Mykonos, Greece 7-19-09

Heyyy! I'm in Greece!

Wow, what a way to start my trip. Packing up and leaving my house took hours.. but I finally managed to get everyting into my backpacks (with the help of my friend Sarah) and got to the airport with plenty of time.

I met up with my friend, Dave, in Athens and we bussed it to Pareas where we ate some greek food from a restaurant where no one spoke english and basically just pointed to things on the menu and said- "Good?". One was a greek salad, easy enough, the other was fried fish, squid, octopus, and other random things like beets and olives. We walked around the local markets and shops for a couple hrs and went into a church. We heard how expensive the drinks in Mykonos are, so we spent about 2 hours searching for a flask. Well, no one in Paraes speaks english, so we played a lot of sharades and made some great gestures to each person we spoke to. The moment the word clicked, each person let out a "Ahhhhhh!" and smiled, and then followed that up with a head shake and a "No". Oh well.. guess we'll figure it out when we get there.

We met up with our other travling buddy, Kip, at the dock and boarded the ferry for Mykonos. 15 hours on plane, one hour on a bus, and four hours on a ferry later we finally arrived at our destination!

It was night time when we got to Mykonos, but there was a cool breeze in the air and a quietness to the island. Because Mykonos is so small, there aren't a lot of taxis on the island so when we got off the boat we thought we were stuck. Somehow we managed to find a driver who agreed to bring us to our hotel.

After checking into our hotel and getting ready, we headed out for a night on the town. The 3 of us walked down the street into the city and went to the local bars. The drink prices aren't that bad and the locals are very friendly. Lots of house music and american songs were playing all night with mostly europen tourists drinking at the bars. We were the only americans at the places we went to.

We're staying at Hotel Madalena with a 3 person room. The hotel is huge,gorgeous, and white like every other hotel, house, shop, and building on the island. The 3 of us spent the second day on Paradise beach which we've heard a lot about (crazy parties and lots of people), but it was pretty mellow when we got there. We just relaxed under the cabanas and went in the water. It was a perfect way to settle into Mykonos. Everything was great except for a little fire coral run-in I had in the water. I knew enough to know that there are 2 ways to get rid of the sting-urine and vinegar... I thought to try the latter of the two first. The chef at the restaurant and I became friends as he poured vinegar onto a towel for me and after a few attempts of trying to understand eachother we just settled for smiles. An hour later when we were hungry for food, the chef insisted on giving me a plate of food which he picked out and arranged everything perfectly for me. Baked tomatoes stuffed with rice and herbs, grilled vegetables, large potato fries, and a few other interesting things that tasted great, but in no way could tell you what they were. Moral of the story- I love greece.

Later in the day, Andrew and 3 of our girl friends joined us, so now we have a group of 7 and 2 rooms. We ate at a little pizza shop and then got ready for the night. This time we were going to Club Paradise, it's a "must-see" spot to check out and one of the best clubs on the isles we hear. We had to take a 30 minute bus to Paradise which was so packed with people we couldn't even move! The busses run every 30 minutes and only costs 1,40 Euros, and the club is worth it.

Club Paradise was great, lots of people dancing around the pool and on both floors. Our group stayed together all night except at the very end when we had to take the busses back to our hotel. Our bus was so packed that our friend Kip couldn't fit on it. He was the only person left behind.. we found out today that he slept at a camp site there, woke up to man poking him with a stick, knew he had to get back on his own, so rented an ATV for 40 Euros and taught himself to drive on his way. He told us that on his way back to our hotel he drove through a greek wedding and was yelled at by everyone there. Also, he kept hitting the horn by accident everywhere he went, and he didn't know how to go in reverse or put up the E brake. The ATV is now parked outside the hotel with two large rocks behind the back tires. Good times.

Today we all spent a lot of time in our pool relaxing, we walked through town, ate some fantastic authentic gyros (with the best teziki sauce!) and then came back to our hotel for more pool time, drinking, music, and funny stores.

I could really get used to this life...

Here's a link to all of the pictures from the last couple of days: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2844237&id=2006596&l=41c0b8f5ae