Greece

My Greek travels started out by spending the first day in Athens going to the Acropolis to see the Parthenon and some other sights, but it was about 100 degrees and humid, so I decided to get out of Athens and go to an island for most of my travels.

Luckily, I found an overnight ferry that took about eight hours to get to the island of Santorini. I figured that I could sleep on the ferry, but once I got on I found that it was full of Greek kids drinking and talking all night. At least I found a hallway where I curled up on my beach towel to get a quick nap in. Once we arrived in Santorini we had nowhere to stay, but fortunately we found a cheap hotel right near the beach with black sand from volcanic rock. We spent the first day exploring the island and laying on the black beach with a pretty wild night that started with a glass of Ouzo.

After a couple hours of much needed sleep, I got up to take a boat trip to some of the smaller surrounding islands. Our first stop was a volcanic island where we climbed up to the top of the volcano for a spectacular view. Next, we took a dip in a hot spring connected to the sea. The hot spring was relaxing, but it smelled like sulfur and the water was really brown. I covered my body in the mud from the bottom of the spring because it is supposed to be good for your skin, but I don’t think it was worth smelling like poop for the rest of the day. The next stop was a small fishing island with no tourists. The quaint little island didn’t have much of anything at all besides a few restaurants, but it was interesting to see how the locals lived in the small village without even a police force or vehicles with license plates. I had an amazing meal there with a variety of fresh grilled seafood including squid, fish, shrimp, crab, and octopus. Finally we cruised back to the island of Santorini and rode donkeys up to a little restaurant to enjoy a glass of local wine and watch the sunset among the traditional whitewashed buildings with blue roofs.

Now I am back safe in Athens, and I spent today walking around the city and the main shopping district, and of course I had to have gyro for lunch. Overall, the Greek people were extremely nice and helpful, the islands were beautiful, and the food was amazing. I don’t want to leave this country, but I guess I better be on my way to Istanbul now.