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Published: February 6th 2013
Paros
We were off to Paros having definately had enough of Mykonos and its seedy clubs. Our new guide Josh had a lie in and we rang him so he wouldn't miss the boat with us. He was fast becoming one of our favourite guides, such a character and generally awesome all round guy. We had a geoup movie session and watched Rango on my computer with a new speaker I had bought in Milan. There was a trumendous rush when we arrived and our boat crew practically threw us overboard when we arrived. They positively man handled a little old lady when she accidently tried to go out the wrong door. I decided to take Paros real slow and steady as my livee was physically in pain. I was in the busabout accomodation, Jem and Grace were just down the road and Kel had booked her own place closer to town. We saw Marissa and our first tour group at the port and had quick hugs before they jumped on their arriving boat. I ended up rooming with Richo and settled in before Kelly walked her way to find us. We left as a big group to go have lunch on the beach and had taziki, wrapped vine leaves, mousaka, giros, stuffed tomatos and capsicum. We watched cats doing their business in the sand and then decided to find another place to lay our towels. There were unfortunately sea urchins in the water so we had rock skimming competitions instead as the bay was very calm. The sand was super hot and the local Italian tourists were making bird noises next to us so we walked into town for frogurt and met up with Josh and our new tour group for a tour of Paros township and church.
We caught a bus to our restaurant which was on the other side of the bay and walked the beach to get some stunning group sunset shots while watching Josh do backflips off the jetty. We drank cocktails, played with kittens, sat on a tree swing and had an evening of traditional Greek plate smashing and Zorba dancing. We also did a photo shoot of the "how to's" of Marissa and Josh's secret hand signals / dance moves that we had learnt in Mykonos. Kel went home but Grace, Jem and I stayed out for cocktails and shisha on the esplanade and I taught Grace to baccata on the street when my favourite song from my dancing days in Townsville was playing in our bar. I was a little homesick for my dance friends but still happy to be having an amazing time. So much for a quiet night.
Next day was the Paros boat tour, of which we had unlimited Greek wine (metholated spirita) all day. We grabbed our inflatables from our amazing hostel, jumped on the boat and then almost left poor Rheece in the toilet block. Literally we had already pulled out of port when he came racing down the jetty! A French couple had booked a boat cruise and had been added to our group. Poor couple were a little shell shocked by us. We were the firsg to jump off the boat at our swim stop but Kel lost her snorkle when she jumped and Matt had to rescue them some 4 meters below. Our inflatable dolphin did a runner out to sea and had to be retrieved. At our second stop Jem and I were happily reclining on our lilo's when Josh and Brendan decided we looked too comfortable and upended us, our new friend Johno thought this was hilarious. Haha We stopped for lunch on a beach and had a round of beach volley ball to which our girls (Kel, Jem, Grace and myself) were the only ones to join in! I accidently jumped on a rock and had a lump under my arch for months afterwards. Richo was kind enough to give me a number of Uzo shots. Repercussions of this are not blogged, lets just say I was entertaining.
We also attempted to teach Kel how to 'pee in the sea' as she struggled. Josh swam over to see why we were in fits of the giggles and also tried to teach Kel this valuable lesson. Lunch was amazing, Greek salads (obviously), freshly cooked fish and drunken octopus dunked in Uzo. More Uzo, more entertainment. At the next swim stop Richo got in trouble for jumping off the boat and Matt took us to the moon with his helicopter. Our final stop was the most beautifully clear water I have ever seen. Grace won the diving comp and Kel and I coordinated a synconised face plant. Our blow up dolphin did another runner and nearly got run over by another boat so we had a lilo race back to the boat before Brendan capsized Kel in order to win. Our question of the day: did u get saganakied? Ie fried? (it was a play on words as Greek fried cheese is Saganaki, but this question always induced group laughter, perhaps it was the Ozu.
We got back to Paros at 4, some had naps, some didn't. We headed into the town centre for Paro's biggest celebration of the whole year. Paros's patron saint is Maria and today was the sacred name day for anyone who's name was like that...Marissa was sad to miss it. It was a massive religious ceremony with big Greek men with long beards leading a procession through the town. The population grows by 10 times the usual amount on this day in Paros. We had Giros with Josh, ate too much and then Kel and Grace went to buy pegs for Kel's new game. There is a peg leader and they quietly put the peg on someones clothes and walk away. Then they loudly start a 5 second countdown where everyone joins in. If the person finds the peg then the peg leader has to skull their drink but if they don't find the peg, the pegged person has to drink. We were back at the bar with cocktails and shisha and for the peg game we also got shots. As none of us had tried it before Jem suggested me all try a round of absynth shots. I remember saying 'wow this isn't so bad, I don't feel the affects at all' so we had another round...or two?
Next morning we all went through our cameras and deleated a lot of photos. Saloon d'or where we ended up, had some nice dancing shots, we also taught the NZ boys to chacha (I am not convinced I know how to chacha...but there is photos saying we did...). There was new friendships and photos of more shots. I was pegged on the nose by Brendan and eventually went home and got lost finding my hostel for over an hour, the girls partied on, danced, took photos of the Aussie fosters sign in the pub (I am yet to meet an Aussie who drinks it), got free shots for completing various dance challenges, memorable quote: "That accellorated quickly" the touristing Italians enjoyed the presentions, there was photos of a night time swim and we were all in bed by 6am! We decided "Absynth makes the heart grow fonder (and clothes go wander)" and all swore off trying it again anytime soon.
I woke up next day (without too much of a hangover, miraculously) picked up Jem (Grace was unwell) and we went to find Kelly, got lost for 2 hours trying to find her accomodation and went back home. We eventually found her via facebook and had a hungover lunch on the beach with more giros and pieced together the previous night. Culled a lot of photos forevermore, watched the rest of Rango and fell asleep. In the evening we went shopping, decided we had significantly bonded over the previous 6 nighta and were now a sisterhood, we just needed travelling pants now and we could make big money at the box office. No pants to be found but we did find a magic stretchy dress you could wear 10 ways...hmmm. We decided instead on dinner in a magical garden restaurant and had soft drink and water to calm our raging and damaged livers.
Last day in Paros, we all met for breakie, all tried on the sisterhood dress, Kel bought neon togs and we grabbed some take away lunch before jumping on a bus for the other side of the Island which aparently had better beaches. We missed our stop and ended up in Marpissa, considering there was 4 of us we decided (please don't try this at home) to hitchhike with Michalle and his daughter Elli to Molos beach, he was from Athens. Lovelt fellow, managed to fot 6 people in a car with 4 seats. Skillful. We walked the whole length of the slightly windy but gloriously clear watered beach, swam, read, took sisterhood photos and then hitchhiked back to Marpissa with Andrea from Roma, a kite surfer who came here every year and also had a much nicer car. We ended up at a cafe overlooking the water and tried their icecream and biscuits that looked like shortbread but weren't and baclava. We had to wait a while for the bus and played "A my name is Abbey, my husband's name is Alberto, we come from Albania, with a basket full of Ammunition" letter changes each round...we were so engrossed and laughing over the weird answers we nearly missed the bus, had to run and then annoyed the bus driver as none of us had 2€ in anything except 2 and 5 cent pieces. We were quickly unpopular when we decided to play more games, the Actor game (say an actor and then next person says another actor using the last letter of the previous answer), animal (same as previous), memorable quotes: "I know the Dali Lama is religious, but is it also an animal too?", and "is a faggot a bird?" the games and laughs that followed lasted all the way to Parakia.
It was close to sunset by this time and we were wandering the esplanade when we came across a stall selling friendship bracelets. We all bought a bracelet for someone else in our group and decided to have a ceremonial friendship meeting on the rocks of the beach. It would have been amazingly romantic had we not been too close to water. We lost Kel's bracelet temporarily to the sea, but managed a swift rescue and continued with our ceremony at sunset with hugs, personal vows of friendship and love as we tied it to our wrists. It was so beautiful and special. Afterwards we went back to the store we had found last night and I bought the sisterhood of the travelling maxi dress. We then found John and took him out to our magic garden restaurant with amazing food. No alcohol for any of us and we inundated John with our girly chats who thought we were all a little ridiculous. Interesting topics of conversation included: How often do you come across fake boobs and 'the Pants game' where you change movie or book titles to include the word 'pants'. Some of the best:
Lord of the pants, Flashpants, Harry potter and the pants of fire. We had a good giggle but Jem was unfortunately humiliated by our stupidity. We all agreed that laughing so hard your stomache hurts or you snort by accident is a sign of a good night. I love my friends, I was so lucky we had another 2 islands to go!
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apostolos
non-member comment
Depends where you book
Paros is a beautiful place to spend your valuable holidays. Unfortunately you must know where to eat and where to drink. I live in Paros for at most 10 years and i can assure you that a great place to accommondate and eat is in the area of Ambelas Paros. A new website is made by the official association of Ambelas Paros where you can find what you want. Check here at http://www.ambelasparos.gr