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Our trip went smoothly even being questioned at the airport and a 12-hour delay coming back. Yes, our airport time wasn’t so hot. I guess I have the number on my passport as an Iraqi diplomat whose passport was stolen! So thankfully as I didn’t make off with some guy’s passport (and I don’t look like an Iraqi) we weren’t taken to the police station.

Mainly, we laid out by the pool, tried to get our white bodies a more healthy looking colour, read a lot (we read about 400 pp in our book The Count of Monte Cristo and Bryce finished Crime and Punishment. I read two books for research and about 100 pp of Ulysses), slept in and ate Greek food every night. Our little studio wasn’t the best–especially as you couldn’t flush the TP down the toilet and the “shower” was little more than a shower hose with lukewarm water (due to solar heating powering it, so unless you wanted to take your shower at noon, you weren’t likely to have a properly “hot” shower). But being that we didn’t pay much for the whole holiday, we couldn’t have expected much better. Regardless it was great!

Some highlights: We took a day trip on Friday to the volcano, hot springs, Thirassia and the northernmost city of Oia. We were bussed from Perissa (where we stayed on the southern part of the island) to a nearby port. From there we found our boat (it wasn’t pointed out for us) that took us to the volcano. We hiked to the top and our guide told us all about how in some year BC the volcano had erupted sinking part of the island and making Santorini the crescent-shaped island it is today rather than round. We then went to nearby hotsprings which were not warm enough to make me want to jump into the not-too-warm Med Sea to swim to them. We then spent a while at Thirassia, a tiny little island originally connected to the island of Santorini, eating lunch and laying in the sun. Then we were off to Oia, a beautiful town with marble streets, great sunsets, and great hill top architecture. If we go back, we’d stay there. We had dinner in Oia and watched the sun set.

We met a donkey whom we named Mykonos (another of the Greek islands). He’d come over to the wall and we’d pet his nose when he passed. He wasn’t as friendly to us after some other people brought him bread.

The food was fabulous and we bought a cookbook, so hopefully we can continue having great food here! We ate lots of gyros, tzatziki (yoghurt/dill sauce), souvlaki (lamb or pork kebabs with pita), and Greek salad. Bryce tried the Greek beer, Mythos, but wasn’t too impressed so he stuck with Amstel. I kept trying to get a nice glass of wine but usually it was too sweet. We don’t recommend ouzo (famous Greek alcohol that tastes like licorice). You should’ve seen Bryce’s face when he tried to get that down!

So we had a 12-hour delay, which meant another day in Santorini–except it was cold and windy that day. Our flight which was scheduled to leave at 1 PM didn’t take off until midnight, getting into London at 2:30 in the morning (local time). Of course we had missed our flight to Edinburgh, but the only thing Easy Jet could do was to sell us a ticket for 175 GBP–no thanks! So we checked on the train–200 GBP. So I suggested we look into renting a car; we got a little VW for 66GBP and spent the next 7 or so hours driving from London to Edinburgh on about 2 hours of sleep. Crazy day! Other than our airport oddities, we had a fabulous relaxing holiday which seemed much longer than a week!

Check out some of our pictures here . Soon we’ll put some more up, once Bryce gets his back.

This entry was posted by Ashley on Friday, May 28th, 2004 at 9:08 am. . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.