing times I had at the beaches in Greece with everyone on the trip, so it was well worth it to go relax in the extremely fake sand for a bit :)