Picture Perfect!

Black beach just steps from our hotel. The cabanas were free to use and were great for basking in the sun!
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So I arrived in Santorini last night after a bit of a quezy ferry trip (9 hours makes the one from Van-Vic fly by!!). After one hour of sleep getting up and metroing to the Ferry was surprisingly easy, and the metro is SHOCKINGLY clean and safe. I was very impressed. KILLS the Ctrain in Calgary that is for sure!!!

The trip on the boat was sort of hellish as the morning was too cold to sit on deck but EVERYONE was smoking inside and as I was feeling quite sea sick it wasn't helping the nasea at all. By noon or so though outside was looking like a better option so I took my book to the deck to read in the sun. Gorgeous blue sea, Islands going by, if I'd felt better it would have been perfect! Pulling into port in Santorini was amazing, there are huge cliffs with whitewashed houses scattered about, it was surreal really, I'd seen photos but didn't really think it would look that nice in person I think! So beatiful! The owner of the hotel picked me up from the ferry for no charge and took me to Perissa Beach where the hotel is. Very nice building with a pool and I have my own room with bathroom (but sort of just a tap for a shower, quite weird) for only 20 euros a night!! Amazing really. They said it gets way more expensive in high season though.

Me on the hike to the Red Beach. Had to take motorbikes to get there, very very cool!
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I think that I have not recovered yet from Jet leg as i fell asleep at about 5:30pm (also attributed to the ferry and no sleep the night before though) and then woke up at 5am...... so I read til 7 and went for a swim, but it then started to rain so my options for exploring today have become limited. I'm instead in a cafe drinking coffee writing this! SO hopefully more exciting news to come on Santorini.........

May 13-Santorini

Absolutely fabulous day. I had breakfast on the beach and then head off on a sailboat tour of the Volcano, hot springs and the sunset at Oia. The boat was great, Dad would have had much fun yelling "ship ahoy" I'm sure!! The volcano was a bit of a trek to get up but very cool up there. We then sailed over to the hot springs, which was basically just a cove with warmer water but we had to swim through cold to get there... quite the adventure. There was all this red mud that stained the water so it didn't look particularly appealing but was fun nonetheless. I tagged along with an Australian couple so it was nice to have some company, I've got to say I've been a bit lonely on Santorini, the hotel thing is nice but I am certainly not meeting as many people as in the hostel! The sunset at Oia was just gorgeous, and before this we watched the Liverpool/West Ham football game (from now on this is how I will refer to soccer) and it was a VERY good game. I think it may be my new thing now that our hockey team is dead....... The hike up to Oia however was DEADLY, STEEPEST biggest steps I've ever seen..... 300 of them!! That whole go to gym before I left thing apparently did no good........ So I was pretty exhausted when we returned and was fast asleep by 11..... which since arriving in Santorini is the latest I've stayed up..... i'm a loser. BUT today I'm going to the ruins then to the Red Beach, then I catch the ferry to Ios which is apparently a bit of a party island... so that should be good!!