Greece

20 hours in transit and we arrived in paradise. 

A train to Rome, a bus to the airport, an airplane to Santorini. But it wasn't quite that effortless. We ate dinner in Rome and looked at seven hours of waiting time before our flight left at 6:00 am the next morning. So we after 4 games of bananagrams, makeshift scrabble, 5 games of spades and, "I spy," we made a princess palate behind the rental car office, lulled to sleep by the hum of the floor buffer.

When we arrived, we took a cab straight to the beach. We instantly realized our need for water shoes, seeing that the beaches were made of volcanic rock. And if you're buying water shoes, it's an unspoken rule that you have to buy goggles. So we suited up and hit the waves. 

We stayed in Thira, the capital city of Santorini. It was a beautiful caldera, which is the inner wall of the crater where long ago a volcanic blast occurred. The caldera is where the buildings are stacked on the edge of the island cliff overlooking the water. 

The second day we went to the famous Red Beach. It is carved out of the side of a red-colored volcanic rock. But to our dismay, it was overly touristy and scattered with umbrellas. So we sought out a trodden donkey trail that we hypothesized would lead us to the next-over secluded beach. And it did. We enjoyed our own beach for an entire day. It's everyone's cubicle daydream.

We swam about a mile from our spot and did some cave and cliff climbing. I was about 10 feet off the rock ocean floor and lost my grip when my volcanic-rock handhold crumbled into dust. I free-fell the whole way and came way too close to smashing my head open. But Praise the Lord! a friend was below me with arm wide open to catch my fall. With minor scrapes and hearts still pounding, we hiked back into town to watch the sunset on the west end of the island.

Perhaps one of the greater days of my existence, on Sunday we suited up and zig zagged down the back of Oia to the point of the island where the cliffs hit the Aegean. The banks here are known for their drop offs which make for extremely deep (200 feet) waters right off shore. In layman's terms, this means it's perfect cliff jumping water.

We snaked our way around to the perfect rock. The water in this cove area was truly prismatic. We climbed all over, bouldering, stretching our limbs to reach and to grasp the holes that nature had bore. It was beautiful in its challenge. And we jumped, high and far.

We enjoyed seafood at the port, some people say it's the oldest functioning port in the modern world. Then we hired some pack mules and donkey-ed our way back up the stone switchbacks.

That night we all wore white. Clad in eyelet and lace, graced by the remnants of a day in the sun, we were bronzed and bright eyed. We watched the ocean meet the sun and marveled. Perhaps our longitude and latitude are to credit, but the Lord's face shines upon that place.

Then it was off to some Greek food and dancing. We had some house-made wine and olive moonshine (compliments of the drunk guitarist) and twirled the night away like stray dervishes. At midnight we walked into town with the intent to devour pastries. So after sniffing out an open bakery, we bought 3 huge Greek baklava-like desserts, found a ledge on the historic Oia castle, star gazed and killed each honey and phyllo delight.

The next day we took a 7 hour ferry ride from Santorini to Athens. It was overall painless and we arrived at our friend's apartment in the city by midnight. The next two days were filled with ruins, sweat, watermelon, naps, "OPA!," and metro tickets.

I said "ciao meow" to my friends who were leaving for the USA, and I headed back to Rome to meet my roommate, who all this time had been tromping around Austria having adventures of her own.