Spring Break commenced with a flight to Athens International airport, where after sleeping in the McDonald's for about 8 hours, we caught our connecting flight to Santorini. Since I figured we would right away be landing in a gorgeous paradise, I was sorely surprised to see us landing in a barren desert, but it wasn't long before the great views appeared. We stayed at Stelio's Place while on the island, and it was by far the best hostel I have staid in while abroad. Not only was it really clean, they provided breakfast, beach towels, suntan lotion, and were all of twenty seconds from a black sand beach. We ended up frequenting this beach quite often to work on our tans.
One day we rented ATVs to explore the island. They were mildly scary going around the curves on the side of the cliffs, but they are truly the easiest, and most fun, way to get around. It may be a tourist thing to do, but I'm pretty sure most locals own them too. One of our locations for the day was Ammoudi Bay, so we strapped on our helmets and zoomed our way there, stopping along the way in Thira for lunch. The main goal of Ammoudi Bay was to go cliff jumping. Not so keen on plunging into water from 15 or 20 meters high caused some stress, especially once we saw where we'd be jumping from. Getting to the mini cliff also proved to be a problem - you had to swim across a mini channel, then scale the island around and up to the landing - keep in mind this is all barefoot and in a bathing suit, so cuts and bruises were inevitable. We did eventually make it, and nerves started getting the better of us, but backing down now was not an option. It may have taken an extra ten minutes or so of mental debates, but eventually I was the first girl to jump off - scariest and best feeling ever. Dropping for that long and not knowing when you'll hit the water is awful and exhilarating. Finally bobbing in the salt water though and knowing it was over with was a huge relief. Later that day we went to Oia to watch one of their famous sunsets and get a good and cheap meal (one nice thing about Greece being in a fiscal downward spiral is that we ate very well for very cheap). After finding a comfy place among all of the cute white and blue houses, we watched, and applauded, as the sun set behind islands on the horizon.
Another day, we took a boat from Thira to an active volcano. It was about a twenty five minute hike up to the top, but it was an amazing view of the rest of the island and the surrounding water. I imagine this is what being on top of the world feels like, or at least close. After the volcano we went to the hot springs. Although much dirtier and colder than I expected, it was still neat. The water was red/brown, murky, and it smelled, but apparently it is great for your skin - nevertheless, we couldn't get back to the boat fast enough. Another adventure was to the red sand beach. Santorini has black, white, and red sand beaches, and despite all of them being scalding hot on your feet, they are all beautiful. The red sand beach was the most unique beach I have ever seen. It was a straight drop off from red dirt cliffs, and mini rock slides would occur behind you as your sitting looking out into the water. This was the beach where we really found out just how buoyant the Mediterranean is - no effort was needed whatsoever to float, just lay back and enjoy.
Our next stop after having a wonderful time in Santorini was Athens. We took a very long ferry back to the mainland, arriving around 11:30 at night, grabbing a taxi to our hostel, which looked like I imagine it did in perhaps the 60s..The next day we planned on visiting the Parthenon and other big monuments in Athens, but there just so happened to be a strike. Apparently this was common knowledge to everyone but us, and therefore these monuments were all closed. We climbed all the way to the top of the acropolis to find that we couldn't enter into the actual Parthenon. To say we were bummed is an understatement. We didn't have much to do in Athens than this, so we climbed yet another mini mountain to get another view of the city - fun, but exhausting in the heat. The shopping in Athens proved to be really fun, but the actual city itself was rather grimy, and not exactly a place I see myself visiting again in the future unless I know the parthenon is indeed open.
Overall, Greece was a great experience. The people were more than willing to help you out in every way possible, the food was amazing (I literally will put tzatziki on anything now), and the sites were gorgeous. Although the mainland wasn't all that I hoped it would be, I would still love to go back to Greece and do some more exploring.
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