Santorini, Greece

We arrived in Santorini again with nowhere to stay except a recommendation, so we found that hotel, boarded the bus, and drove the 20 minutes into town. We arrived only to find out that that particular hostel was shutdown for the season, but they offered us a nicer, bigger room in another hotel for the same price of 15€ each per night! We freshened up and then set off to explore the town. Immediately we ran into the Canadian, Manny, who we met in Ios, so he joined us for some sightseeing and dinner. Found a nice restaurant overlooking the city and ordered the "Greek Special" for dinner, which consisted of stuffed grape leaves, moussaka, stuffed tomatoes, and a beer for just 8.60€!! it was absolutely delicious and I loved trying all the Greek specialties! We called it an early night because we were so tired, and even attempted to watch a movie, but fell asleep 30 mins in!

Stuffed tomato, stuffed grape leaves, moussaka.  heaven.

The next day we woke up and showered and went to the store to find some fruit and yogurt for breakfast, but we couldn't find a store! So instead we went to a restaurant called Mama's, where Mama was our waitress with a tiny body and a big-ole attitude! Hilarious! We ate delicious American pancakes, eggs, bacon, and coffee. We went back to the hostel and spent the day by the pool, Jaimie tanning and me hiding in the shade, giving my body a much needed break from the sun. That evening we met up with Karen and David to go to dinner, where we ate octopus and more moussaka! We roamed around a bit before Jaim ditched us to skype her bf, so we sat at an Irish pub for happy hour! That turned into a little trip to the club next door for some dancing. Realizing Jaimie wasn't coming back to join us, we called it an early night and went back to our room to hang out for a bit. We had bought a couple pieces of delicious baklava and Oreo cake earlier, so we pigged out on those before heading to bed.

octopus!

heavenly warm chocolate cake with ice cream

Karen

hanging out in our hotel room

Wednesday we slept in a bit, met Karen and Dave for breakfast at Mama's, booked our ferry tickets to Athens together, and then rented 2 atv's for a little tour of the island! First we drove far out to an amazing black sand beach, where we relaxed and swam all afternoon. Then we drove completely across the island to Oia to see the sunset. When you picture the Greek Islands and more specifically Santorini, it is Oia that you envision. The town is so picturesque, with white buildings and blue roofs and amazing ocean views everywhere you look! We roamed through the town taking pictures before making it to the very tip of the island to take in the sunset, and it was so worth it! We rode back home around 8pm with no sun, therefore FREEZING the whole way. So much so that I literally had to hug Jaimie the entire way to save us both from hypothermia. We made it back, showered, and met up again for some gyros for dinner and more cake for dessert...so good (and bad)!! We attempted to roam the town a bit, but we were far too tired. Dave ditched us to go watch a soccer game, so us girls went back to our room to watch a movie. After trying to decide on a movie and talking for a while, Karen decided to just head home to bed. So, Jaimie and I cuddled up to watch The Lincoln Lawyer-excellent movie!

ATV's!

black sand beach

Thursday we woke up early to take advantage of the free breakfast at the hotel, as shitty as it was! Spent some time lounging around before meeting up with Karen and Dave to exchange our ferry tickets. The fast ferry (5 hrs) that we originally booked was canceled, so we got some money back and were put on the slow ferry (8 hrs). They hadn't eaten yet so we joined them for our third visit to Mama's, but this time passing on all food. To kill time while waiting for the ferry, Dave and I went to the market to get some water and snacks for the long ride ahead. 25€ later and we had enough food for a month! Ate our final gyros for lunch and hopped on the shuttle to the port. On the ferry we sat outside for the first 5 hours playing endless games of Rummikub. Finally it was just too cold to bear so we moved inside to find food and warmth and ended up joining a group of commingled travelers from all over the world. They all met on the boat and had been drinking the whole time, so needless to say they were pretty drunk! It was funny listening to them ramble on about nothing, but it was at about the 6 hr mark where we just started to go crazy and NEEDED to get off the boat!

We made it to Athens at 12:15am and headed to the metro to find the hostel we wanted to stay at, but didn't have a reservation for. We soon learned that that metro train was the last for the night, so we wouldn't be able to transfer and get to our hostel. So, we walked. For a while. We finally arrived at the hostel around 2am and seeing we were desperate for a room, the jerk yanked up the price. We managed to talk him down to 15€ each, still a lot compared to the 10€ that was advertised. With just a few hours of sleep, we were all up and off to the airport to catch our flights outta there! We had a 3.5 hr flight to Moscow, a 2 hr layover, and then a 9.5 hr flight to Hong Kong. Not even a couple sleeping pills could compete with the ruckus the 3 drunk Russian men next to us were making, which made for one long groggy ride! However, we made it to Hong Kong and what an adventure it was!!