Sunburnt Goodbyes

Grecian Getaway

Our cool ride. 

Fira

Open Air Cinema

'Our Beach' in Crete

Skala Friends!

My last European hoorah was in a place I never thought I would visit in a million years, Greece. If you follow me on any form of social media or read the above title you probably already knew that, but I still can't believe I just spent 9 days in such a magical place. My first stop in Greece was at the Athens airport for a 9 hour slumber party in the McDonalds and then finally got to board my early morning flight to the island of Santorini. I hate mornings, but it was very magical watching the sun rise over the water and the clean white Grecian houses. Preparing for this trip I envisioned a strange hybrid experience between 'Mama Mia' and 'Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants'. This wasn't my reality while I was there, what I experienced was even better. The entire trip was spent mostly just lounging on the beach, which was really nice after our crazy go go mentality every other place we visited, and exploring the islands of Santorini and Chania. Santorini was a magical fairy land. It was a small island that Sami and I were able to go in to the capital, Fira, by renting an ATV for the day.      Fira was a fun little town full of shops and the typical loud and loving Greeks filling the streets. Speaking of the Greeks, they are the nicest people we have met on this trip. Anywhere we ate or stopped by someone would genuinely ask how we were or help us find something. I would go back to Greece again and again just for their loving nature. One of my favorite Greeks in Santorini was our waiter Illias. We stayed only a five minute a walk from the black beach and Illias was the greeter at one of the restaurants  on the beach and he kindly welcomed us into his place which was 'the best'. When I say 'greeter' I should explain. Someone stands outside of every restaurant and when you walk down the street you get stopped many times with someone telling you they have the 'best fish' or the cheapest cocktails to entice you to come in to their restaurant instead of the competitions. Anyway, we ate at Illias' place for breakfast two days in a row and now he holds a little piece of my heart(also helps that he gave us free ice cream). Another fun thing we did while in Santorini was visiting an open air cinema. This attraction popped up on my Trip Advisor, which obviously means its top notch, and had excellent reviews so we gave it a shot. This was another trip that we got to take out trusty ATV on to the town of Kamari. The fun part about not having data or internet access on our phones during this trip has been navigating. Most of the time we preload a route on our phone and it will stay up even when you aren't on data, however for this trip Sami and I weren't as prepared and just decided to wing it. Happy to say we found Kamari and the open air cinema on our own intuition and on our first try. 'Hail Caesar' was the movie that was playing(a little disappointed we missed 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2' by a day) and it wasn't the greatest, but it was  the coolest experience and a fun night! After our magical stay in Santorini we took a ferry to the island of Crete. Another adventure in Europe has been figuring out public transportation in new countries. Crete was a hard one. After a three hour bus ride from Heraklion to Chania, where we were staying, we were put on the wrong bus (which luckily went past our stop), missed our stop because of horrible communication, had to take a bus back in the right direction, and FINALLY reached our hotel an hour and a half after we said we would be there. However, we were greeted at Atlantida Mare our 'home' for the next five days with the loving Greek  hospitality. We spent our first day in Chania being lazy at 'our beach' or the stretch of sand right outside our hotel and soaked up some sand. The next day we met up with Molly, Clark, and Adam and drove (in their rented car) to the famous Elafonissi Beach. This when Greece turns out to not be so fun. Vampire Brianna forgot her sunscreen and fell asleep under the sun for an hour. Needless to stay I was thoroughly fried. Good news is it was only a day and half of discomfort and now I am just peeling for my flight home. Molly turned 20 in Crete so obviously we had to celebrate! We enjoyed drinks and a little birthday treat for Mollz at a cocktail bar. We also went to dinner and after leaving we ran into a little tavern named Skala. The first thing the drew us in when two precious puppies running around and then the owner offered us free shots... which actually led to five free shots but these people quickly turned into more Greeks that stole little pieces of my heart. Our last day in Crete Sami and I decided to ditch the beach and head to the water park about 20 minutes away. IT WAS A BLAST! It was so much fun to run around like little kids and just have fun instead of laying on the beach like boring adults. We went down water slides, swam in the lazy river, went down the crazy river, and Sami even zip lined into the pool!  That night we had dinner with our new friends at Skala and ended the night sitting by the ocean before bed. My stay in Greece was pure bliss and I'm so happy that I ended my time in Europe in such a happy place. As I post this I have nine hours left in the Prague airport(another sleepover) and then 16 hour day of traveling. What does that mean you ask? In a little over 24 hours I will be back in NEBRASKA!! It's a very bitter sweet feeling to leave my 'home' to come home, but I can't wait to be back in the good life and to see my friends and family. Yay! See you State Side in just a day!