Paradise.

.......Shhh...sh...sh......do you hear that? The gentle ebb and flow of the Aegean Sea? White noise and sea bird's calls under a warm sun. Rolling mountains of soft, cool, aquamarine saltiness finding eventual homes on the black and red sand beaches. The waves look simular to pianists fingers, plunking along the crest of the waves. Beautiful.

How does one go about describing paradise? I'm finding it about as hard as containing water in a paper bag. Impossible. Greece was a paradise in itself. Specifically, Santorini, which is where we spent the majority of our time.

Now it's been a while since I last wrote, I do believe I left you with the tale of our journey to Athens? Yes? Well, I'll now describe the, journey too and adventure in, Santorini. A small speck of an island in a vast sea.

We left our hostel in Athens at 5:30 in the morning to catch a metro to the port where we would take a 8 hour ferry ride to Santorini (Thira). We got on the boat at 7:30am and found a sìt in the busy vessel. We were sitting for a while when a girl we had seen on the metro in the morning asked if she could sit with us. Being the friendly beings that we are, we let her take a seat. We got talking and found out her name was Judith and she was from Quebec. She was on a vacation from her english schooling in London, the weather was getting to her there, so she was headed to Santorini for some sun. We hung out with her the entire time, we even watched a movie on one of the portable DVD players they have for rent on the ferries. (Judith used her charm and somehow got it for free, bonus.) So we watched Hook. (I LOVE that movie by the by.) Anyhoo, needless to say we all became fast friends. She didn't have a place to stay in Santorini yet, so she decided to come with us to ours and find a room there.

We got to the Port in Santorini, totally unaccustomed to the heat. It was around 28 degrees, so jeans and a tee-shirt, with large bags to lug around were not the most comfortable things. We were told there was a green bus that would take us from the port to Fira, the capital city and location of our hostel. So we started looking, but couldn't find the bus. In our frustraion after almost walking up the massive switchback road to the top of the cliff, we decided to ask someone where the bus was. When we asked a man where to catch it, he said there we no more, it had already left. Dang. So we decided our only option was share a cab between the 3 of us. As we were looking for a phone, we walked past one of the men holding signs for various hostels. And lookey there I found one with 'Stavos Villas' which was conveniantly our booked hostel. Yesss..so we got a ride on the free shuttle right to the hostel. Nice. So that night we took a nice walk down to the beach, then finished it off with a nice bit of souvlaki at a traditional restaurant.

The next day we went out in search of a place to rent scooters. We got to the place the guy who drove our shuttle suggested only to find that you had to have a motorcycle license. That was terribly dissapointing to us so, now with our plans for the day, seemingly shot we went into Fira, to look around. While there we decided to ask a place about renting ATVs and discovered that you just needed a regular license. So we got two. One with two people on, one with a single rider. Best idea of our lives. We rode all over the island on those, seriously, tip to tip and everywhere in between. We went up a mountain to see an ancient civilization, we had lunch on a Kamari beach, we scoped out the red beach and Parissa beach, we went to see the world famous sunset in Oia (ee-ah) and back. That was a great day. We finished it off with some more souvlaki...me likes me souvlaki.

The next day we went to Parissa beach for the entire day. Not much to say there, apart from I got a teensy bit burned. I didn't care. Small price to pay, for the glorious feelings the rays had upon my pasty white skin. We got ice cream and relaxed the entire day and then ate out yet again. I got greek salad, and Judith and Liz got Calamari.

The third and final day, me and Liz spent without Judith because she went scuba diving, but we would see her again on the ferry. We spent another wonderful day at the beach, but this time we went to the famous red beach. Absolutley amazing. It was so warm on the sand and the water was so refreshing and soooooo clear. I would just float on my stomach and look at the ocean floor which was probably 15 feet away. So amazing. I remember literally thinking, 'I'm really in paradise' So good. Well, we left in the late afternoon to go into Fira and buy some things and we then had to grab our bags and head to the port for our ferry that left at 8:30pm and got into Athens at 5:30 am. We met Judith at the ferry terminal and spent the ferry ride with her and agreed we would see her again when we go to London. We said our goodbyes in the morning where we went our separate ways. Her, back to London, us, back to Patras to catch our 15 hour ferry to Bari, Italy.

We eventually made it to the ferry terminal and got into Bari at 9:00am and we headed to Naples. The trains are always late so we got there a bit later than intended, but made it none the less. We really didn't stay long. Our experience of Naples consisted of being lost and getting a slice of pizza. Then we went bed to awake in the morning to catch the first train to Rome. And now we're here.

It's evening in Rome and we went to the Colluseum and the Vatican city. So amazing. I'm pretty sure my eyes grew because I had to take in a lot. The Sistine chapel amazed me. I can't say much more. All of it is so great. Well, tomarrow, we're not sure what we're doing, but we have to keep moving because our eurail passes are running out. We're more than likely stopping in Pisa on our way to Cinque Terre. Wheeeew we are really travelling. Well, I must leave you at that. Hope you enjoyed my incecent ramblings about an amazing place on this earth. Thanks for stopping in!!