Relax, Take It Easy

This past weekend was our first long weekend. Jeri, Sarah, and I met up with Danielle, Pam, and Megan in Athens to travel to Santorini. It was one of the best, most memorable times I've ever had. It was such a relief not having to run around like a mad woman trying to see architecture. I finally just relaxed and took it all in.

We picked one of the quieter times to visit Santorini. In the summer, the island is filled with tourists. When we were there, the majority of the shops weren't open, there weren't any donkey rides or boats to the volcano, the buses weren't as frequent... and it was awesome. It was like having the whole island to ourselves. I would hate to be there with a million people all fighting for pictures and having people haggling me for money or whatever. Anyways...

Thursday, the Berlin girls arrived in Athens at 3pm and took a taxi to the Acropolis to see the Parthenon (our one architecture-related activity). We thought the Acropolis closed at 5, so we booked it as soon as we got off the plane. We paid 40 Euros for the cab ride, only to find out that the Acropolis closes at 3 (last tickets at 2:30). We were not happy campers. We found Megan, Danielle, and Pam, and together we walked the Acropolis and took photos of the view.

We stopped at a cafe called Ouv Adnua for food. Our waitress was hilarious! She was full of energy and jokes. In Greece, people take their time and relax when they eat. It was so nice just to kick back with food and wine.

After spending about two hours there, we headed for our hotel in Piraeus, where we would be taking a ferry the next morning. We weren't quite stuffed yet, so we ventured out towards the water and walked around and ended up going into a Haagen Daz Cafe for desserts. Sadly I didn't have my camera on me, but the desserts were delicious. This was like a high-class Haagen Daz. If we wanted to, we could've ordered alcoholic drinks as well.

When we got back to the hotel, we all took showers, and this is when I was banned from using outlets for the rest of the trip. In my state my tiredness, I plugged in Pam's hairdryer with an adapter but not a converter, so as soon as I turned on the hairdryer, I blew the fuse, and Jeri and Sarah go "Angela...." and the next thing you hear from next door (because the walls are paper thin) is "was that the hairdryer?!" Turns out I blew out the electricity for the entire third floor... Oops.
The staff were nice about it though. They couldn't restore the electricity, so they offered for us to switch room, but I felt so bad that I told them that it would be fine.

The next morning, we woke up early for our 7:30am ferry to Santorini on Blue Star Ferries. It was a 7.5 hour ferry ride, making a few stops to the other islands. The water was the bluest I had ever seen. We spent the majority of our time trying to catch up on sleep or playing card games. We finally arrived at Santorini around 3:30 where we were picked up personally by our hotel, Villa Manos. We only paid 86 Euros for two nights, which rounded to about 15 Euros per person! The ride to the hotel reminded a lot of the roads in Jamaica; there were a lot of sharp turns going up and down the mountain/cliff.

We wasted no time. We dropped off all of our stuff in the room and walked for about 20 minutes to Fira, the "capital" of Santorini. We made a few stops along the side of the road to watch the sunset and stopped by a few souvenir shops for gifts and such. Around 7pm or so, we were all starving, and because we hadn't eaten since the ferry, and we didn't know when restaurants would close, we headed to a restaurant called Ellis (recommended by one of the cashiers at a souvenir shop). This was the most amazing restaurant I have ever experienced. When we arrived, there was absolutely no one in there, and our waiter just looked so bored. I think we made his night by entering the restaurant. He was absolutely charming and adorable. The food was incredible. We ordered a few appetizers (fried cheese, deep fried tomato balls) and everybody tried different entrees. We ended up spending four hours there, and our waiter kept bringing us free food! First he brought out half a liter of white wine and a quarter liter of red wine, and after we finished with our entrees, he came out with four (!!!) plates of desserts! It was a fantastic night full of food and good friends and beautiful sights.

Saturday morning, we woke up bright and early and headed back to Fira for breakfast at a cafe called Classico Cafe. In the morning, it was raining a bit so we were worried that it would be a wet day out, but as soon as we finished breakfast, the sun came out. It was perfect. We walked around Fira for about an hour or so before taking the bus down to Kamari.

Kamari, like the rest of Santorini, was wonderful. We walked around exploring the town. We tried to find Ancient Thira, but we quickly realized that it was located on the top of the cliff. If we had planned it better, I bet we would've rented ATVs to drive to the top. But, regardless, we enjoyed our little hikes around the town, and finally we walked towards the water to experience Kamari's black sand beach. It was surreal to see all this black sand and rocks. The first thing I did was throw my shoes and socks off. It was painful to walk on at first, but after a while, you get used to it. I frolicked around like a little kid. I ran towards the Mediterranean Sea and felt the cold water submerge my feet. It was wonderful.

Because it was the weekend, the buses were running only every two hours, so we decided to call a taxi instead of wasting time. We drove down to our next destination on the island: Akrotiri. This was even more amazing than Kamari's black sand... this was red sand. We had to climb a bit to get down to the beach, but the view was breath-taking. I couldn't believe where I was. The water so crystal clear and so blue. It was beyond words. We spent a few hours there relaxing, taking pictures, etc. I was throwing rocks and attempting to skip them; I was having the time of my life.

Eventually it was time to leave the beach. We headed back to the hotel briefly to clean ourselves up and get ready for the night. While we were looking for Poppy (the owner of the hotel) so we could get a taxi, she decided to feed us food! Seriously, this woman was so hospitable and helpful.

We took the taxi to our final destination of the night: Oia. I had read several articles online and in books that Oia must be experienced at sunset, so that's what we did. We arrived about an hour beforehand so we could walk around and check out the town. It was here that The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was filmed, and it is here that those famous pictures of white houses and blue roofs are taken.

When we got out of the taxi, we were followed by the most adorable dog. Santorini has several stray dogs that roam around. At one point, we were being followed by four dogs; we even named them! If I could have, I would have taken them home with me.
The sky was a bit cloudy, but the sunset was still beautiful. I personally think clouds enhance a sunset because they create this wonderful palette of pinks, purples, and blues. It was the perfect way to end our perfect day.

We took a taxi back into Fira for dinner at Mama's House, also recommended to us by the same cashier. Like every other restaurant we ate it, this place was delicious as well. Usually I'm pretty frugal when it comes to ordering, but I figured, "I'm on vacation; to hell with it!" I may look like a small person, but I can eat. I ordered a Santorini Salad, fried goat cheese, a bird's nest (eggplant topped with beef, cheese, and tomato sauce), baklava with ice cream, and .5L of red wine. I was stuffed at the end of the night. After dinner, we were all exhausted from our long day of excursions and decided  sadly to call it a night.

The next morning, we had dinner at the hotel (and took a photo with Poppy!) and got driven to the airport. We flew back to Athens on Olympic Air, and the flight was only half an hour! From Athens, we all split up to go back to our respective countries. An amazing weekend right before midcrit.

This coming weekend: Amsterdam!

In other news, I got accepted into graduate school! Yesterday I received an email from Parsons telling me that I was accepted and was being considered for a scholarship! So then I checked my other email account, and found out that I had been denied from Columbia (my number one choice. Sad, but I'm okay about it) and I was being recommended by UIC's arch department to their Graduate College. What a good way to begin my morning after pulling an all-nighter for midcrit.