Monday, 15 September 2008

And So This is Backpacking Europe...

Today we took a Santorini day tour around Caldera, Thirassia, and Oia. After relaxing on the beach yesterday, we were excited to jump right into all that is Greece!

Sitting in the back of a van waiting for our ship!

We hiked to the top of the volcano in the amazingly boiling sun with our tour guide (who spoke seven languages). He dug into the volcano to show us the sulfur that steamed up. Crazy.

On top of the volcano! Woo!

The highlight of the day was swimming in the hot springs at Thirassia. We discovered (or perhaps I somehow convinced everyone) that you could give yourself a facial with the hot springs clay. I did a similar trick in Costa Rica and although I'm no mineral expert, I'm sure it works!

For lunch, we had some delicious seafood at Captain John's with our newfound Australian friends. One of the best things I love about traveling is discovering the different phrases each culture has for the same thing ("sunglasses/sunnys,""flip-flops/thongs", etc.).

Hot springs facial!

To get up to watch the sunset at Oia, we took the DONKEY RIDE! Contrary to popular belief, the donkeys are actually not too tame with their walk. They actually try to outrace each other to the top of the hill and are CRAZY. Mine raced the entire time while my foot dragged against the side of the wall. Gssh.

Lillie and her donkey at Oia. Post-crazy run.

Being girly, we did another photoshoot and met up with the boys we met on the boat who had climbed onto a random rooftop. With hundreds of people lining up to watch the sunset, Julia gave them quite a show when it took her about ten minutes just to jump over the wall!

The beautiful island of Santorini and watching the Sunset at Oia...sigh...

After getting back to the hostel, we decided to jump onto the last 11:15PM bus into the town of Fira. The Town Square has an abundence of clubs and bars that one can just hop in and out of each one.

At Murphy's, we met two girls, one Brazilian and one Spanish. Being a Monday, all the clubs and bars were basically empty, so being five young girls, we pretty much brought the party everywhere we went! We hit up The Town, The Highlander, The Tropical Bar, and the Koo Club taking pictures with every bartender and getting free entrance and drinks everywhere we went! It was hilarious!

Murphy's in Fira Town Square

We met up with the rest of the hostel at The Beach Bar at Perisses. Kiren (one of the Australians) and I waded along the rocks on the beach. I then got the brilliant idea at 4AM to go swimming!

No one else wanted to come, so I just jumped in wearing all my clothes and Kiren jumped in naked! (what?!) I yelled at Julia to not look, but the next thing I heard from her mouth was, "Oh, god! My eyes! My eyes!" Haha...

The girls and I were about to leave when I saw a figure running after us. I just yelled for everyone to run and then it hit me: I was running down the street on the beaches of the Greek Isles at 4:30AM being chased by a naked Australian...haha...now THAT'S a Eurotrip story!

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