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We've spent the last few days here in Mykonos with M.'s friends. We arrived in Mykonos around 8PM on Monday July 3rd, immediately felt better as the temperature was at least 20 degrees cooler than it had been in Cyprus. Also our bags made it on the same flight! It was an adventure just getting there as our flight from Cyprus had left 20 minutes late, only giving us about 50 minutes to connect in Athens, including busing from the remote stand and standing in line to get our boarding passes. M's friends S&V were there at the airport to pick us up; they were spending two weeks in Mykonos and had already been there for a few days. They took us by our hotel, the Palladium, which turned out to be a five minute walk from theirs. We freshened up before heading into town for dinner. V set off through the maze of Chora streets, we loved Mykonos already. Dinner was at Alefkandra restaurant, right on the water, what a setting! I had the moussaka with Mythos beer and a great time was had by all. The night was still young as we headed over to Paradise beach, using the back roads that V had discovered, but it was Monday and pretty dead. We went back to S&V's hotel, the Mykonos Blu. Their room was nice but pretty small, but they had a balcony overlooking the Psarou beach below. M and I headed back to our hotel and crashed.

July 4th, 2006
Happy 4th of July! The next morning after a late start we all headed back to Mykonos town and spent awhile getting lost among the streets. The town was deliberately built with a maze of alleyways to help protect against invasion from the sea. The town is incredibly scenic, all the buildings and even the streets are whitewashed, and there are splashes of color everywhere with flowers and colored doors. There is a row of windmills above the town that make a popular spot to catch the sunset. That night we had dinner at Psarou village at Nammos restaurant before heading back to party at Paradise.

July 5th, 2006
We had all hoped to go to Delos island today, but the wind had picked up overnight and the ferries weren't running! Instead we did an island tour, trying to find a beach that was sheltered from the winds. Finally we found Elia beach and hung out there for a few hours. We walked down along the beach toward the end where the naturalist section began. The water was great for swimming! Next we headed back to Paradise. The beach there was totally packed, lots of nice eye candy and go-go dancer girls on the bars were trying to whip up excitement. The wind here was also the least of anywhere we'd been today. There are several bars along Paradise beach and each one competes to get people dancing. That night we had dinner at another restaurant in Psarou that had a Dancing Zorbas troupe. We went back to Paradise again tonight, there was a big dance party going on. Although things were dead at 9:30 finally around 11 things started picking up. We danced our legs off and left around 3:30.

July 6th, 2006
Last day in Mykonos.. we were supposed to leave around 2PM on the FlyingCat ferry to Santorini, but due to the winds the ferries still weren't running. S&V still were dead to the world when we went over to the Mykonos Blu, so we tried their breakfast buffet, it was much nicer than ours for sure! We then went into town to figure out our ferry options, after stopping at several travel agents we were finally able to find an option that left at 7PM via Naxos that would get into Santorini at 2AM, ugh! The hotel let us stay an extra half day so we spent the rest of the afternoon in town again before going back to the hotel. The hotel shuttle dropped us off at the ferry terminal, which was little more than a cattle corral. We waited.. and waited... and waited. The Highspeed ferry finally showed up an hour late (pretty good for Greece!) and the mad dash of boarding ensued. We decided to pay on-board to upgrade to business class, it was only a few euro each for the quick trip to Naxos. Very worthwhile as it was deserted and much quieter than downstairs. The ferry headed off into the sunset and we very were sad to be leaving Mykonos. Next is Santorini!

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