Introducing Thira (Fira)

THIRA - SANTORINI

After a brief sleep in I wake up in hope of a decent shower when I realise there is still no water. Throwing a tantrum, I slip on a shirt and head to reception to abuse someone. The reception guy or woman follows me upstairs to have a look.

He lifts the shower handle and notices that its locked. He unlocks the shower handle and the water comes full speed towards us. This had to be the most embarrasing moments in history. I was lost for words for once. The guy tried making me feel better by saying alot of people have the same question. I couldnt get the guy out of there fast enough. Bloody Nagasaki must have locked it after showering.

Stepping out of the shower, I feel refreshed and clean. OH man I was dying for that shower. I head into the kitchen to make breakfast. I decided to make toast and tea. I had to boil the water in a saucepan and grill the toast. It was a simple process that took me over half an hour. By that time I was over it. I didn't even feel like having breakfast. I miss my Turkey breakfasts.



Feeling adventourous we head to the town centre Thira for the day. We decided that we would spend the day exploring the town. I think we decided that we would eventually do the cable cars down the cliff and the donkeys up the cliff. Feeling petrified by this I decided not to argue and follow.

We hit some shops in the town centre when I decide to buy a necklance. Luckily no one's blood ended up on it this time. Somewhere along the line we brought Cherry's donkey or we discuss buying it and brought it later. Random postcards of Santorini were brought. The problem here was we never felt satisfied with the postcards and ended up buying more and more along the way.

After our random shopping spree we ended up at this cafe in the middle of the town. It was quite packed outside so we assumed it must be good. We ended up buying sandwiches and sitting down in the sun outside the cafe. The sandwiches were big and very filling. The cafe owners were swinging their arms and trying to get peoples attention to come into the cafe for lunch. I think at one stage there was no room left for anyone to sit but they kept insisting people to come into the cafe. They practically watched us eat so that they can ensure we eat quickly and piss off before the next customer came.

CABLE CARS

After lunch it was time to head to the cable cars. This was my worst nightmare. For thoses that know me would know I'm scared of heights. Well what better way to overcome this fear then squeeze into a tiny cable car going down a cliff side.

We pay $3.50 Euros each to ride the cable car down the cliff. We start walking towards a cable car and I'm already packing it. The thought of hanging in the air on this cable car was petrifying. We enter a cable car to only be joined by this American woman with a broken leg. She sat opposite me. I pulled out my video camera thinking if anything happens on this cable car my camera should have evidence of it.

This is when the American woman notices that I'm sweating in fear so she informs me that she's scared of heights as well. How the hell does that help me woman? The least you can do is tell me everything is going to be alright instead of telling me she's scared as hell too.

So the ride begins and at first I can't look because I'm too scared so I'm holding my camera high to record it all. Somewhere along the ride down I get the courage to look out and notice how amazing the scenery around me is. Unable to stop looking I take in the view and forget about my height problem. The cable car reaches the bottom and the American woman leaves us behind.


We jump out of the cable car and I'm quite excited as I survived the trip minus my panic attack and screaming on board. We start walking towards the exit when we notice some woman trying to steal another woman's singlet from her bag. I can't remember what the fuss was about but apparently the woman thought it was her singlet in the other woman's bag. So it was every woman for themselves. Ignoring both of the bitches we head down the stairs to explore.

THE OLD PORT

Picture - This is at the bottom of the cliff ie the Old Port

Above picture - Another view of Old Port

Picture this - Santorini old port, two lunatics seeing a shop nearby what does one do? Immediately throw themselves on the postcard rack and start collecting. As if this wasn't enough we walk next door to another shop to only find ourselves buying more postcards. I think somewhere along the line we agreed to stop buying Santorini postcards but I dont think that stopped us.

THE DONKEY RIDE

Along the way we found the donkey rides where the guy charged us $3.50 Euros each to ride a donkey. The deal was the donkey was supposed to take us to the top. Man we just got to the bottom just to get back up.

Now I have never been on a donkey before and it has been years since I have been on a horse. I think the last time was Ulladulla. So I'm the first to jump on top of this donkey and have no idea whats happening when the donkey starts to storm off. I have no idea how to stop this donkey.
Finally the donkey decides to stop and wait for the other donkies.

Once the other donkies arrived, its full speed in climbing this cliff. I panic as there is no leader and I have no idea how to ride one of theses. It started as a bumpy ride when Nagasaki came shoving my donkey out of the way and shoving me against the wall. The donkey was a complete nutcase trying to shove people off the cliff and god forbid if anyone tried overtaking him he would ensure he had the lead. No other donkeys were allowed to overtake and if anyone dared it would be sucide for them. Trust me I was begging my donkey not to overtake as I was travelling mostly near the cliff side rather than the wall side.

The leading donkey was walking in a zig zag mode and ensuring he was blocking off any other donkeys in the process. At one stage I noticed the donkey shoving this woman and donkey almost over the cliff as he rammed them into the side of the railing. The woman stepped into panic mode and I was disgusted I couldn't get my camera out as this was happening.

Somewhere along the trip, whilst I was getting my tan in this heat the tour leader caught up to us. About bloody time man! He was going to leave us to die here. For some reason the donkeys were calmer now and we were unable to pull out our cameras and take happy snaps. I remember trying so hard not to drop the camera.

As we approached the top of the cliff Nagasaki's donkey caused a huge commotion. I think some donkey overtook him so the two psycho's decided to teach the other donkey a lesson by shoving him against other donkies. I remember the screaming and yelling but was too busy trying to find a stop for my donkey to park.

This was one hell of an experience. I think my face was burnt. Before we got off the donkies we asked some random guy to take a photo of us with my camera. The bastard couldn't take the photo and some how ended up switching it from photo mode to camera mode. So all we got was a 10 sec clip of us looking lost. Theses inconsiderate pricks that don't know how to take a fuckin photo.

Feeling the need to shop we threw ourselves into the closest shop and yes now I remember this is where we brought Cherry's donkey. May she be with that donkey for good times and bad times. Oh more postcards were brought too....

Before we hit another postcard rack we decide we should check out Perissa Beach, which is famous for it's black sand in Santorini. Apparently the black sand is due to the presence of the famous Volcano.

We find our way to the bus stop and decide to make a pit stop just before boarding the bus. We find the toilet and the minute I enter I realise its one of thoses squatting holes. Turning to my left I see the bus windows from the toilet window. To my luck there was no one on the bus otherwise I could have put on a show.

PERISSA BEACH



We stroll onto the bus and after a short bus trip, we arrive at Perissa Beach. Now words can not describe this place. This place was amazing. We split up to walk across the beach and take our photos and enjoy the views. I immediately notice the black sand and point my camera to it.
It's a peaceful atmosphere and I notice several people on the beach reading a book and sleeping. There isn't much commotion going on and it seems every one here wants to simply chill out.

We spend the next 10 minutes taking photos in every position you can think of. Before we start taking photo's of dogs. Hence this became an obessession. We have god knows how many photos of dogs. I could have a dog calendar for the next 7 years if I wanted to.

We decided to walk abit further from the beach towards the Aegean Church, well known for its blue domes. After about 15 photo shots we decide to take photos of this tiny house hidden up in the mountains on a cliff. I have no idea how anyone could live there or how they would access the house but hey it looks good from here.

After the photo shoot we decide to grab some lunch - about time. I'm suprised we haven't eaten yet. We stroll towards all the resturants only to be totally disgusted by the prices so we throw ourselves into the nearest pita/kebab shop. With a few bucks we score a pita roll only for me to give half of it to a dog staring at me. I felt sorry for him ok. He had a cute look and looked like he was starving.

We decided to run when we saw a bus coming towards the beach thinking it's our bus only to notice it's a tour bus up close and personal. The problem was if we missed the next bus to town we would be stuck out here for the next few hours. Since this wasn't our bus we decided to go buy some more postcards and a drink to cool down with. Walking back to the bus stop we notice that the tour bus has suddently turned into our town bus. We bolted like lunatics to throw ourselves onto this bus before it departed. We just managed to climb on when the doors swung close behind us. Man why do we always have to do theses stunts.

I think by this time we were both exhausted and was looking towards a noice shower. When we slowly approached the apartment we immediately noticed that our apartment door was wide open. We immediately threw ourselves in panic mode, thinking that we forgot to lock the door and now someone has broken in and robbed us.

We storm up the stairs towards our apartment when I have to slam on my brakes just as I am about to knock the cleaning lady smack bang into the wall. There was a huge tension between the cleaning lady and me. I think she thought I was about to slam her over the balcony, well I was but thats not the point. We feel releaved that we didnt get robbed and it was this stupid cleaning woman who for some reason decided to clean our room at 5 or 6pm. Like who the hell waits until 5pm to clean the room. Its not like there is 50 apartments here. I think theres like 4 in total. We settle in the apartment while the cleaner smiles at us.

Now this is my favourite bit. All of a sudden I hear a mad panic in the next room, not knowing what the hell is going on I dash into the bedroom and find out that the laundry we hung up this morning has been blown over the balcony. Checking my laundry I realise all my clothes are here and this is when we realise that Nagasaki's underpants have gone overboard. In a mad panic Nagasaki storms off nearly tumbling over the cleaner. The cleaner must think we are totally lunatics trying to run into her.

The cleaner walks into the room while I'm standing on the balcony trying to make sense of whats happening when it occurs to me that maybe the cleaner picked up the underpants. So I approach her and try asking her if she has taken the underpants inside when she gives me a disgusted look. I can barely speak Greek and she can't speak english so I was trying to use sign language and showed her another pair of underpants. I think she thought that I wanted her to take off her underpants. She replied "No No No" and stormed out of the room as fast as she could.

So I did the next best thing. I pulled out my camera and started filming. I started zooming in to try and locate the missing underpants when the guy staying 2 apartments down from me noticed and said Hi to me. For some reason I told him I was looking for red underpants and our conversation suddenly died there. I really should have asked him if he saw any red underpants.

Meanwhile Nagasaki is picking up bits and pieces off the dirt in the yards of the apartment while I'm filming. All I hear is "Stop filming or I'm going to rib your balls off". Some people just don't like me helping them. Here I am, going out of my way to try and find the missing red underpants and I don't even get a thank you.

In conclusion the missing red underpants never got found, so we assumed some dog picked it up to sleep with or the old guy downstairs thought it was christmas at once and is smooching it now.

Moral of the story - Don't take off your underpants in Santorini....

I'm actually laughing about this as I'm writing it. Nagasaki storms back into the room when the cleaner decides to drag us into the bathroom together. For a moment I thought she was going to complain that I was hitting on her when I wasn't. I just wanted the red underpants. The cleaner started pointing to towels and the ground. I think she was telling us off for making a mess. This all came about whenI wore my thongs on top of the towel we had on the ground. I think because the towel had black marks on it she was complaining. We agreeed not to do what ever she was on about, I still don't know mind you. The cleaner leaves and we question whether or not she told the red underpants as spite. What type of a sick person would steal someone elses red underpants for spite?

After the missing red underpants commotion we both realise we need a nap to recover. We have a short nap before we book for the Santorini tour tomorrow. Its an all day tour which we get to climb on top of a volcano. Meanwhile Nagasaki manages to get all the photos from the digital camera burnt to a CD. Should I dare ask what special favours were undertaken here?

Feeling hungry we ask the owners in reception for a recomendation for a good resturant. They tell us to try El Greco. So we go in search of the resturant. We have a noice meal and do a few laps around town to notice that tart again in front of the "Strip" club. We decide to film her this time. So I pull out my camera only to notice that she has caught on to our game and is trying to hide. Everything time I took a picture I would get her back. Feeling exhausted we give up and decide to head back to the apartment to rest before tomorrow tour. But not before buying more postcards along the way.

One finally stop for the night was outside a honey puff store. Now for thoses that know honey puffs are quite small fried pieces of dough slaughted in honey. We paid $10 for 6 honey puffs only to find the honey puffs to be gigantic. It was impossible to fit one whole honey puff into your mouth. Back at the apartment, we take a bite each for me only to almost vomit it back out. They weren't cooked probably and were almost raw. We threw the tray into the bin and jumped into bed.

Thinking of the day ahead I quickly fell asleep...