Now I'm in Amsterdam! Surprise!

Katherine and I had a nice last day in Greece. We did manage to get in to see the Parthenon and all those old ruins, which were pretty impressive, despite the fact that they were covered in scaffolding because they're doing some sort of reconstructive work on them.

Yesterday was a bit of a strange day because we were waiting to catch flights. We went to a Folk Art museum in the morning, and then wandered around a park for most of the rest of the day, and played cards on and off. It was quite a hot day, and no breeze like on the islands, so we were sweaty!

Katherine left for her connection in London last night at 9:30, and I waited around in the Athens airport until 3:00 this morning to catch my flight. I have a 12-hour layover here, so I'm out exploring the city for a few hours.

I'm afraid this is a rather unexciting entry, but I have a good excuse: I only got 4 hours sleep last night.

Yesterday, we got up at 5:30, like those crazy traveller people you see from time to time, so we could scooter around to a beach to watch the sunrise. We picked the wrong direction though, and had almost arrived at a beach facing west when we realized that the sun was coming up on the opposite side of the island. On our way to the other side, the sun started to come up and we ended up watching the sunrise from the crest of a little hill.

That didn't turn out to take as long as we had expected, so we went for an early morning drive up into the centre of the island and hung out on a wall for a bit.

We spent most of yesterday on the crowded ferry coming back to Athens, and felt like we were totally pros at getting to our hostel because we didn't even have to look at a map.

We tried to find the Parthenon in the cool of the evening, but turned the wrong way after coming out of the subway... We thought it was closed (which it wasn't) so we stopped to eat some dinner, thinking it would open up again after the afternoon siesta. When we were done eating dinner, we found the *actual* gates, which had been open when we first arrived, but had just closed for realz.

So, we wandered around the outside of the whole ancient Agora / Acropolis / Parthenon area. On the way we adopted a dog, who walked along beside us for about 10 minutes and then disappeared. It was quite a nice area because there were lots of trees and pretty pathways everywhere and not too many tourists, because it was all closed. Anyways, we wound up climbing up this hill to watch the sunset - this was the first time either of us had watched the sunrise and sunset in the same day.

This morning we went to the National Museum and saw lots of old things. We're going to give the Parthenon a second try this evening, now that we know what time it's actually open at. And we'll probably eat some ice cream.

We feel like funny things happened today, but we don't know why.

The end.





Just kidding. We rented another scooter today and zipped around the island to see all sorts of fun and pretty things. Fortunately, we had trained for the experience on a less trafficky island, because the lady asked us if we knew how to ride a motorcycle, and we said YES! We're so skilled. We even got up to the speed limit at one point today.

Our first stop was inland, at a little town called Lefkes, which had tonnes of trees full of loud starlings (Katherine thinks they're crows hiding in the trees). The town was awesomely amazing because it wasn't that touristy and there was a cute old man that let us use his washroom (you know Katherine and her thing for old men). We wandered through an old church there and admired the view from all angles. Then we headed back out to the coast and stopped for lunch at this out-of-the-way Greek Taverna restaurant, and had delicious homemade bread and "Chips Fish" (as our hotel receptionist had recommended we eat). We weren't sure of what to order, and the menus weren't complete, so we were invited back into the kitchen so that we could see what fish options were available to us. They looked like fish. We picked the medium-sized grey fish, and we have no idea what it was, but it tasted deeee-licious. And we got complimentary watermelon for dessert. Have you noticed how we always talk about food?

Then Katherine lost the map, so we drove in circles (large ones, because Arianne can't do tight corners) for a bit... but eventually found the "Butterflies Valley" we were looking for. There were hundreds of butterflies there, in the valley, sitting on trees and leaves and probably other things too. We drove a while longer and found a church that was possibly the church we were looking for, but probably not. Anyways, we posed in front of it with our bike helmets on.

Then came the Monastery Incident. We followed these signs up to a monastery, and ended up backtracking, taking a different road towards what looked like a church... We were standing outside the gates of the property wondering if we should push the button to get in, and a man drove up on his scooter, smiled and said "hi". We stood there awkwardly, wondering if we should go in too. Finally, he said, "Can I help you?" And we said, "Is this the monastery?" But no... it was his house. So we walked away. Eventually we found the monastery. It was closed, so we waited till it opened. These 3 guys came to open it up, and didn't say anything to us. So, we walked through the door, and then stood there awkwardly for a couple of minutes, wondering if we were allowed in. Why are we so awkward? We just don't know.

We completed our loop of the island and then went up to Naussa because it was recommended to us as a place to go in the evenings. It was really touristy (and, as you know... we're not really the touristy sort of tourists), so we wandered along the shore, took pictures of geese, and Kippy played the harmonica.

Tonight we browsed through about a million shops in search of a ring that would fit Katherine. Success at last, meaning that finally, we can stop and check our email for a few minutes.

So yesterday evening, we went to one tip of Santorini to visit Oia. It's the beautiful town you see in all the pictures of Santorini. We wandered through all the fun little crazy streets and took pictures of everything until sunset. Then everyone gathered on the tip of the town on the ruins of an old castle and watched the sun go down. Everyone clapped. We ate some grapes. Oh! And during the whole dusky time of day, we took some awesome time lapse photos and videos of a French school tour group.

We got up early to hike up to Ancient Thira (which is where we were trying to go yesterday). Katherine was well fortified for this excursion having eaten 5 pieces of toast for breakfast (the lady serving breakfast noticed this, and gave her a cheese sandwich "for the road"). We spent the morning speaking alternate words for all our sentences. It's fun to try to communicate when the other person is filling in half your words. Ancient Thira had rocks and pillars and lion carvings. It was quite neat, although we were disappointed that we couldn't walk down to the "room where the youths danced nacked." We also met an Italian looking for directions, which we gave him in Spanish/English. Oh! And we gave un-directions to French people in French! It was a multi-lingual day.

We had a couple extra hours before our ferry, so we went swimming at Kamari beach, which was this black beach made of lava pebbles. During the swimming lessons, Arianne hit Katherine in the face with a buoy (not a *real* boy). The water was super salty and we ended up with crusties all over our skin afterwards.

We've now arrived back in Paros. We decided that since we've been here before, we'd be able to just find our hostel by wandering the streets. Whoops. We asked a passing hotel worker (for a different hotel) if she knew where our hotel was. She invited us to use her phone, and in the end, arranged to give us a ride to our hotel. This was much appreciated, as we were getting pretty tired and hungry by this point. The funny part was that when we walked in to her hotel to use the phone, an Italian tour group was also just arriving. We tried to blend in as one of the many (we thought) groups of people arriving. Then we noticed that they were all looking at us, wondering who we were. One of them even said, "Oh, we've picked up some extras!" And we pretended we were supposed to be there.

We found this internet cafe place to check email and update the lovely little journal, and were invited to play pool by these two Russian (Arianne thinks) guys. (Katherine thought they were Greek, because we're in Greece!) We surprised us all by winning the first game. And then got slaughtered for the next 4 games.

We are probably overtired tonight, because we're laughing really hard at stupid things.

After we finished writing our last entry, we were walking back to our hotel room, and we passed a jazz-Greek fusion type band playing not a block from where we were staying. So, we climbed up to the roof of our hotel and sat to listen for a while. It was quite delightful to sit among the rooftops and look at the pretty buildings all lit up. But then we got cold because it's *really* windy there.

Yesterday morning we had CREPES for breakfast and walked up the mountain (in the heat of the day, as per usual) to see this blue and white church perched up on top. We ate the rest of our sour cherries and spit the pits at the other tourists. We spent the first part of the afternoon wandering through all the little courtyards for the last time, eating ice cream from our favourite ice cream man and playing cards that we bought at a cheapo little tourist store. Katherine won all the games. She is sooo the winnings. Arianne pouted a little bit.

We caught our bus down to the port for our ferry in the afternoon, but the ferry turned out to be late, so we hung out on the rocky beach for a while. Arianne played with a stray dog and talked (in a high, squeaky voice, Katherine says) to all the cats and Katherine looked on distainfully. Our ferry was a catamaran and it was fast and cool. When we got to Santorini, we were surrounded by the familiar hords of men (just like Peru) trying to get us to stay at their hotels. We discovered, however, that they are less inclined to tell you all sorts of information if you already have a reservation. Shucks. Instead, we got our information from a bus driver who had an entire muffin in his mouth.

Our hostel is nice and stuff. And then we went and looked around the town.

We sampled Ouzo at the restaurant last night, and were surprised to discover that it tastes just like those Ouzo candies they serve you at Greek restaurants. (Katherine was also surprised that the olive spread we were served tasted just like olives!) And we eavesdropped on a Chinese family who were trying to figure out what kalamari is. On a sidenote... we've come to the conclusion that we are amusing to all Greek waiters. We are not sure why, but they all seem to be smirking at us. Perhaps this is because we spend a good 5 minutes looking confused upon arrival at a restaurant.

Today we decided to go see some ruins up on a mountain. We took the bus there, and... they were closed on Mondays - as are all ruins in Greece on Mondays. The man we talked to told us about a historic town and church nearby, so in the heat of the day (as per usual) we hiked 30 minutes up the hill to the historic town and church. Along the way, we saw olive trees, and grape vines and pomegranite trees and fig trees! After we'd wandered around for a while, we were quite hungry and tired, and there was no food places to be seen, but for a winery. So we stopped there, hoping they would have food in addition to their wines. Not so much. Some sorta little biscuits, which were tasty, but tiny. Katherine is turning into a total wino.

That's about it for today thus far. We're off to Oia (pronounced EE-ya) later this afternoon.

Well, we should really start our journal entry with the marvelous open-air circus we watched last night. It was something else. It started with this weird version of a clown wandering around with a trunk - for about 15 minutes. Then, the 3 main performers opened the trunk, and proceeded to throw clothing about for another 10 minutes or so, pausing every few minutes to pose with some costume on. There were a few feats that were relatively good, but most of the performance consisted of weird (slow and awkward-looking) modern dance pieces, accompanied by horror accordion music. There was also a hip-hop and a tango routine thrown in there too. There was also a guy who could barely walk on a tightrope, and a girl who sat on a trapeze, but didn't really do anything. All in all, not the best show we've ever seen, but worth it for the weirdness (and the price of admission, which was nothing).

We slept in this morning, and then got up to walk down to the port town, 3 km away. The road down goes through this pretty steep valley, and the wind going through was so strong we nearly got blown over. We went swimming in the ocean, and Katherine received some swimming lessons from her wiser older sister, and now she can do the front crawl. She's decided she kind of likes swimming after all. (She's also acquiring a taste for wine. Yesterday she emphatically stated that she couldn't understand why anyone would possibly want to drink something that tastes that disgusting. After Arianne force fed her a couple of glasses - between last night and tonight - she's decided that actually, it tastes ok.)

In the heat of the day (yet again), we decided we'd had enough of the beach, and would take a bus back up to Chora. But, the bus wasn't due to come until 45 minutes later, and we decided to walk back. Katherine commented that we tend to like to walk up steep hills in the hottest part of the day, and mentioned that probably, it would be possible to hitchhike around the entire island. Shortly following this remark, a car stopped beside us and offered us a ride up the rest of the way to Chora. We are hitchhiking queens.

Katherine ate octopus for supper and decided it tastes like tuna, with the texture of weird. Woot.

This morning we woke up before the sun wakes up to get to the scootering before all the tourists. We drove along the main road that goes down the centre of the island and saw several people walking donkeys. We didn't make it to our beach via scooter, because the paved road was waaay up on the hill, and there was a tiny, steep gravel road leading down to the beach. We decided it would be better to walk, because Arianne's scooter skills, while improving, are still not that wonderful. So, we walked down to a deserted beach and spent a pleasant morning singing songs and frolicking in the very big waves.

We had a picnic lunch (including pasta salad without any pasta) and took a nap in the shade... although the shade moved partway through the nap, resulting in Arianne getting a pretty neat burn on the backs of her calves. Then we headed back up the hill in the heat of the day, taking breaks to eat cherries that we had brought with us. They turned out to be sour cherries. We had pit-spitting contests, which Katherine didn't win.

We were partway up the hill when a car drove up behind us, so we hitched a ride up to the top. We think they were laughing at us for leaving our scooter up top, but we're not sure because we don't speak Greek. :(

After our daily siesta (during which Arianne slept, and Kippy cut her hair with nail clippers), we drove the other way down the island to another beach and played mancala with stones and Katherine made a rock sculpture and then sat on it.

We're both a wee bit sleepy tonight because we had wine with dinner.

Oh wait - there's just the one.

After we wrote the last entry, we were wandering around the streets waiting for our midnight ferry to arrive, and were invited to sit down with a group of 7 or 8 hotel owners, who were also waiting for the ferry so they could bombard the tourists getting off the boat. Somehow, we couldn't refuse their offer of chairs to sit in, although we tried. So, we chatted for a while with a few old Greek men, who were cat-calling at the women walking by. It was a bit of a strange experience. In the end, they mocked us for our choice of destination (Folegandros), saying it was for old people or couples, and we should stay on Paros because there are lots of clubs there for young people.

The boat was a little late, so we didn't end up getting on until 1:00, and were surprised when the steward showed us to a cabin to sleep in! We got a wake up call at around 5:30, and it was a good thing, or we would have missed our stop. We were pretty sleepy, so we wandered around the port looking for our hotel. Finally, we gave up and asked someone, and it turned out to be in a different town altogether! He told us the 7:30 bus was coming in 5 minutes. We waited 20, and decided we had missed it while wandering the town. So, we hung out on a beach as the sun came up and watched the locals seabathing. At some point, Katherine pointed over to the bus stop, and said, "Oh, there's a bus. Do you think that's ours?" And Arianne said, "It's probably not an hour late." An hour later, we realized we had been an hour off, and it *had* been our bus after all. The next bus didn't come until 10:00, so we hung out on the beach some more, and then ate delicious yogurt and fruit and honey and nuts for breakfast. Arianne loves food (and is typing this with a grin on her face).

After the 2 minute bus ride (I guess we could have walked in less than 4 hours), we arrived in the town of Chora, and checked right into our hotel, which has an absolutely breathtaking 180 view of the cliffs and bright blue water below. We were so excited about our room, we just stood on the balcony and stared for a good 15 minutes (as Arianne held onto Katherine so she wouldn't fall over the railing and go crashing to the rocks below).

Later (we won't mention our 4 hour siesta this afternoon), we wandered through the streets and enjoyed the pleasantness. And then, after being turned down at one company, WE RENTED A SCOOTER!!!!! Arianne drove around in circles for about 20 minutes trying to figure out how to run the thing, as all the guys from the gas station next door watched and laughed. Katherine stood nervously watching as Arianne almost crashed into a few walls. In the end, the scooter skills were mastered (at a very slow speed, anyway) and Katherine felt confident enough to climb on back. We drove up the island a ways (not too far, because it was getting dusk) and then drove the other way for a little while (not too far, because it was getting dark).

And then we ate some baklava.

Today we got up early to catch a train down to the port in Athens. Found the ferry with no problems and, because we were on fairly early, we had our choice of seats. Not knowing which direction the ferry would be facing, we ended up choosing the hottest seats on the entire boat. We were pretty tired from jet-lag and getting up early and whatnot and so forth that we had a nap. Then we woke up, drank some water and had another nap.

We arrived in Paros at around noon, and had some lunch at this weird little fast-food/not fast-food? restaurant. An old man sitting nearby thought we needed more lemonade pop, and we felt awkwardly compelled to drink it right there because he was watching us. Then we got really sleepy. So, we wandered down the street a couple of blocks to a park, and contemplated napping. But it was a little busy, and we were thirsty (it's super hot here in the middle of the day), so we went to a restaurant and ordered some drinks. Arianne had a little nap on the chair at the restaurant. And then, for something different, we walked to a different bench and had a nap. A kind lady walked over and gave Katherine a napkin to put her face on, because the bench wasn't too clean. Arianne used the guidebook as a pillow. We think this was the last of our naps today, although the day is not over yet. And, it turns out we booked an overnight ferry tonight, so we might be napping tomorrow too.

After our naps, we wandered through the town, which is charming and cute - lots of whitewashed walls and the stones in the streets are outlined with white as well. The roads are tiny, so there are no cars in the streets, although you do see the occasional scooter. We're glad we'll be coming back here on the way back because it'll be a nice place to explore more (and hopefully we won't be quite so tired).

Cause that makes for a good cheesy start to the entry for the evening.

Our story begins with the pasta salad incident of 2008. Kippy, being the good li'l sister that she is, waited patiently (for 2 hours!) for Arianne to arrive at the Athens airport. Upon meeting up, we promptly sat down in the airport and ate leftover, warm pasta salad out of a ziploc bag with our fingers. It was a happy reunion. Besides, we were so overtired at that point, that we seemed to get the giggles for no good reason, as if that is an unusual occurrence.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon checking into our hostel and taking the metro (Arianne would like to brag that she saved Katherine from taking the wrong train. Katherine would like to brag that she *found* the metro station in the first place.) to the ferry office to pick up tickets for tomorrow's ride out to the island of Paros! On the way back, we stopped in a pretty park and got bitten by ants, and complained about the fact that we can't speak Greek. Arianne is going through culture shock because she can't blend in with the locals as she likes to.

We spent a very long time trying to find a restaurant, because everywhere seemed to be serving drinks only, and the first few restaurants we found had an incomprehensible menu system (or none at all!) and we weren't sure how to order or whether we were supposed to seat ourselves, or walk up to the counter and order there??? It's a big mystery. Anyways, we managed to eat too much in the end and waddled back to the hostel, past the large, multi-coloured cement balls that adorned both sides of this one street, for no apparent reason. We also missed our chance to cross this one street, although we watched 2 old ladies hobble across with plenty of time to spare. We need to work on our street-crossing skills.

I guess that's about it for today. We're tired and jet-lagged and ice-cream logged, and Kippy is going through Tea Withdrawl. But it's been a pretty good first day, overall. We're off to sail the 7 seas tomorrow!