Greece part 1 (Sam)

(Sam) Well, we are out of Egypt now, relaxing on the Greek island of Naxos. We took a flight from Cairo to Athens beside some people who had brought their cats as carry-on. We spent 3 days in Athens, we saw a whole bunch of cool historic monuments including, the Parthenon, Lyvaticcos Hill, Roman Agora, Ancient Agora, and I eat a total of 7 delicious souvlakis.

As I said earlier, we are in Naxos now and we have been for the past 10 days. The first few days were rainy and cold but now it is sunny, although still very windy. Most days we have done very little: read, write or go for a walk in the the tiny alleys of the old village. One day we rented a car and went for a drive through the island's interior. There were many marble quarries and we even passed through a couple of villages where the sidewalks, alleys, even the curbs were made of marble. Another day, (Easter Sunday)we went for a long walk along the coast, when we arrived in town we were so hungry that we stopped at a restaurant and had the special: Easter lamb roasted on a spit, it was delicious. Another I should mention was that we went to the midnight easter service. The church was packed and when the service was over everybody lit firecrackers and the square outside seemed to blow up due to the sheer number of explosives, oh, did I mention that the church bells went crazy as well?

Santorini.

Santorini is a volcanic island shaped like a crescent. It used to be round, but after a massive explosion, the centre of the island collapsed along with most of the west coast, leaving giant black cliffs along what is now the west coast. When we got off the ferry we went to a travel agency and asked what kind of hotel they could offer. They told us about a three star place, on the east coast, close to the beach, with a kitchen and free Wi-Fi for 40 euros a night, it sounded good so we took it. The hotel turned out to be quite nice, and the beach is good too. Because of the islands volcanic past, the sand is black, and coarse. Today we were planning on swimming at the beach, but seeing as the water gets deep fast, the sand is not fine and soft and the waves are absolutely huge, we decided against it. Especially since we had already experienced huge waves in Varkala, India. Tomorrow we will have a rental car, and will look for a beach that is protected from the waves.