Santorini!

After we spent 2 days in Athens we made our way to Santorini by ferry, it was a 5 hour ride. There were so many strange people on the ferry and the smells weren't too pleasant either while we were trying to get some sleep. One nice thing though was watching the sunset on the back of the boat. We were so sick of traveling once we got to Santorini, but thankfully our hostel owner was waiting for us at the port, that was so sweet of him because it was midnight! He took the 3 of us in his van and we trekked our way up the cliffs of Santorini to our hostel, Villa Manos. The view was so cool, even at night, we couldn't wait to wake up in the morning. When we arrived to Villa Manos we were greeted by Poppy, the other owner, it was a family owned hostel. She was so stereotypical Greek; she had long black hair, tan, of course, and welcomed us like we were family, they even gave us all a glass of red Santorini Wine. They also told us all about the things we could do in Santorini, we were too excited! As they took us to our room, the told us we were being upgraded to a nicer room with a balcony...they just kept surprising us! We went to bed happy that night :)







Our first morning in Santorini started out with breakfast at the hostel, which consisted of eggs, coffee, OJ, toast, and fried cucumber. It was delicious, but not sure it was worth 5 Euros. After breakfast we decided to lay out by the pool at the hostel for a few hours, great start to an awesome vacation. After laying out for a while we were all getting hungry so we decided to go to Perissa Beach which was one of the black beaches in Santorini. There were a ton of little cafes lining the beach, so we picked one and ate a small lunch with a cocktail, then walked along the black sand beach and took pictures.

We then made our way back to the hostel to get ready for the night. Once we were ready and looking pretty, we went to Fira, it was the main city in Santorini, because it has the best view of the Caldera (the volcano and water along the coast). We went to a restaurant that Poppy recommended to us, it was an outside restaurant, it was nice to sit outside in the cool summer air. We ordered a bottle of wine and stuffed fried tomato fritters to start. We all decided to get traditional Greek dishes. I ordered meatballs with spicey sauce and rice, Kelly ordered a whole fish (which she had to clean), and Shane ordered Chicken Souvlaki. It was really funny because when the waiter (Claudio) came with our food he asked Kelly if she could clean her fish alone, but she answered yes she could, although extremely hesitant, Claudio then sensed her unsureness and taught her how to clean the fish, thank god he helped or she would have eaten some nasty stuff that she shouldn't have. Claudio even had Kelly eat the fish eyes! It was so cool seeing how you clean the fish before eating it. We finished our amazing meal and then went to the pub called Murphy's, named after me of course ;) We had a great time there, there were also a ton of Americans there. After the pub we took a taxi home to Villa Manos.

The next day we decided to lay out again for a few hours and then we decided to rent four wheelers to take around the island. It was definitely the best day we had in Santorini! We took the fourwheelers from the north part of the island, to the southern part of the island, Santorini is shaped like a crescent so it was a lot of area to cover in just one day. It was so nice being able to drive again! Especially since it has been since last August that I have driven! We pretty much saw all of the island on the four wheelers. We made a wrong turn on the last part of our journey, we meant to go see the light house on the southern tip of the island but somehow ended up on this huge cliff overlooking the entire island! We weren't upset with it though, it was the best view ever and the sun was beginning to go down. It was the best day ever, and you will get a better idea of how it was through the videos I took...they are a ton better, it's hard to explain everything that I saw that day, it was beautiful.