Thusday in Santorini

Photos: the mountain I climbed, on top of the mountain, with the ancient church in Ancient Fira, looking down on Perissa, Chris-Jason-Tony-Andrew

Maria-Fernanda and her mother left Thursday morning for Mikinos (another island). I was so sad to see them go, but we had breakfast together and we promised to keep in touch. Maria is living in Dublin but is hoping to travel again starting mid or late May, so she may join me somewhere. She goes back to Brazil in August and she said I have to come visit her - which I fully intend on doing! She said that (though she didn’t appreciate it when she was there) Brazil is beautiful and I would love it. Eventually she will come to the states too. I can’t wait to see her again - we had a lot in common and she was a lovely girl!

At 11 am Tony and I left to climb to the top of the mountain in Perissa. It was a bit of a hike, but the day was truly beautiful and with the sun shining and not a cloud in the sky, we couldn’t have asked for a better day. I’m glad I didn’t do it alone because it was a bit rough in spots and if you fell it may be hard to get back alone. At the top of the mountain was ancient Fira. It is 3,000 years old!! They are mostly ruins, but the church up there is still in pretty good shape (considering). The view from the top was out of this world. You could see all of Perissa and on the other side of the mountain was the town of Kamari. The water looked so inviting from up there!!

The wind was very strong, so we were careful not to get too close to the edges, but it was great.
On the way down we saw this cool rock that was flat on top so we climbed up to it and sat there for a rest break and I ate the banana and some cookies I’d brought along. I felt like I was on top of the world and I kept thinking “this is what life is about.”

After we got to the bottom Tony went to talk to a friend at the Blues Bar who he is helping with advertising and I came back to the hotel to put my bathing suit on. I grabbed my book and headed down to the beach but ended up running into Tony again who had done the same thing after he talked to the bar manager. Lol So, we ended up “taking the sun” as Maria-Fernanda would say (I.e. sunbathing) and chatting. (The water was still too cold to swim and the wind was a bit chilly). After about an hour I grabbed a gyro from the same place I went the other night and then came back here to use the internet.

I went to the Blues Bar tonight because it was "ladies night" and they were handing out flowers and Tony had been advertising for it so I felt like I should make an apperance, but it wasn't very popular so I left and on the walk back passed another bar called Atlas where I ran into Chris and Jason (who are from Hilton Head and are staying at the Katerina and John Hotel as well). They both work on the island. I stopped by there and talked to them for a while, then I got to drive Chris's RTV down to Beach Bar where we ran into Vanessa, Andew (from canada) and Tony who'd left Blues. The music was good there and I danced for a long time. I didn't get back to my room utnil 2 am, but it was so nice to dance again (even if I was more or less the only one dancing per usual).

Sadly, Lieselotte (who was supposed to meet me in Munich on May 13th) is not going to make it until the end of May where she’ll arrive in Holland. Thus, I have more time to sort of tweak my schedule to what I want until then. I fly back to Athens Monday and I think I’ll stay there at least 2 more days and then maybe go somewhere else in Greece. I’ve heard from a lot of people that Italians aren’t as welcoming, friendly, or as willing/able to speak English as Greeks (not to mention that Italy is more expensive), so I might spend a bit less time there and a bit more here. I now fully understand why people get here and don’t want to leave. Lol
I’m so happy. I love England, I love the country, but I wasn’t as happy as I am here (probably because I didn’t really have any friends/people to hang out with).