So we totally owe posts about our last day in Santorini where we tried to tour a winery and then took the ferry to Athens, and then the stuff we did while in Athens (visits to Delphi, tours of Acropolis/Zeus' temple, LOTS of shopping by Adrienne, etc).
However, we're in the Zurich airport right now waiting for our flight to start boarding in 20 minutes and I haven't downloaded the 400+ pictures I took while in Athens (Adrienne will never be so happy to see Katie take back the camera we borrowed).
While we're bummed that our honeymoon is over...and we have to return to real life....at the same time we miss everyone and it will be nice to return to the US and our house. If it makes sense the honeymoon was both too short and getting a bit too long.
Thanks to everyone who left us comments on the blog, it was really nice reading them while we were in Greece, and to everyone who came to our wedding too.
Now that we're back and not planning wedding, going to grad school, launching new site designs right before leaving work for 3 weeks, we'll hopefully have more time to hang out with everyone.....although Adrienne just reminded me that we have a new niece to play with, and my two sister's weddings in the next 6 months.....guess life never slows down.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
"Milk was a bad choice"
For some reason, Dave and I thought it would be super cool to spend a day hiking to the center of an active volcano. We figured, "Hey, it's fall, how hot can it be?" Umm yeah, apparently we aren't the brightest bulbs because we forgot these key factors 1) there is no shade on a volcano, 2) just because the temp says lo 70's, it's actually worse when there are no clouds 3) you're hiking on a VOLCANO with molten hot lava inside, with steam and heat that permeates up through the very ground you are walking on. Needless to say, it was HOT!
And being the genius that I am, I didn't pack any shorts. I'm glad I wore sneakers for the climb, because this was quite the climb - but it meant that I was also wearing pants.
We started out enthusiastic and excited about our adventure. But first, we had to get off the island :) We opted to take the cable car down the mountain, I thought it was a great way to see eeverything - it was really beautiful. This is the cable car we went down.
This is the boat that took us out to the volcano. Look at how happy we are, so naive ;)
We made it to the volcano but while we were on the boat we started to realize how hot it was and how doomed we might be. But we tried to stay optimistic.
This is how excited I was about this climb
And being the genius that I am, I didn't pack any shorts. I'm glad I wore sneakers for the climb, because this was quite the climb - but it meant that I was also wearing pants.
We started out enthusiastic and excited about our adventure. But first, we had to get off the island :) We opted to take the cable car down the mountain, I thought it was a great way to see eeverything - it was really beautiful. This is the cable car we went down.
This is the boat that took us out to the volcano. Look at how happy we are, so naive ;)
We made it to the volcano but while we were on the boat we started to realize how hot it was and how doomed we might be. But we tried to stay optimistic.
This is how excited I was about this climb
This is me and my attitude about 30 min. later
Despite the heat and failing spirits - we made it. This is us at the top of the volcano.
And like Dave says "how many people can say they've climbed a volcano?"
Besides it being incrediably hot, and seeing a few puffs of steam, the volcano wasn't that exciting for me. Dave liked that it looked like a whole other planet, but I was happy when it was over.
We then took the boat over to the "hot springs" they warned us that the ocean was cold, but it felt perfect to me! We jumped in and swam out to where the hot springs was, which wasn't as hot as I thought it was. I enjoyed the cool swim after the rough hike, and now that I've climbed a volcano I don't feel the need to ever do it again. :)
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Son of a Beach!
So on Thursday we got another late start, and when trying to decide which beaches we were going to hit, we realized we needed to rent a car, which ended up having us not leave the hotel until almost 2PM.
However for all of you who were waiting for it...we got a SMART car! (convertible even). It truly is as tiny as everyone says it is. Adrienne made me pose for pictures with it because she figured everyone at home (mostly her family) would laugh when seeing them.
We then decided to drive to Perivolos, which is the black sand beach here. At least this time I didn't throw a temper tantrum and refuse to go on the sand because it wasn't a real beach (which is what happened when at 3 years old my mother took me to the black sand beach in Hawaii).
Like most everything else the beach was pretty much empty and all of the various cafes, restaurants, life guard stations, etc were closed. However we did find one little section where they had left up the palm umbrellas and chairs. So we grabbed 2 chairs and Adrienne proceeded to quickly start napping while sunning herself. I on the other hand walked around the beach getting pictures, and then settled in with "The Audacity of Hope" by Barack Obama (which so far is an amazingly engrossing view into his political/moral philosophy of government).
It started getting a little cold as the wind picked up and the sun started to set, so we set out in search of dinner. I had read really good things about a restaurant called Lava and Yulie (the owner of the hotel we're staying at) also highly recommended it. Unfortunately we were having problems trying to find it since a large chunk of the beach road was shut down for construction, and of course there were no detour signs. Eventually we found our way around the construction (after the 3rd or 4th try) only to find Lava closed. There were only 2 restaurants open. We checked with the first one and like everywhere else they didn't have their full menu. However the place next door, Aquarius, said they had their full menu, which even included soups! Apparently even though avgolemono soup (or Agamemnon soup as I like to call it to drive A nutes) is Greek, soups in general aren't popular in Greece as this is the first restaurant we had seen offering them. Needless to say we were psyched. What made it even better is that the food was AMAZING! By far the best food we've had in Santorini. We're excited because they deliver to Fira too, so we figure we'll have dinner on the balcony some night.
We then drove back to our hotel and watched Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.
On Friday we got up early to go to Red Beach which is supposed to have red sand and be beautiful. We had to make sure to get the car back by 1PM or be charged for an extra day. We drove along the highway and found our way to Red Beach. However once there we discovered that you basically have to edge along a cliff and climb over some rocks to get to the beach. Once we made our way there we found the beach to be like many of the cape beaches where it's mostly stone vs sand. In addition all of the beach chairs that had been left behind were broken.
It was a chillier day than Thursday and so A decided we shouldn't hang out on the beach but rather go exploring in the Smart car and find the lighthouse out on the edge of the island. We found it, but unlike the one in Argostolion it's more functional than picturesque, and it's a Hellenic Navy outpost so it was locked up too.
We then drove back to the hotel and handed in the keys to the car. We grabbed some crepes for lunch, which were interesting. The Greek islands are apparently where the majority of France vacations in the summer, so there are little touches (like croissants & crepes) everywhere. We then went shopping for gifts, and of course while shopping I couldn't resist spoiling Adrienne with some stuff from Santorini too.
When we got back to our hotel we discovered the people in the room next to us were from Miami and the people across from us were from Ashland! After 10 days in Greece it was nice to be able to have long discussions with people who had distinctly American accents and shared our culture. We ended up all going to dinner at Archipelagos together.
On Saturday we're touring and actually getting to walk on the volcano!
However for all of you who were waiting for it...we got a SMART car! (convertible even). It truly is as tiny as everyone says it is. Adrienne made me pose for pictures with it because she figured everyone at home (mostly her family) would laugh when seeing them.
We then decided to drive to Perivolos, which is the black sand beach here. At least this time I didn't throw a temper tantrum and refuse to go on the sand because it wasn't a real beach (which is what happened when at 3 years old my mother took me to the black sand beach in Hawaii).
Like most everything else the beach was pretty much empty and all of the various cafes, restaurants, life guard stations, etc were closed. However we did find one little section where they had left up the palm umbrellas and chairs. So we grabbed 2 chairs and Adrienne proceeded to quickly start napping while sunning herself. I on the other hand walked around the beach getting pictures, and then settled in with "The Audacity of Hope" by Barack Obama (which so far is an amazingly engrossing view into his political/moral philosophy of government).
It started getting a little cold as the wind picked up and the sun started to set, so we set out in search of dinner. I had read really good things about a restaurant called Lava and Yulie (the owner of the hotel we're staying at) also highly recommended it. Unfortunately we were having problems trying to find it since a large chunk of the beach road was shut down for construction, and of course there were no detour signs. Eventually we found our way around the construction (after the 3rd or 4th try) only to find Lava closed. There were only 2 restaurants open. We checked with the first one and like everywhere else they didn't have their full menu. However the place next door, Aquarius, said they had their full menu, which even included soups! Apparently even though avgolemono soup (or Agamemnon soup as I like to call it to drive A nutes) is Greek, soups in general aren't popular in Greece as this is the first restaurant we had seen offering them. Needless to say we were psyched. What made it even better is that the food was AMAZING! By far the best food we've had in Santorini. We're excited because they deliver to Fira too, so we figure we'll have dinner on the balcony some night.
We then drove back to our hotel and watched Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.
On Friday we got up early to go to Red Beach which is supposed to have red sand and be beautiful. We had to make sure to get the car back by 1PM or be charged for an extra day. We drove along the highway and found our way to Red Beach. However once there we discovered that you basically have to edge along a cliff and climb over some rocks to get to the beach. Once we made our way there we found the beach to be like many of the cape beaches where it's mostly stone vs sand. In addition all of the beach chairs that had been left behind were broken.
Church right outside of red beach
Trying to skip stones in the ocean
It was a chillier day than Thursday and so A decided we shouldn't hang out on the beach but rather go exploring in the Smart car and find the lighthouse out on the edge of the island. We found it, but unlike the one in Argostolion it's more functional than picturesque, and it's a Hellenic Navy outpost so it was locked up too.
We then drove back to the hotel and handed in the keys to the car. We grabbed some crepes for lunch, which were interesting. The Greek islands are apparently where the majority of France vacations in the summer, so there are little touches (like croissants & crepes) everywhere. We then went shopping for gifts, and of course while shopping I couldn't resist spoiling Adrienne with some stuff from Santorini too.
When we got back to our hotel we discovered the people in the room next to us were from Miami and the people across from us were from Ashland! After 10 days in Greece it was nice to be able to have long discussions with people who had distinctly American accents and shared our culture. We ended up all going to dinner at Archipelagos together.
On Saturday we're touring and actually getting to walk on the volcano!
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