Turnaround on Santorini Island

A view of Santorini from the ferry as we neared the port.

Santorini was as beautiful as they said. It has such a vacation island feel to it, with the bright white buildings nestled in cliffs and beaches lined with covered restaurant patios.

Mike and I took a fifteen-hour ferry ride from Piraeus to the island. Delays made it a couple hours longer but it wasn't too bad because

1. we met more interesting people on the ship: Brodie and Bridie, two Australians stopping at a different island, Orestes, who taught us some Greek phrases, and his friends who gave additional insider info on Greece.
2. now I can say I've been on a seventeen-hour ferry ride.
3. at €34 it was cheap, especially since sleeping on the ferry meant not having to pay for a hostel.
4. we met Kam and Penny

Ferry friends hanging out on the deck 'round midnight. We exchanged our names, names of places to visit, and names of bands to check out.

It was the second coincidence involving the flight from Gatwick, London to Athens International. The first time we crossed paths with two Australians who were staying at the same hostel. This time it was two girls from New York who would be staying in the same hostel, Tony's Villa.

Mike recognized them. Apparently they sat in the seats infront of us during the flight and I had been (unknowingly, honest!) kicking Kam's chair. I was extra careful not to do the same on my flight today!

Anyway, they were only staying in Santorini for one night so with the help of Tony's friend the four of us put together a quick plan to check out the "island center," so to speak, Fira, and then head up to Oia for the famous sunset view.

The hostel rooms weren't ready yet so we dropped off our luggage and went for a walk.

Kam, Penny, and Mike, by the beach, eating their odd breakfasts. (Not that mine wasn't.)

After being sold into entering another restaurant, we sat down to order an odd mix of food—one you would only see on a table when four stomachs had been confused by a day-long ferry ride. I had an atypically small meal of Dolmadakia, a cold appetizer which is basically rice wrapped in a grape leaf and smothered in lemon juice. Yummy. The others went for more dinnery foods like Spaghetti and Moussaka (sort of an eggplant lasagna).

So there we were, sitting in another covered patio by the beach, watching the sun and waves. People were suntanning and swimming and I was sitting back, eating slow, relaxed by the heat.

I found myself wondering what I'd done to deserve sitting on a Santorini beach, pretending that, just like everyone else, I was on vacation.

The Turnaround

Finally getting up from the so-called breakfast we headed back to Tony's Villa to unpack, shower, etc. I checked my email and found a message from Leanne asking me to phone her. It was her birthday and I couldn't phone her from the ferry so I thought it might be that.

Unfortunately it wasn't. There's been a "family medical emergency*" and several out-of-town relatives had already flown or driven in to Vancouver.

So in the next few hours I contacted my travel insurance company to determine coverage and booked flights back home. I left Santorini that night, catching another plane from Athens to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam where I'm now waiting to fly to Vancouver.

I hope everything's going to be alright.

* Sorry to keep this vague but I really never thought I would be in a position where I felt compelled to blog about something like this. I want to leave at least some explanation as to why I've cut my travel plans short without giving too much detail about the personal lives of those around me.