Spring Break - Santorini

**Please excuse any and all typos in this novel. It only took me two hours to write...it would probably take me an hour to revise. So forgive me when I don't! :)

Our ferry for Santorini left at 7:30 am and you had to be at Piraeus Port by 6:30am. It takes about a half hour to get there by metro...aka we had to get up around 5am. I wouldn't say I enjoy waking up that early, but I like to think I'm a trooper and suck it up. Sara, Jess, and I were all up and ready to go by 5:30 with no problems. We didn't exactly feel safe taking the 20 minute walk to the metro station, so we decided it would probably be best to take a cab even though it was really close. At first, the cab drivers didn't understand what we were trying to say. I thought communicating in Spain was difficult. Hah! It's ten times worse when you don't know the language AND the country has an entirely different alphabet. We couldn't even attempt to pronounce words. A can of Fanta soda...as in F-A-N-T-A...was written as NBN in Greek. HOW DO YOU GET "FANTA" OUT OF N-B-N?!?! I got a good chuckle out of that. After we were finally able to convey to the cab drivers where we needed to go, they were hesitant to take us because it was so close. Finally, one agreed to take us. We're all in the cab and about aout 2 seconds before we arrive at the metro stop, I notice that the fare counter thinger-ma-jigger isn't on. I couldn't even begin to say "turn it on" in Greek, so I had to just sit there. We kind of motioned the question "How much?" and the driver told us we owed him 5 Euros. Now I was ready to drop kick this guy on the spot. We were in the cab for no more than 2 minutes. There is no way on God's green earth that a 2 minute cab ride cost us 5 Euro. A 7 minute cab ride, through multiple blocks, costs me about 5 Euro in Barcelona. I swear to goodness, the next cab driver who rips me off is going to get smacked side the head. I wish I was kidding.

We got on the metro and made it to the port without a problem. We were the only idiots who actually showed up an hour before departure time, so we had a lot of free time on the ferry. I've only been on crummy ferries before and this one was SWEET. It was decorated nice and had comfy seats and what not. Having only gotten like 8 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours, I zonked out for the first 3 1/2 hours of the 5 hour ferry trip to Santorini. Unbeknownst to us, the ferry made multiple stops on various Greek islands. We had assumed that the ferry would only take 5 hours from Piraeus Port to the port in Santorini; Thira. Jess had told our villa owner that we would be at the port for pickup at 12:30. WHOOPS! We didn't get there til 1:30, but it wasn't really a problem because the entire ship was late for their pickups too. Our villa owner's name is George and he was freakin' awesome. Horrible driver, but other than that, he was incredibly helpful with tips of places to go and places to eat, etc. By the end of the week we were pretty good buddies with him. As I mentioned, dear George wasn't exactly the best driver in the world. In order to get from the port to Fira, the main town in Santorini where we were staying, you have to drive up this HUGE cliff on these incredibly windy roads. I have never been more scared for my life. Ok, slight exaggeration, but it was bad!

It took us about 10 minutes to get to Fira and our villa; Villa Evgenia (we never really did learn how to pronounce that...). Our villa was so freakin' cute and SO cheap. It was pretty much a house that had multiple rooms in it. But it was more like a hotel than a hostel. It only cost us 15Euro a night to stay there. I found that amazing since I typically paid around 20 a night for hostels in the various countries I've visited. We had ordered a room for three. It was a nice little surprise when we walked in and saw two beds: one double, one twin. Sara and Jess took the big bed and I took the twin. My bed had the squeakiest bed spring I have ever head. I would roll over in the night and scare myself from the noise. Other than the noisy bed spring, the room was perfect! We dropped off our stuff and decided to just walk around Fira that day.

We were totally starving so we wanted to grab some lunch in the town square. The location of our hostel was perfect. It was only a 5 minute walk to get to the town center where all the restaurants, shops, bars, and clubs were. We grabbed some lunch, I had pork steak. MMmm! We walked around to the shops after for a few hours and did some souvenir shopping. At that point we were all exhausted and made an executive decision to head back to the villa to take a nap. A solid decision if you ask me. After the power nap we all showered and got ready to go out for dinner. We went to this cute little restaurant called the Roof Garden. I know I'll sound like an idiot but I had pork steak again. IT WAS JUST SO GOOD THE FIRST TIME! I couldn't help myself. After dinner we acted like total grandmas and went home to go to bed and rest up for the next day.

We decided to do an excursion our first day. George suggested a few to us and we went with a half day excursion. It included a boat ride out to an island that is a volcano and swimming in some hot springs. This excursion left from the Old Port in Santorini and the only way down is either by foot, cable car, or...donkey. Foot is really only an option on the way down because you literally go down a cliff and there are 600 steps. George suggested the cable car on the way down and donkey on the way up. The first sounded good to me...the latter I was a little hesitant about. We took the cable car down to the port and got on our ship. It was modeled after an old pirate ship, but instead of sails it had a motor. The boat ride only took about 10 minutes and the weather was absolutely perfect! We got to the volcano and we were told that we had an hour to get up and back. Oh, no biggie, right? WRONG! I know you will all be proud of me when I tell you that I climbed a volcano in flip-flops. Yes, flip-flops. Listen, my packing skills have not progressed as they should have, but I'm getting there. I guess my mind just doesn't work that way. When people travel to Santorini, you have the majority who will think, "Ah, yes. Vacation = lots of walking... I should pack sneakers." Then theres me who thinks, "Santorini. Ah, yes. Above 50 degrees?...FLIP FLOPS!" I'm an idiot, I know. It wasn't the most pleasant experience but I made it up the volcano...with time to spare. Only the view from the top would have been worth the 40 minute hike, but seeing the crater was pretty cool too. We took some pictures of the view and the volcano when we looked at our watches. We had about 10 minutes to get our butts down the mountain it took us 40 minutes to get up. You can probably imagine that there was a lot of accidental sliding down the rocky paths. We made it back to the ship in time, thank goodness, and headed off the hot springs. I was pretty excited for this part of the excursion. First, I found it pretty cool to be able to say I've swam in the Aegean Sea. And then there's the fact that its pretty cool to be swimming in the ocean and its actually warm. The springs were in this cove that the ship couldn't pull into, so you had to swim about 200-300 ft to get them. Now, I figured the swim in the ocean to the springs would be a little chilly, but I did NOT think that it would be downright FRIGID. The guy who was in charge of our trip was pushing people into the water who wanted to go to the springs. You could tell by their screams that the water was a bit cold. Sara was the first to go in. Being a smart girl, she knew she had to keep a calm and straight face when Jess and I asked if it was freezing. She said, "Oh no, its really not that bad at all". Jess decided to go for it and jump in. Her leap was followed by blood-curdling screams. "NOT BAD AT ALL" MY FOOT! So poor Hannah is sitting there on the deck not wanting to be the loser who doesn't go in. Just as I'm working up my confidence to jump into the Artic, I hear some screams. An old man who jumped in totally went into shock and was pretty much drowning. AH COOL! That did wonders for my motivation to jump in. I had to say, "Do it. YOU WON'T!" to myself a few times before I finally lept in. Worst. Decision. Of. My. Life. I have never been SO cold in my ENTIRE life. Only 21 years, I know, but you get the point. I felt like I was swimming in a pool of ice cubes. I swam SO freakin' fast toward the hot spring, just waiting to swim into warmth. I kept saying to myself, "Keep going Hannah. Only a little further!" Yeah, that moment never came. I contemplated suing the excursion company for false advertisements. We did not swim in hotsprings. We swam in "20-degrees-warmer-than-the-ocean-water-but-still -40 degrees" springs. After like 5 minutes of working up the confidence to re-enter the colder ocean water, I finally made a mad dash for the ship. It took me about 30 minutes to regain feelings in my body. It was the coldest 10 minutes of my life but a very cool experience. No pun intended.

After the hotsprings the excursion was over and we headed back to the port. It was time for another executive decision. This time it involved the mode of transportation we would take up the cliff back to Fira. We went with Donkeys. Before I got on mine I was just thinking about how I'm probably going to crush this poor little fellow. I was wrong. They are ALOT bigger and stronger than they look. I got a cute little white furred one; he seemed like a sweetheart. WRONG AGAIN! I rode the anti-christ up that mountain. I got on, they slapped his butt, and the freakin' donkey started BUCKING UP THE MOUNTAIN. I, naturally, start screaming at the top of my lungs. Which caused the donkey's owner to scream in broken English, "NO LOUD! QUUUUIIIIET!!!!!!!" I had to cover my mouth to keep the screams from coming out as my donkey continued to sprint up the moutain. As we're rounding corners, that lead to steep edges and hundred foot drops, wayyy to fast for my liking. I'm thinking to myself, "This would be how you die, Hannah. You WOULD go flying off a cliff with a donkey." Seriously, that would have been a horrible "Hannah Moment", but definitely one of my finest. After about two minutes of sprinting my donkey decided to slow down and let the rest of the pack catch up with us. He proceeded to follow this brown donkey up the moutain. This was fine by me because, unlike my donkey, this one believed in obey speed limits and was walking at a nice pace. NOT fine by me when this donkey raised his tail in the air, inches from my legs, as if he was going to...relieve himself. I let out another scream and was immediately yelled at again. "NO LOUD! BE QUUIIIIEEETTTT!" Now, this probably sounds like the donkey ride from hell, but it wasn't totally horrible. The view during the entire ride was looking straight out into the port and it was absolutely AMAZING! It took the donkeys about 15 minutes to get to the top, so it was pretty nice to take in the view and not have to climb another mountan in flops. We were in the last straight away of the trail and I was finally able to loosen my death grip on the saddle. I swear my donkey hated me. With my feet firmly stuck into the stirrups and saddle, I wasn't able to move them until we came to a complete stop. My donkey walked right up to the brown donkey and I can already see where this is going. I'm trying to move my feet, mainly my knees, out of the stirrups and out of the way. Unable to do it in time, my donkey had parked himself in such a way that my kneecap was firmly planted in this brown donkey's BUTT. After quite the struggle, I am finally able to remove my knee from the donkey's BEHIND. I had some donkey excretion and hair on my kneecap, thankfully I was wearing pants. At this point, I can only laugh. Seriously Hannah?!?! I would get the donkey that hates his job. I would get the donkey that force my knee into the ass...of an ass. I came to the conclusion that my donkey was just that, an ass.

I found the whole donkey riding experience hilarious. It's definitely something I will remember the rest of my life; for some good and not so good reasons. After our trek up the mountain we decided to check out one of the famous beaches in Santorini, Perissa, a black sand beach. The bus schedule in Santorini is ridiculous, they only come about once every 45 minutes. We really had no idea when to get off and the guy spoke no English, so when we heard "BEACH!" we bolted for the door. Yeah, wrong beach. In fact, this wasn't even a beach...it was a rock and some restaurants that spanned a length of about 40 feet. We figured the bus would be back again in 45 minutes so we had to make the most of it. We walked around the pier...sadly it was 5 feet long, so that was done pretty quickly. Then we opted to find a nice place to lay down our towels and sit in the sun while we waited for the next bus. The flattest, softest surface available was a concrete slab. Amazing "beach", let me tell you. After about 40 minutes we decided to walk the 10 feet to the bus stop. We did NOT want to miss this bus. We got there in plenty of time though, believe me. The bus didn't show up for another 2 hours. I, Hannah Kinzelmann, as well as Jessica Levy and Sara Bonomo, fell asleep on the cement in a parking lot by the ocean. Probably my classiest moment to date. Adding to the splendor of our afternoon, was the fact we all got scorched while we slept. The bus finally came and we sprinted onto it. Two stops later was our intended destination...it was beautiful. This whole day in general just makes me laugh when I look back on it. I really did have an awesome day though. Riding up a mountain with an angry donkey is pretty awesome. Falling asleep in a parking lot in paradise is fine by me. There were some interesting moments but it was definitely a solid day. After our 2 hour tour of a rock/parking lot we went back to the villa to get ready for dinner.

Again, dinner was absolutely fantastic. Greek food is hands down the best food I've encountered in my European travels. I wanted to TRY everything, but I had to refrain as much as possible. In order to keep my consumption under control, I only allowed myself to get appetizers every other day. It was THAT good. During dinner we decided that we wanted to check out the beaches on Santorini the next day. There are probably a million stores in Fira that rent ATV's to people for the day. Since no beaches were in walking distance we thought it would be a good idea to rent some ATV's and drive to the beaches. After our debacle earlier that day, we really didn't want to sit in parking lots waiting for buses all day. Plus, we would be able to knock out more beaches if we traveled on our own. The island seemed simple enough to navigate so we decided to give it a whack.

After dinner we had to take this little pathway home to our villa and a stray dog started following us. He was this cute little german shepard and followed us all the way back to our villa. When we got back it was pretty late, so reception was shut down and what not. We thought it would be funny to walk him into the little lobby area like he was ours. So we did that, he came in and laid down, and we're like...OH NO! So we tried to get him out and we were able to, but then he would just follow us back in. We would run down the street, he would follow and sprint ahead. When he wasn't looking we would turn around and run back to the villa. He would hear us and come running back too. FINALLY, we made it back to the villa and shut the door before he had a chance to sprint and catch up with us. We went in our room only to hear the sound of a dog outside our door. We open it up and see that the dog has opened the door and let himself on in. We are cracking up at this point and begging him to leave. NOPE! We fell in love with this poor thing, so of course we had to give him a name. Another girl, named Emily, was with us when we were brainstorming. We came up with JESH!..the first letters of all our names. We're all sitting there in the lobby thinking of how we can get him out. We're calling for him and he's just laying there...falling asleep. It was precious. We went into our room after trying to get Jesh to leave for about an hour. We were very unsuccessful...he laid in the lobby for about another hour before he decided to leave. Sadly, we didn't see Jesh again.

We were up and out the door by 9 that morning to rent the ATV's. We found a little place that rented us the ATV's for only 10 Euro for 24 hours; a bargain if you ask me. We decided to head to Perissa Beach, our intended destination from the previous day, the black sand beach. The drive on the ATV took about 35 minutes. I was SO SO SO SO SO scared when we started off but 2 minutes into I was having the freaking time of my life. I'm riding on an ATV, on the most beautiful island ever, heading to a beach. DOES IT GET ANY BETTER?! Probably...but you get the point. I cruised and sang at the top of my lungs the entire way. Perissa Beach was beautiful. The sand is more gray than black, but it was awesome to see. We sat on the beach for a little. It was only in the low to mid sixties the entire time we were there, but the sun was SO intense. After Perissa we wanted to drive to Vilchadi Beach. Every single moment we were driving, even with a full tank, I was terrified that I was going to run out of gas because I didn't know how quickly the gas went. After Perissa I made everyone pull over so I could put a stick in my tank to see how much gas I had left because my gas gauge didn't work. I had like 3/4 of a tank left, so that should've put me at ease for a few minutes. We went to go and Jess couldn't start her ATV. Ironically...she was out of gas. We were in the middle of nowhere and thankfully we found someone who pointed us to the nearest gas station so we could get some gas to bring back to her ATV. About 45 minutes later we were finally able to all get going and head to Vilchadi. This was another black sand beach but it had some pretty neat cliffs behind it. It kind of looked like you were on a different planet. You'll have to see pictures to understand. We laid on the beach for a few hours and just relaxed. After about 3 hours, and the scorching of my face, we decided to head back to the villa and rest before dinner. I, in my infinite wisdom, set my ATV key in the sand when we arrived. And of course, I couldn't find it when it was time to go. FEAR NOT! I found it after a 5 minute frantic search. So we were all ready to go and ready to pull out of the parking lot anddddddddd...Sara's ATV won't start. She was not out of gas. It just randomly stopped working. Sweet work ATV company. Over to save the day, came a short, fat, creepy, little man named Sampson. He pretty much pushed us out of the way to try and get the ATV started, but to no avail. He called up the ATV company for us to let them know where to go to come fix it. There was going to be about a 10 minute wait til they got there so we had no choice but to chill with Sampson. He kept saying to us, "It fine. NO PROBLEM *insert creepy laugh here*". He was totally messing with us and we were totally messing with him. It was hilarious. We learned alot about Sampson in our 15 minute chill-session. Here's what he told us: He has driven the same moped for 35 years and it has never needed any gas. He ate only fruit for two years straight...stawberries and bananas to be specific. And my personal favorite, he is 45 years old but has somehow managed to live on Santorini for 50 years. Ohhh Sampson. The company finally came after about 20 minutes and made a quick fix on the ATV. We bid Sampson farewell and drove off into the sunset...literally. What an interesting and memorable encounter.

We decided to rent the ATV's again the next day, Easter. We wanted to knock out the other two beaches: Red Beach and Kamari Beach. We went to Red Beach first and you had to climb a huge mountain to see it, and climb down a mountain to get to it. It was freezing out because it was so early so we just took pictures and headed to Kamari. We figured we would just stay there for the day and have a relaxing Easter. Kamari was on the other side of the island and we had some minor difficulties getting there. We drove in the entirely wrong direction for about 20 minutes before someone finally sent us the right way. We had to take some really small, rocky roads that were in the middle of nowhere to get there. Normally, the ATV order of driving was Jess (because she knew the directions), Sara (because she was a grandma driver), and Me (because I needed to keep Sara moving faster than a snail's pace). For some reason when we headed to Kamari I took the lead on one road, followed by Jess then Sara. Now, I have to backtrack a little so you can understand the next part of this story. Jess was a little spastic when it came to driving the ATV. If there was a big bump or pothole in the road she would kind of panic and jerk the wheel. We tried telling her that she can't do that, that it's an ATV...as in ALL TERRAIN vehicle, but it still happened. In the 24 hours of our ATV posession, Jess had managed to go off the road twice; strangely enough, it was in the same place. The first incident, on the first day, she just had a few scrapes on her legs but the second time, on the second day of our ATV rentals, she cut open the top of her big toe. It was bleeding pretty badly so we had to go find some bandaids and disinfectant stuff. We found the bandaids but couldnt find any cream so we went with....a bar of soap. OK! Now back to the story. I was leading the way on the road to Kamari beach and it was a really rough road filled with potholes. As I'm driving, probably like 100 ft ahead of Jess, I noticed some HUGE potholes. I want to panic but I just drove through them smoothly but I'm thinking to myself, "Ohhhh no. Jess is gonna panic and this is not going to be good." So I immediately slow down to tell Jess not to jerk her wheel and to go through them smoothly. As I'm turning around to warn her, Jess sees the pothole, totally whips her wheel to avoid it the moment she's about to drive through it. She hits a 2 ft cement wall on the side of the road and her and the ATV flip into the air. Both Jess and the ATV flip into a tree and the ATV lands on top of her. And then she fell out from underneath the ATV, off of the wall, and back into the road. My heart seriously stopped. I immediately slammed on my breaks and ran back to where she was. I'm wanting to panic because her legs are all covered in blood and her hand looks like its broken, but I was just trying to keep her calm so she wouldn't freak out. I took my water bottle and her towel and tried washing off some of her cuts so it didn't look so bad to her. The ATV was still on the wall, in the tree and it was spewing gas....soooo we turned that off. Jess was as ok as she could be at the moment. She didn't go unconcious or anything, thank God. There was just a lot of blood and her hand was really injured. She still wanted to go to the beach. We we were like, "JESSICA! Your hand is the size of a boxing glove, you are covered in blood, and we have a totaled ATV. WE ARE NOT GOING TO THE BEACH!" Then she really started crying. I'm trying to crack jokes to make her laugh. I told her I turned around, saw it all unfold before my eyes, and that I was honored to have been able to see the first triple axel, double salchow, ever completed on an ATV. She was incredibly brave and was able to stay relatively calm and collected while we were waiting for someone to drive by. Cars didn't drive by very often because we were in the middle of nowhere. Finally, after a few had passed, one finally stopped. The guy spoke Greek and English. He called the ATV place for us to tell them there was an accident and where they could get the bike. Jess was calmer at this point and one of the guys offered to drive her to the hospital in Fira. She went with him and Sara and I sped the entire 20 minute drive into Fira. They took xrays and her hand wasn't broken. She went to the hospital again here in Barcelona to make sure. It's not broken but they did end up putting a cast on her. It was a really scary moment on the trip but I think we all handled it well. We all kind of look back on it now and laugh. Seriously, who crashes an ATV into a tree in a field full of GOATS?!?! We do :)

We laid low the rest of that night so Jess could ice and rest. We went out for one last dinner and it was FANTASTICCCC! I had chicken that was stuffed with spinach and cheese with grilled vegetables and rice on the side. It was an emotionally draining day and Sara and I slept good that night; Jess not so much. The next day we needed to be at the port to leave on our ferry back to athens by 4:00. We returned 2 of the 3 ATV's the next morning and went back to the villa to check out. After checkout we went into town, got some crepes for lunch, and walked around the shops because souvenirs were still needed. We headed back to the villa around 2:30 because George was going to give us a ride down to the port. We got a picture with George and he went on this way after he dropped us off. We had about an hour and a half before we had to board so we laid in the sun and then had some lunch. I got a gyro for my last meal in Greece.

On the ferry I was the unlucky one who had to sit alone with random people. My seat happened to be at a table for six. Only one of the seats was taken by the creepiest, wormiest, scariest man I have ever seen in my life. The entire time he just started at me. I would look at him, catch him staring, and he would laugh to himself, keep staring, and wink. I was soo repulsed. Repulsion increased when he proceeded to lay down on the seats with his head below the table so he could get a shot of my legs. I covered up with a sweater and he sat back up. At this point I'm thinking that this is unbelievable. After about an hour and a half of him just staring at me, I kid you not, he starts rubbing himself under the table. After a few minutes, he gets up to go to the bathroom, which is in my peripheral vision. I'm not looking directly at him but I can see that he is just standing outside the door. And I'm thinking why isn't this guy going inside. He opens the door a little, like hes about to go in, and pauses again. I turn and look at him and he gets this disgusting smile on his face and motions for me to come into the bathroom with him. I shot him the dirtiest look I have ever sent someones way. If I had a cannon, I probably would have taken it out and shot it at him. He finally went in and I proceeded to grab my bags and move to an empty seat nearby. If one person told me I couldn't move I was going to flip. Move the pervert at my table and MAYBE I'll sit there. The men here are unbelievable. SERIOUSLY EUROPE!??!? Thankfully, he got off at the next stop and that was the end of that. Not the best ending of my trip, but hey...it happens.

The trip back was long. Ferry, 4 hour wait in an airport, 3 am flight home, back to the Residencia in Barcelona at 6:14 am. But I wouldn't have traded it for anything. I had the time of my LIFE. I did NOT want to leave. Athens was awesome but I absolutely loved Santorini. It was so beautiful, people were so nice, and I had such a good time. I ate gyros, I swam in the freezing ocean, I climbed a volcano, I had memorable encounters with Jesh & Sampson, I relaxed on beaches, I drove an ATV, and I freakin' rode a donkey. I am so blessed to have been able to go on this trip and I really am so incredibly thankful for the opportunity. This is seriously a week that I will remember the rest of my life. I had the best Spring Break everrr. I guess really, really, REALLY long story short... I loved Greece.

The End.


I love and miss you all so much!<3 15 days!!!!!!!!!!!