Goodbye Greece!

This morning we woke up and got ready to leave.  We packed up our backpack and were going to make our way to the airport.  Before we left though, we made one more stop for some delicious Greek yogurt and baklava gelato, and actual baklava.  We grabbed a few more peeks at the beautiful scenary and then made our way to the little Santorini airport.  From there, were flew to Athens where we'll be catching our flight home to the States in a few hours!  Greece, it's been great!  Seriously.  I love you.  See you soon!

Santorini Day 3: Lots of fun and then a flat tire

This morning we started the day by going to the Akrotini Settlement which was an Ancient city during Minoan Bronze Age (1600 B.C.).  The settlement was destroyed by a volcanic eruption and everything was covered in ash.  It has been suggested as a possible inspiration for Plato's Atlantis and is still continuing to be excavated.

After leaving the settlement, we decided to make our way back to Ammoudi Bay & Oia.  We stopped at a random small little town for lunch where there were a few small guest houses and a store or two.  It was really quiet but a cute place to stop.  

After lunch, we decided to get going to Oia but then our ATV started making a gurgling noise.  Next thing, we know, we're completely stopped.  Eck!  Being in a foreign country, we didn't have a cell phone and we were literally stuck on the side of a small road.  We were hoping someone would stop soon and we could ask for help but all we could do was wait.  There were a few houses near by but we weren't really sure about just walking up to someone's door and not being able to speak English.  We killed some time by trying to throw rocks into a stray glass bottle close by and we just waited... and waited.

Santorini Day 2: Oia & Ammoudi Bay

With our own ATV this morning, we were free to explore the rest of the island!  First we made a stop at Kamari beach with is famous for its black sand.  It was pretty rocky near the shore so it wasn't the best beach to play in the water so we laid out for a little bit.  Will got some random Greek donut (not as good as American donuts- no sweet enough), we took a nap in the sun, and had lunch.  Will doesn't have a huge tolerance for tanning (he really can't go more than an hour or two), so after a bit we made our way over to Oia.  We did stop at some fun look out points to get a picture.  It was just so fun riding the ATV around and going for the drive. 

 

Once we made our way to Oia, we decided to walk over to Ammoudi Bay first.  We had heard there was some delicious seafood taverns there as well as a fun place to jump off cliffs.  Needless to say, this was Will's favorite part!  He's a little fish and loves to swim and around and play and so we spent a few hours here.  The little cliff we jumped off doesn't look that high in pics and doesn't even seem high in person but when you're standing at the edge it looks scary!  That's because from the edge, you can see the underwater rocks and they look huge and sharp and like you might hit it when you hit the water.  However, when you look from under the water, you realize there's plenty of water for clearance and it isn't an issue at all!  It was fun jumping off.  The jump was high enough that the water would rush up your nose and give you a monstrous headache and wedgie.  It also sometimes hurt depending on how your feet hit the water but nonetheless, it was still fun!

Santorini Sunsets

This morning we woke up and left our hotel in Mykonos and took the ferry to Santorini. The ferry was late and of course took almost an hour longer than it was supposed to take.  This kind of laid back timing and structure to everything is one of the things that I notice the most differs from country to country.  Here everything is on such a laid back time and what happens, happens.  This is unlike the US where things are pretty organized and unlike Japan where buses are on time to the minute.  Anyways, once our ferry landed in Santorini, we took a bus to the center of Fira.  From here, we had lunch at a really beautiful restaurant overlooking the town (that was also super delicious!!) and emailed our hotel to pick us up.  While it is only like a 10 minute walk, it is SUPER hot (especially with our backpacks on) and since the hotel offers a free pick up from the center of town, we decided to take them up on it.

Paradise in Mykonos

This morning we slept in a little and had a leisurely start to the day with breakfast at the hotel.  This was a nice surprise since usually when Will and I travel, we end up setting a bunch of alarms. Then, we took the bus and made our way to Paradise Beach which is Mykonos' most popular beach.  We started the day by going scuba diving.  While it is always fun to scuba, it wasn't nearly as awesome of a diving destination at the Philippines was and the scenery wasn't as cool.  We were definitely spoiled by the Philippines.  It was even our instructor's dream to go there and dive there.  However, it was cool to see a bunch of little fish just swimming around us and because of timing, we had a private group with just us and the instructor.  And actually, we ended up having two instructors because one was training under the other.  We didn't opt for photos this time since Will and I have scuba photos from our trip to Boracay.  We just decided to save the money instead.

After scuba diving, we went and had lunch and some delicious fresh fruit juice.  Then we decided to just relax and laid out on the beach.  We rented two beach lounge chairs and just hung out for a few hours.  The beach was really beautiful.  The water was clear but cool and it was a perfect sunny day.  The only bummer was that I seriously burnt the arches of my feet when we went scuba diving and had to walk out on the hot beach barefoot and so that made walking on the rocky pebbles of the beach pretty painful for the rest of the day.

Mykonos: Looks just like a postcard!

This morning we took the high speed ferry to Mykonos. When we got there, a man from our hotel was waiting with a sign to give us a free ride to the hotel.  We apologized profusely because our ferry was late and we must have kept him waiting. Then we got in the car and literally drove literally 20 seconds and were at the hotel which made both me and Will laugh because we could have walked.

 

 Luckily our room was ready so even though check in time wasn't for a couple of hours, they let us check in.  We stayed at Maki's Place which certainly isn't the nicest hotel I have stayed in but since it is peak season in Mykonos, everything was super insanely expensive.  Maki's was  affordable, clean, and was highly recommended by a friend.

After checking in, we took the bus to the center of Mykonos. Mykonos looks exactly how you imagined Greece to look like from postcards.  Bright white buildings with blue accents everywhere.  There were tons of cute shops and restaurants and actually reminded me a lot of Venice with the skinny walkways and alleys.  We also went to see huge windmills and the church of Paraportiani.

Will Stamos in Athens

DISCLAIMER: The following blog post does not reflect the views and/or thoughts of the usual blog writer.  Thank you.

Will here, aka kimjongwil, Troy Williams, and my new Greek alias, Will Stamos. Here's my summary of our day in Athens, real talk edition.

So as Kristine has already mentioned, we had a long ass day in Moscow yesterday.  We ended up losing an almost full day in Athens so we had to cram everything into one.  Our apartment was in the best location imaginable, clean, small, and the air conditioner was a beast.

We set the alarm for 8am, which isn't terribly early but we didn't go to sleep till around 2am after arriving late at night. We had a food tour to meet with so we headed over there first thing.  There were ten people in our group counting us, including former UNC/pro basketball player, Byron Sanders and his wife.  She still plays overseas and told me she was supposed to play for the Washington Mystics this season if she hadn't gone to Turkey.  Anyway, they kept jocking me during the food tour and wanted to be my friend.  The best food on the tour were these fresh donut-like things.  Kristine even tried to eat the fake ones with the statue!

After the food tour we were still hungry so we went to eat an authentic Greek gyro.  One thing I noticed was that they are all traditionally pork.  You can also find chicken ones.  However, none are lamb and beef like I'm used to seeing in the U.S.  It was better than expected and this was the first of many more to come.  Plus, it was the first real meal since the last three were either airplane food or that KGB dinner at our prison cell, I mean Russian hotel.

From lunch we walked around momomomomo Square.  There is a flea market there and lots of shops and restaurants in general.  Overall, it was a lot of touristy type places.  We got to a point where it was too hot to go up to the Acropolis and decided to go back to the apartment to rest and head up when it cooled down around 6pm.  We ended up taking a short nap and took the short walk up to see what all the fuss was about.

We came back down the half mile walk and had a souvlaki wrap.  We made our way over to the Plaka. This is the main happening area of Athens with tons of shops and restaurants.  It connects to momomomomo Square as well so it was also only about a five minute walk from our place.  We wanted to check out CineParis, an outdoor movie theatre right in the middle of the Plaka.  It was on the roof of a two story building and they were only showing one movie,"Hercules", starring Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson.

- Posted by Will Stamos using BlogPress from my iPad

A is for Athens

So because of the flight delay debacle from yesterday, today was our one and only day in Athens. It turns out it was just enough time though to pack in everything. I love Athens!  It's small and walkable and while it definitely has the urban griminess of a city with tons of graffiti and all, it's also super cute and quaint and beautiful.  It's a really neat mix of both European and Persian culture.  This morning we started with a walking food tour that my friend Megan Trulock got me for my birthday. It was awesome!! While Will and I are adventurous and will try anything when it comes to food, it was awesome to have a guide show up the local best spots and explain what was in everything and the history behind it.  We tried all kinds of stuff and everything was pretty tasty except for the olives since Will and I hate olives!

Although we were pretty full from the tour, we decided to go to lunch anyways because it was another food opportunity and our time in Athens was limited.   We walked around Monastiraki square and found a restaurant that the AirBnB host recommended.  It was delicious!  Seriously!  I wasn't even that hungry but it was the best gyro and kebab we had ever had.  And the owner who was this cute old man was so nice to us.  He smiled at us a lot and patted my head and even when we said we were too full for dessert, he gave us the most delicious yogurt with honey and peaches, on the house.

After lunch we walked around the Monastiraki flea market and saw all of the cool shops and vendors.  However, since our apartment was in the perfect location to everything and just around the corner, we decided to stop in and drop off some purchases.  This ended up being a 2 hour nap which was just what we needed after a long morning walking in the heat.