Greece: 5 Islands, 100 Disasters, 1000 Laughs

Of course it’s every girl’s dream to go to Greece… and not just because of Sisterhood of the Traveling pants… maybe a little bit. The author IS a Barnard grad, so I maybe felt a bit of a calling. Tace and I had the most unbelievable time. I say unbelievable because the outrageous disasters couldn’t even have happened to Tibby, Lena, Bridget, or Carmen. Nothing went according to plan, but all of the mishaps made an incredible trip that kept us laughing throughout.

Disaster Day 1:
The morning of our flight to Athens I woke up with a deadly cold. We had a 4-hour layover in Frankfurt, between Edinburgh and Athens, arriving in Athens airport at 3am. My mom’s friend thought we were arriving the next day, so when I called at 3am saying ‘We’re Here!,’ I gave her an almost heart attack. Despite all the wonderful things that happened on our way to Athens, we hadn't yet lost hope. We got to Kelly’s beautiful home in Kifissia, a suburb of Athens, and slept for a few hours before waking up to start our adventures. Kelly, one of the most extraordinary women I have ever met, took us out for a lady’s lunch, prosecco, grand salads, and great conversation included. We walked around the town of Kifissia for a few hours and basked in the warm air, an anomaly to us Scotsmen.

Debacle Day 2:
After delicious Greek yogurt for breakfast, we took the train into Athens and walked around Monasteriki, the area at the base of the Acropolis, and admired the endless rows of beautiful jewelery, sandals, fresh fruit, and leather goods. We hiked to the top of the Acropolis to see the Parthenon, but with our luck, it closed 5 minutes before we arrived. Great. I then ran into a camp friend, Lauren, from 1000 years ago. Crazy. Tace brilliantly managed to trade her sunglasses for another pair from a street vendor. Stick with this one… she’s handy. We stopped to have fresh strawberries and coconut slices while walking to Koloniki, where we had coffee with a friend of Tace’s. Kelly’s daughter Christina took us out in Kifissia that night. Christina is in High School, so there we are, 21 year old girls, sitting have drinks with 16 year old boys. It was nostalgic. They were rapping at one point.

Fiasco Day 3:
Off to Santorini!!! The next few days are a little more Vicki, Christina, Barcelona-esk than Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants-y. We arrived at the Santorini airport and were of course picked up by a handsome Greek local, George (side note: every single man in Greece is either named George or Kostas, so this guy might as well have been a Kostas… YES!). Beautiful George was also our hotel manager, so after getting settled he said to just walk straight into town, a supposedly 300m walk… but straight on a Greek island is impossible, considering there are only narrow alleyways between the tiny houses, which all look exactly alike. It took us about 30 minutes to walk 300m. Thanks George. We decided to walk down the winding, back-and forth, cliffside road to the old port at the base of the Caldera. Most people take donkeys, the preferred mode of island transportation, so the whole road is basically marked by donkey shit… and we were in sandals. So after the donkey-shit-caked trek down, we dipped our feet in water and sunbathed for a bit. We didn’t have the energy or proper footwear to walk back up the donkey-shit-road, so we decided to do as the locals do and actually take the donkeys up. The donkey-managers fought over who should take us and eventually decided we didn’t need anyone and smacked the donkeys to go. Now most people would think donkeys aren’t the brightest of creatures, but as soon as these guys were out of their manager’s sight, they just stopped. So there we are, stuck on the road with donkeys that just want to eat and stand and sunbathe and nibble at each other. We yelled everything we could think of that might have meant ‘Go’ but they preferred grazing to climbing. We even sang to them. After sitting in the same spot for 30 minutes, a manager slowly appeared, and guess what… the donkeys started moving. We then went to Ía to see the famous sunset, where Albanian boys who pretended to be Greeks followed us around. Once we escaped, we sat in a Taverna to have a glass of wine. We eventually headed back to Fira to have dinner at a restaurant wonderful George recommended. Our waiter, Kostas (naturally), ended up sitting down with us, not charging for our meal and bringing endless carafes of wine. We went out with the chefs, but Tace and I brilliantly lost each other. I panicked and asked some random guy to drive me back, figuring Tace would do the same. I get into the hotel and who is standing there…. My friend Susan from 1000 years ago. Another crazy run-in. Tace is yet to be found. She ends up being accompanied home by the police at 4am. And that was just our first night in Santorini.

Calamity Day 4:
Tace mysteriously woke up with a swollen eye. It subsided, but was nevertheless hysterical/frightening. George came into our room with coffee and croissants to apologize for the lack of hot water. Tace spoke to him with one hand over her eye. We forgave and shivered. We wanted to rent motorcycles to explore more of the island, but after asking the renter too many questions about how to ride, he refused to rent us the two-wheelers and demanded we take the four-wheelers. Fine. We took the ATVs in the pouring rain all over Santorini and ended up back at the northern tip of the Island, Ía, where we had watched the sunset the previous night. We walked into a restaurant to have breakfast and our waiter pointed at me and said, ‘You! I drove you home last night!’ I just stood there in awe/shock/embarrassment. How is it possible that the guy who drove me home after I was lost last night, was my waiter this morning? WHAT! He did give us free dessert though. We took the ATVs back to Fira in the rain and went to have dinner with wonderful George and his friend, Elias. We went to beach-side bars and danced all night. I ran into the waiter again… the one who drove me home the night before… the one who gave me free dessert that morning… Santorini is very straaaange.

Catastrophe Day 5:
After our ice-cold showers (again), we headed down the donkey-shit-road to the port to take a boat to an extinct Volcanic island and swim in hot springs. It was pouring rain, but we managed to climb to the top despite the hurricane conditions. We were covered in dirt and soaking wet by the time we got back down. At this point, everything was funny. We ran into Susan again on the boat AND girls who were studying abroad in Madrid who were friends with our friends in Edinburgh. Such a small world. After getting the volcanic rock out of our hair, bodies, and clothes, it was time to head back to civilization. We had a 7pm flight back to Athens that night and guess who was on our flight? George! So he offered to drive us to the airport. At 6:15 we started panicking because George’s mysterious cousin had yet to show up to drive us all. After frustrating George enough, he grabbed his father, Kostas, who didn’t speak a word of English and managed the infamous/efficient donkey stables, and stuck him in the back with me. So there we are. Me, Tace, George, and George’s dad… racing to the airport. Yes, there is camera footage of this. George demanded we delete it, but Tace managed otherwise.

We spent the next couple of days Island hopping around. To summarize... Tace fell down a cliff. Tace fell of her bike. Tace fell into a thorn bush. We never had running water. I was still sick and was medicated with mysterious cold medicine by waiters. We ATVd around the circumference of Spetzes and found a lost herd of cows by a beach playing volleyball.



We never stopped laughing.

French Riviera stories soon to come.

Mum's The Word

There’s much to write about, but before I venture into the details of my three weeks away on the Greek Islands and the French Riviera, Mum comes first.
She came for a long weekend and we had the complete Scottish experience, highlands, coos, and haggis included. Her first day here was packed with all the major Edinburgh sites… and when I say all, I mean every single attraction in this small city was covered. First Elephant house for some tea and scones, then the Graveyard for some Harry Potter indulgence, then the National Museum to brush up on our Scottish history, then the National Gallery for the opening of the Turner exhibition, then the Castle for some royal delight, then the Witchery to eat in the gallows where the witches were hanged, then Brass Monkey for some Scottish ale, and to top the evening off we went to see a hip-hop street dance version of the Pied Piper at the Festival Theatre House. Exhausted.

We woke up early to catch a train to Stirling, a city clustered around a large fortress and medieval old-town along the River Forth. Historically it was strategically important as the ‘Gateway to the Highlands’, located near the boundary between the Scottish Lowlands and Highlands, and its crossing of the Forth, the nearest to the river mouth. We stayed at a fantastic Bed and Breakfast in Bridge of Allan, right outside the old-town. We walked across the town and climbed up some of the central hills, where we found a medieval beheading stone. From that site was a tiny path that led to the castle, where the famous (copies) of the Unicorn tapestries are hung. It was spectacular. We found a small pub and listened to some live music, which was mostly Scotsmen performing their renditions of classic American songs. We ended the night in a restaurant located inside the city walls and watched the Holland vs. Scotland soccer match over Haggis.

Next it was Inverness, considered the capital of the Scottish Highlands, located in the very northern part of the country. The city lies where the Loch Ness meets the Moray Firth… the home of the Nessie the Loch Ness monster. Inverness is the bagpiper centre of Scotland, all the signs are in Scottish Gaelic, and the entire town is devoted to finding Nessie. We stayed in Drumnadrochit, a tiny town located on the shore of the Loch Ness. There are only three hotels there, but over two dozen Nessie exhibitions, museums, and monster-hunting offices. It is also the town in which Urquhart Castle is located. The castle is terribly destroyed and all that’s left is a skeleton of the once largest stronghold of medieval Scotland. It is located directly on the Loch Ness and is supposedly the sit where most of the monster sittings have occurred. We looked for hours… I think I might have seen a tail. We headed back to our Bed and Breakfast and had Bangers and Mash (Sausages and Potatoes) over some Drumnadrochit brewed beers.
The next day we headed back to the train station and took the beautiful scenic trip across the country back to Edinburgh. We had a fantastic last night dinner in Leith overlooking the waterfront.


Gotta love my mom.

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