We have just arrived on the island of Paros. We had kind of a rough day today, two days of seeing the sunrise will do that to you. But we did meet some great Greek girls to spend the time with. They taught us some dirty words in Greek, and they laugh at our attempt to pronounce it.
Everybody is very chill in the islands. No one rushes for anything, they don’t rush you from your table when you’re done eating. They won’t even bring you the bill until you ask for it. Especially on many of the small islands, the locals are kind of upset about all the development going on. In Koufonisi, you have to walk about 30 minutes to the closest beach. By next year they’re planning on getting taxis. They like having the small islands secluded and not touristy. In fact, we did not meet a single American tourist on the island. The most common scenario was people from Athens on vacation.
Two nights ago, we really got a chance to get to know the captain. We drank with him at the bar, and them moved to the beach for some more beer and hanging out. You could almost call it a bonding experience. He did tell us we were doing the trip the right way, really experiencing Greece. Staying out late and meeting the Greek people. In his words, you can read a book at home. If you want to experience, you have to do. And then we passed out because it was 8:30 in the morning.
Here’s a picture from that morning. You’ll see the captain looking off into the sunrise: 
And here’s one of us pulling into Pori beach on Koufonisi:
Near the beach, there’s a great cove for diving. Completely secluded. You can even swim under the rocks and get to the outside. And of course, I hit my head on the rocks. It hurts.
Today in Paros, there’s a nice quiet beach where the mud has exfoliating properties. So here’s us as mudpeople:
Here’s a picture of us walking on the beach with our new friend Alex in Ios:
The last two pictures were taken by our friend Ewen. He’s a professional photographer, so I’ll get more pictures from him before the sailing trip is over.
So I had some problems posting pictures from the particular computer I’m using on Koufonissi, so you can see some here.
July 6, 2005 Koufonissi islands, Greece. Sorry for the long time between posts but we have been in some of the smallest islands you could ever imagine. Our sailing trip started 3 days ago and we have gone farther and farther from civilization. We went to Ios, which is a really big party island, but we were moored off of this tiny village with like one restaurant. Everywhere we go has maybe 1 or 2 fish taverna, about a hundred little churches, and lots of secluded beaches. Some Greeks we met said that it is a thing of honor for a Greek family to build a little church on their property to show their independence from Turkey and to honor their ancestors. As for our sailing trip, we have a full boat with 8 people and a captain named Satiris who is exactly like a Greek charter captain should be: he has a ridiculous tan, lots of Tattoos, and seems to know someone at every island we stop at. It is a pretty good group, but I am one of the only sailors so I have been doing a lot of the work, which is fine with me. We went first to Ios, then to a tiny island called Iraklia which was my favorite. We went looking for this cave that was supposed to be the original home of some sacred religous painting icon, but we could never find it and we walked over the whole island in the dark (with some Greek highschool girls that got in major trouble when they got back to their parent’s boat. Nothing happened, but we thought we might have to make a quick gettaway!)
The ferries are everywhere. They are much bigger than you might think, especially when you are tied up at their spot and you see them barring down on you! The fish here is great (Octopus is the best thing ever!), ouzo is incredibly cheap, and Greek beer is good (Mythos is the best and Alpha sucks). Right now we are on this tiny island called Kiffounisia, which is actually made of two very small islands. We walked all around it finding one nude beach after another.
I have no idea what day it is. And no idea of our planned itinterary. We are actually to stay here tomorrow night, but will go to one of the other little islands during the day. After that, it will be whereever the wind takes us. By the way, Feta is also awesome here, and each village has its own version.
Anyway, I hope all is well at home. Our plan is still to meet up with Derek The Bloody Turk in Mykonos, which should be crazy. We will also be going to the Pink Palace hostel in the Ionion islands (Corfu) (check it out, = ridiluous) after that.
See you all in August!
Brian
The Changing of the Guard . Notice the funny balls on the feet.
Brian in front of the Parthenon looking suave.
June 30, 2005. Athens, Greece. We have arrived! After roughly 18 Chicago hours, and 24 hours in Greek time, we made it to the our hostel in the heart of the Stygma district of Athens. Contrary to what you might read about the city in older guide books, Athens is beautiful. From nearly every point in the city, you can see the Acropolis and the Parthenon (most people confuse the two: the Acropolis is actually the rock and fortified wall that the Parthenon temple sits on). Even though we didn’t get in until about 10 PM last night, we still managed to eat and find our way to a bar. Today we took a walking tour of pretty much every big site: the Temple to Zues, the ancient Agora (which isn’t too impressive), the Parthenon (which most definitely is impressive), the tomb of the unknown soldier from the Turkey/Greece war (one of them anyway), the changing of the guard at the tomb (yes, it involved guys with wierd uniforms with puffy balls on their feet), the botanic guardians, and the ancient theater at the Acropolis (where Yanni among others have played, a fact which was extremely exciting to Jason). Those puffy balls Greek soldiers wear on their feet were actually once used to conceal knifes. I guess they would literaaly try to kick the asses of invaders. Anyway, the Parthenon is awesome; it is this huge complex where basically for the last 2500 years, the athenians put every column and statue they could find (and which then everyone else tried to steal). there are like 3 different temples up there, a museaum, two theaters (two ancient ones, one of which is still used), many caves (which were where the first people in Athens ever lived), and a number of sidewalk vendors that sell water, Greek flag refridgarator magnets, and pronographic playing cards amonbg otherthings. You can see the whole city and the ocean from on top.
We are taking a ferry to Santorini tonight for the weekend. That just sounds cool, doesn’t it? Last weekend I took my Mom’s car to Park Ridge. Santorini is supposedly the most beautiful place in Greece. Whitewashed houses, windmills, blue-roofed churchs: here we come! Anyway, it is hot as it can possibly be here, but the souvlaki on pita is great and Ouzo does the trick.
Talk to you soon. We’ll put up some pictures (we took about a thousand). See ya’ll in Santorini!
