Lovely Mykonos..

We arrived at lovely island of Mykonos June 4th, after a five and a half hour ferry ride from Athens. Our ferry left the Port of Pireaus at 7:35 am (last time I woke up that early was in highschool probably...) and we spent five hours on the Superfast Blustar Ithaki that sailed around the Greek Isles to Mykonos. We rode the cheap seats, meaning plastic chairs outside on the deck, but the view was still beautiful. The ferry stopped in port Siros and Tinos before arriving to our destination.

Once we got to "new port" in Mykonos, we spent an hour waiting for our hotel to pick us up. I frantically called my mom, hoping it wasn't too early, for the Hotel Vanilla's number since the one we had was not working. We asked several of the other hotel workers that were picking up tourists if they knew where our hotel was, and it appeared not many even knew about it! A British ex-pat exclaimed he had never heard of it, therefore it can't be good, and then offered Bobby and I jobs as receptionist at his hotel (I have his card in case OT doesn't work out, hah).

We finally grabbed a taxi to take us. Although he had not heard of it, we showed him the address and he drove us fifteen minutes to a drive way for a hotel that overlooked the beach. He quickly got out all our bags and the moment I paid him drove off without even giving us a chance to make sure it was the right hotel. It wasn't. Luckily the nice Greek man working the desk called our hotel (he also hadn't heard about it...at this point Bobby is wondering what kind of shit hotel I had booked for us) and claimed it was "just 200-300 meteres down the street, turn left at the fork, and its on your right." Thank goodness he was right.

The Vanilla Hotel is and pretty, located at Ornos Beach in Mykonos, just 3km away from Mykonos Town. The room was small, but manageable, although we had some issues with the teeny shower (impossible to shave legs). We spent our first day eating lunch on the beach (I fed half of Bobby's burger to a really skinny tabby kitty who sat at our feet the whole time) and lounging by the pool, where we met a sweet British couple. We planned to hit the beach again the next day and the town in the afternoon.

However, we woke up to pounding rain, thunder, and crazy lightning. The receptionist at the hotel claimed this never happens, but the rain was necessary for the farmers. After a simple breakfeast in the hotel, we took the local bus over to Mykonos Town wearng rain coats and sneakers. The town was the typical Greek town you can imagine; white buildings with blue, green, or red shutters, teeny roads, and heaps of shops and cafes. We avoided the rain by eating traditional Greek food in a taverna called Nicos. Bobby had a special lamb dish wrapped in olive leaves with cheese and potatoes, and I had spicy meatballs and potatoes. mmmmmmm...

We walked around town a bit and did some shoppping (Sam did shopping). We picked up sandwiches, fruit, and two bottles of local Mykonos wine (6 euros for both of them, hahaha) for dinner since it did not seem the rain would stop all night and all restaurants were a bit of a hike away. Our bus ride back had two Aussies on it, and us four reminisced about that amazing country and "Aussie rules Football." Gotta love 'em. Our hotel only has BBC News in English, so we've become very well-read in international current events and have both finished two books. I'm in the middle of Vonnegut's Cat Cradle.

Even though it rained all day we still enjoyed our selves traveling around town and conversing with locals. We've gotten down the "please" and "thank yous" in Greek, kind of. Bobby and I are currently waiting for our three o'clock ferry over to Santorini, which one of my best gal pals in college claims is "heaven." Can't wait!

Adio! (goodbye in greek)