Santorini

So getting off the ferry was a mad rush of chaos.. Every single backpacker on the boat found eachother clumped around the little old men and women holding up "rooms to let" signs. In the process of negotiation I lost my argentinian friends but found a ride up the massive cliff for 5 euro where I could walk to the cheap place I found online where this kid from Pennsylvania was headed. Then I found out he spent a month in turkey working at a hostel bar and so I hand a million and a half questions for him as we took the long journey up the dark cliff at 12:30 am. We arrived at the perissa hotel, clearly not in perissa as a tumble weed road by... You'da thought we were out in the wild west. No charge for the bus, just a beg to stay with mamma at her nice place. After a €7 negotiation, I said ok. I shared a room with this other girl from Argentina, Ingrid, who as the crowds were clearing at the port was still standing there completely lost. I told her to jump in, were goin to the cheap place .. She said ok and some other backpackers all made sure we were alright before headin off. So Ingrid is hilarious.. She's 28 and has a backpack twice as heavy as mine. Her English really does suck, and I think she thinks she's speaking in English when she rambles off in Spanish.. At least I get half of it and can be her translator.. Omgosh.. We had a 4 way chain goin the other day.. Greek old lady to this man who spoke English to me and then me to Ingrid. Ingrid was starving so I showed her the sack of cactus fruit I had from Mykonos.. I cut one open and told her to be careful cuz there are spikes.. She started enjoying them too much and was ripping them open with her hands.. I was like ahh! No! She said it's ok I don't see any splintas! I let her go to town on them before they all rotted.. And gave her some pomegranate too.. She liked that even more! And then as she went to wash her hands she started screaming because she started to feel all the little cactus needles in her hands. I started laughing because I told her so. And she spent prolly 30 mins plucking out the tiny clear needles before giving up. I was wondering if the needles would wear off in the bag I was carrying around but clearly Ingrid helped answer that. I found out that she was also headed to turkey, and so for 20 seconds we were goin together, and then she was only goin to Istanbul and by train.. Crazy girl.. But who am I to judge!? We miscommunicated for a while longer, tried to figure out if there was a mountain outside the window, and then eventually decided to go to sleep before mamma came and yelled aT us.

The next Morning I got up and went for a run! Yay! I came across a dead cat, live snake, and eventually the town of perissa our hotel claimed to be in. I scoped out the cheap hotel I had originally intended to stay in.. It was a downgrade, but closer to everything and it had a kitchen.. So I decided we would take it. I found my way back the really long way via the beach, and ran into Ingrid along the way she was headed to the store, but really worried about where I had gone.. I guess something wasn't clear in the translation.. She left me a hilarious broken english and Spanish note, with blanks and question marks all over because she didn't even know where she was goin. I cleaned myself up and ingrid got her food, and then I made the trek back to town to go hire the quad for the day, while Ingrid guarded our bags in the little locked closet under the stairwell so no one would take them away. All four us, the backpacks and us, barely fit onto the quad but we made it down the road!


We took the quad alll over santorini, starting first with little perissa, the black beach, then heading to the red beach, where this little old greek man took the chairs out from under us.. Not because we didn't pay for them, but because the cliff was goin to fall down on us. Skeptically we let him take the chairs and pile them up rght behind us... Likely the exact point of impact for the falling cliff..so maybe he was crazy, or jokin us, or just dumb... But we chose to stick around for about 30 more mins maybe out of curiousity to see if the cliff would really fall. It didn't.. And I'm sure the tourist who was documenting the moment on his camera, complete with personal interviews from us, is going to be very bored with his video. Even with the odd interruption, and the other old Greek man trying so hard to see us a watermelon, the red beach was definitely cool.. Different from so many other beaches... Those who think all beaches are the same need to see ones like this.



I hoped to get to the third color beach of santorini, the white sand beach, but apparently you need a boat... And I don't have one of those. Next time! So we attemped to head to the "bottom" of the crissoant as my French friends from Mykonos described santorini, but the wind was stirring up so much sand and dirt that ingrid was screaming to turn around, and so we did.. The lighthouse will haveta wait until the next visit as well. We drove to the complete other side of the island to oia/ia.. What you think of when you think of santorini. All the little white buildings in the distance made the hills look like they were dotted with snow.


Once we got there, over an hour later, it was still pretty cool frolicking up and down the white staircases between all the white tiny little buildings. It was almost effortless for us to come across the postcard spots, and it was crazy not crowded at everyone.. Just us, an asain and one other overly excited person.









Too bad my camera decided to revert back to it's old ways too :( we had a photoshoot in the sunset against the pretty white building backdrop.. Ingrid wanted sexy poses..


And then it was my turn.. Hmm not the best person to choose for that.. Not to mention our standard backpacker attire mixed in with the 30 other tourists lined up against the seawall cleaned up from head to toe... Dress shoes and all.. Maybe we even looked a little out of place. What's new!?


Aye so we watched the sun go down a bit with every other American and asian in santorini and we decided to start headin back before it got too dark... I took ingrids suggestion to turn right when I shouldn'tve.. But she kept saying the while way back I remember that tree.. O I remember this. And the while time I was thinking we haven't been here before.. But we kept goin and asking for directions.. It took well over an hour to only cover half the distance home.. But we made it, and once we reached the right road that we had actually taken before.. I remember sitting at the intersection deciding which way was best.. Ingrid again, remembered it. Ha. Whatever. We made it back, I was a bit cold but we got some spaghetti at the store and headed back to our remarkable (a hot plate, sink, and ice box... No soap at all!) kitchen to cook up dinner. So we had pasta and some extra flavor from whatever the hell the last people who used the dishes ate. I began my rock paintings that I meant to start in Mykonos but never had the chance. And we had an easy night!

The following morning Ingrid had a bit of a freak out not knowing what ferry to take back to Athens. She had two choices but was really stressed out about catching the train and whatnot.. I on the otherhand had no real clue when I was even leaving santorini or the best island to go to next. So we were about to take our quad for the rest of the morning, and then i think it didn't have enough gas so we just turned it in and walked. The first place was closed, the second one was far, but the third destination would give us our 30% eurail discount.. Gah. How would we get all the way to fira? If we took the bus for €2 each way that would almost defeat the purpose of the €10 discount, so we found our friend Raymond , the kid (well hes apparently 35!) from the bus up the hill.. He still had a quad and took Ingrid to get our tickets.. She didn't trust me with her €20 and eurail pass.. Fair enough. I wrote down my stuff and painted some more rocks til they got back. They took a while.. So I painted a lot since the weather was kinda poopy and I couldn't really lay out unless I wanted to lay in the sprinkles. When they got back they told me the next ferry out isn't til Tuesday.. And I believe it was sat.. O gosh that's a lot of rocks to paint! Ha. Well I didn't worry about it too much. I cleaned myself up and went for a little walk in the rain to confirm with the travel man down the road that there still was a ferry.. He said yes but I wanted to wait for my discount of course... Tomorrows task! So I collected more stones while Ingrid and Raymond went back to the red beach.. Apparently they got soaked. Ha ha I kinda wanted to go but I didn't mind Layin low for the day. When they got back we had another pasta feast.. Raymond brought the wine to make it a little more enjoyable and the pasta tastier. We decided to intrude on the 24 hour bakery "late" into the night.. The dude who ran it was so cool.. Such a typical old Greek pastry man if I ever saw one.. The yellowed wifebeater and potbelly... He gave us a pretzel stick everytime we stuck our head in too :) Ingrid and I were all over the frozen chocolate cake.. Raymond got this crazy nutella doughnut folded delicious mess.. (I had the cream pastry powedered sugar with cinnamon on top earlier in the morning). Mmmmm. And then we played cards.. Teaching go fish in broken English is hard.. Learning funny argentinean games was easier I think... Or maybe Ingrid was making them up on the spot.. It def amused us late enough into the night.. And then Ingrid and raymond had to get up at the crack of dawn for the boat.

So I woke up nice and slow.. The day to myself.. What would I do!? I had to get my ticket for the midnight ferry.. If it was still runnin.. And maybe work on my October tan.. Haha so I cleaned up our disaster little room and headed for the bus stop to fira to make sure that I could get my ferry ticket and save only €5 by the time I pay the to and fro of the bus.. I sat and waited a good half hour.. Occassionally chatting with the lady who was also waiting.. I decided it did it didn't matter if it was 6km.. I had nothing better to do so I headed down the road... Maybe I could find some more pomegranates for the food bag too! About 1k down the road and a few whistles later, one of the boys on a bike stopped and turned around to talk to me.. Joking I said I would only talk to him if he gave me a ride .. I don't think he understood and left. About 5 mins later.. I heard him come back from behind me.. And he said come on, we got to fira. I thought for 10 seconds... Looked at the long desert road ahead, thought i haven't been on a bike with locals in a fair bit of time and jumped on. O gosh. He took me right to the ferry office which was nice, and I found out my ferry was going still, jus at 3:30 am instead of midnight- ick. Before we got there tho we made a quick stop at his home to grab something and the gas station.. I only stood in the road/driveway maybe a full minute and in that time I managed to bring out a crazy Greek swarm of young men to every balcony and door within 10 feet. Ahhhh! We walked around fira/thira for a bit... Me and Leonardo.. Dicaprio.. Ha that's what he told me his name was... The unconfirmed facebook request confirms that his name is actually Leo tho! We went to look at the caldera.. Kinda really beautiful! And we watched the little donkeys run down the steps to retrieve the fat lazy people who were arriving by boat. There wasn't too much coversation, as I soon learned Leo is actually Albanian and is just working on santorini.. Either for five months or he has been there five months so far, not quite sure, but Ive now figured that Albanians are to Greece as mexicans are to California. So me and my mexican headed back for perissa.. I got a ride back too! And then there was another stop at a pastry shop.. And then a little dirt road to the edge of a cliff.. O great. This is where he kills me. He whips out two red bulls and straws and we sit.. Ok he just likes me. So we sit and try to talk.. It doesn't get too far because i don't know any Greek or Albanian and his English and Spanish aren't so hot either. He just wants to stare at me, so I start babbling about my amazing boyfriend back in California that I get to see very soon.. Haha. Ok. I'm done- let's go home now. So we head back and he freaks me out driving fast.. So I get off as soon as I can and as fast as I can without being rude because he was very nice.. And I manage to burn my leg on he exhaust pipe. Owww. I say bye and he goes back to doing probably whatever it was before he found me on the road a few hours ago. So to start my afternoon with myself since I no longer get a day, I head straight to the beach and walk along the black sand to the town, trying to cool my burn in the shore break. I set up shop on the brick wall and start painting away again.. Now I know what it feels like to be one of those street people! I sunbathed and painted drawing lots of admirers, including he egyptian restaurant owner and a few more albanians, but no buyers.. Bummer. Are there any Greeks besides the donut dude here? I see my Albanian lover fly by on a scooter with his friend.. Of course he saw me because I positioned myself to be seen by everyone.. So he rolled up with a rose picked off some bush somewhere between the end of the road and me.. Ooo Leo.


He asked me to coffee so we could talk more but I told him I had to catch the bus to the ferry.. Not to mention there was not much to talk about since we really couldn't communicate too well. So I settled for 7.. And as I left I knew I would haveta break his little heart.. Hopefully he thought it was a communication error. So I hurried back to my "hotel" that I had techinically already checked out of hours ago but left the door unlocked so I could leave my bag there.. I took a quick shower and headed to the bus station hoping the bus would actually come this time instead of Leo... Thank god it did and I ran back to thira to hide for a few hours.. I shoulda just waited til then to get my ticket and been more efficient and economical. O wel


l. I enjoyed another amazing Greek sunset and went to a restaurant to feast by myself.. Something that I've been meaning to do but haven't had the courage to yet.. I used to tell myself I wouldn't be that lady in the corner eating by herself... Look at me now! So I had a full on feast.. Because I haven't done that since dinner in Slovenia, a basket of bread (well that went on my backpack) a Greek salad, and then mammas meatballs and rice.. That came with French fries. Alright. So I was just hangin out, observing the two older kiwis next to me who only split a personal pizza and didn't finish it, and here I was solo with a three course meal, and I look down at my backpack against the wall and I see a freaking cat peeing on my bag. Great. Now it's broken and is gonna smell like cat piss. Not to mention I need to put tha side against my back in like 3 minutes.. Did I mention how I got pooped on in Prague too? I think I left that out.. But I managed to get shat on by a pigeon in my mouth. That was truly special. It made merediths day and the kebab lady who was watching... Not so much mine as you can imagine. Maybe that was worse than this but the cat pee was just another reason my life is a joke... I doubt there's too many other people who have been pooped and peed on by two different animals in the same week. Anyway, the kiwi ladies were laughing but felt bad and thought I was crazy but an inspiration for them to start traveling on their own too... I think they were both just divorced and midlife crisising in santorini.. Glad I could help! So I tried to clean the mess and hung out on a rando street corner in town trying to get some free Internet in before takin the 9 pm bus to the harbour.. Yes my ferry is at 3 am.. But I'd rather take the 9 pm bus and set up camp to get a little sleep instead of hangin around til the 2 am bus... I was not the only one with that idea. I made a little uncomfortable bed with two chairs.. The cafe man next door wished me goodnight as I cuddled up in my sarong to try to sleep... It wasn't really working, so I moved to the terminal and found a bench... That was great until the babies who discovered that their voices echo came in.. And then my alarm went off just before 3 to make sure I got up and on the boat in time... But the boat wasn't there.. And it didn't show up for almost an hour.. Youjust never can know in Greece. So we boarded around 4:20am... My favorite time of the day.. I busted on and staked out my couch and was done.... Til 7:30.


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