Greece

Greece was my choice; it was the first place we really settled on for the trip. More specifically than Greece it was Santorini that I really wanted to go to. A little background for those of you who don’t know, when I came to Europe on a class trip in 2008 we went to Santorini for about 4 days, I don’t really remember because I had a case of tonsillitis so bad that I couldn’t swallow my own saliva and on top of that some kind of stomach bug. I barely left my bed and didn’t get to experience anything of the island. Hearing everything that my classmates did made me intensely jealous and I vowed to go back.

Then the choice came up of where to be for my birthday and I immediately said Santorini.

Getting there wasn’t so easy, remind me again why we chose to fly ryanair everywhere? It seemed smart and cost effective at the time... But when they only fly into Volos (it was a cheap flight!) and from there to Athens is a 4 hour, 27 euro bus trip and then you still have to get to the port from the bus station.... well it begins to look like a less smart option. We are learning.

After a few more hiccups and an 8 hour boat trip we were there. I knew I wanted to be in Oia (Pronounced Eea) and when we got out of the bus in the town there was one little old woman trying to collect occupants for her hotel/hostel/house. She won our hearts with juice and cake and gorgeous little rooms all whitewashed with untreated wood floors and flower wreaths on the doors. Her roof terrace had an unobstructed and tourist free view of the sunset and the breakfast every morning of cake, toast and tea was perfect. It is called Marco’s Rooms if anybody is heading that way.

Ben, Shannon and Anni joined us the next day. For the record, these meet ups were not arranged in advance, we just happen to be in the same city at the same time and so might as well stay together! 

Some of the experiences we had in Oia:

Climbing the 200+ stairs down to Oia’s port, sometimes twice a day, dodging the donkeys and making sure not to slip on the smooth marble steps. At the base we followed the path around to the left, over the fallen rocks and found a little island not very far off the point with an even smaller church set into the side of it. We swam and snorkelled there often and one day swam with Anni and Ben over to the island with blankets, olives, bread and nuts held over our heads so we could have a picnic there. We stayed for hours watching others swim, ringing the church bell and working up the courage to jump off the rocky outcrop into the turquoise sea.

We also found the nearby ‘sandy’ beach. We were told it was sandy but standing in the waves we thought we were getting stoned to death. We watched the sunset from that beach, as well as from our rooftop eating olives and cheese and drinking retsina, we watched it from a rocky outcrop we found which also overlooked the town as it lit up, trickling over the edge of the mountain  like a light filled waterfall (see Niagara Falls). We watched it from the shell of a house whilst playing interior designer and creating our own masterpieces of architecture, as well as on a boat and from a restaurant labelled ‘unique sunset’. All in all we had our fill of sunsets, no sunrises though.

On my birthday I was woken by Claire jumping on me and we went and had breakfast with the others. My twin Jasmine and brother Daniel had booked us into a tour for the day so we caught a bus to the port where we boarded a green and white sail boat named ‘Adonis’.

We started off at the volcano in the centre of Santorini. A little history to start with; Santorini consists of several Islands, first of all there is the main one shaped as a huge sweeping crescent, in between the two points is a small island with a village on it, these two islands create a ring with two entry points. Inside the Caldera there are two more smaller islands, both old volcanos. Originally the Island had been one large volcano which when it exploded sunk in the centre. Over thousands of years the centre has risen again and will slowly rise until there is only one large island again. It was on this centre volcano that we stopped for a walk. There was no vegetation on the island, just black rocks that sent heat waves up from the ground. I don’t know the temperature but it was HOT. Possibly the hottest birthday I will ever have.

We were a little dubious therefore that the next stop was at the hot springs, we felt like a swim but not a hot one. We were surprised that the spring was in a cove of the other small island in the centre. Our boat stopped and we jumped off into the cool blue waters and swam towards the warm muddy ones. In the cove it was shallow and we picked smooth mud off the ground and rubbed it on our arms and eventually on each other’s faces. Being 21 is awesome.

Back on the boat on our way to the last island, the one connecting the crescent points, I was sunbaking on the front when there were calls from the other passengers and we looked over the side to see dolphins! Real live dolphins! I’ve never seen dolphins before so was quite excited by this but they did not stay with us long and we were soon at the island where we stopped for lunch. Claire and I had Gyros (of course) and tropical slushies, a perfect birthday lunch. We then found donkeys to take us up the mountain. It was like a derby, with the owner behind them yelling (in a very abusive tone) and their bells all jingling in their haste to get away from him and all at an angle of about 45°. At the top we admired the view and then turned around and descended again as our boat was leaving. This last trip took us back to the port and a bus took us back to Oia where we were to shop and watch the sunset, Claire and I went back to our house to shower and meet Ben and Anni for our own sunset and dinner. That night, back at the lookout Claire surprised me with a collection of well wishes she had collected from friends in the past few weeks which was truly touching.

After five nights in Oia we said goodbye to our host, she asked to kiss each of us and Ben said there were tears in her eyes, she had been very touched when for her birthday (the 9^th) we had bought her cake from the local bakery and she was really a lovely lady. Our next destination was Perissa on the south eastern side of the island. Here rooms were much cheaper and they had a much younger population, they also had an almost sandy (black) beach. Here we basically just relaxed. On the day before the others left we found a scuba diving group and booked ourselves in. It was a first dive for Ben, Anni and Claire and I was so excited to help introduce them to it! We went on two different dives, both to boat wrecks. Both fishing boats were in the shadows of the volcanic islands and had sunk over 50 years ago. There was no coral in the area and very little fish life, but the wrecks were cool and as a licensed diver I was allowed to go inside them. Our group was large and really friendly so all in all it was a great day ending in one of the roughest, but most fun, boat rides I have been on.

Ben, Shannon and Anni left the next day but Claire and I stayed in this new hostel for the rest of our nights. We made friends with an Australian girl and a Mexican guy and one day rented a quad bike. We rode to the red beach, the capital Thira, Kamari beach and then out for dinner and then the next day took it for another little spin along the beach before we had to hand it back. Other than that we just beached, read our books, ate from the 24 hr bakery EVERY DAY, one day we even had breakfast, lunch and dessert there. It was so good and cheap and the guy got to know us. He was a big hairy Greek man with his singlet pulled down to show off his chest hair and his apron tucked under his moobs and he wore washing up gloves for serving. On our last day when we were buying breakfast, lunch and snacks from the boat he came out from behind the counter to shake our hands and say goodbye. What a guy.

Our last few days have been in transit, but you know what they say about the journey and not the destination mattering! It turned out that I had booked the wrong ferry back and we were landing in Lavrion, about two hours out of Athens. We saw on the news on the boat that there were riots happening in Athens (apparently a very common occurrence) and we were a little worried to be there. We had an hour break where we had to all get off the boat at about 4pm and I asked the crew what time we were getting to Lavrion. He told us 11pm (14 hours after we had gotten on the boat) so I asked if there was anyway we could get a bus to Athens from this port we were at, and he told me with a little smirk that it was an island. So on to Lavrion it was. At midnight we found out there are no hotels in Lavrion so we went to neighbouring Sounio for some rest and the next day got a bus to Athens. The riots had stopped but as we walked past the government buildings surrounded by banners and graffiti Claire and I both got very sudden stinging throats, eyes and noses which passed not too long after we moved on, our figuring is there was still some pepper spray or some kind of chemicals in the air, I’m not sure if that can happen but that was the solution we came up with.

We made our way to the Acropolis where we got in free with EU student cards (win!) and after browsed the markets until we had to get to the bus station for our overnight bus to Igoumenitsa. We slept fitfully for the bus ride, at one point stopping for the police to get on and remove about five Indian looking guys up the back. They were taken off the bus and lined up on the side of this road in the middle of nowhere with a few other Indian guys who were already out there. Very strange. We got in at 3.30 this morning and slept at the bus station until at 7 they chucked us out. Now we are taking advantage of friendly cafes where they don’t throw you out even though you have only bought a €2 coffee and waiting for our ferry tonight at 9pm.

FERRY FROM IGOUMENITSA

After spending the whole day lounging around the port town of Igoumenitsa, we finally boarded our ferry setting down for the nights trip. Our plan was to watch the rest of Black Books, read a little maybe and sleep a lot!! Not long into the night a group of Turkish musicians began to play instruments and sing and eventually others began to dance along to the music. We soon discovered they were a group from a Turkish school in Istanbul travelling to perform at various locations across Europe. The singing and dancing went on into the night, Gem and I even got involved and attempted to learn some of the steps to their danced, but mostly just cheered and clapped along.

All was fun, fine and dandy until two of the Turkish guys decided Gem and I were ‘special’ and became rather insistent on spending the rest of the ferry ride up talking with us (which was already difficult to do since they spoke little English) and given that they had turned slightly seedy we responded we harsh ‘no’s’ to many of their advances. These two giving the Turkish a bad name, took some time to move away from us. With some stronger advances of wanting to sleep on the same deck lounge as us, we would not have it and we became quite annoyed and our messages of ‘bugger off’ was eventually received.

The Next morning all lovely and refreshed after sleeping a lovely long night – not. We caught a bus, train, train, bus to Sorrento, where we were to stay for 2 nights. Shower, Dinner, Wine and Sleep were welcomed with open arms!