Besties coming home!

Well we made it out of Athens, and Madrid!  Currently we're sitting in the Chicago airport.

We got to Athens around 5 am and almost all of the flights on the board were canceled.  Luckily ours wasn't! We did have to write our names and emergency contact information in a little notebook at the check-in counter though.  As much as it seemed like a bad idea to get on this flight, we had too because there were many people that would have jumped for our seats!

Our flight from Madrid to Chicago had to go a longer route than normal because the ash forced us to stay south!

Now that we're here, we have had more issues with our flight in Chicago than any of our flights in Europe!  I also realized that the sound on my phone wasn't coming through very clearly - I determined that there was some Dead Sea mud caked into the speaker and after using my earring to clean it out - it seems to work just fine!

Can't wait to see and talk to everyone.  But we're very sad the trip is over.  We tried to get a picture that reflected that feeling.

Athens - Last Day!

Today was our last day and we've just spent our time walking around Athens!

Our ferry got us into Athens around 6 am and we took the Metro back to the hostel.  It was nice that we were staying in the same place because we knew exactly where we were going.  We left our bags in storage and went right to the Acropolis so we were there when it opened.  It was really amazing, and big! But for some reason it didn't quite live up to the pyramids.  Maybe it's just that we've seen so many awesome sites and we're getting spoiled.  Don't get me wrong though, it was still really awesome! :)

After the Acropolis, we were really tired and we came back to get checked into our room and napped.  We then had lunch at a little cafe and did some shopping!

We've been a little nervous about our flight home because almost everything across Europe has been canceled due to the Iceland Volcano.  Now that the ash is moving south, we've seen more airports shutting down.  Last update though - Athens and Madrid are still open! It's a good thing we're not flying back through Amsterdam though, because they are shutdown!

We're getting up in 7 hours (3am) so we can take the bus to the airport for our 7:30 am flight! Wish us luck!

Last Day in Santorini

Today was our last day in Santorini, and it sure was a great one!

We didn't get a great night's sleep because some obnoxious kids were yelling all night.  But we had breakfast and checked out of room in the morning and made the best of our day.  The hostel is letting us store our bags for the day, so we went straight to the Red Sand beach in Akrotiri.

It was a little out there, and you have to hike to get to the beach. But it was beautiful out, and we stayed there until 6!  There weren't many other people at the beach, just an Austrian girl filming her music video.  Haha, Yeah I know - kind of random.  I chatted with her for a bit.  I think she said the name of her song is Miracle of the Lioness - guess I'll have to look that one up when I get home.  :)

When we left, we had the bus drop us off at Santo Wines.  It's a winery just on the outskirts of Fira.  We did a tasting of 6 different wines.  They were all pretty good, but they said they specialize in whites.  We hurried out of there so we could catch the 7:40 bus, but when it was 10 minutes late, we took the first cab that drove by.

We had him drop us off near The Corner so we could have our dessert and say goodbye to Lena and the other people that work there before going back to the hostel.

We had just enough time to change and wait for our transfer to the port.  Our ferry leaves at midnight and we have a sleeping cabin, so it should be pretty nice.

We're both sad to leave Santorini.  We were sad to leave the other places too, but we were always going somewhere new - this time it feels over.  :(

We just heard about the Iceland volcano erupting, and that flights are getting canceled in major European airports- if ours is canceled, we may just come back to Santorini!

We still have one full day in Athens tomorrow, so we'll see what changes with the ash in that time.

Volcano Trip & Donkey Rides

Surprise Surprise! Another fun day on the Greek Island of Santorini!

After a quick little breakfast at the hostel, we made our way down to the Old Port of Santorini.  We had a big old boat pick us up for a day cruise.  The boat looked like a pirate ship!

We first went out to the volcano! It's called Nea Kameni and it's still an active volcano.  The last big eruption was in 1956.  We could look down into the crater and feel the steam and smell the sulfur! Even the soles of our shoes were hot enough to feel the heat on our feet!

We also stopped at another small island created from the volcanic eruptions that had some natural hot springs.  The boat couldn't get close enough to land and we didn't want to swim to them.  Those that did jump in said the initial swim was so cold, but the hot springs felt really nice.  Unfortunately, they had to swim back into the cold part to get back to the boat!

From there we continued to Therassia - another island from the volcano.  We had lunch at Captain John's and had some really yummy chicken kabob's and a greek salad.

We made a short stop in Oia, but then made our way back to our port in Fira.  There are about 600 steps from the port up to the main city, but we rode to the top on the donkeys.  It felt very Greek!  We named our donkeys Lady Gaga & Michael Jackson (I'll let you guess who had who) :)

After our MJ and Gaga got us to the top, we did a little shopping.  Greece is the most expensive place we've been, but I love everything here!

We had dinner at a cheap gyro place by our hostel and then made our way to The Corner for our usual icecream.  Although tonight we switched it up and had crepes.  They were so good.  Since this was our 4th night in a row here, we chatted with Lena who was our server and she's recommended some things we may do tomorrow.

Can't wait!

Sun & Fun in Santorini

Hello All!!

Today we took the bus to the black sand beach of Perissa.  It was pretty quiet when we got there, but then we realized it was only 10 am!

We pretty much laid out in the sun until we took the bus back to Fira at 4! It was such a beautiful day and we were happy to just lounge around and soak up the sun!

After we got home we got ready to go out to dinner.  We chose yet another beautiful cafe overlooking the caldera at sunset.  After dinner we went to Franco's bar for a Greek beer (or 2).  You can't walk around Fira without seeing their FRANCO'S sign - so we knew we had to check it out.  They play classical music and have some of the best looking male servers my eyes have ever seen...
(and you expect me to come home??)

This is probably the latest I've been up in Greece.  The sun just wears me out.  But we still had time to stop by our favorite place for some icecream.  It's turning into a ritual.  I think they expect to see us every night too!

We have another fun day planned for tomorrow!
Oh, and I can't remember if I mentioned it before, but we decided to stay in Santorini until Saturday morning.  The ferry schedule wasn't very convenient for going to Mykonos and we knew we wanted to be back in Athens by a certain day.

A Day in Oia!

Wow, we have had a busy day!

Breakfast is included in the hostel, it wasn't much compared to some of our other places, but we still ate something before venturing out for the day around 10 am!

Today we decided to WALK from Fira to Oia along the cliff overlooking the caldera.  It was so beautiful!  Generally, people don't walk from Fira to Oia, but there was a path and it was too pretty to stop.  We estimated that it took us about 3 hours because we kept taking pictures and soaking up our surroundings!

The city of Oia is small and very quaint.  There were times that we wouldn't see anyone for quite a while.  It was really nice to be here during the off season.  We ate at this cute little cafe and walked around taking pictures of all the pretty blue domed churches.

We found the main little castle spot that sits near the edge of the island to watch the sunset.  It was beautiful.
We had such a fun day and it felt so good to soak up all of the sunshine!
We decided to take the bus back to Fira (much faster than walking) and then stopped by this little place for icecream!

Here's hoping that tomorrow is just as gorgeous as it was today!

Santorini = Beautiful

Hi Everyone!!
We've arrived in Santorini!

We got up really early to take the Metro down to the port.  The line was having some work done to it, so we had to get off and take a shuttle around.  Luckily there was a nice man that was pointing us on our way and making sure we were headed to where we needed to go.  We got our tickets for the ferry and hopped aboard! The ferry was so nice! I imagine it is something like a plane/cruise ship mix.  I've never been on a cruise to know for sure though, but it was very nice.

We took the high-speed ferry, and arrived in Santorini a little after noon.  Just a side note - the high-speed ferry still took about 5 hours!

We were so excited to get here.  Mesa was hilarious! We had a van picking us up at the port to bring us to the hostel, but the curvy road went all the way up the hillside and Mesa just kept jumping from one side of the van to the other to videotape out the windows! The whole time the driver was blaring Johnny B. Goode!

After getting checked into our room, we decided to head out and explore the town of Fira.  We walked around everywhere!  We had some great views of the caldera and volcano, and all of the little white buildings along the cliffs! It's everything you imagine a Greek island to look like: beautiful, sunny, blue and white, peaceful, and charming.

We ate dinner at a cafe that over-looked the village and the water. We had gyros and they were so delicious.

We decided to take it pretty easy tonight because we'll be doing a bunch tomorrow!