Saturday April 4, 2010- Wednesday April 7, 2010
To sum it up, the week I went to Greece and Cinque Terre with 20 of the funniest and craziest people I have ever met was the best week of my life.
Day 1: After somehow surviving a 5 hour layover from midnight to 5 am in the Athens airport or rather the McDonald’s coach in the Athens airport (yes, this is the second time I have slept on a airport McDonald’s coach), I landed in Santorini at 6 am, just in time to witness the sunrise to top all sunrises. I literally had one of those moments where you have to pinch yourself to make sure you’re not dreaming. A lovely man named Stelios picked me up and took me back to the hostel consequently named, Stelio’s Place where my room was not ready yet because well it was 6 am on Easter Sunday. Got put in a room underneath his garage to hang out for a few hours until the room was ready. It had no windows and smelled weird, but it was an upgrade for the McDonalds the night before. Emerged around 10 am to find all my friends who had gotten there the previous day and were relieved that solo me had arrived in one piece. Jumped on an atv, no worries, I wasn’t driving and all 20 of yes sped off to explore the island for the day. First stop: Red Beach, a beach with rocks that are well, red. Hike down some intense rocks in my sun dress and flip-flops. Swam out because the water wasn’t nearly as cold as expected and the sun was much hotter than expected. Made it to a cove that looked like something out of a movie. Still pinching myself to make sure I’m not dreaming. Back on the ATVs, lunch at a pastry shop, and take some more pictures that will never do the island justice. Six brave souls decide to carry one to Thira (the main city where pictures while thinking of Santorini) to go cliff jumping. At this point, Matt asks me if I want to drive. I tell him straight up: I was voted worst driver in high school. How lucky are you feeling today? He smiles and hops on behind me, makes an inappropriate comment, and a half hour later we are ready to jump off a cliff (literally). Now we’re not really sure if we are in the right place and as we are walking and looking off every edge to see if it’s right, I realize that we should really ask someone if we are in the right place before we JUMP off a FUCKING CLIFF. Eventually hike down to the right spot and instantly change our minds because the cliff is far out and the water is cold so we do the most anticlimactic thing possible at this moment. We lay down and take a nap. Wake up 40 minutes later and ride over the Thira to go sight seeing. I buy 2 post cards and the women gives me a third for free just cause Greeks are the most hospitable people ever. Now it’s night time and I’m hungry and cold and hungry and just want to get back to the hotel to shower. Of course, cue getting lost on the opposite side of the island for 2 hours. Then cue the ATV running out of gas. Allora…..
Day 2: Wake up hung over. Dear vodka and tequila, I hate you. Go on a boat tour of Santorini. Stop at a volcano and climb it. Hung over incline #375 since coming to Europe. The tour guide was nice but it was hard to understand him and I lost interest when he started drawing pictures of tectonic plates in the dirt. Next stop were “hot” springs which should have been called “tempid” springs. I jumped off the boat and was paralyzed by how cold this water is. Hot springs my ass. Next stop, the most primitive island in all of Greece. Only way up is via the most winding steepest stairs I have ever seen or donkey. I’m not ready for hungover incline #376 so I opt for donkey. We try to negotiate with the man for the price of a ride b/c our tour guide told us 5 euro was too much. Joanna is the queen of bargaining and I think she may have been wearing him down until she pointed out that if he doesn’t let us ride them, no one else will and he will lose money. She said this right as 5 people lined up behind us. We paid the man our 5 euros and jumped on our donkeys which were tied up this point. He starts to untie them one by one and one by they TAKE OFF like they were trying to cross the border for freedom. Luckily, I was one of the 3 who he tied to his donkey. I will never forget the site of my friends taking off on these wild donkeys up a literal 80 degree incline rock path screaming “STOP! PLEASE HELP US HELP US”. It was the definition of a fun donkey ride gone terribly terriblywrong. Things took a turn for the worse when one of the donkey’s knees buckled while on a step, and he lost his footing. All of a sudden, I hear Joanna scream “the donkey kicked me!” and sure enough after looking at her foot, it was clear the knee buckling donkey in front of her had in fact kicked her. She handled it like a champ though and didn’t complain even though her foot was swelling like a melon. The donkey man yelled at all of us (a change from the monotone “hella” he had been repeating over and over again since we started- translation “GO”) made us get down like this was our fault and the worst part: we still had to climb the rest of the path which after arriving at the top, our friends informed us everything was closed. Next, the boat dropped us off at Oia for the sunset and we took a 2 hour pausa. Our American was showing as 20 of us all wrapped in beach towels literally passed out on a pier in the middle of the day. Climbed yet another incline, bought some honey- sesame covered peanuts, and watched the sun go down over the Adriatic Sea in a spectacular show of purple and orange.
That night, dinner at a place owned by a woman from guess where else, Chicago. Random. Stray dogs everywhere and we made friends with Wild Thing and Kinder who followed us everywhere, even back to our hotel. Let them sleep under the table and fed them off our plates, our moms would have a fit if they saw us. After dinner, hit up a bar for Kalyn’s big 21st, lucky girl. When we walked into the bar, there were literally 3 bartenders and dj sitting there doing nothing. Empty bars are not a problem when there are 17+ of you everywhere you go. The bartenders were so thankful (or maybe they were drunk) that somebody had actually come in that they instantly poured us free shots. Well I don’t know how this happened but by the end of the night, every male in the bar had his shirt off including all the people who worked there and the 3 boys who were with us. In 2.4 seconds, it went from quaint Santorini bar to gay male strip club and I was waiting for Boy George to pop out from behind the bar and start singing “its raining men, hallelujah” at any moment. Happy birthday Kalyn!
Day 3: Wake up and hang out at Perissa beach, a 2 second walk from where we stayed. Kinder and Wild Thing join us, of course. On the way there, we stopped at a corner store for something to drink, and tried on these ridiculous looking hats and took pictures in them. The owner thought we liked them and gave them to us. The Greek hospitality strikes once again. Sat on the beach all day, got snaked by Jake, learned some new riddles, passed out, and woke up buried in the sand. Perfect day. That night, we went to meet up with some friends from Milan who were staying in Fira. Went out, danced on the bar for a free shot, and tried to trade my free shot when Alex got kicked out of the bar for falling asleep on the DJ booth. Joanna bargained for a sandwich and we caught a cab home.
Next Stop…..
IOS
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