Santorini, Greece and the past year

So, recently I added some footage of our nursery. I still had the curtains to hang and some pictures to put up on the wall, but we are - now ready! Obviously this is good b/c baby Marcum will be here in just a couple days.....

The last time we wrote in 2009 (my how time flies!), we posted about our trip to Thailand and NYC. We went to Thailand in May 2009 and to NYC at the end of September 2009. In between that time and just before we moved back to the US from Switzerland (first week in June 2009), we went to Santorini, Greece. The trip was awesome and the pictures just show a glimpse of how beautiful it was.

We were in Santorini for a week, May 27th to June 3rd. Santorini is part of the Cyclades Islands (one of the volcanic islands in the Aegean Sea). When people travel to Greece, many do a trip where they take ferrys from one island to the next. Instead, we opted to just stay put and and enjoy Santorini (we had enough running around in Thailand!).


We arrived on Wednesday and our friends, John and Helen, were coming on the following Sunday. The whole trip was great and very relaxing!

We left Zurich around 3pm on Wednesday, and we lost an hour on the flight, so when we got there, it was around 6 or 7pm. We rented a convertible Suzuki jeep at the airport, so once we got in, we were off! As we soon confirmed, the island was fairly small. There are a few towns you could stay in, the two main ones being Fira and Oia (pronounced "EEE-ah"). We stayed in Oia, which is actually at the south western tip of the island and known for providing a great lookout point for sunsets.

That Wednesday night we strolled into town and ate at a quaint restaurant called the Red Bicycle. The meal was great and we drank some refreshing local wine. On our walk back to our hotel, we stopped to watch a bit of soccer at a bar, then headed off to bed.

The next day Aggie and I went for a jog around part of the island. What we quickly realized is that there are dogs everywhere. Not clean, cute labs but rather rugged, worn looking dogs. They were all over the towns just laying around, chillin', and on our jog, they definitely protected their "home". The dogs would run out of the yards and down the driveways to us, but not run out to the street and attack or harm us. All bark but no bite!

(Side note: Later in the week, John and I went on a jog and a pit bull followed us around. Anyone that knows my family's history (in particular my father's history) with jogging and dogs will realize how traumatic this was for me. I have to say, though, that dog would run right next to us, then as soon as another dog would even sniff our way, it would take off sprinting, back the other dog down, and then trot right back over to us. Either she was a friendly dog, or she didn't want anyone messing with the "meal" she was heating up...)

After our jog, we ate breakfast and soon fell in love with Greek yogurt. A huge scoop of plain yogurt was served in a glass ice cream dish, and almost had the consistency of heavy whipping cream. At the side of the dish were tons of honey and jelly packets. We dumped a few tablespoons of honey on top and viola! Heaven. Anyone that hasn't tried Greek yogurt with honey is seriously missing out.

We pretty much sat by the pool that day, listened to some music, read some books, had a few beers, chilled. We had a late lunch at the best restaurant in Oia (we are a little bias). It was called Kastros, and they had about 10 tables. The Greek salads were amazing and we ate some of the freshest veggies and olives I have ever had.

The restaurant was built on the side of the island and had perfect views of the sunset. What was crazy about the sunsets is that everyone would congregate to the "end" of the island to watch it. Tons of people. I do have to say, the views were amazing.

On Friday we woke and had our yummy breakfast. Then, we went on a hike....from Oia all the way to the northern side of the island to Fira. The hike took about 2 hours and the views were awesome! The route and such reminded us of Cinque Terre in Italy. (Look back to a previous couple of blogs when we went there) Once we reached Fira, we grabbed lunch and shopped a bit.


Our hike back took a little less than 2 hours and then we chilled on our patio with some wine and beers. We went to Petros for dinner, which was recommended by our "landlord". It was a very local place and had some of the best food....stuffed peppers with cheese, ham and sausage, veggie tomato fritters, etc......

Saturday we did our usual morning routine (workout, breakfast, etc) then we went to one of the local wineries and did a wine tasting. We bought a few bottles of the local wine and that evening, we went to sit on the beach to watch the sunset and sip on our bottle. We had dinner at Kypridas that evening, which was another great restaurant.

On Sunday, Helen and John arrived. We picked them up from the airport and then pretty much just hung out....went into town and shopped, swam at the pool, etc. We had made dinner reservations at Kastros that night (again) so we had prime seats for the sunset which was great.

Monday we went out to explore the island and found one of the black sand beaches (black b/c of the volcanic rocks). We chilled at the beach all afternoon, grabbed lunch and chilled some more (catching the theme of the vacation yet?). That night we went back to a different beach with some snacks, wine and music and danced and watched the sunset. It was one of the most fun evenings we've ever had!



Tuesday was a bit overcast, but we had plans to go out on a semi-private boat. It was probably key that it wasn't 100% sunny because it was still very warm. Helen stayed behind to get some work/studying done so John, Matt and I ventured out. There were about 15 people total on the boat and 2 college girls, basically serving drinks, food, etc. ( Talk about a fun summer job!)

Anyway, the boat basically stopped in a few places out on the sea and you could jump off and swim a bit. Our last stop was at the hot volcano springs. I have to say, the water was more luke warm if anything and was the color of orange/rust. It was cool though and afterwards we swam back to the boat and headed back to the island.

Wednesday we chilled and then went to the airport later that afternoon. Our flight out was scheduled for 6p. The wind on the island was so bad that day that we didn't end up leaving till close to 11p that night. To be honest, I'm surprised our flight even left b/c for one reason or the other, all other flights were canceled. We actually watched our plane try to land on the island and abort the landing, "take off" while about 300 feet above the ground, turn around and try again. He got it down the second time around and we eventually got out okay, which was good.

Back in Zurich, on Thursday (the 4th of June), we repacked and organized all our things as we were leaving for good on Friday morning. Crazy!! We didn't have any issues flying back and had the opportunity of sitting in business class, which was heavenly.

We went home to Hamilton for a week, then stayed in a hotel in downtown Chicago for 2 weeks (the last two weeks in June). We moved into our Chicago apartment at the end of June 2009....exactly a year ago.

Lots has happened this year!! To basically sum it up, Matt switched jobs, Aggie got knocked up, and we are expecting the baby actually on the day we moved in last year! Kind of ironic if you ask me.