Farewell to paradise

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  Paros, Cyclades, Greece
Thursday, June 5, 2008

mood: sad!

I appologise for the length between entries, but the last few days have been very busy and its been hard to find time to sit down and think about what to write!

On Sunday morning I made my first phone call back home, it was really nice to talk to everyone there and made me feel a lot better, and definately less homesick. Sunday also saw the new group arrive, i was on the beach and happened by chance to run into an aussie girl who was part of the group, and ended up spending the avo sitting with her and 2 of her friends relaxing and sunbaking. I arranged to meet them in town after they did the tour and had dinner with the group at the same restaurant that we had visited my first night.

After dinner we visited a couple of bars, the first being a coctail bar which had a window seat which looked out over the bay. The sun had just set and as it got dark they turned on the lights underneath the water and the whole area lit up, it was stunning to see. We also visited whats called "Down Under Bar" before heading to one of the most popular clubs on the island, the Scandinavian bar. All the guides that take these tours are fantastic when it comes to buying us drinks, i assume that they get a budget to spend on shots etc, because we survived the whole night on a very small ammont of money! During the days on the beach as well, there are always promo people walking around with free shot cards, to try to promote coming into town rather than hanging around in the bars on the beach.

My new group

Which works for me! By the end of the night i had befriended a great group of 5 Americans and caught a taxi with them back to Paradise.

Monday was my last day on Mykonos, and it saw me wake up with a slight hangover, which seemed to be cured by another relaxing day on the beach with my new american friends, snoozing, reading and swimming. I also spent some time chatting to them about all sorts of differences between us and them, especially food! Late in the avo they decided to get some wine and have a couple of drinks on the beach, and this was where the drink of the trip was created: red wine and fanta - very tasty. wine here is so cheap (and nasty haha) but you can buy 1.5lr bottles for around 2-3euro. This wine was also the start of some drinking games, i didnt realise how many games these americans come up with - they are crazy!!! i have adopted some and have vowed to bring them back to Australia with me as they are alot of fun.

I also have to mention something that i find a little disturbing about Paradise. The first day we were there we sat down at one side of the beach, not realising till later that this was where all the old NAKED people sit!!! there must be a huge number of retirees that live on the island and spend every day lying fully naked, legs spread, on the beach. its quite unusual! and this is on the same beach as little children who are running around. funnily enough though, they seem to all have very long conversations with each other like its the most natural thing in the world.

Farewelling Paradise

hang out with your wang out. Brent would love it.

I notice that there have been some comments made by a couple of parental units on my blogs in regards to my food consumption. may i just clarify something, yes i have sometimes been eating fruit and vegies, but leave me alone im on holidays i can eat what i want!!!! Oh yes and i have added another staple food group to my diet: gyros! its actually pronounced euros, and its chicken or pork with tomato, lettuce, onion and tatziki wrapped up in a pita bread. They are AMAZING. I think i could live off them forever. and they are incredibly cheap, about 2.50euro each. Shame i cant ship them home.

I had to farewell Paradise on Tuesday, and we caught a fast ferry to my next island, Paros - i will be here for 4 days. It was incredibly windy, and because the ferry was quite small, it was very rough. I didnt take any sea sick tablets before i left as the ride was going to be less than an hour and i hadnt felt sick at any point so far, which was a pretty big mistake as i felt very ill by the end of the trip! I was sitting next to a Canadian guy which ended up being good as we talked the whole way and it kept my mind off the roughness of the ride, but i was glad to get off at the end. The weather turned to poo when we got to Paros, it was cold, overcast, and very windy. We caught our transfer to the hotel and pulled on some pants and jumpers. Our accommodation was called Elizabeth Pension, and it is run by a crazy irish woman (who swears something chronic) and her greek husband.

Natalie with our 5lr bottle of wine!

like alot of the hotels and rooms on the islands, ours was 12 rooms with 2 or 3 beds in each, and they are more like a big house than a hotel. each room has a small bathroom, a tv and a fridge. As soon as i saw that fridge i almost cried i was so happy. why? because i could finally host a supply of MILK YAY!!!!! it was about 5pm when we arrived and most people dumped their bags and we headed straight to the mini market up the street to stock up on supplies. My main purchase was of course milk, and i also put in for some wine and fanta. we bought a (get ready for it) 5litre bottle of wine - and it was only 8euro. it was discustingly big! the lady that served us couldnt speak much english, but as soon as she saw the bottle she laughed so hard. Same with the irish host, she made fun of us when we got back to the hostel.

We did an orientation walk around the town after our shopping spree. We are staying in the port of Parikia, about 5 minutes walk to the beach and resturants. Its quite a cute little town, they dont have the same laws as Mykonos in regards to their buildings, so it looks a little different. But it still has the same style of architecture and colours as the other greek islands. Things here are also a lot cheaper than in Mykonos, especially the restaurants! We went to a delicious one looking over the water and it was about a third of the price of the resturants in Mykonos - and the food was delicious. We also went to a bar for a while, played some pool, but i was too cheap to drink as i was going to be blowing my budget the following day.

After we got bored of the bar a group of us went back to the hotel and got the wine, and we carried it down to the beach.

Greek orthodox church - Paros

We played some games and chatted before we were found by these 3 hilarious french boys and a girl who told us that they had been spending the last few nights sleeping on the beach. they said that they left their bags in a hostel for 3euro a night and had been getting drunk and then sleeping with some stray dog that they had met on the beach. so crazy!!! i promise you i will never do that haha. they were incredibly funny, we taught them some drinking games and spent most of the night laughing at them. by yesterday morning, there was only about a quarter of the wine left. it was all very random. i ended up going to bed a bit earlier than some of them as i had to get up early the next day, apparently after i left some irish guy joined them too. they had 5 countries on the beach at one stage.

Nights on the islands have been really really cold compared to back in athens when you couldnt even sleep with a sheet on. The new rooms at the hotel are quite warm, but the huts at paradise were freezing and i ended up having to get my sleeping bag out because a blanket wasnt enough. The days are beautiful though.

Yesterday i got up early (8am is early for me now!) and went on a sailing boat to explore the coastline of Paros and its sister island, Antiparos. This was one of my favourite days so far. It was a big wooden sailing boat called Alexandros (i think) and our captain was very amusing and entertaining. the boat is used as a fishing vessel during the low season, and then does tours during the tourist season.

On the beach

the cruise was quite expensive at 42 euro, but it went for the whole day and included all your drinks and bbq lunch. The tour took us to some amazing little coves along the coastline, where we would stop and could go swimming and take photos. the water here is such an amazing irredescent bluegreen colour, and it is so clear that as you are sailing it looks like its so shallow you could put your hand down and touch the bottom. The cruise was very relaxing and so if we werent swimming or taking photos we were lying out on the deck in the sun watching the world go by.

Lunch was on a little beach and it was a bbq of octopus (which was so delicious!), then souvlaki (which over here is meat - we had pork - marinated with herbs on sticks) with greek salad, bread and tatziki. And dad, yes, the greek salad here is probably the best in the world. for those that dont know, greek salad is usually tomato, onion, feta cheese and olive oil. ours also had boiled potatoes, peppers and capers. it was absolutely delicious. the greeks also love to have crusty bread dipped in olive oil, every resturant serves it as a complimentary starter, and their oils have such a nice flavour.

anyway, after our lunch we made a couple of swimming stops and tried to find some octopus (we were unsucessful), did some snorkelling, stopped off at a small resturant and had icecreams (and lay around in a hammock for a while - i have decided when i get home i want a hammock - they are awesome) and then sailed back to Paros where we got transferred back to our hotel.

I joined the 3 american girls + a canadian guy for dinner at a cute little resturant for dinner, then we headed back and had a quiet drink at the hotel before heading off to bed. I was exhausted.

Today my group left and again i am all alone! being why my mood is sad :( but luckily there is another group joining us today which will mean another group of new friends! I am just having a quiet day today, will have dinner with the new group tonight, and then tomorrow i will probably try to explore a little more of the island.

Oh and by the way - great to hear that my blog has been banned from work!!! And it even got a bulletin dedicated to it haha, its so good to know that you guys are all following what i have been up to. Please keep me updated - i love it!!!

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Sailing trip 1	Sailing trip 2	Sailing trip 3	Sailing trip 4 - hole through the rock
Our lunch stop	Our sailing ship	Beautiful Antiparos	A lady bug on my towel
Me swimming in one of the caves	Snorkelling	A house on the hill	My new favourite thing
My view	Watching the sun set	Me	Mike with the sunset
Farewell sunshine!	Sunset

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