Delphi Day 2: "Anne's directions are shit" - Finn, age 7

So the next morning we wake up bright and early, go eat a delicious breakfast of Greek yogurt, honey, and chocolate chip bread and then get ready to go look at the museum and upper part of the archaeological site.  Now one would think that before bringing 30 students plus the faculty director and her family one would check to make sure the museum was actually open, right?  Well Anne must have chewed some laurel leaves that morning because we got to the museum and there was this big sign that said "CLOSED ON 14 NOVEMBER". Sweet.  Of course, Anne being Anne didn't apologize and tried to pass the blame off on someone else.

So we had a whole day in Delphi with nothing scheduled.  So while Anne was talking to us a bit about the geology of the region, she pointed out this really pointy, steep mountain where, if you were convicted of the worst kind of heresy, you would be marched up there and thrown off.  Anne also said that there was a little path that led up said mountain.  So we decided to hike it.  Good thing I brought shorts, because by 10:30 am it was already pushing 70.  Jealous homies in MN?!?! ;)

So here were the directions Anne gave us to get to the trail.  "Walk into town and find a church.  Then go behind the church and crawl up about 30 meters.  Then find the path.  Once you're at the place with water at the top, find a barbed wire fence, find where it was broken [Anne did this personally herself] and cross it.  Then walk until you see around the mountains."  This prompted Elaine's 7 year old son to proclaim to his Dad, "Anne's directions are shit!"  All Dad said, was "that word's not appropriate" in the most "yup, you're right, but I'm still trying to parent you so I really should correct your language" kind of voice.  The little dudes didn't end up hiking, but the rest of us started off.

I need to run more.  End of story.  I was as red as a strawberry 10 steps in.  But, I didn't let it beat me and kept going, stopping quite a bit to take pictures because the ground was too uneven to look around while you were hiking.  This trail had SO many switchbacks!  You'd think that you were making pretty good progress, but then you'd look down the hill and see that actually you'd only gained about 10 feet in elevation.  So frustrating, it was like the song that never ends in trail form.  Me, Mark and Brittany were lolly-gagging behind all the other people who were trying to go Steve-pace, aka warp speed, so we assumed we'd never catch them, but then we turned the corner and guess what?  The group was all exhausted from trying to be macho and fast that they had to sit down for half an hour to rest.  Slow and steady my friends, slow and steady.

So we had no idea what Anne meant by the place with the water, so we just kept following the trail marked by black and yellow lines.  Eventually we ended up coming across this abandoned goat farm.  And then Kelsey started seeing a bunch of shotgun shells all over the ground.  This prompted the second best quote of the weekend, "I've seen enough Lifetime movies to know that this doesn't end well."  We were all a little unnerved by this, but then, while we were standing by the goat farm, we saw this guy with runs strapped to his back walking around the hills!

We were all freaking out.  And then the guy started walking towards us, ahhhh! Turns out he was just hunting for some birds and sent us on our way.  We were about to head down the mountain when I thought I might have spotted the mythical barbed wire fence.  So we all started running toward it.  Turns out it was just a pen for some more goats.  BUT it did lead us to these really cool rocks where we could climb out and look over the whole of the mountain and the sea.  It was an amazing view.  Everything looked so big, but it wasn't overwhelming.  More like we were alone in a big back yard.  

After taking the opportunity to take some good pictures and just sit there and look a while, we made our way down the mountain.  While the way up was a pain because of endurance, the way down was not so friendly to my knee joints.  Too many uneven rocks.  So by the time we got down, we were all hurting pups.  We spent a while sitting in town before we had to catch our bus.  A couple of the guys had gotten lost on the way down and were late getting on the bus.  Anne took this opportunity to chew them out over the loudspeaker for being tardy.  She then turned around and was 30 minutes late getting on the bus after lunch...

I fell asleep on the way back and good thing because that bus smelled sooooo bad backed with 30 sweaty, dirty, hikers.  Even Talulah refused to sit in the back with us because it was so stinky.  A shower was in order when I got back to my apartment and I couldn't even wait long enough for the hot water heater to do its magic before hopping in.

Delphi Day 1: Laurel Leaves do not make you Prophecy

The day started off rather traumatically as we saw a dead cat on the plaza on the way to the bus.  It was really gross, but we were all more concerned about how Talulah, a self-proclaimed cat lover and 10 year old kid would react.  She did pretty good props to Andrew the dad for diffusing that situation.

We rode the bus for about 2 hours before getting to this little monastery to walk around.  It was really beautiful and there were two incredible Byzantine churches there.  Unfortunately due to an earthquake, time, and moisture nearly all of the frescoes were complete restorations.  The scenery was breath taking too.  Lot of giant mountains everywhere.  And it was raining a bit so you could see the clouds that were getting caught in the mountains.

We toured the monastery for a bit, more like wandered around in the rain, and then got back on the bus and headed to this little town right outside of Delphi for lunch.  Anne, our prof, told us that they make really good fried cheese and I thought "I like cheese and I like fried things, so let's get some."  So we went to Anne's favorite place for lunch.  Two hours later.....we're still sitting there and should have been on the bus 45 minutes ago.  Whoops!  But Anne stopped on the way back to look at slippers, so we had an impromtu family photo shoot with all the shaggy haired people.  We had a bunch of fun, my stand in brothers and I, poking fun at each other.  Funny thing is, we all do kind of look related....

We finally got to Delphi and went down to the lower part of the sanctuary were the temple to Apollo is.  There we had a little lecture.  Anne was mostly rambling about how here and her friends like to reenact the oracle by fasting and chewing laurel leaves to see if they have hallucinogenic properties.  Yup, she went to Berkley in the 60s.

After my daydreaming hour, we checked into our hotel.  It smelled really good, like the Yankee Candle store.  A bunch of the girls just hung out and had a super stereotypical girl talk hour before we went to dinner.  Dinner was good, but nothing really to write home about.

After dinner, I went with Sienna and Ryan back to his room to watch Percy Jackson, the Lightning Thief.  You know those awkward situations where you are totally the third wheel and Mr. Handsy totally wants you to leave so he can make a move on your roommate?  That was my life for an hour.  So uncomfortable, so I decided I was 'really tired' and left.  I ended up having another girl talk and then hitting the hay.  

Halloween Re-Do

So because the actual day of Halloween was lame-o, we decided to do it up right the next weekend, costumes and all.  One of the other kids at our school really likes planning parties, so he rented out the entire 3rd floor of the Hard Rock Cafe in Athens for us to have a Halloween Party. Score!

A bunch of girls and I decided to be the stray cats of Athens (seriously, they're everywhere!) and Sienna was the mouse that we were chasing around.  We had to make ears out of paper, color them with crayons and attach them to head bands, but this was the most comfortable Halloween costume I have had since Princess Leia in '02: a t-shirt, leggings and athletic shorts :)

-- Note to boys everywhere : Gap cologne smells good! --

We went over to some of the guys's apartment and hung out for a while, playing card games and taking pictures. Then we headed out.  It took a while to get to the Hard Rock, but it was worth it.  The DJ played all those old school, "oh yeah I forgot about that song, but I love it!" songs and we just sang and danced the night away.  There were some creepers there (as there always are), but the vast majority of the other CYA kids were super friendly!  A bunch just came over and introduced themselves which is great! Apparently the other half of our program wasn't as open to new people, so they're extra glad were sociable!  And thank goodness we didn't have much to do the next day, because I didn't get back till 3am and fully intended on sleeping till noon.

Halloween Abroad

So we got into Athens on the early morning of the 28th and spent the next couple days lounging and kicking butt on the scavenger hunt.  Then came the 31st aka the best day of the entire year.  The only bummer was we were going on a day trip to Sunion and wouldn't be returning until all Hallow's Eve was well under way, so no dressing up this year for me. First in 22 Halloweens :(

Anyways, sentimental moment over, that morning was the 2500th anniversary of the original Athens marathon, so me and my roommates headed out to the finish line and watched the poor suckers who were running come in.  We saw a bunch of the 10K-ers cross and they just looked so proud of themselves!  It was great.  And then we heard this big roar and saw the rent-a-cops (who were really cute btw, see my creeper pic below if you don't believe me :) freak out and then the truck with the time clock drove by and then......the winner of the marathon ran literally 10 feet in front of me!  And he didn't even look like he was working that hard!  We saw a few more finishers including the first woman - who looked like she could kick anyone's ass - and the first Greek.

Awesome runners in costume (yay Halloween!) They ran 10K in sandals!

THE WINNER!!!

Kara - you would love it here :)

After all this, we hopped on the best and went to Sunion which is at the southern most tip of Greece.  The bus ride was rather painless, no motion sickness this time.  We got there and thought that it was going to be a kind of structured trip like all our others had been, but we got off the bus and Elaine said "be up at the Temple of Poseidon at 5, have fun on the beach."  So we had nearly 5 hours to frolic around.

The water was a little too chilly for my liking, but some braver souls (or stupider) jumped in.  I wandered around, played soccer on the beach, and got a tan.  Jealous?  It was the first Halloween when I didn't have to try to figure out how to discreetly wear 95 layers of clothing to keep warm :).  We also buried Elaine's kids in the sand and decorated it to look like Sand Mermaids and Sand Gremlins.  Best costumes ever!

It came about time for us to head up to the mountain.  We had heard tales of a foot path the led you up so you didn't have to walk back to the highway and then go us, but it turned out to be pure fable.  Or we were too stupid to find it.  So I decided that the best idea was to just climb up the mountain - in a skirt and nature sandals.  I made it, led the way actually, and the stupid wussy boy following kept complaining, but we made it up to the temple a good 20 minutes before the people who took the highway so hah!

The temple was really cool!  We watched the sunset over the sea and took lots of pictures, but sat and just looked a lot too. And because of daylight savings, the sunset an hour earlier so we left and hour earlier and I had time to watch Buff the Vampire Slayer (the movie of course) with the roommates. "What do you have that the other slayers didn't?  My keen fashion sense!" Love that movie (and miss you Bri!).

Click here, then here, now turn around 3 times and do the hokey-pokey...

So this commenting thing, in order to do it there are a couple hoops to jump though, none of them are set on fire though, don't worry.  So, you have to click on the title of the post, that'll bring you to the "post page" and at the bottom of that page there will be a little box that you can type a message in.  Use it please!  Thanks!

You'll Like This One, AP

So I know that I'm a fabulous writer and all, but I also know that most of you probably skim the words and head straight for the pictures.  You people (AP) will like this one.  In order to aquaint us with this new city our group is in, my director Elaine created a photo scavenger hunt throughout the city.  On the line was eternal glory.  Eternal glory and a trip to the bakery :)  So me, Sienna, Molly, Abby, Madison, Kasey and Martha set off with Elaine's daughter Talulah to kick some butt.  Here's what we found (with a few humerous anecdotes):

Re-enacting when the King got bit by a monkey in the National Gardens and died 3 days later.  Note the various and sucessive stages of death we're in...and Talulah in the tree.  5 points.

Mimicing statues.  1 point each.

Photo with a gaurd.  There were a buch of them standing around, but this guy was the only one that would take a picture with us.  The rest of them freaked out and kept saying "I'm married, I'm married" and "no facebook".  I know my creeping abilities should get me a job with the CIA, but really?!?!  We didn't even know their names! How on earth would we be able to find their wives?!?  And even if we did, what would we say?  "Ummmm, your husband took a picture with our group so that we could win a scavenger hunt and get to eat cake...." Really, guys!  We just wanted the points. 

Re-enacting olympic sports outside the Zappeion (the fencing hall during the first modern Olympics and later the Olympic village in 1906).  I'm curling :)

Photo with a street vendor. 2 points.

Photo with a street musician.  2 points.

Uggliest outfit in Athens.  3 points for 3 ugly outfits.

Coolest grafitti. 2 points.

Most strays in a picture.  3 points for 3 sad puppies plus a bonus point for the baby turtle we rescued from the road.  He's in the shoebox.  Side note: I saw 15 cats on the staircase by my apartment on Monday.  15!!!!

Photo with gyro shop employees. 2 points.

It was a ton of fun and we got really well aquainted with the city in only a couple hours.  We ran into a group of the guys as we were eating lunch and a couple of them were cocky enough to think they could find everything without a map.  Stupidos...  Needless to say they lost.  What is worth mentioning is that WE WON!!  Woot woot!  Eternal glory is ours!  We had a lot of fun rubbing that into everyone else's faces all last week.  Totally worth Sienna almost getting pick-pocketed (she'll even say so) and having to track on a very valuable 10 year old.

In the Words of Evan Johnson: Oxi Day is the Most BS Holiday Ever.

So we finally got into our apartment around lunchish on Friday, which happened to be Oxi Day.  It's a national holiday to celebrate when the Greeks said "no" to Fascism during WWII.  In reality it's an excuse not to go to work and party a lot, kind of like Memorial Day, or Labor Day, or the 4th of July..... 

The main problem with Oxi Day is that all grocery stores are shut down.  We had a loaf of bread and a tub of strawberry jelly (aka pop-tart filling) that was supposed to last us the whole day.  Kayla ate all of her ration for breakfast using the logic that she'd be really full now and then not get hungry later.  Right Kayla...  Sienna and I tried our darndest to space out our eating so that we wouldn't get hungry, but really, who were we kidding?  So after a shower and a nap, we went out looking for a grocery store that by some grace of God was open.  What we found was a tiny, borderline sketchy Asian market.  Good enough. 

I bought ramen.  It tasted like Pad Thai so I was more than happy, but I can't tell if that was because I had been eating bread and jelly for 6 days or if it actually tasted good.  I'll have to go back and get some more to know for sure. 

I spent the rest of the day napping, eating noodles, and watching Rome on Molly's computer.  So much for getting out and exploring the new city.

Santorini Day 3: A Whole Lot of Nothing

So after our adventures in ATV helmets, we fell asleep and it was the first day all trip that we didn't set an alarm.  That means that we didn't wake up till well after 9 and our ATVs were due back at the place by 10.  Cue 3 girls running around thier hotel room trying to look kind of presentable, but then realizing that it was raining, saying "screw it" and then throwing on their rain gear (yup, Dad, I remembered it this time), and going outside.  During our getting ready freak-out, it had stopped raining and when we got out to our ATVs Kayla and Sienna's seats were SOAKED while mine was nice and dry.  Why you ask?  I lucked out and got the one with nylon fabric covering the seat instead of plastic so it let all the water run threw.  I was the only one with a dry butt that day and it was lovely.  So we drove into town, got praised by the ATV man for our confidence and then he drove us back to the hotel. 

We ate another breakfast of crackers and plum jelly and then caught the bus down to Kamari for some more exploring.  However good our intentions were for adventuring, everything was closed for some reason.  It was a Thursday morning, so I'm not sure why.  So we found a grocery store that was open and bought food for the next day and then sat on the bench like hobos.  We wandered around and found a couple of little shops that were open and bought some postcards (Rachel Heinze, Kara Ehlert, and NeeNee and Papa: check your mailboxes in about a week). Then we said goodbye to the black sand beach and caught the bus back to our hotel. 

When we got there, Mrs. Poppi told us that our ferry had gotten delayed a half hour so our shuttle wouldn't be leaving for a while.  Since we'd already checked out of our room, we sat in this little staff berak room for an hour (it had decided to rain again) until we left.  Mr. and Mrs. Poppi drove us down to the port and then we finally realized how twisty turnny that hill is -- and how tall the island is!  Thank the Lord Baby Jesus we had someone to drive us.  We got to see our ferry come in and then run like mad people to get on. 

We were in cheapo class and the chairs weren't that comfortable.  That should have been my first clue that this ride was going to be the least fun of them all.  We learned that the reason our boat was delayed was because of high winds and high winds lead to high waves and high waves lead to one nauseated Rachel.  Not fun.  I journaled for a while but then focusing on little letters and drawing became too much for my head and stomach so I tried to sleep, but contrary to m natural tendencies, I couldn't.  By this time we had been on the boat for 3 1/2 hours and were looking at another 5 in the same chairs.  Yuck.  Kayla was getting bored so we played some card games.  FYI, don't play Egyption Rat Screw with Kayla.  She will always win.  Once we stopped playing cards I got even more sea-sick and Kayla decided that the best thing to do would be to buy some Ouzo and drink it.  So we played categories for a good 2 hours and surprisingly the Ouzo made the nausea go away!  I'll keep that in mind for my future sea voyages.  Another thing to keep in mind, after spending a week staright with the same 3 people, they know everything about you.  Don't play Never Have I Ever.  It is a very bad idea. 

We finally got into Piraus (Athen's port) and it was 11:40.  The last metro train runs at midnight and we were on the other side of the port.  A couple more people from our trip were on the same ferry and they had ALL of thier luggage, so there were 10 girls with massive bags running to the metro station and trying to get on this last train.  We made it but the big question was whether or not we would be able to catch our transfer to another line in time.  Otherwise we'd be hoofin' it.

So we got to this station that started with an M and we're running to get to the next train we had to catch.  Remember when I said that the other girls had ALL their luggage.  Yup, that means they thought they didn't have to run and the train would wait for them.  This is not the CSBSJU Link bus!  It's public transport! They won't wait for you!  We had security gaurds telling us that we needed to run if we wanted to catch this train, but Luggange McSlowpeople didn't think that was true.  We legitimatly ran on the train and 3 seconds later the doors closed.  Too close for comfort and too close for my politeness filter at this point.

So right now I would have given my last bar of chocolate to get in to my own apartment, but the thing is that school isn't open at 1am on a Thursday, shocking right?  So Kayla, Sienna and I were stranded looking for a place to sleep.  Don't freak out Mom, I didn't sleep on a bench covered by newspapers, the girls we were with already had a roommate in thier apartment, so we crashed on their extra beds/couch.  Thankfully Elaine had picked up our keys for us because the next day was a national holiday so everything was closed, but we picked them up from her and moved in! Yay!

Anybody There?

So I just enabled a commenting function thing on here in an effort to make this more of a dialogue and to make me feel less like I'm talking to a brick wall.  So leave your comments, questions, and snide comments below!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

Thanks Dad for the ideas on a new blog title.  You win! 

Santorini Day 2: Badass

So the next morning we work up and went down to the reception desk to talk to Mrs. Poppi about renting ATVs for the day.  They have some special deal with the ATV people, so the guy came to pick us up and brought us in to town.  The guy who owned the shop asked us if we had ridden ATVs before and non of us had (although Kayla lied and said she had).  Then he gave us this look that said "Oh crap.  I do not want to give these girls my vehicles."  I think he may have felt bad for us because when he was teaching us how to drive them he kept saying, "don't fret, you're strong women, you can do anything."  So we gained his seal of approval and then drove off.

We needed to find an internet cafe and an ATM, so we went up on the main road and pulled down this side street to park.  Kayla was bringing up the back and didn't see us pull over to park so she kept driving down the street.  It was a one way so by the time she realized we had stopped she couldn't just come back up and rejoin us.  Sienna was freaking out because Kayla was all alone and hadn't really been navigating so she was the least likely to know where she was going.  Sienna and I walked up and down the main street hoping to see her and flag her down, but no luck.  Then we waited by the ATVs hoping she would come back.  No luck.  Then we decided to drive down to the gas station where we had been earlier and see if she was there.  No luck.  Then we decided to go back to the place we parked and wait it out and we turned the corner and there she was! Hallelujah!  So we made it to the ATM and got some computer access after 45 minutes of searching and then headed down to see the red sand beaches in Akrotiri. 

It was quite a drive to get down there and a little scary since we were on the roads with all the other drivers and had no idea where we were going.  Good thing there are only about 10 roads in Santorini or we would have been SOL.  It was really fun to drive the ATVs though.  I forgot how much I like to drive.  And we felt super badass and powerful driving them; like we could take on anything.  We didn't get lost on the way down there, but we did have to ask for more specific directions one we got into the town.  Then we got there and it was super rocky, not at all like a beach.  Some guy that was there saw that we were looking super confused and disappointed and told us that actually you have to hike up a little path and then you get to the beach part.  We made our way around and then saw the actual beach.  It was so red!  so red!  We ate our sandwiches on teh beach and then decided to head back up the island since it was going to be about and hour and a half drive on the ATVs and it was already pushing 2pm.

On our way back, we got to experience all that is crazy greek driving.  It's not nearly the level that the Italians were at, but still nuts.  We had people zooming all around us and honking and waving.  Sometimes they were being flirty, but other times they were just frusterated by how slow we were driving.  One took a particular affection to Kayla and decided to show it by kicking his legs out of his moped and laughing. 

We got to Oia around 4.  The drive to get there was beautiful! We took little roads near the coast line so we got to see all the fields and terrain.  I had this picture in my head of what Santorini was like, little white houses with domed roofs and blue doors all built into the cliff.  There are pockets of Santorini that look like that, but most of the island looks a lot like Arizona.  It's desolate and rocky with no green grass insight.  The cliffs are a brown-red color with prarie-like grasses growing on them and there are huge expanses between towns. 

Oia is one of the paces that looks straight out of Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants.  Houses are the stereotypical whitewashed concrete and they are packed onto this cliff.  There is literally no private space.  From where we were sitting looking out at the water, I could clearly see into multiple family's homes.  This would have been perfect if I was still in my Harriet the Spy phase of life, but since I left my notebook and toolbelt at home...  But really, everyone has to be in everyone else's business all the time.  There is just no other place to go. 

We climbed around a bit and did some shopping.  There was this little dog that climbed up on one of the houses to take a nap and enjoy the scenery.  Gutsy dog, we were really high up!

We were going to find a place to eat dinner and watch the sunset, but the only place we could find with a sunset view was a bajillion dollars a plate.  Figures.  So we climbed around in the neighborhood.  On our adventure, we ran into Jacquie and her mom and grandma.  Jacquie cam with us and climbed up this old fort looking thing to watch teh sunset while her mom and gma rested.  There were some really interesting people up on top of that fort.  Lots of tourists and lots of crazies. 

We had heard that the sunset in Oia was supposed to be the most beautiful in all of Europe, that why we hauled our butts all the way out there.  It was just our luck that as the sun was setting a band of clouds decided to set itself right at the horizon.  So the sun set into that insead of actually going down and turning pretty colors.  Kind of really disappointing. But still nice.

Once the sunset ended with its lackluster finale, we were starving.  We contemlated finding a place in Oia for dinner, but it was getting dark quick and we (I) thought it might be better to start our drive while there ws still some light in the sky to help us since we still didn't really know where we were going.  It got dark really quick and we ended up going a different way, not on the calm little country roads, but on the main highway between Oia and Fira.  In the dark.  Not fun.  We had to make a turn in this little town and as we were sitting at the stop sign, what crossed front of us, a giant parade of donkeys!  Sienna just turned around and started laughing.

We finally got to Fira and wandered around trying to decide on a restaurant.  We were all feeling super apathetic and none of us were willing to make a decision about where to eat.  Flash forward 45 minutes and we're still wandering.  We narrowed it down to two and were running back and forth looking at menus and trying to decide.  It was a slow night in Fira so the restaurant guys were trying so hard to get us to eat there.  We were persuaded by stuffed peppers and free sangria.  Yum.....  We took a picture at the table and the guy at the restaurant across the street tried to get in it.  Our waiter joked that he'd take another with this guy in it if he paid our tab.  We were so close to a free dinner, but this guy "forgot his visa card".  Dang it. 

After dinner we wandered around and found this delicious bakery place.  Sienna was off looking at earrings while Kayla and I were gawking at all the goodies.  The bakery lady noticed how much we were staring and started talking to us.  She didn't have to work too hard because after she said caramel, cake, and pastry puff we were sold.  THIS CAKE WAS DELICIOUS.  I would actually consider buying a round trip ferry ticket and enduring the 6 hour ride just to get another piece. 

We hopped back on our ATVs and rode back to the hotel.  We had delusions of going out and finding our Kostases, but after taking a look in the mirror and seeing our windblown hair and faces and realizing how tired we were, we just decided to play games in our room.  Kayla taught us one where you write down random words/people/inside jokes on paper and then pick one, but it on your forhead (so you can't see your own, but you can see everyone else's) and then try to get the other people to say what's on thier head using one word clues. Rule #1: you can't tak off your helmet.  It was helpful for keeping the paper on our heads and surpirsingly comfy to sleep in :) 

Santorini Day 1: Donkey Butt

We got in to Santorini at around 10pm on Sunnday night and Poppi, the owner of the hotel we were staying at, came and picked us up from the port.  Such a sweet man.  He's probably pushing 55, but loves to wear bleached, tight, expensive jeans.  It was a good thing he came to get us, because the ride back to the hotel took about a half hour and was all up the side of this swirly, twirly mountian.  Our room was super nice!  We had our own kitchen and a really nice, hot shower.  This was a blessing since none of us had showered since we left Rome.  We went right to sleep that night, but then got up bright and early the next morning for some adventuring. 

Poppi gave us the bus schedule and we rode down to Kamari where the black sand beach is.  It looks a lot like Lake Superior stone; smooth, dark basalt.  We journaled there for a couple of hours and then caught the bus up to Fira, the capital.  We found some kebaps for lunch and the waiter there was really nice and talked to us for a while.  After leaving, we were on a mission to find donkeys.  We needed to ride the donkeys.  We would have ridden the donkeys up someone's driveway if it meant we could ride donkeys.  We finally found them, after asking for directions a billion times, not by virtue of good directions, but rather our keen senses of smell :)

This donkey ride was not the peaceful, idyllic ride I had in mind.  Rather, it was terrifying.  Kind of like the Wild Thing at Valley Fair.  The donkey men gypped us out of 5euro by saying that we couldn't walk down then ride the donkeys up, so we aggreed to ride them down and up.  This hill is steep.  You don't realize how steep until you're pitched forward on a donkey who's running down.  The donkeys in our train were tied together and poor Sienna, her donkey was at the back and older and slower than the rest, but since he was chained to my speed demon, he had to keep up and was slipping down the steps.  I was at the front of the pack and all I could hear the whole was down was Kayla laughing out of sheer terror and Sienna making this high pitched whiney sound.  We got some good video with audio to prove it :)

So about half way down the leader donkey man heard Kayla and Sienna freaking out and turned around to ask if we wanted to turn around and go up.  They were more than relieved to do so.  I was a little bummed and wanted to ride all the way down.  So donkey man unhooked the donkeys so they weren't tied together anymore and they started running up the hill!  Literally sprinting.  Kicking donkey butt and taking names.  My donkey was checking other donkeys into the wall and running so hard to get up that hill.  I like to imagine he was just really competitive, which I can respect. 

After our terror of a donkey experience, we wandered around Fira some more until we found this little place that had a terrace overlooking the caldera.  So we went up and ordered a pizza to share with the intention of sitting there and watching the sunset.  We failed to notice that it was only 4 when we ordered and sunset isn't until 6:30, so by the time we were done eating, there was a good hour plus to wait until the sunset and we felt too awkward to continue sitting at this restaurant without ordering anything else, so we left to wander again. 

We ended up finding a grocery store where we bought some greek appertif and found a little spot on the side of the cliff to watch the sunset.  There was this little ledge there and I was trying to hoist myself up on it when I felt something wet on my hand.  I looked down to see this yellow puddle (which Kayla convinced me was cat pee) and I tried my darndest to wipe it off on the wall, but it was still gross.  I didn't use that hand for the rest of the night and probably would have sold my left kidney for a wet wipe.  We passed the time by playing Hot Seat and then watched the sun set over the little islands. 

We went to find the bus stop and got on.  We told the driver that we needed to get off at this little, obscure stop, but, of course, he forgot and we ended up having to ride all the way to Kamari at the south end of the island and then come back up towards Fira.  We were wiped by the end of that and had no energy left to go look for Kostas, so we all took hot showers (we were still erally smelly) and went to sleep.