Santorini. Black, Gold and Red sands!

I found my hostel online at only 8 euro’s a night which is a fantastic price considering I was paying 20 to 25 euros a night at other places. It was a fantastic place to stay, a bit far from the two main cities of Oia and Fira but much closer to the beach than they were…only a 5 minute walk away. On my first night there I met 3 great people Rhys, Ashley and Steph. Over the next few days the four of us saw the entire island, even the surrounding islands!

The next day we went on a full day boat and bus tour of the islands around Santorini. There is a nearby island that was created 50 years ago by an active volcano that has been turned into a tourist attraction and many people come to visit it. We hiked all across the island for about an hour- and my 3 friends all wore flip flops. It was a difficult hike for them, while I (thankfully) wore shoes. There were many broken flop flop straps and probably a few very tired people after the hike. Once we got to the top of the island, there was a fantastic panoramic view of the area – we could see all the islands around, and most of santorini. We got back on the boat and went to another nearby island to swim in the hotsprings. I decided to stay on the boat, as it was a pretty far swim and I’m not that confident in my swimming abilities, but my partners in crime didn’t think it was that hot for a hotsprings. After a 20 minute swim, we went to Thirisa island which has a population of 250…but about 15 restaurants. You could tell once the tourist’s left at around 4 pm, the island gets very dead. On thirisa we had a fantastic meal at a seaside restaurant with a very hungry stray cat as our companion. After lunch, we jumped in the water for a quick swim and cool down before grabbing a coffee or ice cream and getting on another boat to Oia.

Now, to get from the port to the city of Oia you have 3 choices (we only had two). You could take a donkey up for 5 euros…or walk. I decided that donkey’s weren’t my cup of tea and walked up to the top. All 250 steps of it. It was a long and very, very sweaty walk up the side of the cliff. We got to the top and had a fantastic view of Oia, which is the city with all the white buildings in Santorini. The white paint industry must be supported in a large part by this city. It was beautiful to see all the buildings clean and white with the backdrop of the cliffs and ocean, and an occasional blue roof symbolizing a church.

Oia is where there is supposed to be a fantastic view of the sunset and you must get your spot early to get a good shot of the sunset…unfortunately for us, that day was a Santorini sunset FAIL. There had been threats of rain, so the clouds covered the sunset and we didn’t get to hear everyone applaud for the sunset.

The next day, we decided to do what most tourist’s do and rent ATV’s and go island hopping. We went to 5 or so beaches, saw Oia and Fira again and finished off the day with a very cold trip up the mountain to try and see the sunset again. Unfortunately there were still clouds and we didn’t get to see it properly, but I got some fantastic pictures of the sun setting in between the clouds. Since our ATV’s weren’t very powerful, it took us 45 minutes to drive up the mountain but less than half that to go down. That night we went out for dinner at the restaurant across the street – the owner of the restaurant we went to grew up at finch and the 401, which is very close to where I am from, small world! After dinner we went to the beach and sat around drinking for a bit, before a torrential rain pour killed the party and we went back to the hostel.

We all agreed that we would take it easy the next day and just chilled out at the beach and relaxed. It was nice to be sitting on the beach reading and doing nothing after a few days of running around. We spent the night doing what almost all hostel people do, which is sit around and talk about where we are from and meeting new people. It was fun hearing about people’s lives back home and their experiences while on vacation.

On the final day in Santorini, it was spent packing in the morning and sitting around the hostel chilling out waiting for our respective boats/flights off the island. I was flying out at 740 that night…but didn’t end up leaving until 11:00 because of an Air Traffic Controllers strike. They decided to control and delay flights within Greece for 6 hours that day, and delayed many of them. It was very frustrating sitting in the airport doing nothing for 3 hours, but that happens often in Greece and I had TV shows loaded up on my laptop and books on my kindle so the time went pretty fast.

Thasos

So, I have been a bit behind the ball with this blog for the past week or so, but that’s because I’ve been having such a great time! Last weekend we went to Thasos with Alex, Maria and their two boys Akis and Kostantinos. It was a great weekend away before we all left the village and went on our way to our next destinations. Ange and my parents went home (mom and dad had an eventful trip back) and I flew to Santorini for the week. The water in Thasos at the golden sands beach (my favourite beach…EVER) was green, clear and pretty much perfect. We arrived at our hotel – called golden sands hotel appropriately- Friday afternoon and Alex and co arrived a few hours later when Alex got off work. That night we went on an interesting drive to another part of the island for dinner and to check out the touristy crap that they have and get some souvenirs. The thing I really, really like about Thasos is that there are no mosquitoes on the island! We were so used to dealing with mosquitoes back in the village that it was a nice change not to have them around :)

Saturday, we spent a lot of time at the beach, with some decent waves and some great sun. We went around the island to do some more shopping and get some food, which was a great way to see the rest of the island. There are some great views along that drive that unfortunately my father and Alex couldn’t see because they had to keep us alive on those winding roads :p We ate way too much lunch that day and decided to take a nap when we got back from the drive. That night for dinner, we had a quiet dinner by the port of Thasos because we had eaten way too much at lunch time. It was a nice night and we walked through the port city and met an Irish shop owner who had lived in Greece for 20+ years…he was a bit of a character.

Sunday morning we went for a swim early as we had to check out and go back to the village and finish packing up. Ange and I were flying out on Monday morning. The waves on Sunday were the BEST of the entire weekend! There were some that were taller than I was, it was fantastic!

The boat ride back to keramoti (the port city) Gus was sitting inside the rocky boat and watching out the window. Since it was a small boat and there were pretty large waves the boat was rocking a lot and all you could hear from him for a few minutes was “there’s Keramoti, and now its gone. There it is again, and now its gone again.” You can tell he really doesn’t like boats much :p

Istanbul...part deux!

So, the next morning after the exciting belly dancer/bland food show we embarked on a morning boat cruise and tour of Istanbul. The first hour we spent at the spice bazaar, looking around and we even found some interesting new things for the store. My parents continued on their search for the special Turkish glass tea set for their apple tea (which is pretty much heated up apple cider.) They still didn’t have any luck, but our negotiating skills got better with practice. The boat cruse went up and down the side of Istanbul, which connects Istanbul with a sea on each side. The tour took us all along the water and we got to see the very affluent part of Istanbul…but from a safe distance of the water and not on land so we don’t bother the rich folks :p. Our tour guide along this trip was pretty good, he was doing the tour in both English and French.

After the boat tour, we went back to our hotel area for lunch, and had another bland meal (I hope it’s just our bad decisions and not Turkish food in general that’s bad.) We had some fried anchovies which were the only thing from the meal that was memorable. Even as my uncle ange noticed, the SALT wasn’t salty, they must have thought we were crazy because of the amount of salt we were putting on the food, but it was necessary.

After the lunch we went to a hidden fabric, pillow case, blankets shop …that literally was really hidden with our new German Turkish friend Attila. To get to it, you had to go down an “alley” that was about a meter wide. Mom tried to negotiate a better price on some pillowcases, but our practice didn’t work on the owner and we left empty handed. I think mom is better off going to the Ralph store with Maddie and get all the pillowcases she needs at 75% of. Much less stress than haggling.

After that store, we went to the Grand Bazaar to check it out, because everyone says you have to. Lets just say we weren’t really impressed with its offerings. There was five or six stores that were copied all throughout the Bazaar, and they all wanted to negotiate the price. By the end of the day, we were all pissed off at having to negotiate everything with these guys and we didn’t really buy anything, because negotiating gets tiring after a bit.

After the Bazaar, we decided to go make our way back to the hotel so we could rest for a bit before going out for dinner with Attila later that night. The dinner was fantastic, and we had great company and good food…for the first time in Istanbul. After dinner we pretty much passed out at the hotel, and got ready for the exciting early morning bus ride back to Greece!

Our bus ride was a bit of a pain in the ass, the bus broke down in Turkey and we had to spend 45 minutes waiting for it to get fixed. The bus driver and the attendant were walking back from the store in the gas station with different sized wrenches…it was a bit sketchy. The restof the trip back was pretty uneventful, except for the driver letting all the Turkish people off at their little villages but when the Greeks (us) ask to get off in the village, he doesn’t do it. It was a bit frustrating but still a great trip and we didn’t let that ruin the trip and had a great time overall…just a bit short!

Istanbul...Part 1

Well, this was an adventure. We started off by taking the bus from Kavala, a city about a 20 minute drive from the village. The “bus stop” was located on the side of a major road near a corner store type place and wasn’t marked at all. The overnight bus ride was a BIG mistake…and this is where the adventure really begins. We got to the border at about 2:30 AM, and didn’t leave the boarder crossing for a few hours. We had 3 stops at the border, first on the greek side to give our passports to the officer who takes them all and we go to the duty free to shop and go to the washroom for a while. The employee who gets our passports from the officer starts yelling our names out to give the stack of 70 or so passports back to us all the while getting eaten alive by massive horse mosquitos. Then we are back on the bus for 2 mins to buy our visa (45 Euros!) and get our passports stamped, which took about an hour, while we were outside being attacked by horse mosquitos again! They were at least 3 times the size of normal mosquitos. We all get back on the bus again and I was thinking that it was all over, so I got all settled in for the 5 horu ride into Istanbul, when the pull us off the bus AGAIN. This time it was to take all our baggage off the bus and get it individually scanned by the Turkish passport police. The whole ordeal took a few hours and made it really hard for me to sleep on the way in. We arrived in Istanbul at around 8:30 AM to a barrage of heat and taxi drivers harassing us saying “Taxi, Taxi?” until someone says O.K. and goes with them.

We were originally going to take a transfer bus from the bus station to our hotel, but the employees at the station ended up being such a pain in the ass that we hopped into a cab who took us to the hotel. We got scammed by the cab driver who charged us 20 euros (which is about 45 Turkish Lira – the national currency) while we found out later on that it should cost about 26 TL. We eventually arrived at our hotel after an INSANE cab ride where the driver didn’t even consider the rules of the road, while he was doing 140 on the highway. It felt a bit like an F1 race, except for the insane traffic.

Now, to give you an idea of how big Istanbul is, we were in the outskirts of the city for about an hour on the bus before we got to the bus station and it still took us another 45 mins to get to the hotel from the bus terminal.

Now the hotel we stayed at was really nice, the rooms weren’t huge, but that is normal for Europe. It was a 10 to 15 minute walk from the major attractions. Aiga Sofia, the Blue Mosque and right near the ocean. We got all unpacked, and went down to Aiga Sofia, which is a former Greek orthodox church that was taken over by the Turks and turned into a mosque. The architecture in the church turned mosque turned museum was incredible, but the paint job that the Turks gave it could have used some work…the Greeks did a much better job before.

My mother went back to the hotel at this point, while my father Ange and I went to the Blue Mosque. We arrived just as prayers were starting, and had to wait outside for over an hour, as tourists weren’t allowed in. We should have gone at a different time, and researched the visiting hours…but live and learn I guess. Once we got in, it was an incredible sight to see, but we all agreed that Aiga Sofia was better.

Later that afternoon, we got back to the hotel, and met Atilla, who was a German Turk travel agent that set up a great ocean tour, and belly dancing dinner for us. He also helped us navigate through the massive abyss that is the Great covered bazaar. The Bazar is really a lot of stores selling the exact same thing, and they all try to haggle on the price with people, which gets really exhausting after a while. We didn’t really buy much but my parents bought a tea set with a tray to that they use to drink Apple tea…which is really just heated up apple cider, but tastes fantastic.

On the first night, we went to a Belly Dancing dinner show. The show wasn’t bad, but the food was very basic and really boring. We found that most tourist restaurants in Istanbul were targeting the English and German tourists who don’t really like spices. It was a shame because there are some incredible spices and foods available in the city which aren’t being used at all. I guess it was our fault for not going to the Burger Turk and getting the ottoman burger instead :p The belly dancers weren’t bad, but the best part of the show was the singer at the end who tried to sing popular songs from all the different countries of the guests in the audience. He would go up to the table and get people to sing along with him. It was great until he came up to us with our Canadian flag and didn’t have a song to sing. The song we attempted to sing was “this land is your land” and Gus told the guy that Kathy was a singer, so that he could get out of singing…and now he is dead to her Even the Aussies got Waltzing Matilda! We didn't get back from the show until late and once we got back to the hotel all 4 of us just passed out after such a long day.

Istanbul part two will be continued tomorrow! It includes a boat ride, shopping and dinner cooked in clay vases!

Istanbul!

I just booked our hotel for Istanbul. We arrive on Friday, and leave Sunday :) I'm now in the process of figuring out how to get there...by overnight bus or overnight train, leaving thursday night. I will have more stories while we are there, as the hotel has wifi!

Kavala and Philipi

Yesterday my parents, Ange and I went over to Kavala and Philipi for the day to see the sights. We ended up spending most of the day walking around Kavala, doing a little shopping and just seeing the city and in the afternoon decided to go to Philipi which is a 15 minute drive away.

Philipi is recently discovered ruins that were found just before we got to Greece in 1998, and since then it has easily quadroupuled in size. They just keep going up the mountian and finding more stuff. The cool thing here is that this is the area of the first Baptism, and the first running water toilet...so of course we took a picture with my dad on it :p
The walk around Philipi took about an hour and a half, while on the first trip (which I don't remember well- took about half an hour with a guide) We were amazed at the size of the area and how much the Greeks could get done with what they had.

All in all it was a great day of sightseeing, and I am (finally) getting over the allergies that I have had since I got to Greece...it only took 3 weeks for them to get better, but its a relief to not be sniffling and sneezing all the time, hopefully it stays that way!

Papou

Last night we went to out for dinner to celebrate the one year anniversary of my Grandfathers death. I think it was more of an Irish celebration than a Greek one. The Greeks normally have a somber quiet dinner, while the Irish have a party to celebrate the person’s life, which is exactly what we did. We told stories, drank Ouzo (his drink of choice in Greece), ate a lot of fantastic food, and had a great time. The restaurant we went to was in the Kinezi section of Chrisoupoli – Kinezi means Chineese in Greek- but there were no Chineese people in the area or the entire town.

There were many stories about my grandfather that different people had, and my Uncle who arrived a few days before has some great memories of a lot of them. He was older than my dad and was allowed to go around the village when they were younger.

This dinner last night was one of the best ways to celebrate Papou’s (or Big Papou as his great grandchildren called him) life. He would welcome anyone into his house like they were his own and had the sweetest way about him all the time. His generosity didn’t just extend to the family but anyone who he encountered on the street, in a restaurant or while he was picking my cousins and I up from school when we were little. I will always miss him and I think about him almost every day but I know he is with my Grandmother…and she is nagging the hell out of him!