sunshine

hello again!

well, we are nearing the end of our time here in santorini. the second day that we went to the beach it was wonderful and gorgeous. the water is clear. seriously, i get in and look and down and can see to the bottom. i can see all the little fishies and the rocks. its pretty crazy. we paid a little bit of money to use the chair/umbrella sets they have all over out there. kamari is the big beach and that is where we went the first three days. the food here has been pretty dang yummy here - mostly shish kabab stuff. weve also been eating greek salads every day. i like everything but the feta! anyway, yesterday we waited forever for a certain bus and it never came so we ended up at a beach near kamari but on the other side of this big mountain. the black beach there was actually sand which was nice, but it felt bad because we wasted so much time waiting for that dang bus! well, today we got a moto. no, an atv, not a moto. and we drove ourselves everywhere. we went around the whole island. we went to the northern part that apparently you can see a great sunset at nite but we didnt stay for it. and then we went through the main town, fira, and then we went down to the southern part and went to the red beach there. it was pretty amazing. not anything like any other beach ive seen. it was just kind of cut out of this red mountain. we had to work to get to it - a very small hike, but it was pretty cool. much more secluded than any of the others. no stores of shops or anything - all there is room for is the beach. it was pretty awesome to just drive the atv around and be on our own - so much more convenient and fun than those unreliable buses. plus we could stop when we wanted and we got some amazing views. seriously, it was just crazy. its funny, but the atv only really lets us go 25 mph. seems a little faster than that sometimes when you are on the edge of a mountain on a small road and out in the open air. its pretty dang sweet. anyhow, the first full day we spent at kamari we swam out to come conveniently places rocks - it was a big pile really. then we came back and read a big and then went back out. it was just a good day. we also ate at a place down there and watched the sweden/spain football (soccer!) game.

...if i could do it again id budget in a lot more time in these islands. it would be a different kind of trip to have any kind of focus here rather than how the majority has been... but its nice, just so relaxing. and having our own room and and bathroom in a place feels so free! haha.

tomorrow nite we will fly 45 minutes to athens. then we are staying the nite in the airport and our next flight is at 2 in the afternoon the next day and takes us back to zurich. then a couple trains to strasbourg. its going to be a long 24 hours. ahh!