A Much Needed Vacation

Some of you who think that this entire trip is a vacation will probably
be laughing at the title of this blog post. Parts of this trip are a
vacation, but there is a lot more work that goes into being an RD on
Semester at Sea than many of you probably think and honestly, I can't
adequately describe all the work that goes into it to make you all
understand what we've been going through every day on the ship. Right
now I am sitting on our top deck, eating an ice cream, and enjoying the
view so clearly today isn't that busy of a work day, but most days are.

Four years ago I took a vacation that was my first ever cruise. We went
around the Greek Islands and Turkey. On that trip I discovered that I
really did not like Athens, but loved the islands-especially Santorini.
When I looked at our itinerary for this voyage and saw that we would be
docking in Piraeus which is right outside Athens, I immediately knew I
wanted to spend any time I had available in Santorini. I was really
blessed to have my parents contribute funds to me getting to Santorini
so I have them to thank for my perfect vacation days.

Our first day in Athens I was on 24 hour duty which meant I was confined
to the ship. If you recall from an earlier post, my first 24 hour duty
experience was terrible and resulted in me not sleeping for over 24
hours. This duty experience was different, not quite as awful as the
last one, but yet again I was up all night and only managed to sleep
from about 8am to 11am the next morning. Security on the ship informed
me that they do not want me to be on duty again because I seem to be
cursed. Unfortunately for them I am on duty again when we are in Rome,
which also happens to be my favorite security officers birthdays (maybe
I should get them an ice cream cake in advance of another Lynsey cursed
duty night??). I also found out that night right after I was called down
to the gangway to start dealing with the first of several incidents that
the chief security officer, who I have given a nickname to and called my
BFF, was leaving the next morning. This came as a huge shock to me (and
I don't deal well with surprises) and I was really really upset.
Basically, had I not had so many issues that night he wouldn't have told
me he was leaving and I would have been even more upset. The ship crew
are on different lengths of contracts so we've had several people come
and go already, but to have one of my favorites leave made me really
sad. I made my other favorite security officer promise me that if he is
going to leave mid voyage (which he isn't supposed to) that he would
give me more notice than Vladdy did. He laughed at me, but agreed to do
it. I was also on duty our last day in Athens, but luckily nothing major
happened that day since everyone was really just coming back to the ship.

My middle 2 days, plus part of the morning on the last day, was spent in
Santorini. One of the other RDs, Tiffany, traveled with me and we had an
amazing time. After everything that had been going on, it was nice to
have a mini vacation away from the ship and students. We did run into a
few students while we were on the island but they didn't bother us and
everything was great. We took an afternoon flight to Santorini and it
might have been my worst flying experience ever. The flight was delayed,
the plane kept starting and stopping as we were traveling on the
gangway, and then a part of the wing literally was falling apart while
we were in mid air. The Santorini airport is also ridiculous. There is
not good way to describe it, so you all should just google images of it
and then you will understand how we felt when we saw it. We were staying
in a hotel that was about a 10 minute walk from Fira (which is the
capital of the island) which was absolutely gorgeous, had an amazing
pool, and a great owner named George who was really helpful in giving us
directions and suggestions of what we should do for our time on the
island. After throwing our stuff down, we immediately went into town to
find a cocktail and explore.

We ended up at this tiny little bar called 2brothers which had great
drink specials and had our first cocktail of the trip and a toast to
Vladdy. Supposedly the bar is a pretty big place for people to go to at
night, but when we were there it was only us and three other people
which was nice. We then spent some time venturing around Fira and
stopping in about a million different shops. We made a friend in a
pastry shop where we had baklava and bougasta while we watched the
sunset which was incredible. After the sunset we ran into some students,
said hello to them, took some pictures for them, and decided where we
were going to go for dinner. We went back to our hotel before going out
to dinner so that we could change and get ready for the night. When we
went back to the hotel we met two local guys who worked at one of the
other hotels in our complex, Thomas and Nico. They were both super
sweet, though Thomas didn't speak much English and claimed that his best
friend was a bird that had its cage over the bar. They recommended
somewhere for us to go that night after dinner and we managed to
convince them to come out with us, though when we left for dinner we
still weren't 100% sure that they would actually show up.

That first night was fantastic. We went to a restaurant for dinner that
had a beautiful view of the city and Caldera and between the two of us
we had five different plates in front of us. We tried a lot of local
Greek specialty dishes including an amazing white eggplant dip with
pita. I could literally eat that every single day and be happy. We also
got Moussaka which we both love, but it was really disappointing. After
dinner we ran into two other staff members, did a little shopping with
them (I bought a new dress that hopefully I will get to wear this week
for my birthday) and then we went to Tango to meet up with Thomas and
Nico. Tango was a really nice lounge, but it was clearly full of locals,
not tourists and we looked a little out of place. The boys did show up
and we probably stayed there for about an hour or so before deciding
that we were super tired and needed to go back and sleep. One thing that
drives me crazy about Europe is the amount of people that smoke. I don't
care if people chose to smoke, but it is just so disappointing and
everyone was smoking where we were. I think thanks to the laws that the
US has now about smoking in bars/restaurants in different places that
I've become a bit of a snob when it comes to smoking. I guess I just
need to get used to it for the next month.

Our second day in Santorini was absolutely jam packed. I had found a
tour company that had a day tour of the entire island which sounded
really great and was a wonderful price. We started the day going up to
the highest point in Santorini where a monastery used to be and a
military base is now. From this point we were able to see the entire
island (which is actually comprised of 5 different islands) and look at
the small crazy runway we had come into the day before. It was a
beautiful view and a great start to our day. From there we headed to a
local village where we got to climb a bunch of stairs (there is a lot of
climbing in Santorini) see beautiful blue domed churches, and more
spectacular views of the island. Our next stop was down to the old port
where we boarded a wooden boat to continue our tour. We headed over the
caldera, which is an active volcano which last erupted in the 1950s. We
had to hike up the caldera, and if you know me, you know that outdoor,
physical activities are not my strong point or my favorite. The caldera
was absolutely beautiful though and I will try to post some pictures of
it on facebook so that you can see hat the volcanic island looks like. I
was really proud of myself for climbing all the way up and down without
dying.

Our boat then took us over to the hot springs. I thought it would be
pretty cool to swim in the volcanic hot springs, but it was not. This is
something that I would recommend you skip doing if you are in Santorini.
When you get to the area of the hot springs instead of it being the
beautiful blue water you see everywhere else, it is orange, nasty, and
smells like rust because essentially everything under the water is rust.
The waves were also pretty strong so swimming was not easy. We probably
stayed in the water for about ten minutes or so before giving up and
going back to the boat. For the remainder of the day I felt yucky and
continually had to scrap large amounts of salt off of my skin from
swimming in the hot springs. So, in short, if you ever go to Santorini
there is no need for you to go swimming in the hot springs. After that
disaster the boat continued on to another island that makes up
Santorini, Thirssa. This is a tiny little island that is the home to
about 300 people. The bottom of the island is the port with little shops
and restaurants and the village itself is on the top. You can either
climb 198 very long and steep steps to get to the top of pay to ride a
donkey. We tried to walk up, but gave up pretty quickly and decided to
stay in the port area. We could have taken the donkeys, but after my
last donkey ride in Santorini where my donkey Fred tried to run me off
the island, I had no desire to pay for a donkey ride again. We had lunch
at a delicious gyro restaurant and spent the rest of the time wandering
the port area and doing a little shopping.

The last stop on our tour was to Oia which is one of the end points of
the main island of Thira (which is what most people just refer to as
Santorini itself if they don't know there are actually five islands that
make up Santorini). Oia is the picturesque Santorini village where you
see the windmill, lots of blue domed churches, the white houses, and the
iconic sunset. We had about two hours to wander before sunset so we
pretty much walked the entire town going into about 1000 different
shops. We found some really neat places though were there were hand
painted crafts and I treated myself to two things for my birthday. We
walked to the edge of the village for sunset and it was the most
beautiful thing that I have seen in a very long time. I took lots of
pictures, so eventually I should be able to post those on facebook for
you all. All in all, even though the day was long it was perfect. We
topped the night off by going to a restaurant that we had made
reservations at the night before and Tiffany had told that it was my
birthday. We were treated like royalty and they had even made a special
cake for me and then brought us Santorini dessert wine which tasted just
like ice wine and I wanted to take a whole bottle home with me but
didn't. It technically wasn't my birthday, but Tiffany and I won't be
together for my birthday and she wanted to celebrate it when we had a
chance. Santorini was incredible and I can't wait to go back there
again, hopefully for an even longer period of time. I honestly wouldn't
mind living there at all so maybe I need to start learning Greek :) I'm
pretty sure my mum and dad wouldn't object to me living there because
then they'd have a place to visit!

The past few days we have been back on the ship and I've been
celebrating the week of Lynsey which includes the time in Santorini, a
hot stone massage in the ship spa, going to an awesome reception with
Mexican food tonight, having a four course meal on the ship tomorrow,
and then two nights of going out in Italy. I've never made a week out of
my birthday before, but I'm kind of enjoying it and may need to make
this happen in the future. It is beverage service now (earlier when I
started writing this it was the afternoon and I was eating ice cream but
I had to go back to work and take a break from writing) and so far the
students are behaving. I'm especially missing my bff Vladdy right now as
security plays a large role in beverage service, but the good news is
that my other favorite will be up here in about 30 minutes so it will
make me missing Vladdy a little better. Just so you all know, we have 6
days in Italy so it will probably be a week or so before I'm able to
write again. I'm spending the first day in Pisa/Florence, the second day
in Sienna, the third day in Milan, the fourth day in Verona, the fifth
day on the ship for duty, and the 6th day in Rome. As you can see, it is
going to be a pretty busy week. I know this was a long post, so if you
made it all the way to the end I'm grateful :) Till next time!