Santorini Continued...

Sorry about the short one.. Internet time ran out.

So we spent the first night in Thira and in the morning decided to find a beach! well we walked from our hotel to the city and by the looks of our map, the beach couldn't be much farther in the opposite direction....or so we thought. We ended up walking an hour to the beach, which didn't have anything to offer for snorkeling anyway, so spent maybe 30 min at the beach and walked 1 1/2 hours back to the city. then we went out to the city of Oia. This city is famous for this photo op

. and the sunsets here are better than anywhere else. We casually walked through the streets taking many photos and talking to the very nice shop owners until it was time for the sunset. The streets are built all on top of eachother, and so you could easily hop onto the roof below you, and we saw all sorts of animals hanging out on rooftops. The sunset was quite spectacular, but we haven't had a night with out a beautiful sunset. We crammed into a very crowded bus and had dinner on a very romantic rooftop, dimmly lit with music and a view and couples in love. And then there was Lizzie and I. Awkward....

Food list

Greek salad (I was very disappointed, didn't realize that it didn't have lettuce, only more tomatos and cucumbers which i don't like)
More crepes

Lamb

CRETE!!....Er...Naxos?

So the next day we had our Ferry tickets in hand and went to double check our boat with the local ticket booth. The receptionist causally matter-of-factly told us it was cancelled. So we had a couple of options...stay in Santorini for a few days more or pick another island at random. We picked Naxos. and in less than an hour had to get ourselves on the boat.

Naxos, a town full of octopus and squid, was pretty big compared to the other islands. I am getting pretty good at bargaining for a hotel room and "Nick the Greek" took us to our hotel and was very friendly to tell us about all there was to do on this island. We decided to rent a four-wheeler and concour the island ourselves! We strapped on our bags the next morning and set out find whatever! We visited many little villiages through the very steep mountiany terrain, and stopped at this villiage, pretty much in the middle of no where for dinner. We went exploring through the little streets, as usual but the thing that was different with this city was that it wasn't near the coast. Meaning we had no landmark to find our way to the exit. We ended up wandering through the streets for over and hour, with no people around, just taking wild guesses on which corner to turn. It seems that the stairs up never ended. Fortuantly we found this little lady hanging laundry. YAY! unfortunatly she didn't speak english... she spoke French. So with the very little French I knew this little angel showed us the way to our ATV. We then went to a very remote beach and did some snorkeling and saw some more octopus and fishys. The sun was setting and we still didn't know where to stay the night. It was getting darker and darker and we still didn't have a hotel.. so we could either go back into town......or there was a very cool beach that we could camp on for free......hmm. We chose the adventure! although very cold, it was free and easy.

Santorini...the romantic destination.

So the island of Santorini is all built on a volcano, which means EVERYTHING is stairs. So after a long day of hiking to the beach and ten spending a day going up and down stairs, our legs are feeling it. But it was so worth the energy because the views are out of this world! Sorry i can't talk anymore! love you all!

Hello! Gia!
So continuing on with 10/18
We traveled around town for the rest of the day, getting lost in all of the windy roads with no names, but we didn't mind getting lost because the scenery was so great. I devoured a strawberry and nuttella crepe that was very messy but absolutely heavenly! So good that I almost forgot that I had the chicken pox.
So remember how I mentioned that the bugs were eating me...that night I ended up having more than twenty bugs bites or hives or whatever they are all over my body.. making last nights rest very miserable. This morning there were too many to count, mostly on my arms and my face.. :( So we took the evening easy, strolling along the beach in the sand listening to music and watching the sunset....how romantic for lizzie and I.. haha. It was fun though. We have met alot of really cool people so far. A lot of fellow backpacking students from all over the world and some really nice and sweet locals.
10/19
So first things first! We went out to find a pharmacy. Since yesterday was a sunday we couldn't do anything about the hive situation. A very cute Greek man named Antonio who didn't speak any english at all showed us along the windy tiny roads for a ways to the pharmacy and I spent my whole ration of euros for food for the day on meds.. It was sooo worth it. They are starting to un-swell and are only the size of quarters now. Enough about the pain. It hasn't really affected how wonderful and charming Mykonos was. We spend the morning hanging out at the port and shopping. Then hopped on the Ferry to Santorini!!

Arriving to Santorini, again with no real plan of where to stay, and I had just woke up from my two hour boat ride nap and still was very groggy and confused. We hop off the bus, and like at the other port were bombarded with people trying to get us to come to there hotel. The first woman who walked over to us offered us a hotel that was nicer than any hostels but still out of our price range. I have never really "haggled" prices before but very easily talked her into letting us stay for 10 euro a night. In no time we were in her car getting a ride to the hotel and I was still dazzed and confused on what had really just happened. I guess since it is the off season they are willing to just fill up the rooms at any price! or I just have some nack for haggling. So we dropped off our bags and made it to the main part of Santorini just in time to grab dinner at a cool very local place.. ( I had lamb and Lizzie had pork Slovuki and we shared some Tzitzi) and finished just in time to see the sunset.. Talk about spectactular! you could see all the islands and the clouds. Again. so romantic. Awe.. So we wandered through the very steep (Santorini is a volcano, so EVERYTHING in uphill.) streets that were so cool. If you close your eyes and think about what you imagined Greece like, this is it but so much better in real life. I wish the camera captured it better. Time is about to run out on my computer. Gotta go ! love you!

Travel Journal of Greece! First three days.

Greece!!!
We have arrived and are still alive!!!We started off with what could be expected on a 9 1/2 hour flight to Paris, Meaning crying babies, old men behind us wiggling their toes between our arm rests and of course not getting any sleep. The good news is that Elder Russell M. Nelson was on our flight so we knew the plane was probably not going to crash.
We rushed through the airport so quickly in Paris that we saw nothing but we did have a short talk with the apostle..In Paris. How cool.
From the moment we arrived in the Athens airport I liked this place, specifically because I found a $50 bill on the ground in the airport. I took it to the desk and they told me to keep it! Score. On with Greece! We hopped on a metro and walked through the somewhat ghetto town of Pireaus, which is a little port town where we stayed the night to catch early ferry the next morning. Whew. We were pretty exhausted.


10/18

So we hop on a ferry to Mykonos and from this point on, we have no real plan of what is next. We left at 7:30 in the morning so we got to see an awesome sunrise from the boat with greece in the background. After a 5 hour Ferrie ride we finally were at destination 1. We hopped on a shuttle that took us out to Mykonos Beach. This beach seems to be a spring break college party type of beach during regular season, but it was quiet empty and nice for us since it is October. We got a cute little penthouse for very cheap and after eating headed straight to the ocean (Aegean Sea) We went snorkeling and it was very cool. I have never snorkeled before and we got to see fish and coral and an OCTOPUS! I was right above it until it opened up all eight legs and freaked me out so i swam away quickly. I am pretty satisfied that the first day swimming we saw an octopus.
There are cats everywhere here. Probably 12 or more just living off of dropped food at the resort we are staying at. With a whole family of kittens. We explored the beach the rest of the evening and when 7:30 hit we were both exausted. We forced our selves to stay awake until 8:30 and then we crashed hard of course going to bed so early we were wide awake at 6 am the next morning. We are still working on the whole time difference thing.

10/19
We caught an early bus into the town of Mykonos, where litterally every corner you turn the streets look like that right off of a post card. It is so cute and the shore is absolutley stunning. They say that people cant leave this place once they visit. We actually met a lady who is from... weird....Northampton Mass. The city that we lived for two weeks for foodplay. A bizzare coincidece. But she visited this place and just fell in love and moved here. The streets and scenery are absolutly stunning and I can't stop taking pictures. It is great weather and we are actually very hot and stop at this internet place to take a break and get out of the sun and because the bugs are eating me alive.

The food that I have had so far.... A few Gyros (SO good!)
Lots of pasteries and crossants
Baklava (sp?)
About to go get myself a crepe.

I am OFF!! Love you all and miss you..

From Grease!....... to Greece!

Rizzo and Frenchy

I have just finished a run of four months in the musical production of Grease in Jackson Hole Wyoming. It was a fantastic production with many talented and wonderful people. I will miss the great friends and the Grand Tetons in my backyard. AHHH.... WHAT A GREAT SUMMER!








BUT! now that I have bid GREASE farewell... I say hello to GREECE!

I am crazy excited to tackle the next big adventure with one backpack of luggage and a camera. My friend Lizzie and I will be embarking on a two week VACA! I will be sipping a nice cool beverage and possibly looking out at this....

Or maybe stumble upon a stage where acting was invented!......

or finding some underwater wonders like this!......

and then wandering around some streets like these....

and by the end have a wallet that looks like this.....

(Photos will be much cooler when actually taken in person.)


As you can probably tell, I am stoked.