So, birthday. I turned the big 2-1 on Wednesday, so we decided to celebrate Tuesday night. A big group of us got back from campus around 8:30 and headed out to an Ouzeri (basically a tabepna. taverna. personally, i like it in greek better) for dinner. We had the most amazing chicken souvlaki ever. You haven't had chicken until you've had this chicken. Anyway, the restaurant gave me a bottle of ouzo for my birthday, which was really nice of them. I don't really like ouzo, it tastes like black licorice, but it was a nice gesture and a great souvenier of my 21st in greece. Around 11:30 we all headed down to the waterfront and got to Dante's just in time to celebrate at midnight. As always, the guys who work there facilitated the party.
Wednesday morning, I woke up early to treat myself to the best birthday present I could think of. I went with my friend Danika to book a trip to Santorini for the weekend. Wednesday night all of the girls in my apartment building gathered in my room for a mini surprise party complete with a cake, a birthday card (in greek, naturally), and even a makeshift birthday candle (we haven't really mastered the grocery stores here yet). I was kinda sad I couldn't spend the day with friends and family from home, so for them to do that for me made the day really special.
So Thursday night, after a full day of classes I quickly packed and Heather, Danika, and I made our way to the train station to catch the 6 hour train ride to Athens. It was quite the experience. You know the train that takes Harry and his friends to Hogwarts...thats the kind of train we took to Athens - with our own(ish) little room and everything. It was pretty great. We got to Athens around 6:30 am and booked it to Piraeus Port. I was a little nervous we wouldn't be able to find our way around the metro, but it was really easy. We boarded the ferry and made ourselves as comfortable as we could for the 8 hour trip. You may think I'm crazy for travelling 14 hours one way for just a weekend in Santorini, but I can promise you it was 100% worth it. I would have travelled twice as far to stay half as long and it still would have been the best decision of my life. The ferry ride was actually pretty pleasant. We watched the sun rise over Athens and we also stopped at Paros and Naxos islands on the way. I thought both of these islands were beautiful, but as soon as I saw Santorini, I knew that that was the island to go to.As we all herded off the ferry, we saw a whole line of men trying to get people to stay at their hotels. Perfect. We went over and started to bargain. Being college students abroad, our funds were obviously limited. We knew what price we wanted and went for it. Luckily, our bargaining skills paid off and we were able to get a room for 20 euro each for 2 nights. AWESOME. We made it to the hotel within an hour and were off exploring very soon after that. We stayed in Fira, so that was the first town we explored. There were all these little shops leading up to the top of the cliff the town is built on. We meandered our way up and as soon as we saw the view from the top we were speechless. Having seen pictures of Santorini, I knew it would be beautiful, but pictures do the island no justice. I honestly think it was the most gorgeous view I have ever seen in my life.
Once we got a little bit over our ooohs and ahhhs (they never really went away...everything we saw stunned us) we walked past a cafe built right on the edge of the cliff. It was just about time for the sunset, and the man who owned the place started chatting us up. He spoke great english and was just about the nicest most enthusiastic man ever. And of course his name was Nikos, who's isn't? We took a seat at his cafe for some frappes (a foamy iced coffee) and to watch the sunset. We explored a little more and went to a Taverna for dinner. After dinner we decided to grab some gelatto before going to bed early. We stopped at a little gelatto place, where we met Nikos #2, who is the only Nikos we know thats our age. We sat and chatted with him for a while, and he wanted us to wait for him to get off work so we could all go out together. We had a big day planned for Saturday, so we didn't take him up on his offer, but we planned to meet up the following night.
On Saturday morning, we woke up for a few minutes to watch the sunrise from our balcony at the hotel. An hour or so later we trekked down to the old port to catch a boat trip over to Nea Kameni Volcano. We hiked up the volcano with Sophocles, our tour guide, who knew a lot about Santorini and its volcanic activity. On the volcano, we met a group of kids in the College Year Athens program. This isn't important now, but it will be later. I've never been on a volcano before, so that was super cool. After the volcano hike the boat took us the the hot springs where we jumped off and swam in the warm water. Then the boat took us to Thirassia Island for lunch and a little more swimming and sightseeing. Danika, Heather, and I grabbed a quick lunch and walked around the pebbly beaches looking for sea glass and shells. On the way from Thirassia to Oia (pronounced Ia), the glass-bottom boat sailed over a reef with a small shipwreck, which was also really great to see.
Here comes the fun part. When we first saw the donkeys, we knew we had to ride them. So, we rode donkey from the port in Oia to the town above. What an experience. We were all laughing hysterically and half-terrified the entire way up, but it was so awesome to turn the corner on a donkey and see the view of Oia. Oia is a really beautiful part of Santorini. Its on the very edge of the northern corner of the island, so the views are spectacular, and the sunsets breathtaking. We walked around the town for a while, and found it to be considerably more quiet and couple-friendly than Fira. It being the off season for Santorini, the entire island was much quieter than it would have been in the summer time, but the weather was still very warm and sunny and most places were still open for business. After exploring Oia for a while, we walked to the very corner of the island and found a place to watch the sunset. The sign outside the place said that it was the most popular place for marriage proposals, and I believe it. As the sun was setting a sailboat sailed right into the sun's light and it was gorgeous. We grabbed dinner at a taverna and caught the public bus (aka a coach bus....wayyyy nicer than public busses anywhere else in the world) back to Fira for a night out.
Back in Fira, we walked around a bit and wandered into a couple of bars. We saw Sophocles (our tour guide from the volcano) sitting outside the bar (young) Nikos suggested and sat and chatted with him for a while. He imparted several hilarious words of wisdom to us, and even gave us a little grammar lesson in greek. Unfortunatly, Nikos wasn't able to close his shop, so he wasn't able to come out with us Saturday night either. But, he did offer to drive us to the beach sunday morning, so we exchanged phone numbers and he said he'd try to wake up in time.
Sunday we woke up early to get a little shopping in before calling Nikos to wake him up. When calls to Nikos proved unsuccessful, we decided to get innovative. We really wanted to get a little more sun before getting the ferry back to Athens, and our hotel didn't have a pool. So we decided to find one. Sophocles, the night before, reminded us that you never know until you try, and the worse that will happen is that you'll get no for an answer. So, we decided to go to the nearest hotels and give it a shot. The first place was a hands-down absolutely not. The second place, however, looked like there was no one there and that it was closing for the season. We walked in and offered to pay to use their beautiful pool. The lady immediatly said, "if you don't mind the weather, the pool is yours." While it was pretty windy, the sun was still hot, so of course we didn't mind the weather. While we were there, Nikos called back and wanted to meet us in his village or at the port for coffee before we left. We didn't end up having enough time, but I wanted to share the story of Nikos' great hospitality anyway.
Once we got on the ferry, which was a titanic-like endeavor, we saw the guys studying in athens again. Since we landed in Athens at 1 am and didn't leave until 7 am, we decided to ask them if they knew of anywhere we could go to kill some time. Without hesitation, they said that we were more than welcome to get a taxi back with them and crash for a few hours at there place. So thats what we did. It was a little weird, as expected, but we would have been lost without them. They gave us directions from their place to the metro, and we offered our apartments in Thessaloniki to them if they ever wanted it. I've been so impressed with everyone's kindness here in Greece. Granted, there are definitely people who aren't so friendly, but the vast majority of people will do anything to help you out.
It was a long journey to and from Santorini, but it was so worth it. I can honestly say that was one of the best, if not the best, weekends of my life. Before Thursday when people asked, "If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go?" I would always answer with Santorini. And honestly, if they asked me now, I would probably still say Santorini.
Here are the links to the photo albums on Facebook...check them out!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2003813&l=56bd2&id=1326450028
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2003814&l=6d859&id=1326450028
Also, if you're interested, here's the link to the photo album of my trip to Mt. Athos and Halkidiki:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2003751&l=0d0e3&id=1326450028
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