Santorini

I’m sitting on the airplane writing this thing up in Word because obviously they don’t have a connection on planes. I can’t believe how fast five weeks can go by. It seems like only a few days ago I was on a plane flying to Athens, and now I’m almost home. So many wonderful experiences, so many more things I could have done, but you know you can’t overextend yourself or else you can’t enjoy it. I have to say I’m glad that I will be back. There won’t really be any readjustment for me, maybe just gorging on some American food I missed. But anyway, Santorini.

Wednesday night / Thursday morning – We took a ferry as I said for 16 hours. Don’t ever take GA Ferries. Our ferry back was only eight hours. It was Blue Star. Those are the only two companies I believe. So we are on the boat sleeping in airplane like seats. We did lay down somewhat. There was a bunch of extra seats and the seats only had armrests at every two intervals so two of us could take up a whole row of six seats. It was nice. I slept as best I could till about eleven so I thought the ride wasn’t that long, but then the ride was late, we had to wait at the port for our ride to the hotel. You can’t walk because the road literally tacks back and forth up the side of the Caldera cliff. The Caldera is the big whole in the center of Santorini that was taken out by the volcano.

So we get to our hotel around 4:30 to 5, take showers, and proceeded to walk around and eat and do touristy things. Dinner was great. It just had a souvlaki plate, but it was so good. After walking through the shops and stuff, the girls went back to the hotel while I ran around looking for more stuff to buy and pictures to take. I found a good spot where the sun was going to set, took a few pictures. (I’ll try to comment on my photos for better associations of them.) I went back to get the girls before the sun set so they could come watch it, but they didn’t want to. And it was just as well anyway because there were a million clouds coming in. I saw some cool places. An interesting church and some random stuff then went back to join the girls.

Friday morning – We got up around ten ish to catch the bus to Kamari, where one of the black beaches is. Black sand is very hot. We only stayed for a couple hours, and there was no sand in the water, just a big rockbed. After me and Rachel were sufficiently burnt, we went to the end of the beach so I could go cliff jumping. It was outstanding. I was a little afraid at first because no one else was jumping even though that is where I was told to go. I eventually did it and I loved every second of it. It was also great because there were other people there and they started jumping with me. So you can say I’m a trend setter.

Back to the hotel, shower, go to Oia (pronounced ee ah, maybe ee uh, or maybe a mixture). Anyway, I loved the town. Its pretty small, but still has wonderful view. You can easily see both sides of the water at many places. This is the postcard town where many people see photographs and where Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and its sequel (A couple of the girls in our group are extras in the sequel, I am how can I say it… jealous). Dinner on a rooftop. Though Phyllinga was not feeling the food, I thought mine was great. The sun was slowly setting for the two hours we were there, but we had to catch the bus right when it was to go under. So I was a little disappointed. On the bus ride back I kept looking out the windows to see the sky. Gorgeous. You had the red to orange to yellow combo going out from where it set, then a small hint of light green was the boundary to the great blue, but that’s not all. Looking out to the other sides the sky was becoming a dark purple in some spots and a pink in others. I wished I was on the highest point so I could’ve taken a panoramic shot.

Saturday morning – I got up early by myself to go to the red beach. Yes it was a nice red. I was gone for a couple hours, and I loved the alone time. Came back, chilled in Fira, then boat ride back to Athens. We got back just after midnight. The metro stops at midnight and restarts at 6. (they should seriously leave it on all the time. It would help out so many more people, especially going to the airport.) So we took a taxi back, and I met my new roommate Alex, who is actually a really cool guy. I didn’t find out until my last night there that we actually have a lot in common.

Anyway, more later. And pics in the next few days. I need to chill for a little bit.

Funny anecdote. At the Acropolis there are obviously areas you can’t go in. We saw these two foreign girls taking pictures and one of them hopped up onto one of the not allowed areas, and the other took a picture of her. So the guide got pissed, blew her whistle and ran over telling them to delete the photo. They didn’t speak English as a first language so they were saying, “The camera is naked, there’s nothing on it, its naked.” I will never forget that. (I doubt they actually deleted the photo, too.)