Day 8 - Rhodes to Santorini

We wake up and drag ourselves to breakfast where Moishii suffered a horrible sore throat. This is when we realised that he's going to be sucking honey tea for the next few days. The problem is we don't have honey and we don't have tea. This is when we went to get our "tea" with about 15 tea bags. Everytime we walked by the beverages area, we would pocket a handful of tea with a couple packets of honey. For some reason we thought we would need butter as well. In it goes into our pockets. We did a final count of 40 tea bags, about 7 packs of honey and 4 packs of butter.

Since we didn't have to check out for awhile, we decided to laze around in bed watching some antique roadshow ripoff. A woman was getting her painting evaluated when we had this conversation:

E: You reckon she stole that?
L: She probably slit the bitch's throat to steal that painting
*silence*
*Laughing fit*

Meanwhile, some woman came on the show with this antique letter writing set/box that her friend gave her ON HER DEATH BED and when asked if she was willing to part with it (It was worth $3000 AUD), her eyes lit up and without even thinking about her dead friend, sold the box. WTF is wrong with these british people!?

We pack up the rest of our luggage and get ready to checkout. There was one last thing to do. Get revenge on the bitches next door. We spent a good 5 mins slamming every door we had in the room and even scraping the chairs across the balcony whilst filming the whole process! MAUhaAUhaUAh suck shit!

The previous night we had walked by a photo store and enquired about how much it was to burn my digital photos to CD. The woman barely understood a word we said. All we got out of it was that it would be 5euros. We didn't exactly want to go to her since she didn't seem to even know what a digi cam was, but since we couldn't find another photo store we went back. This is where the problem begins. First the woman could barely get her computer running. And it wasn't exactly a computer, it was a customised Kodak computer that had a total of 2 options. Burn to CD and Print. After alot of fiddling, she finally figured out which option was to burn to CD. She shoves my memory stick into the machine only to cause multiple program errors, then the machine wouldn't recognise the memory stick, then more program errors. She even pulled out my Memory stick duo and put it into another adapter and caused even more problems. In the end, she tried to give me directions to her husbands shop where they had an actual computer with the full keyboard and mouse. I grabbed my memory stick and ran outta there heading in the direction she pointed us. I ran into the first photo store (not her hubbies) and had my photos burnt in less than 20mins! Why must I choose to go to a store run by a 70y.o. woman who barely even knows how to use the cash register!? *Sigh*

After that little fiasco, we head to a restaurant for lunch. Basically you order your food, make your own salads, pick your own drinks then pay at the register. We decided that we want burgers that had to be made to order. Bad idea. The chef was PSYCHOTIC. He kept screaming at everyone! Including us! Screaming that we better pay at the register or else! Then he screamed at the other customers! ESPECIALLY if you try and order with him, you get screamed at! wtf? I was terrified of him and was about to wait near the counter to get the food once its ready. The last thing I was is for him to spit into the food. I was about to run to the counter when he saw me stand up. Instead of yelling at me for making him wait, he told me to sit down and then he bought the food to us.....thinking it was too good to be true, we checked our burgers, saw no spit, scoffed and ran.

We headed back to the hotel to pick up our luggage before going to the airport. I walked up to the reception and asked the woman how much it would be to catch a cab to the aiport, she replied "no more than $15". So I asked her to book and also confirm how much it will cost. We sit down and wait whilst she's on the phone. All of a sudden she turns to us and screams "285".
Us: ???
Her: 285
Us: two.....eighty....
Her: Your cab number is 285

FFS why couldn't you have just said that you bitch! My last question was confirm how much it would cost, and you turn around and scream 285! We both thought she was saying it would cost us $285 to get to the airport!! FFS!!!!! Don't scare me like that biatch! The cab pulls and we confirm that its $15 and not $285 before jumping in. We get to the airport so early, that we don't even have a check-in counter. We sit around for about an hour or so when our check-in counter is open. We quickly jump into the biggest (the only) queue there was. I unload our luggage for the x-ray machine, run to the otherside and picked them up. I turned around only to see Moishii practically getting arrested by Airport Security. They drag him to one side with his hand luggage. I knew immediately it was his asthma machine causing the big fuss. Previously when we go through security, they're very evasive and try not to touch anything. Infact, they always get you to unpack the bag so they can get a good look. Not this woman. She practically shoved Moishii aside as her tried to unpack his bag and started pulling things out almost smashing all our bottles of vodka.

After the security scare, we finally line up for our check-in counter. There was only one line and the couple infront of us had overweight luggage which the woman charged them extra money for. I knew that our luggage was wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy over the 20kg + 7kg for hand luggage and I started panicking and breaking out into a cold sweat. It was at this exact instant, that they opened a new counter and I practically threw Moishii against the other counter! This new woman didn't give a rats ass how much luggage we had and checked us in without a word of complaint. We grab our tickets and our hand luggage (Which I hid under the counter) and made a run for it. This is when we check the ticket and find out that we don't have a gate. Again!

We hang around the airport waiting for our boarding gate to be announced. 15mins after our take-off time, our boarding gate finally gets announced. We fly from Rhodes to Athens to transfer to Santorini. Because of our late take-off time, everyone was running late for their connecting flight. This didn't stop an old guy pratically trampling on my feet to climb OVER me before the plane even comes to a complete stop. This is when I shot up like a rocket and knocked him back down and swinging my gym bag into his gut. That will teach him. We get off the plane and literally RUN to connecting gate where Moishii caused another security scare with his machine. Knowing how long it would take, I told him I would run to the gate first. I stand at the counter waiting for an air stewardess to come so I can confirm we have the right gate. Moishii arrives and we stand there and chatted for awhile. Next thing you know, I turn around and see about 30 people lined up behind me. For some reason they thought I was in line and the whole terminal started lining up behind me. When it was boarding time, the couple behind us tried to queue jump a non-existent queue! I think they heard us discussing this and quickly stepped back and let us back to the front of the queue.

We caught the airport bus to our little propeller plane and sat down in our seats. This plane is TINY. There are two seats on each side of the aisle and we happened to get window seats where we can see how burnt the engines are. Not a good sign. Whilst Moishii starts hyperventilating from fear, this woman boards the plane with her little hand carry suitcase. Now, because the plane is so tiny, so are the overhead compartments. You'll be lucky to fit one bag in each of those compartments. Seeing the compartment ontop of her seat is full (Because Moishii had stored his bag in her compartment), she turns around and tries to shove the suitcase into the one across the aisle from her. This is when she DROPS the bloody suitcase right onto this woman's huge afro head! she quickly drops the suitcase to the floor and puts her hand on the woman's head trying to rub it better. Instead of rubbing it better, she sinks her hand into the woman's afro head and pushes her head forward and almost slams her face into the seat infront of her!!! Witnessing the whole incident, at first I just felt sorry for the poor woman. I turn and see Moishii going red in the face trying not to laugh. It was like a dam breaking for me. I could barely control my laughter. This was SOOOO bad! we were in a small enclosed space trying not to piss ourselves laughing. My body starts shaking and my face goes red trying to hold back the laughter. I pretended to look out the window only managed to smack my head into the wall. This went on for about 10mins when we finally managed to get our laughing under control. 30mins later, we landed in Santorini.

We grab our luggage and walk out into the arrival halls looking for our transfer to pick us up. Scanning the room of 10 people, none of them had our names. We decide to wait at the door for our transfer guy. Whilst standing around waiting, Moishii manages to vomit water all over our bags and almost on my jacket. Whilst he cleans up his mess, this dog comes running around barking and attacking people. He even stole a pair of gloves off a cleaner and ran off with them only to come to rest in the middle of a road blocking all traffic. Whilst this was amusing, we realise that we've been waiting for more than 30mins already. This is when I realised that we are stranded at the airport.....with a transfer booked as well! I ask Moishii to call our accomodation since he was the one who booked it and I didn't have any information at all on the place. He tells me that he doesn't have a contact number for the place, and the only number we have is to a travel agency and not the accomodation (Nikos Apartments), and when you call it, it went to an answering machine. I msged my friend and asked him to google the apartment and find me a contact number. I get a reply within 2mins and quickly start dialing. The guy picks up and I asked him if this was Nikos Apartments. He confirmed that I called the right place. I inform him that we were supposed to have a transfer from the airport and no one has arrived. He sounded really lost and started asking me for my details. I gave him our names to confirm our booking, and he said that the woman who handles internet bookings isn't at work and its probably why they forgot to pick us up. He told me to call back in 5mins whilst he arranges everything.

This is when I get another SMS from my friend saying that the first number I called was wrong and gave me the correct one instead since there were so many places called Nikos. Thinking that it MUST be the right number since the guy was organising our transfer, I called him back instead of the new number. This is when he tells me that he's sending a taxi for us. Trying to make myself feel better, I reconfirmed my details with him. This is when I found out that I had actually called Nikos VILLAS, and the guy didn't even have a booking for us on his system! What the hell!? All the information I gave him was to book a room and not to confirm our details. This is when we start arguing. I said that we had a booking with KiKi and he's telling me there is no Kiki. I quickly hung up on the guy before he could throw a tantrum about how he's booked a taxi for us rar rar rar. The new number I got was the same number for the travel agency we called before. Giving up, we flag down the first taxi we see. We tell him that we need to get to Nikos APARTMENTS and I gave him the address that my friend msged me. He takes one look at my sms and gives me a dirty look. He starts talking to another taxi driver about where the apartment is. The guy said something about Nikos on the cliff. We quickly explain that the apartment we booked was NOT on a cliff. Ignoring us, he throws our luggage into the taxi and we get in before he drives off. 15mins later, we drive up the steepest hill up to the top of a cliff. He tells us that we've arrived. I get out of the taxi and take one look at the place and knew instantly that it was the wrong place. I refused to get out with our luggage and sent Moishii in to confirm with reception if it was the right place or not. Of course it was the wrong place. Want to know why?

1. The place is on a cliff. We distinctly said it wasn't on a cliff.
2. The place wasn't even called Nikos apartments! It was something like Kournelias or something.

We get directions from the reception guy and head towards the real Nikos Apartments. This time we actually pulled into a place called Nikos, we double confirm before we unload our luggage. We explain to the woman that we had a transfer and that no one came to pick us up!! Apparently Kiki is ALSO on holidays!! ARGH. Too tired to care anymore, we grab our keys and head towards our room which is on the second floor. Since there was no elevators in this place, this old guy ran up to me and helped me with my suitcase and almost breaks a hip. I mean for crying out loud! He's in his 60s! He really shouldn't be exterting himself like that. We dump our luggage in our apartment and we were going to tip the old guy for his help with the other woman starts explaining the lock and key etc to me. Somehow, I managed to slam the door in the old guy's face instead of giving him a tip. Whoops.

Starving, we get directions on how to get to the town and start walking. half way there, we see a pay phone. We relax a bit by leaving abusive voicemails to Cherry. Feeling better, we finally walk to town and walked into the first decent restaurant we saw. This is where I had the MOST DIVINE grilled squid!! Maybe I was hungry, but that was one of the best meals I've ever had! My mouth waters just thinking about it. We take a nice stroll through the town, looking at all the souvenier shops and clubs. We locate where the cable car since we plan on taking the cable car down to the port and riding the donkeys back up. We walk by the famous two brothers bar which has now died from their glory days. No wonder. They had some tart standing at the door dancing like it was a strip joint trying to entice people to go in. I'm surprised no one has vomitted on her yet. We walk past a cafe bustling with people, I managed to shove my way in to buy 2 pieces of greek pastry for breakfast tomorrow. Loaded with groceries, we head back to our apartment totally exhausted from all the travelling today.

I dump all the groceries and jump into the shower that has no curtains. Luckily, I managed to not flood the bathroom. I'm getting ready for bed when Moishii goes in for his shower. About 10mins later, I hear yelling from the bathroom. Apparently there was no water. What do you mean theres no water? I was in the shower 10mins ago and anyone who has been away with me know that I take quick showers. There's no way I could have used up all the water. I go in and start turning the taps and nothing but a trickle of water was coming out. Yet there was plenty of water in the hand basin. Since theres not much we can do, we decide to call it a night and pray that there will be water tomorrow morning.