Amazing!

Hello!! Surprisingly I am already making another entry! I got home from the island of Santorini on Monday, and I could not wait to tell everyone about my trip! It was everything I imagined, and much more!

We left on the train from Thessaloniki to Athens at about 11:40pm on Wednesday night. We spent the extra money and purchased tickets for the sleeper cars. I am so glad we did that! Sarah and I quickly made ourselves comfortable and fell right to sleep! Before we knew it, we were finishing our 6 hour train ride and it was time to get across Athens to the port.

We knew which metro lines to use before we left, so that was a huge help. We only had about an hour to make it across the city and catch our ferry! We made it to the port in no time and got right on our Blue Star Ferry! The ferry was about 7 hours long so we decided to pay a little extra money again to buy the nicer seats. We were seated in airplane size seats in a very nice lounge with a television. Of course they only played Greek tv, but it was still nice to see a tv! If we had not bought those seats, we would have been stuck out on the deck the whole time! They were worth it!

We finally got into the port of Santorini and it was beautiful! I could not believe that I was actually in Santorini! We got off the ferry and were trying to figure out how to find our hotel when I saw a man holding a sign that said "Welcome to Santorini, Ashley Lawson." It was a pretty funny sight, and the man brought us straight to our hotel. We checked in and went right down the street to rent a car!

The car only cost us about 50 euro each to rent for the whole time we were in Santorini, and it felt so good to drive again! I have really missed it! Driving in Greece was definitely an experience, though. Sarah pointed out that in America, what we would consider a one-way street, in Greece they have two-way traffic and cars parked on the side! It was scary, but we both survived and left the car in perfect shape! I have some video of the scary roads if anyone is interested in seeing it when I get home!!

We were staying down in the southern part of the island called Perissa Beach. The two touristy places are called Fira, in the middle of the island, and Oia, on the northern part of the island. We were very happy to have the car when we figured out how far the cities were from our hotel. The first night we drove up to Fira to meet our roommate Kara and her brother who happened to be in Santorini at the same time! We picked them up and decided to drive up to Oia for dinner. Oia is famous for its amazing sunsets, so we picked a nice place with a great view of the sunset. Of course, it was cloudy that night and there was no sunset. That did not matter, though. We still had a great time and enjoyed walking around Oia after dinner. We dropped Kara and David off at their hotel, and headed back to Perissa. We were very tired, and knew we had to get up early the next day so we went right to sleep.

We got up early and met Kara and David at their hotel for breakfast. Sarah and I ate quickly that morning because we had a tour planned to visit Santorini's active volcano and swim in the hot springs! At 11am we got on a pirate ship looking vessel and headed towards the port on the volcano. It was a climb to get up to the top, but it was worth it! On the way up, we saw hot gas coming out of the rocks and our guide explained that there was molten lava about 2 km below our feet! After we climbed back down the volcano, it was time to go to the hot springs!

Our guide explained that we would have to jump off the boat into freezing water and swim over to the hot springs since the water was to shallow. Sarah and I were the last ones to jump into the water and it was just as cold as he explained. I jumped in and it took my breath away! Eventually, we made it to the hot springs and found out they were really more lukewarm springs. But it was still very cool. It started raining lightly while we were swimming, and when we looked up, there was a herd of wild goats climbing the volcano walls just above us. It was one of those moments when I really had to look around and ask myself, "Who am I right now?" It was crazy!

After we changed and warmed up from the swim, we had to figure out a way to get back up to the town of Fira from the port. We could take the cable car like we took down, walk up a steep path that was slippery from donkey's climbing it all day, or we could actually get on those donkeys and ride up. We decided that when in Santorini, do like they do. We chose the donkeys! I got on first and my donkey just started walking. It did not wait for anyone else so I was riding by myself for half of the trip. People were walking down the path and looking at me like I was crazy! Then Sarah's donkey finally caught up and started to walk ahead of mine. My donkey was not having it! Every time another donkey tried to pass him, he would cut them off and walk a little faster. Of course, I would end up on the only donkey that liked racing!

We finally made it to the top and decided to grab some food. We ate at the Greek fast food chain, Goody's. Then we decided to find the red beach. We drove to the other side of the island and found it pretty easily. It was beautiful! To get to the beach, you had to climb over some huge rocks and then climb back down them! It was so cool! It was one of my favorite places in Santorini! The weather was not that great, so there were just a few people there. We spent about an hour looking at everything and having a great time! I loved it! We finally decided to leave and try get back up to Oia before the sunset!

Sarah drove us across the island again to Oia. The sunset was beautiful!! It was not as spectacular as always, but it was great for us! The clouds deterred most of the tourists, and we got to enjoy a peaceful sunset! We could take as many pictures as we wanted without worrying about being in someone else's way! It was great! Afterwards, we walked around Oia and ate some dinner. We went home early that night, as well. We had another early morning planned!

We woke up and drove back up to Oia. We wanted to get pictures of the Santorini architecture during the day. We spent about an hour just walking around and taking in the beautiful white buildings with blue doors. They are everywhere and they are amazing! It was just as I had imagined. According to a rumor that I heard somewhere, the doors are all painted blue for good luck! This is what they look like in Myconos, too! Just gorgeous!!

We drove back down to Perissa Beach after Oia. We finally had great weather for the beach! We got there and it was just as great as everything else! This beach was made of black sand which made it really hot! We layed out all afternoon! The water was pretty cold still, so we did not spend much time swimming. I finally have a little bit of a tan that has stuck. I suspect that it will be gone before I come home!

The weather was amazing that day, and we decided to try our luck one more time with the Oia sunset. This time it was not so peaceful. It was packed!! Any place that had a view of the water and the sunset was full! We found a rock to sit on and tried to make the most of this third night. The sunset really was beautiful and worth seeing all three days! I am really glad that we tried our luck everyday that we were there.

After the sunset, we went home to get some rest. We had to leave the next afternoon and knew that our travel home was not going to be easy. We woke up the next morning and squeezed in a few more hours of shopping before we caught our ferry. I finally finished all of my souvenir shopping, and I am very excited to get that out of the way! It can be a little stressful at times! But I managed to break up the souvenir shopping with a few purchases for myself!!

We finally had to say bye to Santorini and catch our ferry at 3:30pm. It was another 7 hour ferry in the nice seats, so we knew what to expect. This time they played movies on the tv. However, they had Greek subtitles and they did not turn up the English loud enough to hear. Oh well, it made the time go fast! When we pulled into Athens, we tried to take the metro back to the train station, but we were too late and it was closed for the night. We caught a taxi and discovered that the train station was also closed! We had to sit outside of the other Greek fast food restaurant all night. We looked like bums. There was a security guard walking around to make sure no one slept! It was pretty interesting. The station finally opened and we were able to sleep a little on benches before the ticket window opened. We tried to catch the 7am train, but it was full so we had to wait until 9:30 and had to buy the last 1st class seats available! We tried to sleep a little bit more, but it did not work. Finally our train arrived and we started the last part of our journey!

We pulled into Thessaloniki at about 3:30 later that day. It took us a full 24 hours to get from Santorini to Thess. It was a long day, but we survived! Santorini was soo worth the travel time! I am so happy that I got to visit the island. I hope to make it back there someday! Hopefully, someday soon! It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen! I suggest taking a trip to Santorini for your next vacation!!

Now I am just trying to make it through my last two days of school! I only have 3 classes left! Two on Thursday and one on Friday! I am so excited to be done with this semester! Next week I only have three finals and then on Wednesday, Mom and Grandma will be here! I can not believe that they are only one week away! I can not stop thinking about how excited I am! I am trying to focus my thoughts on them coming instead of getting home. North Dakota is still two weeks away and I will drive myself completely nuts if I keep thinking about it! I am just so excited to be home! I was just reading an old post I made about how the next 3 months were going to fly by. I was right! I can not believe that it has been almost 4 1/2 months since I left Minot! Where did my time go??

I am going to be uploading some pictures hopefully tonight. I know I say that alot, but I am really going to try! I hope everyone is enjoying their summer and I will see you in two short weeks!!! I can't wait!!