The view of Santorini!
As we pulled into the port of Santorini it was clear why this is one of the most popular Greek Isles. The historic volcanic eruption that took place nearly 3500 years ago has carved out a dramatic coast with steep cliffs and caldera on the eastern side of the island. We got off the boat with the hoards of backpackers and quickly realized that we would not be able to hoof it to the beach like we planned. The port is located at the very bottom of the aforementioned cliffs making walking with packs hardly possible. Although it went unsaid at the time, we both remember thinking how inconvenient for us, but how convenient for the gangs of local hotel/villa
owners that were making their way towards the crowd of recently departed tourists. We didn’t want to pay for accommodation since there was a nice comfortable beach that awaited us, but since we needed a ride up the mountain we bit the bullet and ended up negotiating for a reasonable rate. We pulled in to Villa Demetri which is a peaceful place with flowering vines growing up the sides of the atrium walls and walking distance from the black sandy beaches of Perissa.
Our new home :)
Feeling like we made the right decision, we wanted to celebrate with a bottle of the local spirit, Ouzo. We whipped up some dinner in our little kitchen, which includes a hotplate, fridge and dishes then began the celebration. The best way to describe Ouzo is to compare it to Sambuca or black liquorish. It is intended to cleanse the pallet after a meal and after a few hours we had the cleanest pallets on the entire island. The celebration carried on into the night as we went around to a few bars and chatted up with the locals and other tourists. We apparently were such good company that we ended up landing a job with one of the bars! Full Moon Bar, hired us part time to walk around the beach handing out fliers, then make an appearance and talk with the customers at night.
Ouzo!
It sounded like an amazing gig and we were totally pumped about it! We got to wake up whenever we liked, go hang out at the beach all day…make a couple rounds and meet people and still go out and drink at night…so we decided we would work out a deal with Villa Demetri and stay for 3 weeks!
This did not work out for us. We spent about 4 days walking around annoying customers trying to coax them into the bar. Its poor location (away from the beach) combined with the bad specials and lack of tourists proved to big a hurdle. It was a mutual departure. Luckily the very same day we parted ways with Full Moon Chelsea inquired about a waitress job at the restaurant across the street from the hostel called Atlas (seen on the left) and walked out with a job. At the time of writing this we have been on Santorini for nearly 3 weeks. Chelsea works morning and evenings at Atlas and I, well.. here is a picture of what I spend most of my time doing…
Relaxation…
New Friends!
..just kidding. After two days of Chelsea working and me doing nothing I landed a job with a small pub called ‘Blues Bar’ handing out fliers during the day and waiting tables at night. Meanwhile i was falling in love with Atlas, the people i worked with, and the people i was meeting….so we decided to extend our stay!