Paulette

Manoli drove us into Irakleon to the port.  We caught the 9:45 AM ferry to Santorini.  It is a huge catamaran.  We have reserved seats.  It all looks good.

We soon take off and the motion is wicked.  I get dizzy just thinking of it now.  No fear I took my Gravol before we left.

It didn’t work.  I am soon feeling so seasick that Carla says I look green.  That’s hard to do considering I have a sunburn.  She says I don’t look like myself at all.  I white knuckle it for over 2 hours.  When we get off on Santorini it is hot and I can barely walk straight.  I just want to lie down.

We look for our ride and don’t see a sign with our name so we grab a taxi.  When we arrived at our hotel we are told there was someone there to pick us up.  Oh well, we are here now.  Our room isn’t quite ready but it didn’t take long for her to clean up.  We did arrive before check-in.

We turned the air conditioning on and I unpack a bit.  I’m starting to feel better already.  The room is very nice.  It will be quite comfy.

We head out to the pool and swim a bit.  The water is cooler than other pools we’ve been in here.  It is refreshing though.  We blow up our air mattresses and paddle around.  I spend a bit of time just lounging on it.

We ask the owner if he can make us dinner and he gives us a few options.  We choose the veal prepared Greek style with a sauce and mashed potatoes.  In the meantime we go and change.

We sit by the pool overlooking the sea and the sun is starting to set.  We drink some wine that her friend Shelly arranged for Carla and eat stuffed vine leaves.  Carla beats me at Scrabble.  We played with a spanish version and there were a lot of vowels (which I seemed to only get) and a lot of letters missing (J, K, W, X, Y).  We only notice at the end.  No wonder we couldn’t find any words!

The sun sets into a hazy sky.  Carla takes a lot of pictures.  Fred sends a glass of champagne to everyone to watch the sunset.  As soon as the sun goes down it is chilly.  Carla gets her hoody and my fleece.  We move closer to the inside of the bar area to keep warm.  Now we know why the pool water is cool!

Then Fred brings us our wonderful dinner.  The meat was so tender and the sauce so flavourful.  We enjoyed it tremendously.   I asked if they had any dessert (yes I was looking for a chocolate fix).  Fred says we can have figs from his tree if we want.  So he sends the waitress over to get figs and brings us a plate of them.  I’ve never had fresh figs before.  They are really good!

By now it is getting late and we head to our room.  It’s going to be a busy day tomorrow so we need our sleep.

Carla and I walked into the town of Stalida today.  What we thought would be a 1/2 hour walk ended up being about 1 1/2 hours.  We walked along the road.  We shopped along the way.  We didn’t buy much though.  It seemed to be the same touristy stuff at all the shops.

Soon it was lunchtime and we were hungry and tired of walking.  Carla spotted a place that looked like a restaurant but it had a pool.  We weren’t sure if we could use it or not so we asked.  Sure they said.  Have lunch, jump in the pool stay as long as you want.  We each had a salad and a drink.  The bread was delicious.  We soon learned that when they ask you if you want bread they are charging you extra for it.  I’ll remember that next time.

The pool was warm and we swam then lounged for a bit and then swam again.   After a couple of hours we figured we should start walking back.  Eva & Manoli will be wondering where we are!

We walked back along the beach.  We saw a lot of resorts and play areas.  We each bought an air mattress for our stay in Santorini.  We walked straight back to Eva’s because we were so late getting back.

Although Manoli had an evening planned for us we begged to stay home.  We had been on the move every minute since we got here.  After dinner, Carla and I walked down to the beach for a plunge into the waves.  We shopped a little more - how can you say no to a cute little purse for 3 euros!

Back at Eva’s we looked at her family albums.  We saw her wedding album, her son Anthony’s christening and heard many wonderful stories.  It’s been quite an experience staying with them.  I hope they get to visit us in Ottawa.