Hello Everyone,

I am now writing to you from Athens… the trip is over halfway over and before you know it I'll be back in Minnesota. Here's some of what I've been doing since I wrote last.

My last few days in Rome were sad ones… wonderful in the way the Rome always is but it was sad to leave. We had finals week which went well I think. We'll see in a few weeks I guess. Our last day we went back to a few of the highlights to see them one last time. It was almost like leaving home again because when you're constantly seeing new things, to leave the one thing (our apartments and Rome) that was familiar to go to completely new again was hard. It's a little less hard now knowing that Rome is currently flooded and all public transportation is shut down. Apparently they got hit really hard with rain the day we left… who knew? We were in gorgeous Santorini the whole time.

Santorini

Since we had a week off and we didn't need to be back to Athens for registration and to leave with the group for Crete until Thursday morning, almost all of the group headed off to the beautiful island of Santorini. It was an 8 hour ferry ride from Athens but I slept through most of it on the way there and avoided getting motion sickness; though I was sick anyway with the chills and a sore throat. (I'm better now).

We got to Santorini at about 3:30 in the afternoon and were greeted by the owner of our hotel who came to pick us up from the port (This is apparently common practice in Santorini). He took us to his place, Stelio's Place, and along the way we picked up his mother on the side of the road and dropped her off at her house before proceeding on to the hotel. With people already sitting on the floor of the van we didn't know where she was going to fit but she was so short she could stand up straight and just hung on to the back of the seat. The hotel was family owned and operated and everyone was super nice. That right there is the difference between Italy and Greece thus far. With the exception of Florence, the people in Greece are much much friendlier.

We didn't really do that much the first day other than go out to eat but the next day we were off to Fira, one of the main cities on the island, for a boat tour of the volcano that formed Santorini, the hot springs, Thirassia (one of the small islands), and then on to Ia for what are claimed to be the most beautiful sunsets in the world. The volcano was cool.. our "tour guide" was admittedly hung over which proved to be more comical than informational. We only stopped at the hot springs for a half hour so I decided not to get wet and stayed on the boat. From the people who went we found out that 'hot' was kind of a stretch and 'warm' would have been also. Plus you had to swim through freezing cold water to get there and the actual warm water is full of minerals covering you in thin layer of rust. No thank you. Thirassia was deserted. We climbed to the top to take pictures and it was literally a ghost town, but all of Santorini is pretty much a ghost town this time of year. When we got to Ia we decided that instead of climbing the 200+ stairs to the top (and when they say step they mean a step up and then five regular steps until the next "step") we were going to take donkeys up. It was awesome J They don't lead the donkeys up but yell from the back and mine was competitive and liked to be in the front so he zig-zagged in front of Katie I.'s donkey and cut it off anytime it somehow closed in on the lead. It was hilarious and since we had gotten off of the boat with a bunch of people in front of us, we passed them on the way up and let's just say I am in a lot of random peoples' pictures. The sunset in Ia was a letdown completely. Instead of the most beautiful sunset in the world, we saw a haze of clouds on the horizon. Don't worry, I still got some amazing pictures of the rest of the day.

The next day we rented 4-wheelers for 24 hours and explored the back roads of Santorini. It was a blast! My favorite part was red beach which you will see in my pictures and a slightly better sunset from the lighthouse. It was a great day and although it wasn't necessarily a beach day, I wouldn't recommend seeing Santorini any other way.

We rolled out of bed to see the sunrise the next morning on Perissa Beach and it was gorgeous. Then, after getting ready for the day, Katie I. and I went back to Red Beach because we hadn't actually figured out how to get to the beach part, just the cliff above it. We were successful and spent the rest of the morning using up the gas in our ATVs and exploring the area around our hotel. After a few hours of napping on the beach it was time to head back to the ferry for another wonderful 8 hour tour of the Aegean Sea. (Only it was dark most of the time).

That's pretty much my Greek experience thus far. Don't worry, I will be loading pictures soon… it just takes a while. I hope all is well with everyone!

(I haven't learned any Greek yet so I have no good-bye phrase for you today)

Kristi