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Published: September 29th 2007
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Hello everyone!
This is an update from the Greek part of our excursion. Greece is wonderful... well parts of it I guess I should say. We are spending our last night together, us three girls.. sob sob... on the wonderful island of Crete (Krete... pronounced Kreta with a wonderful Cretian accent of course). It honestly is our favorite place so far, probably because we picked the most beautiful beach in the world to stay at... I'll get to that later because our Greek adventure did not start on Crete. No no... it started in the "lovely" city of Athens.
Oh, Athens... where to start. For those of you who have been to Athens you may have an idea why I say it that way. Bascially, if you've ever thought about going to Athens.. dont! Again, just buy the post card instead. Thankfully, we only had one night booked and really, it was for the sole purpose of having a place to sleep after we flew in from Rome, before catching the ferry the next day to Santorini.
We flew into Athens around 11:30 pm on the 20th and got into a cab right away, heading towards our hotel
Our 5 Star Neighbourhood in Athens
Do you see the spit-balls? Too bad the hookers were hiding around the corner... tsk tsk in anticiaption of a nice peaceful sleep.. haha. After getting into the city we showed the cabby where we were staying and surprisingly enough, he had never heard of it. He plugged the address into his GPS and then started making a few turns in the direction of our homestead for the evening. All of a sudden we were in Hooker Haven.. AGAIN. The road started to get really grubby, littered with garbage and graffitied cars and delivery vans, abandoned buildings covered in spit balls... you get the picture. Me, being the optimist that I am, kept hoping the next left hand turn would brighten up into palm trees, cobblestone streets lit up with cafes and restaurants and a beautiful hotel filled with sexy Greek toga-lain men waiting to escort us up to our suite. Not exactly what we encountered. Bascially we stayed in the downtown eastside of athens... you can imagine mom's eyes lighting up this time!!
So the cab driver walks us in, in order to keep us from being mugged by the street crawlers of the neighbourhood.. of course. We check in and head on up to the 5th floor to find our frat house of
a hotel room littered with 18 year old drunken German boys running around in their skivvies. We're talking 3 rooms of them yelling and running up and down the halls... oh it was going to be a great night. So we settle in to our paper-thin walled room and the boys just keep getting louder. We heard the drunk locals fighting downstairs on the street, slamming into parked cars and whatnot, the boys started nicky nicky nine-dooring our room... so I got a little frusterated and decided to give them a piece of my mind. This probably backfired.... and just fueled the fire. I guess sometimes it's better to just say nothing because they ended up sneaking their camera into the window of our bathroom and tried taking photos of mom... this was the last straw. Really though, we were defeated. Those little punks banged on our wall all night long...
So the next morning after a rough sleep we decided to do a little sightseeing of "beautiful" Athens while we waited for our ferry. Kirbi, not to be outdone in this city, really seems to have problems with her luggage. She ended up rolling her suitcase through a
pile of dog poop.... TYPICAL KIRBI PITT MANEUVER... granted dodging dog remains in these european cities is like patting your head and rubbing your belly. What, can you do it?
Moving on... the ferry over to Santorini was quite an experience. It was so rough on the way over, people everywhere were getting sick. Let's just say it wasn't really a pleasant situation when you're feeling a little woozy yourself. Our entire Santorini trip was engulfed in gale force winds, which made swimming in the ocean and enjoying the heat a little challanging... but it was still awesome. We stayed at the most beautiful apartments on the north end of the island, En Plo in Oia. We were a little secluded so we rented yet another car to take us on the trecharous roads in and out of town and she treated us well... a little lemon yellow Peugeot. It's quite interesting driving on top of a volcano.. the roads are verrry skinny and the at times you're on top of the smallest ridge with nothing but cemented ash and lava hundreds of feet down, waiting to break your fall. We visited all of the resident beaches and ended
up falling upon a lovely "beach bar" in Perissa beach that makes fabulous strawberry daquiris. I challange somebody to beat these.
Leaving Santorini was a little bit of an ordeal as well because all ferries to and from the island had been cancelled since the day we got there, meaning we couldnt move on to Crete as we had originally planned. Kirbi and mom, being the planning extroridinaires that they are, rigged us up with a whole new itinerary, back through athens and then all the way over santorini again by plane, to Crete. This was the only way we could leave the island... but it was the right choice because Crete was SOO worth it.
We arrived late in Hania, on Crete and hopped in our third euro-compact car rental in hopes of finding the secluded beach, Falasarna, which we had only heard about a few weeks prior. We booked ourselves in at the home of Anastasia and her husband Stathis, the most adorable couple in the entire world. Stathis looks remarkably similar to a man we know as Albert Einstein... check out the hair in the photo (way better in real life). They rent out rooms
in Falasarna and came highly recommended by our trusty Lonely Planet Guidebook. When we arrived around 10 pm, Anastasia greeted us with open arms (literally) and fresh grapes off of Stathis' vines. They are both so animated and hilarious.. we loved them.
Having arrived in the dark, we really didn't know exactly what our surroundings looked like... but waking up in the morning we saw it. BREATHTAKING! Falasarna has the most amazing beach ever. It is a few miles of white and pink sand, crystal clear turquois water and soo clean! The town of Falasarna itself was made up of the most welcoming locals who all brew up their own wine, honey, yoghurt, and of course RAKI, a traditional Cretan distilled liquor made from grapes, like grappa or a shnapps. Cretans swear that, like most of these after dinner drinks, aid in digestion.. but we think they just like getting drunk. Either way, it works!. We were taken in by the locals, who cooked us traditional Cretan dishes and gifted us gallons of their homemade brews. Mom's luggage is very liquid right now.. dont' tell Canadian Customs. We highly recommend this village to anyone who wants a remote paradise.
It may take a little to get there, but it's so worth it!
Now we are all sitting by the computer writing this blog and taking in the last minutes of our time together,(and drinking another litre of Stathis' wine that wouldn't fit in the luggage). Tomorrow is a big travel day for the three of us. Mom and Kirbi fly back to Vancouver and me... I'm off to Nepal to start my volunteering. It's going to be a LONG day... with four flights and 17 hours of air-time ahead of me. I'm excited, nervous and don't really know what to expect.. but I guess that's why I'm doing it right? I'll keep you all updated on my first impressions of Kathmandu in the next week or so. I'm hoping to be a little more on top of my emailing and blogging now that I won't be distracted with all this beach, wine and sightseeing time.
Love to all.. thank you for all your comments.. they're great to hear! Talk to you soon!
Megs xoxo
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Timbo
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STANDBY
Megs, I bet Standby in Bangkok is not the most enjoyable thing but you know what, its just another great story you get to add to the fond memories in Life... Do not worry, it will work out, keep your head hi. Maybe go around the neighbourhood and introduce yourself, say hi to the locals and share a pint or three...You got my number, if you need a pep talk... IT will all work out for the BEST!!!