Finally the sun is here 🌞

The weather forecasters have been predicting it for a long time and on Friday it finally became certain: bright blue sky, plenty of sunshine and temperatures that we have longed for 😊

The view from the balcony already promised a lot of good things for the day, but the end was surprisingly 'early' 😄 At this point, there should be no spoilers and the educational aspect of the blog should be fulfilled first 😉

As already mentioned, Friday was a public holiday in Greece. The reason for this is the end of the Turkish occupation during the Ottoman Empire and the resulting independence of Greece. This day is celebrated with many parades. In Heraklion, streets were closed and public transportation was suspended around noon because a large parade took place.

After getting plenty of sleep, we drove to the city center to see the festivities. T-shirt weather! Finally! 😁 The parade lasted about 1.5 hours and included schools and the military, among others. Strengthened with lots of sunshine, ice cream, and delicious food, we went to the beach to relax and prepare for the best part of the day - swimming included 👍 We had planned a barbecue and going dancing in a club. Both went extremely well 😎 The meat here is not pre-marinated and packaged like in Germany, but had to be bought at the meat counter. The preparation went well and we had a great meal with chicken legs, steaks, stuffed bell peppers, and salads. I was completely satisfied with my first time using a gas grill.

The foundation for a successful evening was already laid 🙂 Surprisingly, it was difficult for our Erasmus group to get into a club. Apparently, bad experiences have been made with such groups in the past 🤔 On the other hand, the locals were always easily allowed everywhere. With a final attempt, where we split up, we were finally able to get into our preferred club with exclusively English, danceable music 🎶🥳

What can I say... around 6 o'clock we treated ourselves to a sunrise by the water, I had a pita and the long night slowly came to an end. An absolute highlight of my time here so far 👏

Fortunately, the weekend is not over yet and besides a half-Saturday, we can still enjoy the whole Sunday before my last week begins.