Emma and Sams mini European tour

day 3+4

ELLOOOOOOOOO!

okay so yesterday we decided to do the canal cruise, it’s kind of like another hop on hop off go at your own pace deal-y. suits us well as we’re indecisive and like to have our options open! the canals are great! there’s no current whatsoever so it’s a very smooth ride, lots of ducks, HUGE pigeons.. I think they bred with an eagle along the line or something.
we got off at the house of anne frank (or the anne frank huis… learning my dutch.. narrrttt) which was amamamamamazing, I loved reading the diary she kept, and love seeing places in real life where widely-known things have happened. does that make sense? hmm.
it was quite a discreet building, if there wasn’t a plaque you’d have no idea what it was. there was quite a queue around the corner so we jumped in line and waited patiently. I don’t know how long for. maybe 20 minutes. it was so insanely worth it though. you got to go around the house in its entirety. in each room would be a few quotes from anne franks diary, about the particular room you were in. there would be a mention of the steep staircase, and you’d go around the corner and then see it for yourself. and, it was indeed steep. it was basically a ladder on a tilt. I would go crazy having to walk up there each day.

annes father requested that all furniture be removed before it was turned into a museum, but he helped create a small model of the rooms with furniture scaled to size so that you could see how it was decorated when it was being lived in. in annes bedroom there were sections removed from the wall and encased in glass, so you could see the photos she pinned up to decorate it. it really was amazing. downstairs there was her original diary, too, in a glass box. such neat handwriting! shame it wasn’t in english, as I would have loved to read what the particular page read.

there was also an old video interview with her father, otto. he was the only one who survived the concentration camps, and was in a seperate camp to his family, so he didn’t know whether they lived or died until much later on. the interview is really quite heart-wrenching and mentions what he thought when he first read annes diary.

i’m blabbering - go see it for yourself folks it really is inspirational.

then we went and ate at hard rock cafe! so much yum I can’t put a yum-factor to it. it was that yum. we stupidly got a dessert each and felt sick afterwards from eating so much. who would have thought that was possible for bottomless-pit-emma, I know.

got woken up about 200 times during the night from our noisy roommates, though sam got woken up even more than I did. arrrrr.

TODAY! 21st October.
Today we got up and had to pack our bags as we were changing rooms (it was all booked out to stay in one room the entire week, so we did 2 seperate bookings.) sam got up to have a shower and I got dressed and packed my stuff away. she came back, got her stuff together and left while I got a few more things together as i’m incredibly slow. i walked out to try and find her thinking she was checking out at the front desk, walked straight past her without either of us seeing the other, I walked to the front desk, checked out and asked if my friend had already got our new keys, or just hers. the lady looked at me blankly and just gave me both the keys. I had no idea where sam had gotten to so I walked back to our rooms and she was right by them and we were both clueless about where the other had been. ahahah.
our new room has only 4 beds, hoorah! so we’re in for a peaceful night, touch wood.

we boarded the canal bus again and were off to the van gogh museum! soooooooooooo good. about 4 levels I think it was. it whad all his personal letters to his brother over a span of.. maybe.. 50 years? full of pen sketches of artworks he was working on, artworks he was inspired by etc. there were so many paintings you couldn’t belieeeve, from the beginning of his career using dark browns and greys, to the end of his career where he was using bright colours and bright backgrounds. it was really cool to see.

then we had hard rock again….. couldn’t resist. I tried ribs…. I’ll never look back! delish meal. and we shared a dessert this time. much wiser. still just as yum. coz man. ribs are filling. ahaha.

that is all for now. I have 4 mins to go and simply forgot to write in my blog until I only had 10 mins left to go! so. hope this is satisfactory for you.



P.S mum - what did work get you for your birthday?!

day #2

hello
I’m not writing much today because this spacebar is ridiculously hard to press and I’m going to go crazy if I write a lot

Today we did madam taussauds, it was fun! lot of cool people there, leading to lots of funny photos.

we’re so stupenddddously tired, even still. boys did pub crawls last night and came in throughout the night, very noisy. plus, our room overlooks the hostels pub and smoking room, so everyone is noisy out there. overall, no sleep. but, crossing our fingers that tonight will be a little better! then tomorrow we can be the ones going out and making the noise. fingers crossed.

found the red light district.
found the ancient wobbly red light nakey ladies. ahahahha. we’d go around a corner or down an alley and they’d be standing in a window smiling in their barely there lingerie. I didn’t expect them to be so close! ahahah felt like a zoo.

hmm not much else to report. I’m giving uponthiskeyboard. I’ll write it all inmy diary and copy it over. x

amsterdam

hello folks

I was hoping this would be my catch-up blog, though there are lots of boys sleeping in our dorm and I didn’t want to go back in there to fumble for the keys to unlock the box with my luggage in it, and then find my diary.

SO! I will just tell you about today and then catch up when I can next.

The flight was only 50 minutes, of which I dozed (but unfortunately didn’t sleep as my hand kept slipping from propping my head up.. i’m cool) and then we got off to what was a fairly cold grey day. which we expected. but amsterdam doesn’t need good weather so we’re not at all disappointed.

I am an effing fool and forgot to bring our hostel information with us, so we had to go to the sheraton built into the airport to use their business lounge (only place with a printer apparently) which cost me TEN EUROS. massive cry! but moving on. we got it, caught a train to amsterdam central and found our hostel quite easily, it’s right by the canal down an (populated) alley.

it’s quite good. we’re on the bottom level. our room has 14 or 16 beds in it (8 bunks) and when we got in there earlier today, it was full of boys sleeping on their bunks and on the floor. one woke up and I said hello, he said hey. australian accent. we thought they must have arrived today and want to have a big night out, so they were having a nap. so we went out for an hour or two to look at some shops and see what’s around, had something to eat, and head back to unpack a bit without worrying about waking them up. our room was dark, so I walked in a bit, then realised they’re all still there! i’m hoping they’re not in for the night, coz we’ll have to get our pjs out at some point and we’ll make heaps of noise. arrrr!

so now we’ve escaped the room again for a little while hoping they’ll be awake by the time we get back. fingers crossed.

it’s really nice here! the hostel is quite clean, they do a free breakfast. there’s a smoking room which always has a lot of people in there ahahah. lots of shops seem to smell marijuana-pops. like. lollies. interesting! there are some really cool souveinirs (not marijuana ha) that i’ve been trying to resist, and clogs! ahahaha. we mgiht end up buying a pair of cheap gloves though. the wind is freezing.

ohhhh the guy next to me is rolling a joint. I can smell it.
where was I. I’m distracted now. trying to tell sam on facebook chat so that she looks without me saying it outloud hahah.

oh right. hmmm. we want to hire a bike! reallllllly bad. maybe tomorrow?! maybe we’ll be able to. we wanna go to anne franks house, too. that’ll be amazing. I loved reading her diary, it would be great to see where it all happened.

directly across the canal from us, and down the opposite alley, there’s a massive sign that says “sex shop” ahahhaa. this place is funny, to say the least. seems quite family friendly though, coincidently. there are a lot of families here travelling.

i’m running out of things to say as today has been reasonably uneventful.
I have had a headache all day. I want it to go away but they don’t seem to sell headache tablets here. I suppose they have other remedies for it. ha. I’d just like nurofen plz.

it’s 8:45pm here. we have about 15mins left, hopefully when we get back the boys will either be awake, or out already. hopefully. I wanna sleep.

I have a feeling this will be a fun trip. bye bye for now! xo

hi

this is emma
blogging
letting you know that soon, i’m going to blog again. and much more in depth than this one.
promise.



<3

to mum and dad

herro.
thankyou for finally blogging! you’re worse than me.
i’ll finish off the greek blogs probably later today, as it’s a bit rainy and there’s not much to do.
you both looked wonderful on your anniversary! bunch of goodlookers. was it a good day/night? dad - you couldn’t possibly have bought those flowers could you? they’re pretty! well done if so. they’re larrrrrvely. and mum, is that the top you bought not long before I left? it’s pretty! I don’t think I ever saw you wear it. dad - wonderful shirt, ‘nuf said.

we’ve already done big ben and the london eye, yay. we also bought tickets for london dungeon as it was cheaper to buy two tickets at the same time so we got london eye and the dungeons combined. woot.

I was struggling to find your painting efforts in the first photo then realised it was the ‘before’ shot. have we decided to turn it into a barnyard? i’m surprised you picked red! but then again I have no idea how your brains work with colour schemes hahaha…. i’ll keep my mouth shut until it’s finished.

dudley is looking great! makes me verrreh happy. though he doesn’t look very happy having a bath ahahha. surprise surprise.

the house looks insane during the dust storm. i wish I was thereeeeeeeeeeeeeee ahaha. ohwell. i’m very glad you guys took photos! it’s intense!

I have to runnnnnnnn but I love you both and i’ll update again later today xo


p.s. amy are you (or parents do you know if..) amy is going to bdo?

greece

wednesday 23rd (continued..)
heya.. I wrote this diary entry in my book, and the last update I did was just off the top of my head. so it’ll be kinda disjointed but i’m sure you’ll figure it out. so.. back to the beach.

We went to the beach, which was a very easy 5minute walk away, and lay in the sun for a while. About 20 minutes passed and we were sweltering so we decided to go swimming. it was ankle deep for about 30mtrs. and cold! we eventually went in and it got much nicer. then out in the sun again to dry off. we took some photos and sam noticed a Pervy McPerv in the background of them. mmmm! hairy, old, and leatherskinned. delectable!
we went for a walk then came back to the boat for a while to sort out the dinner situation, we decided on mexican. yum. mum - they had chimichangas! I had enchiladas though as they were quite like our mexican shimmy shammys. fancy that. ahaha. free frozen margarita shots followed dinner. yay! ahah
then we decided to go back to the boat. julle says on day4 most people are really tired. it’s true! on the way back I found a Born To Be Wild shirt. There was one plain white one with a big character kid on it, and another with all this lame writing. so I quickly ran in before the others noticed, thinking I could quickly buy it and catch up, but the lady was increeedibly slow and kept getting out the ones from the back, except all the ones with writing. I figured out that they didn’t have the one I wanted in dads size. by this time John, one of the others, came back to see where sam and I were, oops.. I felt really bad. they’d all stopped. he got the one down from the wall that I wanted. right size! soopah. so I tell him that they can keep walking and i’ll just be a second. then the lady gets out wrapping paper. oh god. we eventually catch up. 
then, bedtime.

Thursday 24th.
Today we sailed to Syros. Sam and I stayed below deck, and therefore ended up having no idea where we were when we arrived ahah. I saw a syros brochure on the table and took that as a hint, which was then confirmed when we found a souvenir shop with Syros written on everything (in permanent texta might I add.)
there are SO many cats and dogs here. and pigeons! So many pigeons. cookies and cream pigeons, sam calls them. and it’s true aha, they’re spotty brown and white.
the dogs are insanely adorable, there was one older brown dog. you could tell it was a momma. just plodding along - and she decides she wants a nap. in the middle of the road! arrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. my heart stopped. so did my legs. everyone luckily slowed down and avoided her though. then there were the three amido dogs. one white, one b+w splodgy, and onebrown and white splodgy. they’d pop up every now and then, all together. nyawww.
the cats were cute too. you know. for cats. aha. sammie loves them. they seem to love her back too. she’s gotten some amazing photos! better than postcards we’ve seen. she’s really good at it! plus being around her is making me like cats a littttttttttle more. well. I like cats all the time. just don’t really understand how to make them like me. ahah. dogs are easy.
we went out for dinner at approx 8/8:30 to an adorable restaurant called Kouziva. sam and I got porkchops in a honey and balsamic vinegar marinade. it was amazingly massively yum. yum. so yum.

Friday 25th
Dear Darcy,
It’s 11am on the boat. we’ve left syros and are heading for Mykonos, which is apparently meant to be quite a beachy, party, camp-ish (as in flamboyant) place. i’m intrigued! looking forward to it.

Oh ahah here’s a funny thing that happened today.
*Emma is getting dressed in the tiny sardine-tin of a room*
Julle: excuse me, do you have a book down there?
*Emma freaks out.. looking around for the voice. looks up to see Julle on the deck looking down*
Julle: Oh I’m… sorr… do you.. have a book down there..

ahahahahhfisarijgiuh. funniest. it wasn’t bad I was only taking my shirt off and I had a singlet underneath. it’s just funny. aha.

Okay so this is later on in the day. We went into town after the clothing fiasco. Via a one euro and 40cent bus trip. it’s about half an hour walk except the road has no path and the drivers here are insane. so. no. julle warned us against it. cheryl, jakki and joanna caught the bus with us, then we split up when we got there. sam and I went to explore whilst they went to do laundry. we went to markets and some galleries for pottery and art and such. I dunno iff gallery is the right word but they definitely weren’t just stores. I bought Nanna this really nice ceramic ladle looking thing. it’s just an ornament but it looks kinda ladle shaped. It has really nice greek scenery painted on it. it’s not too big so hopefully there’s somewhere she can put it! hopefully she likes it. sam got the same kind of thing for her nana (don’t mistake this, I actually got the idea from her, not the other way around!) and something nice for her mum :)
After that we ran into Cheryl, Jakki and Joanna again, having lunch, and sat with them for a bit. they told us that there was a movie being filmed about 10 minutes walk away, with an australian filmcrew, they said it looked low budget and didn’t recognise anyone. we figured it’d be funny to see. there were also windmills in that direction that we’d already wanted to see, so it was on the way. we didn’t look around to see the actors. the few we walked by were extras (I assume?) and we didnt’ care to look further, thinking they were all greek. psssht, what fools we were.
the windmills were amazing. got lotsa good photos. apparently they were built in the late 1700’s. we headed back towards the filmset but they were rolling so we couldn’t go through. so we instead decided to watch for a bit from the side. it was a dance scene with lots of OPA!’s. it actually opened with a version of “land downunder” and turned into greek music. we thought that that was hilarious… we shoulda known from that moment….
I kept saying one of the guys looked like vince colosimo. he was wearing tight white pants and a white long sleeve partially unbuttoned shirt. slimy greek version of vince. ahaaarrhar. when we got closer I said it again. “I just can’t get over how much it looks like him..”
then sam said “yeah… and blueshirt over there looks a bit like…” and we both gasped realising it was Nick Gianopolis/Wog Boy. Whot?!?!??!?!?
Then another aus lady overheard us and asked who it was so we explained it to her. she was like “oh yeah. and you probably already saw vince colosimo over there too”
ohhh… myyy… aha.
we’re back at port now, about to head into town againnnn for dinner at what Julle says is a very interesting place.
Hello again. Dinner was yum. I had chicken and sam had lamb. both incredibly yum! Well, sams looked it and she said it was the best lamb she’s ever had. big call!
we head off to a couple of places after that, had a look at the Aussie bar (ridiculous) and then the Scandinavian bar which looked like fun. then we got dessert. Then. Bedtime :)
x

to my OldFarts

aka parents
herro
I’m going to do a proper blog update soon I promise. just not today. aha. so i’ll reply to your blogs which I lurrrvvvvvv reading (so keep doing them!)


The photos from (Wicklow?) were truly superb, a few of them could happily grace a picture frame in our house. The guinness lake shots could have been done by a professional!
Thanks! sam and I are taking turns using our cameras so that it’s easier to organise them when we upload them. that day was mainly her camera. it makes the colours look amazing! though never as good as in real life. we should print some of the nicer photos on good paper and put them up in the house somewhere :) not that we have much room!


Can’t believe that you’re over the halfway mark of your trip - in some ways it seems like only a few days since you left and in others it seems like months!
I know! I agree. eff. it seems like I’ve been away for monthsssss when I think about it. well - it seems like I’ve been away from home for months. it doesn’t feel like i’ve been travelling for months. doesn’t make sense. ohwell!

I promised Amy when she got her car that I would treat her to new tyres, and we’re finally planning to get that done today (at the pre-purchase inspection the tyres were noted to be pretty bad, so its way overdue).
can you please buy me a car and I’ll buy the tyres?

Mum and I were saying only last night that we really must get the front room painted so we can get the house back in some sort of order. We originally planned to have a feature wall the same colour as the ‘computer room’ and the other walls the same colour as our bedroom, but now we’re thinking we might just paint it all the colour of our bedroom - so much easier!
when I read that I thought you meant the blue colour! I was like nooooo! but you mean the cream, right? that’ll look nice. and then you can always decide to do a feature wall. just don’t do a feature wall til I get back coz you know it’s not the same unless i’m there arguing against your colour choice.

The front yard is badly in need of weeding and we plan to paint / clean the gazebo. As a ‘non-surprise’ gift for Mum’s birthday we’ve got an outdoor table setting which will be in or just out of the gazebo, so we can spend more time in the pool area.
NICE! take a photo! I need to see.  what colour/s are you going to paint the gazebo? maybe the trimmings can be the same colour as that bright ladder. yes! decided. do it.

I’m also planning to bite the bullet and take a water sample (from the pool!) to the pool shop and get that all sorted, and possibly next weekend (or this if it really gets hot) try and beat your record of October for being the first to have a swim.
damnit I’m not there to do it. I guess it doesn’t count if I do it in our hotel pool today? ahaha. okay dad - it’s yours this time.

Your ‘hotel’ in Santorini sounded good - will you be staying there after your island hopping?
no we’re in a different one called Villa Alizea. it’s nice, too.

In quite a few photos you have shopping bags - are you going to have luggage weight problems do you think? Maybe the gifts you have for Amy and Mum can be posted by sea mail?
yes,yes we are going to have problems. mum is looking into getting another bag added to our name to bring home. yay.

onto mums one…


All is very well here. Took Dudley to the vet today and he was very pleased with him. Can hardly feel any lumps at all„ He was very amused when I told him that in the last week Dudley had eaten wood chip, a pack of fish food (thanks Amy!) and tried to devour a candle.
that’s my boy.

Do you remember our swimming bird? The one that sits on the pool fence and dives into the pool. Well it has had babies in the bush next to the clothes line. Mummy and Daddy are very busy feeding them and we can hear them chirping for food but can’t see them. The parents swoop out really low and fast and they are going to run into us one of these days. We check every day to make sure that none have fallen out.
how exciting! I remember the ones. they’d do it over and over again just jumping in the water. shame they’re not pretty birds. but babies are still cute. aha. are they swooping you guys or just swooping in general? do they care that you’re there?

So are you missing anything from Australia apart from the dogs? Is there anything that you wished you had taken with you?
my denim shorts… did I leave them there?! I can’t believe I wouldn’t bring them?! devastatedddd.

I’m glad nan likes the postcards :) she has another coming. I always spell her name differently. nanna and nana. I always go to say nanna but she signs her cards with nana sometimes… ohhhh the stress!

sorry my time is running out!

love and miss you!!!!!!!!!!

AAHHHHHHHHHHH

don’t have much time online
just found a place to come and very quickly say
we just met vince colosimo (underbelly, city homicide, secret life of us etc) and nick gianopolis (the wog boy) whilst they were filming the sequel to the wog boy! ARGHHH! ahahahhaha

hgitudrhuighf

we got photos with them. will upload when I can!

very exciting! :)

greece continued..

so when we picked our bags up again Sam decided to carry the big bag all by herself haha. hugging it. from our hotel, up about 4 blocks to the tour bus stop (from earlier in the day) as we realised the best and cheapest/free way to get to Piraes was to catch the tour bus to Omonia and use our tour bus tickets for the metro. weee. sam has just about broken her spine in the process. once we reaches to port of Piraes station we had to find another taxi. he charged us 7euro to drive us around the corner. we didn’t realise how close it was. a 2 second walk to the port. beautiful. we wouldn’t have too wake up too early for our ferry.
(back to emma writing) this hotel was about the same quality as the other. very simple, dull, no elevator (ouch). sam was a trooper with the back. I found myself complaining more than her… typical.
we basically went straight to bed. early morning for the 7:30am ferry, even though we were so close. From Pireas to Thira, Santorini. Unfortunately we selected a student ticket which we later found out was for greek students only and we had to pay the difference onboard.. boo. the ferry was really good. it was huuuge, mainly indoors, very spacious. we got economy seats (cheapest) thinking they’d be horrible, but we were prepared to deal. they were actually a lot better than plane seats, with room between people, tonnes of leg room (not that I personally need much) and they reclined more. we left at 7:30 and arrived at 12:55. shorter than we were expecting. our way here was with Hellenic Seaways, and our return is with Blue Star Ferries, which I think is unfortunately a few hours longer.
We finally arrived, after stopping briefly at the other islands prior to Santorini, for other dropoffs. We got off, walked out into the blistering heat, yay, and noticed a lottt of people holding signs for different hotels, for pick ups, and for people who hadn’t yet booked rooms. we noticed noone had one for our hotel, and then realised there were no more taxis left. I guess our faces said exactly what we were feeling as someone came up to us asking where we were staying and how we were getting there. he had a minibus and said he’d take us for 5euro each. which was great. there were 2 other australians on there too, they were nice. One humungous zigzag hill later, we were there. our hotel was the Villa Soula, in Fira. It was looovely. 2 levels, and one level below. slate floor in and outside, white building with light and bright blue trimmings. really pretty. we were in room7 on the ground floor/floor 1/whatever, which was really exciting as it was the first time we didn’t have to lug our bags up or down stairs. we put our stuff down and collapsed on our beds. the room was simple again but without complaint coz we weren’t gonna be spending much time in there anyway. so we psyched ourselves up to get out of bed, and left to go explore Santorini.
There are SO many markets. vintage clothes, tourist clothes, postcards, ornaments, shoes, hats (I bought one), sunnies (I bought a pair), bags (we bought one), stray dogs and cats (we took them all).. ha.
we decided to have dinner at a cafe, and we were being persuaded into two different places by their respective owners. right next door to eachother. we picked one simply because it was prettier. ha. and it had a nice view from the top. we got greek salads, which seem to be cheap everywhere, and also bread, whch they normally give to you unless you very strictly demand that you don’t want it. it sneaks onto your bill as a “cover charge”. ahaha. they also brought out some horrible tasting wine which they said was ‘complimentary’.. but you never know. it was really bad. we decided we wouldn’t pay for it if they put it on the bill. luckily it really was free. phew.
as we left to explore a little more, we heard the man next door from the next restaurant call out “sluts”. we turned around to see who he said it to, and he was looking right at us. and said it again! coz we didn’t eat at his place! what!
it was really rude.. but I also found it hilarious. we could have been there for a week or more and were planning on eating there the next night for all he knew. prior to his slander. fool.
anyyyyhoooo we avoided that part of the street for a while hoping he’d forget who we are. we got crepes. good way to pass time. I got chocolate and banana… yum. yum. I love me some crepes, new favourite. and sam got strawberries and cream… which looked DELICIOUS and I might have to try it next time.
we went back to the hotel, took some photos outside (the sun/lighting was really nice) and the girl from the hostel came out and told us there were better views upstairs, so up we went. beautiful! could see so much of the rounded rooftops, and the different colours. amazing with the setting sun.
we then asked the girl where we could send our postcards, and she said she’d do it for us. yay. hopefully she’s done it by now!
we went to bed a couple of hours later after another wander and verys hort burst of internet usange, and noticed that Dirty Dancing was on TV. I got sucked into it, but Sam decided to go to bed. Hannah - I can see why you love it!! I really liked it. It’s a shame I never saw it when patrick swayze was alive. nyawwwwwww.

Sunday 20th
wake up at about 8:30 to go get breakfast from downstairs (level -1?) it was just tea with bread and jam, basically. it was still good, though. and very sweet orange juice/cordial, of which I downed both mine and sams. I’m always thirsty lately.
we then got Girl to book us a taxi for the Marina Vlihada yacht trip meeting point. the guy was hilarious. he said we were both very beautiful. he asked our names, shook our hands, and asked where we’re from. he also took us on a detour so he could take a panoramic photo of us at a really nice lookout in a winery. very nice of him. we got to the Taverna Dimitris at the Marina and and was a cute little restaurant. A lady came up asking if we were with the GAP trip and told us where we could put our bags and asked if we wanted drinks or anything. It was only maybe 10:20 by this point, and we were meeting at 11. We twiddled our thumbs waiting for our fellow travelers. There were actually 2 more bags so we looked around and couldn’t see anyone, except for a mid 40’s slash early 50’s couple across the street looking at the view. Couldn’t be them. Oh, but it was. Two Canadians, Sheryl and Paul. from Vancouver I believe. Four more to come… look out for the ones in their 20’s…… there’s some…. oh there they go… there’s one… nope? then a taxi pulls up with 3 figures. Out pop Jackie, Connie and John. John and Connie are roughly the same age as Sheryl and Paul, but are American. Jackie is approx 27-30, looks like Piper Perabo and is from California. We chat a bit, take our bags down to the boat, and sam + I ask ourselves, eachother, and the Universe what we’ve done to deserve this.
What bad things have we done?
Is this karma for something?
We place bets on who the last person to arrive will be. Sam thinks mid 40’s female. I think mid 30’s male. And Jackie overhears and guesses mid 20’s male, as they’re late (disorganised) and alone (adventurous) though Jackie is alone, too. In rolls Joanna, a 29yr old girl from California. Noone wins! She’s come straight from California, feels sicks, jet lagged and doesn’t talk much. They’re all funny nice people, but it certainly wasn’t what we expected when we booked a yacht trip through STA Travel.. P.S on the yacht trip topic.. it’s actually a sailboat……. very much a sailboat. Still good, just thought I’d clarify.
So we head up into another part of Santorini and find lots of cool stuff. As always. We split up from the others for a while and then run into eachother again as we all simultaneously decide we want icecream. It’s fresh made Italian icecream.. in Greece. I got nutella flavour (SO good. amazing) and italian cookies. also amazing. sam got nutella and caramel. looked so nice. droooooooooooooooool. We met up with everyone again at 8 for dinner, with Julle our skipper (pronounce Yula) who is HILARIOUS.. in a dead serious way. bahaha. the restaurant was nice with a good view of the sunset. sam and I got something called Pastitsio which is apparently like a greek lasagne. it was good.
we headed back to the boat after that, in two taxis. sam, myself, jackie and joanna in one, and sheryl, connie, paul, john and julle in the other. that was hilarrrrrious. sardines. I wish we got a photo of julles face.
sleeping was fine for me the first night. there was a lot of creaking though as we were against the dock. sam didn’t sleep very well, she only got a couple of hours sleep. :(

Monday 21st
Woke up earlyish and went out for breakfast with everyone. I was the last to get mine. Seems to be a reoccuring thing here!? boo. we took off for Ios at around 9:45am. My deary me it was an experience. Everyone seems really shocked that sam&i brought summery clothes with us.. they all have hiking shoes.. runners… hiking sandal things.. a mass of jumpers and long pants that you zip off if it gets hot. sam and I come out onto the deck in shorts and a shirt and thongs and they think we’re insane. herrooooo we’re in greeceeee!
when we started to get further away from the island it got insanely rocky. sam went down for a snooze, which everyone was amazed at, but she said it was really relaxing to sleep when it was rocking a bit. upstairs everyone was getting saturated.. the waves would leave us all salty and crystallized. julle was having to battle the ocean while everyone was asking him questions about cafes and museums…. he must have amazing patience. with the funniest persona, too. he has the most hilarious facial expressions.. sam and i are desperate to catch some on photo. he has a tanline of his sunglasses, it’s so bright! bahahah. it’s fab.
You can never tell if he’s joking or not either. his friend ‘joke’.. well.. that we noticed, was aimed towards sam when we realised her hands were for some reason a dark greyish colour, from touching something I guess? and Julle goes “oohhh yahh it’s all over your face too” and sam just looked stunned and gasped “really?!” and even though we’d all seen there was nothing on her face, we all double checked just coz we didnt’ realise he was joking! aha.
Ios is beautiful! lots of nice markets and cafes. we stopped for a late lunch and got meals to share. greek salads, eggplant, ….. I have a mindblank, but lotsa stuff.

don’t mind me.. i’m gonna skip ahead to tuesday for now and come back to this, coz I didn’t write down anything for a while

Tuesday 22nd
Hello. I’m writing this from below deck on the sailing boat. We’re on our way from Ios to Naxos, we got home from our Dinner + “greek dancing” venture at about 11:30pm and sam+I were dead tired so we called it a night while the other chatted on the deck with beers for a while.
After my (amazing.. at the time) pasta ala pesto, I was worried I’d eaten too much too late at night. turns out I was right. No idea what the time was, but I woke up and (don’t read ahead if you’re easily grossed out. aha) threw it basically all back up. it’s like they reformed in my stomach. bahahahha gross. sorry. but the worst part is I did it in the sink and then had to get rid of it. but I won’t go into that.
so ANYWAY. nothing like a bit of delayed sea sickness to start the day. We woke up at about 8:30, popped across to the market for some McVities digestives biscuits, yum, and some water. Lovely day, no clouds, hot sun, twas a shame to leave, really. it apparently has some really nice beaches. but who knows, we might go back!
onto naxos!
we took off at about 9:40, it’s now 12:05.
we saw some dolphins! 2 pinky grey ones about 20m to our boats left. reaaaaaaaaaaally cool.
sam went downstairs coz she was feeling a bit sick. I went down not too long after, coz my legs are so dry from the salt. with all the waves crashing into our boat and all the seaspray, I’ve turned into a salt crystal. it’s all shimmery. I look like edward cullen in the sun. bahahha. so i’m down here beside snoozing sam, about to do the same.
I think we’re spending 2 nights in naxos as julle doesn’t think we’ll be there for another few hours yet, so we won’t be able to do much today. tomorrow we might do a tour of the place, orrrr beach it.
Hello again, it’s 12:30pm and we just got back from dinner and a night “on the town” as they say. sam and I wandered the afternoon away. we finally showered and both feel amazing for it now. it was superb. mine was stone cold. but even that didn’t ruin it!
sam+ I had chocolate crepes for dunch… guilty. the water guy was completely staring. so many people do ahaha it’s weird. we met up with everyone back on the boat and went out for dinner at a seafood restaurant. sam+i were planning on going for the cheapest things on the menu, when the owner/head chef (?) came out and proposed the idea of bringing out an array of dishes, some his own creation, and said we split the cost evenly. there was baby squid, little fried prawns, octopus, fish salad, calamari, fried feta, caguettes (no idea of spelling… kinda like fried vegetable balls), meatballs, hot chips, tzatziki dip…. there was SO much food. the 9 of us ate so much and went back for 5ths and 6ths and 7ths but there was still so much leftover. so we got doggybags. mmmm. julle told us he was going to drink with a friend (as we’re not sailing tomorrow) and we decided to branch off to find somewhere to drink.
we both found the same place. I think he was hoping to get away from everyone. I don’t blame him… aha.
all the “adults” got quite drunk and were dancing to this foreign music, and sam and I were sitting down with our drinks as we hadn’t finished them yet. the americans keep talking down to us like we’re children, especially when they’ve had alcohol, and one came up and goes “oh sorry, do you need permission slips from your parents to come dancing?” arrrrrrrrrrr it’s annoying!
the night overall was fun though. I guess. ahahha. sam and I came back to the boat with Julle, and the others “partied on”…… aka came back to the boat about 20 minutes after we did. pfft! aha. they were all hungover this morning too. we were fine and dandy. talking about this morning….

wednesday 23rd
ta-da! we woke up at about 10, the latest we have here, and went out for breakfast. fried eggs on toast with juice and tea. yummmmmmmm. really good. then we went to an internet cafe.. I typed up heaps of what you’re reading here… and then the net cut off when I still had a minute left, so it didn’t save. fark. but it’s okay. i’ve been saving this one.
then walked for about 5mins to the beach. it was so hot! we didn’t realise until we stopped walking and put our stuff down. reaaaally hot. we lay in the sun for about 20mins and decided to try the water. it, unfortunately, was freezing. but we went in anyway and it warmed up within a few minutes. it was really good to be in water! finally swam in greece! def doing it more from now on. then came out, sunbaked a bit more, walked around the beach area, I got icecream, sam got a salad, and now we’re here. it’s 4:20. I think we’re gonna go for another wander, not sure where to.


I hear you’ve had a massive duststorm? heard it about 1,500 times with all your facebook status updates back home. I googled pictures… looks insane! of course we miss out on that. was it hard to breathe? tell me all I must know!
p.s. amy one thing I might not have answered very clearly, we normally sail in the morning. not during the night.

ciao! xo

reply to mum&dad

We are all fine and dandy. Dad & I have spent the weekend in the back garden weeding and planting trying to get it ready for summer. It has been so hot that it is scary. I am still wearing my shorts and it is 8 at night. It might be a really hot summer.
wow! do you know what the actual max temperature has been?! sounds like i’ll be leaving greece.. goign back to england.. and going home to my own personal greece! sam will be excited.. she claims it isn’t hot enough even here! teeeeeeeeeeeeehehe. it’ll be good once we can go swimming though, we haven’t had a chance yet.

Dudley is good, he drops down tomorrow from 2 tablets to 1 a day. I will have to trick them as Bailey knows the sound of the tablet bottle and I have been using it to get her to go to bed and go out in the morning. I will have to pretend from now. Dudley had a bath on Sat and really seemed to enjoy it. Hardest part was getting Bailey to stay out.
well i’m glad you gave him a bath - and annoyed that it took you this long of me pestering you to help me bathe him.. and then you do it right after I leave! grumblegrumble. I’m glad he enjoyed it though. did it make much difference in his appearance/fur? luckily he was never smelly anyway.

Do not bring home any stray cats, dogs or any other animal.
oh mum it’s been so hard i’ve already made friends with so many dogs, and sam with cats! can we, can we?

Bailey has just sat down for 20 mins to watch a show about coyetes it the snow. Amazing, Amy is here and will verify it for you. She was fixated. Dogs are not supposed to do that but she is not really a dog is she!
HAHAHAH. please tell me you got a photo or video or something? if not you’re giving me the most detailed story later. that’s hilarious. we picked a good one.


Don’t forget to ask for some pini apple juice.
I will. wow I was a cultured child… learning to ask for juice in greek. pinni apple ahahha.

LOVE YOU!