Santorini

After a crack-of-dawn wake up Friday morning, a 7-hour ferry ride, and a half-hour bus ride, we arrived in Fira and the darling King Thiras Hotel. 

We hopped on a different bus which took us to the northern tip of the island, where the ritzier town of Oia and the best view of the sunset was.

Gorgeous, and once the sun went down all of the towns along the cliffs lit up like a fairyland.



On Saturday we took a pirate-ship-style boat to the volcanic island of Nea Kameni (the middle island on the tablecloth-map picture) and climbed to the top of the still-active volcano which was responsible for burying an ancient city (similar to Pompeii)

It was really incredible to see the piles of obsidian and pumice, to walk along the edges of craters and to put your hand down into a hole in the ground and feel the heat coming from the inside of the Earth. The experience was only slightly dampered when I happened to look down at my arm, which I had mildly burned on an oven a few days prior, to find that it had blistered up pretty badly. Luckily I had some toilet paper, three bandaids from the first aid kit on the boat, the ingenuity of Jenny who stuck them together to form a longer bandaid, and a plastic bag which I made into a water-proof covering so that I could still swim (albeit gimpily) in the hot springs...

(...and look really, really cool)

 The hot springs were very nice, and we got some really cool views sailing back into port:

We made it back just in time to catch a bus to Akrotiri, the prehistoric city buried under layers of ash and then excavated, perfectly preserved (...by one of my professors, in fact, no big deal...). It was really amazing to see the whole city laid out in front of us. Interestingly enough, not a single human skeleton was found within these ruins, indicating that for one reason or another, the Thirans abandoned the city prior to the eruption. While one theory posits that the Thirans became aware of the dangers of being in an area prone to severe earthquakes and volcanos and decided to split, my Art and Archaeology professor cheerily pointed out that "millions of people live in Southern California despite the absolute certainty that in the next 20 years there will be a 9.0 earthquake that will most likely destroy the greater LA area and perhaps cause it to break apart from the continental US; humanity does not act rationally when it comes to threats of natural disaster."

..Making me feel great about the future...

 (Unfortunately, the picture doesn't do the site any justice whatsoever, just trust me, it was awesome)

We spent Sunday just walking through the streets of Fira until we had to catch a bus to the port and then be herded like cattle for the next hours...first into a waiting area (the ferry was a good hour late) and then on to the boat. Luckily for us, we had strategized beforehand and positioned ourselves to be in the front of the pack so as to secure comfortable chairs and a table on the boat--it was so crowded on the boat that many poor souls had to spend the eight hours crumpled in hard desk chairs.

Two days was not nearly enough time here, and it was sad to say goodbye to such a beautiful place...

(So many donkeys!)