Ok guys, I'm not gonna lie here, I really am not in the mood to blog. Its been a helluva travel day and I'm hungover and all the restaurants around our hotel are closed so I had chips and juice for dinner. But we're going to Turkey tomorrow and doing loads so I need to update before the load becomes too intense!
We're in Athens at the moment; we've just come from Ios which is THE BEST PLACE EVER. I can't really explain why its so amazing, there's just something in the water there that makes a person completely and utterly satisfied with life every second of every day. Its beautiful, the beaches are fantastic, we met some seriously wicked people, and did some very serious partying.
The days are a major blur, but I'll give it my best shot.
We weren't really sad to leave Mykonos. If you ask me that island it overrated. It was expensive and the people were shit. Being us we did manage to find some fun, but we had to dig down deep. Ios was a totally different story. On our first day there we were informed that the bus was taking us to Far Out Hotel and Spa, which shocked us completely because we highly doubted that we were paying 15 euro a night for a Hotel and Spa. Turns out there was an overbooking and we got upgraded. The rooms were nice, gorgeous pool, gorgeous view, but man alive was it ever BORING. Within 5 minutes we were walking down the hill to the beach to find some food and someone to talk to. We were more than happy to move down into our little backpacker village the next morning. Even the little backpacker Far Out was really nice, especially considering how cheap it was. We got a private hotel room with ensuite and no bugs. There was something blocking our mental capacity on the first night in those rooms because for some unknown reason, between 2 of us (and both of us think we're pretty damn smart) we were unable to locate the light switch for the bathroom. We both showered in the dark. Seriously.
Before fully committing to the party scene on Ios, Steph and I decided that we should finally follow thru with the promise we always make ourselves on every island and never actually do: go biking/exploring! We rented an atv (yes we wore our helmets!) and scooted all around the beautiful island of Ios. We hit a totally deserted beach, drove aimlessly, and stumbled upon what the plaques claimed was the tomb of Homer. Illiad Homer. Luckily I have Steph and she got all upset and informed me that this was NOT Homer's tomb and the historian guy who claimed it was had a tendency to make things up and call it fact. Its fun having a Classics minor by my side when confronted with these things.
Beyond that we were on the whole pretty unproductive. We spent lots of time laying in the sun, swimming in the ocean, swimming in the pool, eating cheesey carbs, drinking 5 euro wine, meeting Australians, and judging slutty Swedish chicks. All our favourite Greek island activities! We fully committed to Ios' vibrant nightlife. I'm not sure if its because its the end of the season and the bars are trying to blow their inventory before they close, or if this is just the cheapest place ever, but around every corner there's some Australian promo person hollering at you for free shots, 1 euro drinks, or the standard special: 2 shots, 2 drinks, for 5 euro. Now, that is just not safe. Especially when they seem to cram about 2 dozen bars within the tiny main square. There was lots of dancing and an incident in which I begged Steph to let me sleep at the bus stop because we couldn't get a taxi home. Don't worry, she didn't.
Our best discovery was Porkey's: an all-night crepe shop that makes the most delicious crepes you can imagine. And hands down the best gyros I've ever had. In a spectacular display of serendipity, while mowing a white chocolate crepe at 3am, we bumped into 2 awesome South Africans who we'd hung out with on Mykonos! 'Tis a small world after all.
By far the most amazing part about our time on Ios was the people there. Everyone was so great and friendly. I am, quite seriously, formulating plans to head back there to land myself a promo job next summer. The place was crawling with people who live and work there for the summer at the similar random promo jobs me and Shanna worked in Australia. They are living the life! Don't worry, not dropping out of school. These are summer plans.
Ok people, that's all I've got. I did not do that magical place justice, and that's a shame, but I'm all sleepy from my ferry ride and we've got a flight at the crack of dawn tomorrow, so its sleep time for me!
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Long overdue 4-island update
Hey cyberspace, I'm still alive!
Its been ages and much has happened, the days blur a little bit, but events are handily separated by island.
After the last update, in Santorini, Steph and I left Taylor's family's place to move to the more backpacker-friendly Perissa Beach. We had some serious lazy beach days, laid around our hotel's pool (definite perk for the budget travelers!), attempted a night on the town that turned out to be not so rowdy (who knew we were now in "off-season??). On one of our more ambitious days, we were told we could walk to Ancient Thera, just by taking that road over there for a few metres and following the signs for 45 minutes, how easy! It turned out that the "walk" was over an hour up the side of a mountain through what we later found out was the graveyard of the aforementioned Ancient Thera. So there we were, hiking like billy-goats in flip flops and sun dresses alongside hardcore keens-wearing tourists with waterbottles and judging glances. It was totally worth it - our first real ruins! It was the ruins of the old city, and they were pretty intact for a site that didn't seem to be afforded much in the way of protection from stomping tourist feet. That adventure took the whole day, then off we went to catch our ferry to Naxos. The major highlight of Santorini, sad as it is to admit, was the 24-hr bakery located about 100m from our hotel room. We went 5 times in 2 days, and each time discovered a new and exciting phyllo-covered treat...oops.
Our ride to Naxos should have been a nice, easy, 2 hour ride, but Poseidon seemed to have other plans and gave us some seriously rough seas. It wouldn't be outrageous to estimate that a solid 75% of the passengers on our ferry were vomiting into their seasickness bags. The poor ferry workers had to walk up and down the aisles for an hour with garbage bags exchanging puke-filled bags for empty ones. I almost threw up just from the sight, sound, and smell of so much bile, but lucky for me the Lawton constitution held up. At one point we were told that we couldn't even get to Naxos, and we turned around to dock in the nearest safe port, Ios. We then turned BACK around when the ocean calmed down and made it to Naxos safe, but late.
We arrived at night, completely lost, with absolutely no idea where to find our hotel. The directions said "250m from the port, on the beach". Sounds simple, no? NO. An hour or so of hopeless wandering and asking very unhelpful locals for assistance finally brought us to our rooms, where we were greeted by the owner scolding us for not seeing him and his nice minibus waiting for us at the port. Naxos was REALLY windy, just like Santorini, but on Santorini there were nice big lava rocks that didn't get blown around, whereas Naxos was pristine white sandy beaches. That sounds nice until you realize that it translates directly into a not-so-pristine white sandy body. We ditched the beach to head uphill (everything in Greece is uphill) to check out a Venetian Castle and the area around it. It was nothing like any other area of Greece we've wandered around - very very Italian looking and full of awesome shops, danger danger. We were sort of under the impression that Naxos was a boring ghost town with nobody around and no shops open, until we ventured out for dinner around 9pm and all the people who had been siesta-ing all day were out in force. Naxos is a seriously noctournal place and it is absolutely full of baked goods. They were everywhere! We became excellent customers of a local bakery between our hotel and the main street, very sketchy looking but run by a really nice Greek family. We definitely hit that up 4 times in 2 days. We can't be trusted with phyllo so close by, and crepes!
The ferry from Naxos was almost going to be a total disaster. Our ferry to Mykonos was canceled, so we had to book one 5 hours earlier (thank god we went and checked early) to Syros, then another to Mykonos. The first ferry was almost 2 hours late, which put us in a bit of a panic to make our connection, but evidently this is standard procedure for the Aegean Sea, because our next ferry was equally late.
Mykonos is a fairly dangerous place. One is able to find booze and loud music at pretty much any time between noon and 8am. We stayed at a place called Paradise, which had nice rooms but cost a fortune. I was frankly not super impressed with Mykonos on the whole. With the exception of one highly debaucherous night, it was pretty tame. The club we went to on the first night turned out to be an unofficial gay bar full of douchey gay Italians wearing scarves indoors when its +30 outside. On the night of the Full Moon Party, our one crazy night, Steph and I got a 1.5L of crappy wine to get a bit pissed before we headed to the bar where RedBull costs 12 euro. It was a totally unnecessary exercise - 5 minutes after we walked in some guys who may or may not have worked at the club slapped some VIP wristbands on us and plopped us in a booth with a bottle of Grey Goose. We went from VIP to dancing in the actual DJ booth at sunrise behind DJs who I've actually heard of! Crazy night that became a crazy 7am morning. Clearly the next day was a total write-off.
Next up is Ios! That's where we are now...stay tuned!
Its been ages and much has happened, the days blur a little bit, but events are handily separated by island.
After the last update, in Santorini, Steph and I left Taylor's family's place to move to the more backpacker-friendly Perissa Beach. We had some serious lazy beach days, laid around our hotel's pool (definite perk for the budget travelers!), attempted a night on the town that turned out to be not so rowdy (who knew we were now in "off-season??). On one of our more ambitious days, we were told we could walk to Ancient Thera, just by taking that road over there for a few metres and following the signs for 45 minutes, how easy! It turned out that the "walk" was over an hour up the side of a mountain through what we later found out was the graveyard of the aforementioned Ancient Thera. So there we were, hiking like billy-goats in flip flops and sun dresses alongside hardcore keens-wearing tourists with waterbottles and judging glances. It was totally worth it - our first real ruins! It was the ruins of the old city, and they were pretty intact for a site that didn't seem to be afforded much in the way of protection from stomping tourist feet. That adventure took the whole day, then off we went to catch our ferry to Naxos. The major highlight of Santorini, sad as it is to admit, was the 24-hr bakery located about 100m from our hotel room. We went 5 times in 2 days, and each time discovered a new and exciting phyllo-covered treat...oops.
Our ride to Naxos should have been a nice, easy, 2 hour ride, but Poseidon seemed to have other plans and gave us some seriously rough seas. It wouldn't be outrageous to estimate that a solid 75% of the passengers on our ferry were vomiting into their seasickness bags. The poor ferry workers had to walk up and down the aisles for an hour with garbage bags exchanging puke-filled bags for empty ones. I almost threw up just from the sight, sound, and smell of so much bile, but lucky for me the Lawton constitution held up. At one point we were told that we couldn't even get to Naxos, and we turned around to dock in the nearest safe port, Ios. We then turned BACK around when the ocean calmed down and made it to Naxos safe, but late.
We arrived at night, completely lost, with absolutely no idea where to find our hotel. The directions said "250m from the port, on the beach". Sounds simple, no? NO. An hour or so of hopeless wandering and asking very unhelpful locals for assistance finally brought us to our rooms, where we were greeted by the owner scolding us for not seeing him and his nice minibus waiting for us at the port. Naxos was REALLY windy, just like Santorini, but on Santorini there were nice big lava rocks that didn't get blown around, whereas Naxos was pristine white sandy beaches. That sounds nice until you realize that it translates directly into a not-so-pristine white sandy body. We ditched the beach to head uphill (everything in Greece is uphill) to check out a Venetian Castle and the area around it. It was nothing like any other area of Greece we've wandered around - very very Italian looking and full of awesome shops, danger danger. We were sort of under the impression that Naxos was a boring ghost town with nobody around and no shops open, until we ventured out for dinner around 9pm and all the people who had been siesta-ing all day were out in force. Naxos is a seriously noctournal place and it is absolutely full of baked goods. They were everywhere! We became excellent customers of a local bakery between our hotel and the main street, very sketchy looking but run by a really nice Greek family. We definitely hit that up 4 times in 2 days. We can't be trusted with phyllo so close by, and crepes!
The ferry from Naxos was almost going to be a total disaster. Our ferry to Mykonos was canceled, so we had to book one 5 hours earlier (thank god we went and checked early) to Syros, then another to Mykonos. The first ferry was almost 2 hours late, which put us in a bit of a panic to make our connection, but evidently this is standard procedure for the Aegean Sea, because our next ferry was equally late.
Mykonos is a fairly dangerous place. One is able to find booze and loud music at pretty much any time between noon and 8am. We stayed at a place called Paradise, which had nice rooms but cost a fortune. I was frankly not super impressed with Mykonos on the whole. With the exception of one highly debaucherous night, it was pretty tame. The club we went to on the first night turned out to be an unofficial gay bar full of douchey gay Italians wearing scarves indoors when its +30 outside. On the night of the Full Moon Party, our one crazy night, Steph and I got a 1.5L of crappy wine to get a bit pissed before we headed to the bar where RedBull costs 12 euro. It was a totally unnecessary exercise - 5 minutes after we walked in some guys who may or may not have worked at the club slapped some VIP wristbands on us and plopped us in a booth with a bottle of Grey Goose. We went from VIP to dancing in the actual DJ booth at sunrise behind DJs who I've actually heard of! Crazy night that became a crazy 7am morning. Clearly the next day was a total write-off.
Next up is Ios! That's where we are now...stay tuned!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Santorini
Wow, it was a struggle to get here. Here being Santorini, on the complete opposite side of Greece from Corfu. Our travels began on Sunday night when we left the Pink Palace at 10 pm on the night bus, which arrived in Athens at 9am. Unfortunately for us, the only ferry leaving that day was at 7:30pm, arriving in Santorini the next morning. So we spent a VERY hot and EXTREMELY boring day in Athens waiting for boarding. We decided not to try to hit the Parthenon in the 8 or so hrs we had, because we hadn't slept, it was hotter than hell, and we didn't want to sprint thru the awesome historical sites at 100km/hr and exhausted. So we spent the day in various cafes being those people who take 2 hrs to drink a cup of coffee. The ferry wasn't terrible, and we managed to snag about 2 hrs of sleep on the hard floor of the peasant class cabin.
Steph and I are staying for 2 nights in Santorini with her boyfriend's parents. He and his family are here for 2 weeks, but we don't want to overstay our welcome. After tonight we're going to transfer to a more backpackery side of the island to do some backpackery things. But it has been really nice staying in an actual hotel and his parents are great; they won't let us pay for anything and they're really sweet people. On our first day here we were too exhausted to do much beyond lay by the pool, relocate to the beach, and go out for dinner at a local tavern. We did get a little sneak peak of Black Beach where we're staying tomorrow and it definitely looks like fun.
Today we had a bit more ambition, so we popped out of bed and got on a big ol' sailboat to go around the caldera, hike up the active volcanic part of the island, stop at a fishing village for lunch and a swim, and stop at the volcanic hotspot in the middle of the ocean. The guide neglected to tell us that the hotspot is full of bright green sulfer and some red volcanic shale, so Stephs pretty white bikini is now a gross tea-stained colour bikini. She was, needless to say, not very pleased. But the day was great. We had an amazing guide who seemed to speak about 7 languages and give us all the local history of the island and the volcano, and the weather was a solid 45 degrees. Lots of tanning, swimming, and learning. Therefore a fully successful day. Tonight we may or may not go out with Taylor and his brother, but everyone's kind of beat so it may be a quiet night.
I'm finding it a lot harder to blog update here, I always feel like I'm strapped for time! Speaking of, its 7:40 now, so dinner must be happening soon!
Ttfn!
Steph and I are staying for 2 nights in Santorini with her boyfriend's parents. He and his family are here for 2 weeks, but we don't want to overstay our welcome. After tonight we're going to transfer to a more backpackery side of the island to do some backpackery things. But it has been really nice staying in an actual hotel and his parents are great; they won't let us pay for anything and they're really sweet people. On our first day here we were too exhausted to do much beyond lay by the pool, relocate to the beach, and go out for dinner at a local tavern. We did get a little sneak peak of Black Beach where we're staying tomorrow and it definitely looks like fun.
Today we had a bit more ambition, so we popped out of bed and got on a big ol' sailboat to go around the caldera, hike up the active volcanic part of the island, stop at a fishing village for lunch and a swim, and stop at the volcanic hotspot in the middle of the ocean. The guide neglected to tell us that the hotspot is full of bright green sulfer and some red volcanic shale, so Stephs pretty white bikini is now a gross tea-stained colour bikini. She was, needless to say, not very pleased. But the day was great. We had an amazing guide who seemed to speak about 7 languages and give us all the local history of the island and the volcano, and the weather was a solid 45 degrees. Lots of tanning, swimming, and learning. Therefore a fully successful day. Tonight we may or may not go out with Taylor and his brother, but everyone's kind of beat so it may be a quiet night.
I'm finding it a lot harder to blog update here, I always feel like I'm strapped for time! Speaking of, its 7:40 now, so dinner must be happening soon!
Ttfn!
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Corfu Adventures
Well, I barely survived, but Steph and I are leaving Corfu today. It was a truly exhausting 4 days. I can definitely see why half the travellers here have found themselves accidentally staying here for weeks on end, the days just seem to get away from you.
On Friday we went on the infamous Pink Palace booze cruise. Basically it involves putting 40 backpackers on a boat with booze and loud music and just seeing how it turns out. It was how I imagine spring break is...in Vegas...only worse. Or better, I suppose, depending on one's definition. While we were still coherent enough to make the climb, we got to do a 55 foot cliff jump and explore some bat caves early in the day. It was FUN. We barely made it back to our room, showered, and passed out for a 2 hour power nap before I was shaken awake by Steph demanding, "I put on makeup, we're rallying, let's go." So away we went to dinner, where we met up with some of the staff from the boat and they took us to this great Greek tavern with a bartender who made us all kinds of delicious layered intense beverages.
Saturday morning was a rough one. We couldn't mobilize until around 2pm, at which point we dragged our haggard selves into town to have lunch. Sadly, I ordered a delicious hunk of barbecued lamb but was too hungover to appreciate its juicy goodness. I guess I'll just have to get some more! Back to the Pink Palace because Saturday night is Toga Night! After trying unsuccessfully to tie the giant satin toga around ourselves in any sort of adorable way, we cut one in half and managed to fashion some halter top/belt things that looked reasonably good. The party had Greek dancers, plate smashing, ouzo, the works. I was apparently the object of some staff member's affection as I was selected from the crowd to take a shot of ouzo, standing on both of the Greek dancers while they did these biology-defying backbends and bouncing up and down to the music. Pretty sure everyone in that place saw more than they should have when I dismounted, but it was really fun nonetheless.
Sunday morning we were unceremoniously booted out of our room at the WAAAAY TOOOO EARLY 9am checkout. We wandered down to breakfast and somehow found the strength of will to go on a kayak safari today. It was 5 hrs of paddling in the blazing sun but we're really glad we went. We did another cliff jump (much shorter this time), some snorkling, and took a trip up several hundred stairs to a tiny old cliff-top monestary. Tonight we're taking the night bus to Athens, then heading to Santorini. Thats all for now!
On Friday we went on the infamous Pink Palace booze cruise. Basically it involves putting 40 backpackers on a boat with booze and loud music and just seeing how it turns out. It was how I imagine spring break is...in Vegas...only worse. Or better, I suppose, depending on one's definition. While we were still coherent enough to make the climb, we got to do a 55 foot cliff jump and explore some bat caves early in the day. It was FUN. We barely made it back to our room, showered, and passed out for a 2 hour power nap before I was shaken awake by Steph demanding, "I put on makeup, we're rallying, let's go." So away we went to dinner, where we met up with some of the staff from the boat and they took us to this great Greek tavern with a bartender who made us all kinds of delicious layered intense beverages.
Saturday morning was a rough one. We couldn't mobilize until around 2pm, at which point we dragged our haggard selves into town to have lunch. Sadly, I ordered a delicious hunk of barbecued lamb but was too hungover to appreciate its juicy goodness. I guess I'll just have to get some more! Back to the Pink Palace because Saturday night is Toga Night! After trying unsuccessfully to tie the giant satin toga around ourselves in any sort of adorable way, we cut one in half and managed to fashion some halter top/belt things that looked reasonably good. The party had Greek dancers, plate smashing, ouzo, the works. I was apparently the object of some staff member's affection as I was selected from the crowd to take a shot of ouzo, standing on both of the Greek dancers while they did these biology-defying backbends and bouncing up and down to the music. Pretty sure everyone in that place saw more than they should have when I dismounted, but it was really fun nonetheless.
Sunday morning we were unceremoniously booted out of our room at the WAAAAY TOOOO EARLY 9am checkout. We wandered down to breakfast and somehow found the strength of will to go on a kayak safari today. It was 5 hrs of paddling in the blazing sun but we're really glad we went. We did another cliff jump (much shorter this time), some snorkling, and took a trip up several hundred stairs to a tiny old cliff-top monestary. Tonight we're taking the night bus to Athens, then heading to Santorini. Thats all for now!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Pink Palace
Greetings from Corfu, Greece!!! We're finally here, and lordy was it a struggle to make it.
On our last night in London we popped down to the half price ticket office in Leicester Square and managed to score some tickets to Wicked for about $100 each. So off we went for an absolutely amazing show. I can't imagine how great it would've been to see the original cast. Our Glinda was ok, but our Elphaba was incredible. All in all a great show and I'd definitely recommend any visitors to London or New York to go, regardless of the price. We stopped to have some dinner and made it back to our hostel around midnight. We had a mad midnight dash to every souvenir shop we could find when we discovered the transformer we brought with us wasn't compatible with 3-pronged plugs, so to charge the laptop we needed to buy a 3-prong Canadian to England adaptor, then get a 2-prong England to Canada adaptor, then plug that into our power transformer, and then put the European plug on the end of that. The thing is a beast and I'm convinced that at any moment there's going to be sparks and a suspicious burning smell and the computer is going to be fried, but that has thus far not happened (knock wood!).
Our flight left Gatwick at 6am, so we had to leave our hostel at 3 to make it there. We passed out for just a bit too long of a nap and found ourselves sprinting through the streets of London to make the 3:22am bus to the train station. We ran up on the bus stop just as it was pulling in. And lucky we did, because that flight brought us somewhere that is so great!
We're staying in Corfu at the Pink Palace (check the website if you'd like a taste of what our weekend is going to be like www.pinkpalace.com). It is undeniably a party hostel, with 3 bars, 2 restaurants, and staff that 3 minutes ago pulled me and steph aside to have someone pour ouzo down our throats straight from the bottle, whether we wanted to or not. There are maybe 5 guys for every girl, and of those guys at least 4 are Italian. We are being leered at from all sides, but luckily the language barrier means they're leaving us alone. We get free breakfast and dinner and its decent, the drinks are cheap, and the rooms are clean. Our first day was spent napping, beaching, and being generally useless. We made it out for dinner at 8:30 and met a few really great people, 2 American guys who were sharing our room, and a couple from London. The 6 of us bought 4 boxes of wine (1.5L each...for 3 euros each....uh oh) and sat on the roof of the beach-front bar for a couple of hours. It got VERY MESSY. Steph and I stumbled home around 4 when the complete lack of sleep caught up with us, and I have no idea what happened to the Americans, as they are now gone. Poor guys are probably on the worst ferry ride of their lives right now.
Today was a lazy beachy day, we're already working on some serious tans. Tonight we're planning on taking it easy (if we can avoid the staff) because we have a booze cruise leaving at the crack of noon tomorrow that takes us around the island, cliff jumping, snorkling, and drinking. On Saturday nights they have a toga party here with plate breaking, ouzo drinking, and Greek dancers. Its 12 euros to get in, which includes your very own pink silk toga!! Then on Sunday we're heading to Santorini to hook up with Steph's boyfriend and his family for a couple of nights. In fact I should sign off and book our ferry now!!
On our last night in London we popped down to the half price ticket office in Leicester Square and managed to score some tickets to Wicked for about $100 each. So off we went for an absolutely amazing show. I can't imagine how great it would've been to see the original cast. Our Glinda was ok, but our Elphaba was incredible. All in all a great show and I'd definitely recommend any visitors to London or New York to go, regardless of the price. We stopped to have some dinner and made it back to our hostel around midnight. We had a mad midnight dash to every souvenir shop we could find when we discovered the transformer we brought with us wasn't compatible with 3-pronged plugs, so to charge the laptop we needed to buy a 3-prong Canadian to England adaptor, then get a 2-prong England to Canada adaptor, then plug that into our power transformer, and then put the European plug on the end of that. The thing is a beast and I'm convinced that at any moment there's going to be sparks and a suspicious burning smell and the computer is going to be fried, but that has thus far not happened (knock wood!).
Our flight left Gatwick at 6am, so we had to leave our hostel at 3 to make it there. We passed out for just a bit too long of a nap and found ourselves sprinting through the streets of London to make the 3:22am bus to the train station. We ran up on the bus stop just as it was pulling in. And lucky we did, because that flight brought us somewhere that is so great!
We're staying in Corfu at the Pink Palace (check the website if you'd like a taste of what our weekend is going to be like www.pinkpalace.com). It is undeniably a party hostel, with 3 bars, 2 restaurants, and staff that 3 minutes ago pulled me and steph aside to have someone pour ouzo down our throats straight from the bottle, whether we wanted to or not. There are maybe 5 guys for every girl, and of those guys at least 4 are Italian. We are being leered at from all sides, but luckily the language barrier means they're leaving us alone. We get free breakfast and dinner and its decent, the drinks are cheap, and the rooms are clean. Our first day was spent napping, beaching, and being generally useless. We made it out for dinner at 8:30 and met a few really great people, 2 American guys who were sharing our room, and a couple from London. The 6 of us bought 4 boxes of wine (1.5L each...for 3 euros each....uh oh) and sat on the roof of the beach-front bar for a couple of hours. It got VERY MESSY. Steph and I stumbled home around 4 when the complete lack of sleep caught up with us, and I have no idea what happened to the Americans, as they are now gone. Poor guys are probably on the worst ferry ride of their lives right now.
Today was a lazy beachy day, we're already working on some serious tans. Tonight we're planning on taking it easy (if we can avoid the staff) because we have a booze cruise leaving at the crack of noon tomorrow that takes us around the island, cliff jumping, snorkling, and drinking. On Saturday nights they have a toga party here with plate breaking, ouzo drinking, and Greek dancers. Its 12 euros to get in, which includes your very own pink silk toga!! Then on Sunday we're heading to Santorini to hook up with Steph's boyfriend and his family for a couple of nights. In fact I should sign off and book our ferry now!!
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Tourism+debauchery=Debauchourism....the new voluntourism?
I begin this blog while I listen to the familiar sweet siren song of Steph, puking in the bathroom adjacent to our dorm room. She's puking because we got back to said room at 4am after 2 bottles of prosecco, a bottle of wine, a strongbow, a mojito, a few gin and cranberries, and a couple of ill-advised mystery shots. London, we have arrived. I am lucky enough to a.) have spent the last 2 months training rigorously for such a night and b.) be predisposed to not puke under virtually any and all circumstances. My genetics may have saddled me with a giant curly afro and a pig nose, but they sure help the drinkin'.
It should be noted here that those bottles were not just for Steph and I. We were joined by my lovely former roomates. You may remember them from that blog - Rosie and Jenny, the English girls we shared our ramshackle backpackers flat with in Melbourne. One of the English boys from across the courtyard, Simon, also assisted us (if memory serves, he was responsible for ordering them). It was great to see those girls. Its amazing how long ago that was! And how little everyone has changed since then. We got along like we had seen each other last week. The 3 locals took us to a pub off Piccadilly Circus where they have 1/2 price drinks and had some "Taste of London" card that gets us 1/2 price food, which you have to appreciate in a city where the cost of living is double. We had some decent grub, some drinks, some laughs, and once they discovered that we actually knew what Strongbow was, well, we just had to wander off to another pub to find some. And so the night began, and you already know how it ended.
Prior to that experience we actually had quite a productive touristy day. We rolled our jetlagged butts out of bed at 8 and grabbed some freeby breakfast at the hostel. Steph has been here before but has never seen the Tower of London so I joined her for my third tour. Its still cool. I'm enough of a history buff and have forgotten enough info since my last trip that it was still a good day for me. We spent far more time there than we thought we would and spent the few hours between the Tower and dinner with the girls just wandering around central London, Trafalgar Square, Covent Gardens, and Leicester Square.
Today we had big plans to push through the hangover and get all museum-ing early, but that hasn't exactly worked out. I'm going to rouse my little friend and drag her off to do something educational, and swing by the half price ticket booths to score some Wicked tickets for tonight...wish me luck!
It should be noted here that those bottles were not just for Steph and I. We were joined by my lovely former roomates. You may remember them from that blog - Rosie and Jenny, the English girls we shared our ramshackle backpackers flat with in Melbourne. One of the English boys from across the courtyard, Simon, also assisted us (if memory serves, he was responsible for ordering them). It was great to see those girls. Its amazing how long ago that was! And how little everyone has changed since then. We got along like we had seen each other last week. The 3 locals took us to a pub off Piccadilly Circus where they have 1/2 price drinks and had some "Taste of London" card that gets us 1/2 price food, which you have to appreciate in a city where the cost of living is double. We had some decent grub, some drinks, some laughs, and once they discovered that we actually knew what Strongbow was, well, we just had to wander off to another pub to find some. And so the night began, and you already know how it ended.
Prior to that experience we actually had quite a productive touristy day. We rolled our jetlagged butts out of bed at 8 and grabbed some freeby breakfast at the hostel. Steph has been here before but has never seen the Tower of London so I joined her for my third tour. Its still cool. I'm enough of a history buff and have forgotten enough info since my last trip that it was still a good day for me. We spent far more time there than we thought we would and spent the few hours between the Tower and dinner with the girls just wandering around central London, Trafalgar Square, Covent Gardens, and Leicester Square.
Today we had big plans to push through the hangover and get all museum-ing early, but that hasn't exactly worked out. I'm going to rouse my little friend and drag her off to do something educational, and swing by the half price ticket booths to score some Wicked tickets for tonight...wish me luck!
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Off on a new adventure
Hello again blogosphere. I am, at this moment, sitting on my bunk in Equity Pointe Hostel in London, ready to start my next adventure. This time around I've brought my own computer so hopefully I won't be such a slave to internet cafes.
We've already had a relatively eventful journey. Steph and I decided that we didn't need to double-check that our flight was on time when we left Calgary, and upon our arrival at the YYC we discovered that we had been delayed until 6pm. Great. How exciting. Steph's parents had dropped us off 2 minutes before this discovery, but sadly they didn't bring their cellphones with them (clearly they've yet to put the "crack" in "Crackberry") so we found ourselves stuck at the oh so thrilling Calgary airport. We had an exhaustive wander around the non-security side, hit 2 separate coffee shops, and used our $10 meal voucher on a margarita and lunch at some airport restaurant. Several hours and half our books later we meandered thru security and got mildly pissed up at the Chili's by our departure gate. Once we finally boarded, an announcement came on telling us that one of our fellow passengers had indeed waited all day to board this flight and at the last minute "decided not to fly with us today" so they had to dig through all the luggage to find his bag, leaving us sitting on the tarmac for another 40 minutes. So our 6am arrival in London soon became Steph and I finally hitting our hostel around 3pm after we got our baggage and took the train into the city. By this point we were STARVING because the 2oz. blueberry muffin and 1/2 a cup of coffee we'd been given for "breakfast" 8 hour prior had been completely burned through some hours ago. So we dropped our bags and headed to the first pub we found for a couple of pints of Strongbow, meat pie for Steph, and fish and chips for me. We barely made it back to our hostel before we passed out facedown in our bunks for a solid 3hr nap, but not wanting to be jetlagged we dragged ourselves out of bed for a late dinner and a couple of hours of wandering around the area by our hostel. This area is quite posh, as they say. Every other car is an Audi or BMW and we are surrounded by whitewash houses and massive maple trees. Its nice because we felt completely comfortable walking around at night with minimal direction in mind.
Tomorrow we're having a big ol' touristy day. Its supposed to be nice tomorrow and rainy on Tuesday so we're going to do all the outside/walking stuff like the Tower of London, etc. and then the museums and indoor things on Tuesday. Tomorrow night we're also meeting up with Jenny and Rosie, my two former roomates from Australia, so that should be a nice catch up and perhaps a debaucherous evening. Off to bed for us now, big day ahead!
We've already had a relatively eventful journey. Steph and I decided that we didn't need to double-check that our flight was on time when we left Calgary, and upon our arrival at the YYC we discovered that we had been delayed until 6pm. Great. How exciting. Steph's parents had dropped us off 2 minutes before this discovery, but sadly they didn't bring their cellphones with them (clearly they've yet to put the "crack" in "Crackberry") so we found ourselves stuck at the oh so thrilling Calgary airport. We had an exhaustive wander around the non-security side, hit 2 separate coffee shops, and used our $10 meal voucher on a margarita and lunch at some airport restaurant. Several hours and half our books later we meandered thru security and got mildly pissed up at the Chili's by our departure gate. Once we finally boarded, an announcement came on telling us that one of our fellow passengers had indeed waited all day to board this flight and at the last minute "decided not to fly with us today" so they had to dig through all the luggage to find his bag, leaving us sitting on the tarmac for another 40 minutes. So our 6am arrival in London soon became Steph and I finally hitting our hostel around 3pm after we got our baggage and took the train into the city. By this point we were STARVING because the 2oz. blueberry muffin and 1/2 a cup of coffee we'd been given for "breakfast" 8 hour prior had been completely burned through some hours ago. So we dropped our bags and headed to the first pub we found for a couple of pints of Strongbow, meat pie for Steph, and fish and chips for me. We barely made it back to our hostel before we passed out facedown in our bunks for a solid 3hr nap, but not wanting to be jetlagged we dragged ourselves out of bed for a late dinner and a couple of hours of wandering around the area by our hostel. This area is quite posh, as they say. Every other car is an Audi or BMW and we are surrounded by whitewash houses and massive maple trees. Its nice because we felt completely comfortable walking around at night with minimal direction in mind.
Tomorrow we're having a big ol' touristy day. Its supposed to be nice tomorrow and rainy on Tuesday so we're going to do all the outside/walking stuff like the Tower of London, etc. and then the museums and indoor things on Tuesday. Tomorrow night we're also meeting up with Jenny and Rosie, my two former roomates from Australia, so that should be a nice catch up and perhaps a debaucherous evening. Off to bed for us now, big day ahead!
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