Day 21 - Santorini, Greece

Today is Santorini. Another beautiful Greek island. Martha and I are in a room that gave us a tender (boat from ship to shore) priority and I was able to bring my friends along. We were on the first tender off the boat. That was amazing.

Linda, Jerry, Jason, Dave and I made the trip to shore. There were six other ships in port which made for a very crowded island. There are two ways to the town at the top of the hill, cable cars and donkeys. The cable cars take 36 people per trip. When we got in line, there were at least 500 people ahead of us. Sooooo we pivoted to the donkeys. Ten euros per person and fifteen slow, mostly steady, a little scary minutes later, we’re at the town.

Oh, and the donkeys going up have to avoid the donkeys that are being sent back to the bottom. Also, my donkey liked to swerve between other donkeys when they were resting. Sure, that was fun. At the almost top, literally all our donkeys stopped and turned to the wall. We’re all like, WTF, there’s more steps. Nope, our donkeys were finished. Jason “dismounted” first and just as he was saying the drop is higher than you think, I was getting / falling off mine. I was the only one who didn’t stick the landing.

We immediately got a beer to rid ourselves of donkey stench. I do not know how people walk up or down those 550+ steps. There is donkey doo everywhere! And the donkeys are not nice. They run into each other and people. They pause unexpectedly, weave, and get way too close to the edge.

We walked all over the town of Thira (the name in my weather app). It was crowded but still fun.

Of course I went in the church and lit some candles. It seems to be a theme on this trip, right?

Martha’s take on the day: When I heard there would be six ships in port and close to 10,000 people working their way up the mountain and back down, I said “Out.” We have a beautiful color coordinated picture from several years ago and that is good enough for me. I spent all day in the Observation Lounge and interacted with a total of 12 people; and four of those were waiters. Here is our Way Back Wednesday picture and my office/view for the day.

Dinner was a Japanese steakhouse. No clap for the chef, no food. Then he tossed an egg all over the place,“Japanese Football”. The chef is always funny and has a ton of tricks to make the entire experience enjoyable.

The ship has a silver wall that when you touch it, becomes butterflies. It’s very cool and also the germiest spot on the ship. Probably surpassing self-serve ice cream stand.

We played a bit. I was random, Martha made a heart ish.