Santorini Day 1

At 6:30 AM, we were finally told that we would be getting off the boat. For those of you keeping track, that’s 24 hours late and about 36 hours total spent on H.M.S. tourist trap.

Emphasis on the trap.

I spent the night on and actual bed in one of the rooms on board because I would have slit my wrists (vertically) if I had to sleep in the movie theater seats again. Brian was asleep when I asked him if he wanted to join me so he wasn’t really that into it. It was probably a good thing he stayed behind because he met three girls who were planning on staying in the same hotel as we were and they had called the hotel so that the shuttle would be sent down for us.

When we get to the hotel, we met my Poppy. To my surprise, Poppy was a chick and she runs the joint. She told us that since our reservations were for Monday and Tuesday, we could stay in the room until 1:30 in the afternoon to rest, but we would have to check out then and there was no guarantee that we would have a room this evening since we had no reservation. Whatever. I figured that if I had to, I could sleep in the movie theater seats again.

While Brian showered for the first time in about two and a half days I rested my eyes. When he got out, he asked me if I wanted to get going or sleep more. I said both, which while impossible it was exactly how I felt. Too tired to get going, but seeing as how we had already lost 36 hours to the ferry and only had one day here, I just had get up and to carpe the stuffing out of the diam. Plus, I a can always sleep when I’m dead.

Brian and I thought it would be a really good idea for us to rent mopeds. What better way for us to blend in with the locals than putting the fun between our legs and zooming through traffic? We found a shop that rented bikes and he asked if we had a motorcycle license. Nope but we had drivers licenses. Then he asked on of the more poignant questions of the trip so far. “Do you know how to ride one?”

Answer, “No, but can you teach us.”
Counter Answer, “Always these people ask me to ride something when they do not know how. That is not smart. Why do you ask to do something you do not know how? Sorry but no. A car would be safer for you.”

Score one logic point, and potentially thousands of dollars in medical insurance claims, for the moped guy.

On the quest for a car, we instead found ATVs. These had multiple advantages over our other alternate modes of transportation; four wheels=balance, cheaper, have experience with them, both of us could drive there by upping the fun factor, easily maneuverable in small spaces.

The guy who rented us the ATVs warned us that people here do not drive with rules like in the states. Instead, he told us to treat it ‘like a war zone.’

The ATV was by far THE BEST twenty five euros I have spent on the entire trip thus far because of not only the above reasons, but it let us go so so many more places than we would have been able to on foot or by the bus. I originally learned the importance of four wheels and a motor last year when we rented a car in St. Thomas, but this reminded me why its so crucial.

If you ever go to an island, just suck it up and get your own transportation. Its well worth the investment and you’ll thank yourself.

After making our purchase, we then went on a quest to find Mama’s. ‘Mama’ is the aunt of one of our good family friends who lives on the island and also owns a restaurant. I had never met her, but spoke to her on the phone when we were imprisoned on the ferry. When I spoke to her yesterday on the phone, she first, wanted to make sure I was ok, called me baby probably close to 25 times, and demanded that if we were able to dock that day that I call her so she could take us to our hotel. It was easy to see why ‘mama’ is our friend’s favorite aunt.

Saying we had a rough idea where to go would be generous. Looking back on it, we took the most round about way getting there, passed the place at least one if not twice, and came this close l------l to losing each other on the mean streets of Santorini.

Eventually, we got hungry enough that we swallowed our pride, and asked for direction. The first guy told us it was about 200 meters on the right. I have no idea how far this is since I am American and don’t use such silly systems based in logic. Although I did swim for more than half of my life and used to be able to get there in a little over two minutes in my hay day, so it shouldn’t be too far.

Then we went what had to be way over two hundred meters, and asked for directions again. This time Mama’s was now 500 meters on the right. As Brian said, this meant one of two things, A) the first guy also does not know the metric system either or B) he just wanted to mess with us.

We made it to Mama’s, and she was just as great as she sounded on the phone. First order of business was to give me a big hug from Cris, then make sure I was ok, and had a place to sleep for the night- which was still up in the air at that time.

Mama’s is not only warmhearted but as I had been warned before hand, ‘a kick.’ or as I would put it, off her rocker. When she is not out in the dining room making a spectacle over the freshness of the orange juice, she is in the kitchen cooking and harassing each customer who walks in the door by demanding that they “say good morning to Mama!”

We got to talking to the people at the table next to us, told them our tales of woe, how we knew Mama, and we then come to find out that they are from Bethesda, and live about 10-15 minutes from my house. I’m how many 1000s of miles from home and sit down next to someone less than 5 miles away from my house?

I’ve lost count of how many small world moments I’ve had in the last 3 months.

Breakfast was the best I’ve had in a while, omelet, hash brown, and toast for a very reasonable 5 euro. It was a nice change from croissants and jelly. Breakfast actually ended up being on the house, did I mention she was nice?, we made sure to leave a good sized tip and promised Mama we would return tomorrow. This time with the camera so we could take a picture of one of the less forgettable characters of our trip so far.

After breakfast, we went to Kamari beach, which is know for having black sand instead of the regular white/brown.

Fun Fact: Besides that its black, the sand is unique because it is really really small pebbles of volcanic rock, not grains like regular sand.

Less Fun Fact: When the wind blows hard like it was today, the sand hitting you feels like a bunch of small bullets.











Then we drove up the windy rode to Ancient Thira. Its about 1,200 feet above the beach. They close at 2:30 in the afternoon each day, we got there at about 2:20, and the guy told us it was closed. I would have liked to see the ruins, but it wasn’t going to happen.

After we got back down from the ruins, we called Poppy. You know when someone screams into the phone and all you hear is the reverberations and you can not hear them? Now add a thick Greek accent, and that’s what trying to talk to her on the phone was like. After asking her what the hell she was saying about 15 times, it turns out she had a room for us and we would not have to be homeless for the evening.

We got tired from lack of sleep for the previous two nights, and went to an internet café to chill out and get in contact with the rest of the world. This internet café was like nothing you had ever seen before. It was a nerds paradise. There were rows and rows of maxed out computers with kids playing World of Warcraft and other games for social butterflies. We just checked emails but made sure to snap photos when the geeks were not looking.










After the internet café, we drove around for a few hours exploring the island and snapping pictures. Santorini really does live up to the hype. It’s a place where just about every scene could be a photo.


Not much else happened after the sun went down, we went back to the hotel, had dinner, met a few kids who were also in our hotel and got some much needed rest.