Happy Belated Birthday to me!!

Guess what I am holding in my hot little hands?! A brand spanking new 60gig iPod video in black! YAY!!!!!! The package got dropped on my desk less than 5mins ago! OMG OMG OMG!! SO EXCITED!!

Day 10 - All day Santorini Tour

This morning Moishii decided to learn from his previous experience and had instant noodles for breakfast, saving us a good 45mins in the morning. We got dressed in our swimmers, shorts and singlets, big bottle of water, snacks, sunscreen and a fully charged camera with heaps of memory sticks. We walk to the front of our apartment where the tour bus "Blue Waters" is supposed to come and pick us up saving us the walk into town. We stand by the side of the road, getting excited everytime a bus drives by only to be disappointed when its a different tour company. Finally our bus comes trundling along the road. We wave at the bus driver who started to slow down, but as he bus neared us, he floored the accelerator and drove off leaving us there to eat dirt. I quickly run into the travel agency to confirm that they ARE supposed to pick us up from the front of the apartment and that we didn't need to walk to town. She quickly called up Blue Waters, rambled alot of greek and turned to me and said "He'll be here in 5mins". I run back outside, making a bet with Moishii that the guy drove off and forgot to pick us up. Lo and behold, we see the same bus come back for us after going around the block. The bastard forgot to pick us up!! And we were standing there waving at him as well! FFS!

Finding comfortable seats, we spread ourselves out ready for the all day tour. First stop, Akrotiri. Akrotiri is one of the most important ancient settlements of Greece. Archelogical excavation of the area began in 1967 where they uncovered a huge city/town completely buried under the volcanic material from a huge volcanic eruption around 1640BC. Because of this, the town is completely preserved. The site itself is huge. According to our tour guide (Which Moishii had an obsession with because he insists that she is missing a neck and spent the whole time trying not to wet himself from laughing every time he looked at her), they have only uncovered 3% of the entire town. For something that old, the town was extremely advanced with complex plumbing systems, double story houses with 14 bedrooms etc. It is believed that all the inhabitants of the village had warning of the eruption and managed to leave the island before the eruption occurred. Most of the houses uncovered had all their pottery and furniture neatly stacked, waiting for their owners to come back. However, this eruption was so big, it blew the centre of the island up, leaving the volcano in the centre that is surrounded by the outer edges of the remains of the original island. This eruption is also hugely linked to the sinking of Atlantis. Unfortunately for us, when we went, they were in the process of builing a protective roof covering for the excavation site meaning alot of the places were inaccessible, and any pottery and furniture has also been moved for safe keeping.

At Akrotiri, they have also managed to uncover many wall paintings which include two boys boxing, one of which is wearing a pair of boxing gloves. The earliest recording of the boxing gloves. They also found a wall painting of women who has red finger nails (Nail polish) and perfectly tailored eyebrows (Plucking). Now if that isn't a sign from the ancestors that women should spend more time pampering themselves with manicures and facials etc, I don't know what is. :D

Next stop was to the new port where we will catch a wooden tour boat to the volcano. Before that, we took a bus tour along a few vineyards. Santorini apparently has some of the best wines as all their grapes are grown from the rich volcanic soil. But one of the problems they have is the strong winds all over the island. So unlike all the vineyards you see at the Hunter Valley, these vineyards look like someone had done a piss poor job at digging out the weeds in their garden. The vines are planted on the ground, and all you see are little mounds of green bush on the ground. The reason for this is that by keeping the plants low, theres less damage done by the winds. The second thing they do is they trim away a majority of the branches leaving a few main ones to weave a basket out of. This helps the vines continue to grow into little baskets that dot the ground, and within the centre of the basket contains all the grapes. It was absolutely fascinating to see, but unfortunately I couldn't get any decent photos except this one:

After touring the Vineyard, we stopped the bus in the middle of a dirt track road where our tour guide jumped off our bus and ran onto another tour bus. Who the hell swaps tour guides in the middle of no where!? One person lighter, we continue down a very, VERY steep and winding road down to the new port. We hop onto our vessel and was on our way.


The view looking back at Fira is absolutely amazing. I keep getting reminded again and again that we are staying on the remains of one of the biggest volcanic eruptions EVER. As we neared the volcano, we noticed that there is only ONE pier...with about 6 boats tied to it. Basically they tied the boats side by side, and we had to climb through all 6 boats to actually get onto land. The next 45mins is the best butt workout you will EVER have. We had to climb from the base of the volcano, all the way up to the crater, which is about 200m UP. The worst bit was, because it is a volcano, there are no paved roads. All roads are made up of loose volcanic rocks and gravel. Which means, at times when you are climbing with all your might up the volcano, the rocks keep moving underneath you making it feel like you are on a stepper. Forever climbing, never getting anywhere.

Pulling up to the Volcano

The view from the top of the volcano was one of the most breathtaking things you will ever see. Of course being out of shape, dehydrated and climbing 200m above sea-level helped us having our breaths taken away...nonetheless, it was well worth the climb.


We collected a few pebbles as momentos and hiked our way around the crater, where you can still see smoke rising from the ground. Now don't worry, they have equipment located all around the volcano to detect any chance of an eruption happening, and they usually have 1month advance notice, so for the day we were going, we should be safe. Near the edge of the crater, they also dug a few small holes in the ground, and placing your hand into the holes feels like you were shoving it into a super power pizza oven. Apparently if you leave an egg in there for 20mins, it will be cooked. If only someone hadtold me, I would've bought a dozen eggs to make a cheap lunch!

The crater

We slowly made our way down the volcano, slipping and sliding numerous times, kicking up the dust so our hair started to look like cameron diaz in "Theres something about Mary" from all the dust it started to gather.

We finally get back onto our boat where we head towards the hot springs near the base of the the Volcano. I have been looking forward to this part of the trip so much! To soak in the warm waters, splatter mineral rich volcanic mud all over me to beautify my skin.



This is when we pull up to the hot spring and they tell us that we cannot drive the boat any closer for saftey reasons. We're going to have to jump off the boat and swim towards the hot spring. Although people had warned me this earlier on, I didn't realise how far it was until we got there. Not being the strongest swimmer (Haven't been swimming since year 10), and Moishii refusing to jump into the water, I decided to sit this one out. Only when the entire boat had jumped into the water and started swimming towards the hot springs did I realise how shallow the water was. By then it was too late, I had 15mins to get there and back with a bit of time in between for soaking. Not worth the effort.

You are able to stand once you swim to the brown area

Besides, at this exact moment, there was an avalanche. Ok, atleast I thought it was an avalanche.....until I looked closer. There was over 50 goats stampeding DOWN the cliff side which gave me the impression that there was an avalanche! Now I know what people mean when they say they're as sure footed as a mountain goat. The one thing I don't understand is how the hell these goats survive. Its a volcano. Theres no grass. I couldn't see any vegetation on the entire cliff side! And the scary thing is, ALL these goats are owned by ONE person. The sole occupant of the island/volcano.

All these goats are owned by the one guy

I have no idea what they eat

By the time everyone swam back onto the boat, it was time to go to the next destination. Therissa. Another island of Santoniri with about 200 people living on it. We get to the base of the cliff when we were told that there are restaurants by the port, or we can WALK the 160 steps up to the top of the cliff. Now 160 steps may not sound like much, but considering each "Step" is about 2-3m long, and will take you a couple of hundred meters up, theres no way in HELL we're going to walk up there. Ahhhhhhh thank goodness for donkeys!!! We walk to the nearest herder who takes us to the stable where he gets the donkeys ready. This is when a honkie chick comes up beside us also wanting to ride a donkey. Now let me explain, we were in a stable, the entire ground is covered in donkey poo. The only way to get to the donkey is by stepping through the minefield. This honkie chick is standing outside the stable, refusing to walk to the donkey, and starts screaming at the guy "I want a beautiful donkey!". After alot of yelling, she finally walks through the donkey poo and gets onto her donkey. As the herder leads us out of the stable, he ties my donkey to her donkey which was tied to his donkey. Now the last time I rode a donkey, I had a psychopathic one. This time, it was the herder that was psychopathic. He looked like a mexican gonzalas who kept SCREAMING the entire way up to the top of the cliff. He was even wearing the round spectacles and the sombrero. Not only was the guy so annoying that I wanted to strangle him, but this honkie chick infront of me kept waving to her boyfriend who decided to walk up the stairs and patting my donkey. So on one hand, I had the screaming herder, on the other hand, I had the screaming honkie chick. If I wasn't terrified of falling down the cliff, I would've jumped off and strangled both of them!!

We get to the top and I quickly jump off the donkey before my urge to shove both of them over the cliff gets too strong. We hike up the rest of the way and took a deep breath and this is what we saw...





Absolutely GORGEOUS!!! We just stood there for awhile, taking in the sight, inhaling the fresh seabreeze. We walk into the "town" a bit more where we found the "Panoramic Restaurant" with a balcony hanging over the cliff. (Look in the photo above)

Panoramic Restaurant

We get a seat right on the edge of the balcony so we could enjoy the view whilst we had lunch (Which turned out to be fake greek salad, bread and eggplant that should have been for 2 but was for 1). We start making our way down the cliff to get back onto the ferry. I couldn't believe how tiring it could be trying to walk DOWNHILL. God knows what would happen if we had to walk UP!! It took us about 30mins to get down to the bottom since we had to take many pit stops for photo shoots and also to avoid the path of donkey poo. When we get to the bottom, we quickly run into the first shop to buy more water and scoff an ice cream since we were about to pass out from the heat.

The "relaxing stroll" down the cliffside

We get back onto the ferry where they will drop us off at our final destination. Oia (Ia). Santorini is well known to have the worlds most beautiful and stunning sunsets. The only problem is, to get to the top of Oia, you have to climb 260 steps. Yep! You guessed it! Donkeys!! I don't understand why it is so hard to have a normal donkey ride. First the psychopathic donkey, then the psychopathic herder/honkie chick and now the bitch and the bitch. Bitch #1 thought it would be a GREAT idea to go hiking around Santorini, the island of stairs, in stilettos and a mini skirt. Hell I can't even STAND in those freakin stilettos, let alone hike in them! Of course her boyfriend had to walk up the 260 steps whilst she waited for the donkey. The second bitch was with her entire family (Indian family of 6) who wanted to ride the donkeys up because the father couldn't walk. The only problem was, the mother didn't want to pay for the donkey ride, and the girl was terrified of donkeys. After them screaming at each other for 5 mins, they decided to all ride the donkeys. When it was the mother and girls turn to get onto their donkey, the mother kept screaming at the family because she refused to walk to the donkeys. The herder finally gets the shits and starts screaming at her, only then did she follow him to climb onto the donkey. The girl gets onto the donkey next, and some how I ended up in the same group as her and her father, and Moishii. As we were going up the cliff, this girl kept SCREAMING. It got to a stage where I couldn't tell if she was screaming, laughing or crying. I just know she was hysterical, and her dad kept trying to calm her down only to end up ramming me and Moishii into the cliffside. When we got to the top, the herder ran up to her donkey and practically yanked her off the fuckin thing to stop her screaming! I have NEVER in my life seen someone carry on like that!! Like what the hell!? We quickly made a run for it.....

Well...we tried....out of the 260 steps, the donkey took us up about 230 steps, which meant we had to climb another 30 steps ourselves. Ok, I know I am out of shape, but I couldn't believe that we had THREE pit stops trying to climb those 30 steps!!!

The remaining steps we had to climb

We were huffing and puffing, drinking water and having to sit cos our legs were shaking from trying to climb those stairs!! We get to the top feeling so proud of ourselves! This is when we turn around and see this guy......

The guy carrying the suitcase and the bitch with stilettos and skirt

He's carried a suitcase AND a handcarry up those steps!! I hope to god that he caught a donkey.....but there was no way in the world he could have tied that to the donkey...

The beautiful sights around Oia

We roam around the shops in Oia before we headed to the furthest point of the island where we expect to have the best views. We get there quite early and see a restaurant. We quickly run in and got an excellent spot for the sunset with no one blocking our view. We watched the sun slowly go down whilst we enjoyed our dinner. Moishii comes out of the toilet and tells me that there is a window in the toilet where you can take some great photos since the ground beneath it is sunken and there is no one blocking the view. Thinking that I should go and take some photos as well, I grab my camera and head into the toilet. Now this toilet only had 2 cubicles. The male cubicle where it had a window view, and the female cubicle with a wall instead of a window. After taking my photos, I thought it would be a good idea to go to the toilet before the sunset.

As I am ready to leave the cubicle, this is when I realise that the door handle is loose. The fuckin door won't open!!!! I put my foot against the wall and tugged as hard as I could. I tried kicking the door, only to jam it more. I tried jiggling the door handle and continued to pull with all my might. "Why don't you call for help?" you ask? Great idea! Except that I didn't bring my mobile with me!!! Thinking that as long as someone, male or female, wants to go to the toilet, I'll be saved. In the meantime, I kept yanking on the door handle. A few minutes pass and nothing. I cannot believe this. The world's most beautiful sunset is happening right now, and I am locked in a toilet cubicle!! This is our last night in Santorini, if I don't see it now, I'll never see it again. There is only one thing to do. I had to climb the cubicle wall. I carefully put my camera on the top of the cubicle wall that is about 2.5m high. I climb onto the toilet seat and grip onto the wall with my hands. I put one foot on the toilet paper holder when the whole thing started to move. This wasn't going to work. Instead, I placed my foot onto the PLASTIC cistern and quickly pulled myself up. I managed to flush the toilet when I hoisted myself up. So here I am, in mid air, with my upper body hanging in the men's cubicle and my legs dangling in the female toilet. Thank goodness for all the donkey riding lately because I managed to swing my leg over the wall.

Imagine walking into the toilet to see an asian chick sitting on the top of the cubicle wall with her legs dangling on each side of the cubicle wall. I was sitting ontop of the wall looking at how far down the ground was. If I jumped, I'll break a leg. It was a risk I was willing to take. There was no way in hell I would miss out on the sunset. I look around the men's cubicle and see that they also have a not so sturdy Cistern. If it cracks and water starts flooding the place, I don't give a shit! If it wasn't for their fucked up lock, I wouldn't be here in the first place!! I swing my other leg over, put on foot on the cistern and try to lower myself gently only to almost smack my head into the wall when I came crashing down! I run out of the male cubicle and quickly try to unlock the woman's cubicle. I barley turned the bloody handle when the door just swung open! @#%@#!$^ The door handle works fine, FROM THE OUTSIDE!! THATS NO FUCKIN USE TO ME IS IT!?!? I grab my camera and run outside and quickly start taking photos like a madman. Moishii comes up to me and asks "What happened?! Whats wrong!? Why are you shaking? Why are you out of breath!?" SHUT UP AND GET OUT OF MY WAY SO I CAN TAKE PHOTOS FFS!!! I gave him the briefest rundown of the story. Which was "I got locked in the toilet and had to climb the wall" *goes back to taking photos*

Moishii had thought that I decided to stay in the toilet to take photos because of the view. FFS who the hell stays in the toilet to take photos when I had a panoramic view from the balcony!? He wasn't even going to take photos of the sunset cos he thought I was taking photos. Luckily he took a few shots whilst filming his video. I come out and quickly use up my memory stick within minutes. I can't believe I got locked in a fuckin cubicle. And the reason no one came in to save me was because everyone was busy watching the worlds most beautiful sunset!! Moishii kept badgering me on what happened, I was just too traumatised to talk about it. Instead, I sent him inside to take photos of the toilet so I could explain it to him after the sun had gone down.

The sun before I went into the toilet

The photo I took from the toilet

The sunset after I escaped from the toilet trap

The woman's cubicle

The cistern I almost broke

The height of the wall from Moishii's eye level (Who is taller than me)

When the sun had finally gone down, we walked to the bus stop and caught our tour bus back into Thira. Along the way, they were dropping people off. There was a bunch of chicks who were in our tour group who had been whingeing and whining the whole day. They finally get dropped off at their hotel. Hotel Margherita. The refused to get off the bus because they didn't know where their hotel was and kept screaming at the bus driver to take them to their hotel. FFS, I look out the window and the first thing I see is their hotel. After the day I had, I was ready to kick them off the bus and slam their face into the dirt road!!!! The bus driver kicks them off the bus and practically tears down the road leaving them to eat dust. 30mins later we were back in our apartment where all I wanted to do was shower and clean all the volcanic dust out of my hair and not talk about my toilet incident...

Welcome!

I'm walking home from the train station when I stop at the local chinese roast shop where they have the roast pork, duck, numerous stir fries and dishes. I decided to stop by to get a few steamed buns for my grandma's breakfast. Lining up like the good citizen I was, I felt a tug on my bag, thinking someone was trying to push infront of me, I turn around to give them a dirty look, only to see him. Someone has OFFICIALLY moved down the road from me! Welcome my fellow neighbour! I shall be seeing you more often!! AHeAHeah so exciting! Now I'm just waiting for the other one to join him!

Day 9 - Santorini (Fira and Perissa)

Moishii wakes up first thing in the morning and jumps into the shower hoping to get his share of water. There was no water. He starts chucking a tantrum as I was making breakfast. After alot of complaining, he finally agrees to go downstairs to complain to the people. The woman follows him back up and within 1min, had the shower going again. Somehow, Moishii had managed to push this pin on the showerhead that stops the flow of water. There was water, but Moishii just blocked it. Being extremely embarrassed, he shoos her out and quickly jumps into his much needed shower whilst I made breakfast. Offering to make him some Migoreng, he declined and said he wanted to have toast. I make my breakfast and start eating when he finally gets out. I hand the kitchen over to him whilst I had my shower. I came out, got dressed, did my laundry to hang on the balcony, walk into the kitchen to find him STILL trying to make toast. For crying out loud! Who takes 30mins to make toast? You can bake a cake in that time!!

We finally head out for our first roam through Santorini Town Thira (Fira) during the day. Not before we stop at a phonebooth and scream abuse at someone. I can't even remember who it was. We get into town and start shopping. For some reason I reckon I needed 3 pendants and about 35 postcards.I also suddenly developed a dog obsession where I took photos of every single dog I saw. We ended up at this little cafe by the side of the road having "toast" which is basically a baguette/roll/sandwich that has been toasted. Except the filling I had in mines had gone off. I spent the whole 30mins we were there watching the owners try to get customers to come in by sweeping their arms around the cafe without saying a word. I have no idea what drugs they were on.

With food in our stomache, we head towards the cable car where we paid about 3.50euros each to ride the cable car down. We happened to share a cable car with an American woman with a broken leg, and like Moishii, was terrified of heights. Yay to me....Despite the yelling and panicking that went on, the sight down the cliff was breathtaking. I keep forgetting that I am staying on the edge of a caldera with the houses barely hanging onto the sides.

It feels like the buildings are only JUST hanging onto the cliffside

Our view of the Volcano

When we finally get down to the bottom, we get out of the cable and start walking down the stairs. This is when the woman infront of me, tried to steal a woman's singlet out of her bag. The woman realises what was happening and started grabbing onto the top. Apparently there was a "misunderstanding" where the woman thought it was HER singlet in another woman's bag and they started having a tug of war before the chick almost shoved the bitch down the stairs. Of course we follow the bitch and get photos.

The cable car takes you all the way down to the old port where we strolled around a bit, bought more postcards from a shop, went to the next one and bought more postcards before we found where the donkey rides are. We paid another 3.50euros each for a donkey. Moishii jumps onto the donkey first who starts taking off and bounds up the steps before stopping about 20m away. Meanwhile, I'm still standing and waiting for my donkey to come. I finally hop on when MY donkey started running up the stairs. We weren't given any instructions and the guide wasn't anywhere in sight. We started freaking as our donkey starts making its way to the top of a VERY high cliff without a guide and almost plummeting down the cliffside. Here we were screaming and panicking when another couple joined us out of the blue. This is when my donkey starts getting psychotic. Since there was now 4 donkeys, he started getting competitive. Should any donkey try to overtake my donkey (Who was in the lead), my donkey will turn around and start biting and attacking other donkeys. Trust me to get the ONLY donkey without a muzzle.

Once my donkey had a sufficient lead, he would start walking in a zig zag fashion, blocking all donkeys behind me from overtaking. Because of the way he was walking, and me not being able to control him, he almost shoved a woman over the cliff because he practically rammed her against the railing and then over the edge whilst she freaked out and started cursing me. Woman, its not like I can control the damn thing you know? Half way up the cliff, our guide finally catches up to us, but remained a far 10m behind everyone else. With him around, we felt a bit safer and pulled out our cameras for a few happy snaps whilst we were on the donkey. I'm just glad we didn't drop the camera!

You can see the women my donkey almost rammed over the side in the top left

As we near top of the cliff, one of the other couple's donkey gets the shits and galloped forward overtaking my donkey. Not taking any of that shit, my donkey bounded up the steps, RAMMED the other donkey against a herd of other donkeys resting by the side and managed to crush my legs between the saddles. Back in the lead (after biting a few other donkeys to keep them in their place) we get to the top of the cliff where we jump off and run into the first store we see to buy a donkey figurine. And more postcards.

Resting and buying more post cards again, we head to the bus stop where we wait for the next bus to Perissa Beach. The famous black sand beach at Santorini. The sand is black due to all the volcanic activity around that area. Whilst we were waiting for the bus, we decided that we better make a pit stop at the toilet before going. Here I am, ready to squat over a toilet hole (Yes...SQUAT) when I look out the toilet window right into the windows of a bus. LUCKILY, the bus was empty, otherwise I would have an audience watching me relieve myself. The bus arrives and we jump on taking heaps of photos of the little towns in Santorini.

We arrive at Perissa Beach and it is GORGEOUS. The water is clear and the sand is black. There was alot of people, but instead of the noisy buzz of sound you would get at bondi on a weekend, it was a relaxing, quiet environment where all you hear is the sound of the sea. After taking many photos (and more photos of dogs) we walked around a bit for more scenic shots with a typical Aegean Church with the blue domes.


Satisfied with all our scenic shots, we decide to refuel with a pita roll when Moishi decided that it was a good idea to feed the stray dogs. We ended up getting followed and chased by dogs...AGAIN!

THE dog and the black sand

Making a get away, we almost ran into the path of an oncoming bus. At first thinking it was the bus back to town, but on closer look, we realised that it was a tour bus, we went to buy more postcards and grabbed a drink. Slowly strolling back to the bus stop, the "tour bus" actually turned out to the town bus. We ran as fast at we could and JUST managed to jump on before they shut the door on us, otherwise it'll be another 1hr wait.

After a long day, we walk back to our apartment. As we near the apartment, we could see that our apartment door was wide open. Panicking thinking that we had forgotten to lock the place and that someone has now broken in, we run up the stairs towards our apartment where Moishii almost knocks the cleaning lady down. FFS woman, its 5pm. Who the hell cleans at 5pm?! Feeling better knowing that its only the cleaning lady, I walk into my room to dump my stuff.

This is when I realised that the laundry I hung up in the morning was blown all over the balcony. I run out and start picking my things off the floor, when I realised that I am missing my underwear. I freak out and start searching, only to spot 2 out of the 3 missing pieces lying in the hills at the back of the apartment. I tell Moishii what happened as I dashed out the apartment to retrieve my stuff. Instead of helping me search, the asshole pulls out his video camera and films me running around and climbing the hills trying to retrieve my underwear. To make things worse, he tried to tell the cleaning lady what happened! He doesn't speak greek, she doesn't speak english, and he was trying to sign language to her that I had lost my panties! WTF? The conclusion to this story is that I left my panties in Santorini. Its my gift to them. Knowing my luck a dog has probably picked them up and has added it to their bed! I hope he likes red.

I walk back into the apartment with what I could retrieve, only to have the cleaning lady grab me and Moishii to drag us into the bathroom where we got told off for making a mess. Actually, it was Moishii who made the mess since he insisted on wearing his thongs into the bathroom, the same pair that he's been trudging around in all day. Because of that, the entire bathroom floor is all muddy, and he's managed to stomp onto the bath mat which has now turned brown. Can't believe we got told off by the cleaning lady. Maybe she stole my undies as revenge?

We have a nap before I go downstairs to the travel agency to book a tour for the next day. I also managed to get the guy to burn all my digi cam photos onto CD for freeeeee! MAUahAUAH Saved myself $10 there. After having a chat with the owners and scoring my free CD, we walk into town to have a nice dinner at El Greco where I had a gorgeous Beef and Tomato Stew thing with Rice. No idea what its called in Greek, but it was GOOD. Too tired to go clubbing, and knowing we need an early night in preparation for the all day tour tomorrow, we walk around town for a few souveniers and more postcards. Of course we had to go back to the two brothers bar to try and film the chick prostitute herself in the doorway. Only she realised that we were filming her and tried to hide from us. Moishii, you SUCK at filming. So much for all the spy training.

Calling it a night, we walk past a little honey puff store. Now honey puffs, theoretically, should be little bite-size balls of fried dough that gets very crunchy on the outside, and nice and light and fluffy on the inside before they drench it in honey. These ones however, are the size of a tennis ball, wasn't cooked in the centre, and dense as a brick. After paying $10 for 6 and taking a bite each, we binned the whole thing before jumping into bed.

I did a bad bad thing

In 2 days, I have spent close to $800. Almost $200 on DVDs - Everybody loves Raymond S1, 2 and 3, Wonderwoman S1 and 2 and a few other random DVDs. BEFORE you say anything, Wonderwoman is a Chrissie Pressie and I am only starting my shopping early. And ummm.....yeh.....when I was in America, I got myself a brand new 20gig iPod photo so I can store my holiday photos whilst I was on the go. This was a day before the iPod Nano came out. I kicked myself for not waiting that extra day. But my excuse was that the nano is 4gigs, I have 5 times as much storage. You can't compare the two! That is...until the iPod Video came out...in black as well!!! With my iPod JUST celebrating its one month birthday.....I decided to celebrate by ordering myself the 60gig iPod video.....Baby I did a bad bad thing....

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.

Thanks for ruining it!!!

Friday night was Bubble night. At 3pm my mobile started ringing every 30mins. It was Cherry screaming for me to get off work and go line up with her. With my Senior Manager sitting less than 10m away from me, I wasn't about to leave until 5:15pm on the dot. No matter how much she screamed. She screamed on the phone until my workmates heard the conversation and I had to explain who the hysterical woman was. 5:15pm I grab my stuff and dash out of the office and practically run to the Opera house. The reason why I was so needed was simple. Cherry wanted good seats at the front. And she knows I can always get to the front. Standing in line with a huge picnic rug in my arms, the gates opened and I get stuck at security having a stare off with the security guard who reckons my water bottle was open. It was open. So what? Sue me. Fag. As if you ask:
"Is that bottle open?"
"No"
"Are you sure"
"No I'm not sure. Infact, I deliberately opened the bottle, empty the contents to fill it up with an evil mix of vodka and tequila so I can get utterly trashed and jump onto stage". Asshole.

I finally get past security and make a run for it when again security starts screaming at us. Good thing I've been back at the gym because we started power walking like there was a car chasing us. The group of women who tried running towards the steps had to eat our dust. I storm towards the Opera House steps and throw the rug down then proceed to take up more space my strategically placing things around us. We had AWESOME seats (For the unreserved area...)

3 hours later and a VERY numb ass, Mr Bubble comes on stage and totally blows our mind away. He's an excellent live entertainer. Not only could he sing, he could entertain. Half way through the concert, it started raining. All the ponchos came out but the rain did not dampen our spirits. It kinda helped that he jumped off the stage and did a victory lap through the audience. I was less than 50cm away from him when my camera failed!! I also got my barefoot stomped on by a woman!

Near the end, Mr Bubble got the whole crowd up and dancing whilst he serenaded us with SWAY. We danced and we spun around with the sky drizzling around us! Moishii even tried dipping me but almost threw me down the stairs instead! We didn't care that it was cold and it was raining. We had an absolutely awesome time listening to Mr Bubble with the Harbour Bridge as the view and the Opera House as the background. We all agreed that the rain actually added to the whole spirit of things and we loved it! We even topped the night with sugar hits at Intercontinental.

Right now, Aussie Idol is in the background. And it is SHITTING ME! Its big band night and as expected, people are going to crack into the Michael Buble songs. Maybe if I haven't heard him sing live I wouldn't react like this. But right now I wanted to throttle James for ruining Sway! All I can say is @#$^@#%& WTF was that!? Asshole!!

Errrrrr.....yeah......photos....

Ok I've been lazy. I promised photos from my birthday and I haven't gotten around to it yet. I've decided not to post pictures from the night simply because I'm not sure everyone wants their picture plastered all over the net. So instead, here are a few photos I took of my pressies :D I'll be sending photos to people individually :D

How could anyone forget that damn frickin card? I also got Golden Girls Season 1 and.....

Yes!! Michael Buble Concert Tickets!! Thank you Moishii!! *MUahZ*

A rotating photo album for my many many holiday shots! Thanks Cherry and Gus. BTW, whats the go with the card Gus? ONE FREAKIN LINE? You are so NOT invited to the next party :P

oOOooOoOOoOoOoo Hand care products! Thank you Alex and Richard!! :D


I wish they were real, but good enough. And I'm glad you FINALLY made it to one of my birthday parties Shirley!!



Gorgeous necklace! I LOVE MY ACCESSORIES! Thankies Dottie!


Hahahaha You know me well Vicky dear! Well you have known me since I was 5. This is a PERFECT gift for me! Anyone want a game? :D


I think people realise that I love my jewellery...... :D Thanks Amanda and Chao. BTW, my parents have scabbed the DVDs you got me! They've kept it in their room!


Like its not enough that I am turning old, but we've got it laser engraved into the centre of a crystal for all of eternity!! Thanks guy! I love having your mug shots in my room.....now I just have to explain to my parents why...and yes people, that does say SoRMuiJAi with the proper upper and lowercase.....sad...but I wouldn't have it any other way.

And my last birthday present? Having my life saved on my birthday! Thanks V babes! Hope your leg has fully recovered. BTW, that shot was taken less than an hour after her being hit by the car....

Day 7 - Rhodes

We wake up with aching feet. Barely being able to get to the breakfast room, we plonk ourselves down at the nearest table. This is when we realised it was the perfect opportunity to stock up on supplies for the rest of the trip. We quickly move to a table near the corner of the room where we start pocketing packs of jam, cake and cookies. Final count?

Jam - 8
Cake - 10
Cookies - 9
One HUGE mega sandwich I built from breakfast food

We head towards the bus stop to catch a bus to the Butterfly Valley. A bunch of 60y.o. women were standing there so we decided to ask them if thats where the bus stop is and if they are going to the butterfly valley as well. They tell us that it is the bus stop (Even though there's no sign). So we stand around taking photos when I decided to walk 20m up the road to see a huge "BUS STOP" sign. What the hell? I grab Moishii and we quickly wait at the real bus stop whilst the blonde women follow us. We flag down the bus and pay our 7euros. 30mins later, we pull into the car park at the Butterfly Valley where we pay another 5euros to get in.

We follow the trail and hike up the hill taking photos and videos of the millions of butterflies. Technically, they are moths, but everyone calls it the Butterfly Valley. Would YOU go to Moth Valley? :P We're standing around taking photos when all of a sudden, this goat charges down the hill, stops about 10m from us and starts peeing before wandering off. o_O

The "Butterflies"

The Peeing Goat

After we hiked for about 2 hours, we stopped to scoff down the food we got during breakfast and buy some postcards. We thought we better head back to the car park since there are only 3 buses leaving the valley every day, and we've missed on already. We wait in the car park when all of a sudden you hear the whistle go off and a guy runs into the car park screaming and waving his arms at the parking cars. Apparently you're not allowed to park in the car park? They made about 5 cars move into the bush, each time blowing his whistle and screaming and ranting and raving. After about 10mins of watching this lunatic, the bus pulls into the car park. This is when everyone stampedes towards the bus WHILST it was doing a U-turn! Half of the people almost got run over FFS. The minute the bus stopped moving, I threw myself towards the door knowing that Moishii isn't the best line pusher. This is when the entire crowd surges forward almost crushing me. You would think the bus driver was giving out money the way they were behaving. I managed to get onto the bus after getting my thongs stepped on and almost ripped off my feet and grabbed a seat. Happy that we have a seat for the next 30mins, we sit back and relax.

Suddenly there was alot of commotion between the group of people sitting on our left. Alot of yelling was happening and a half eaten apple got passed around the group where everyone took a bite. This is when Moishii explains to me that the whole family is Turkish, and they were fighting over who paid for that apple. The mother claimed that she bought it, and the daughter insisted that she paid for it, meanwhile, the grandfather and grandson kept scoffing the apple when the daughter was insisting that she should be eating it. FFS, who argues over an apple!? The whole bus turned to watch them yell in Turkish and no one except Moishii knew what was going on!

About half way back to our hotel, my mobile suddenly rings. I look at the caller ID and it is Rollie from Access. Thinking something majorly bad must have happened with a project I worked on before, I answered the phone...

Me: (Worried voice) Hello?
R: Hi Mum! How's it going?
Me: Rollie?
R: Lily? OMG! I thought you were my mum!!
Me: No.....
R: How are you!?
Me: Errr...I'm in Greece.....
R: Omg! I better hang up before this call costs you heaps! Bye!
*Hangs up*
Me: Ok.......

We get off near our hotel and the first thing we do is run to the nearest phone booth and started calling people. I forgot who we called and what we screamed. Looking back at my diary, apparently I called Cookiez knowing that she would be in class and we would definately get her voicemail. We leave an abusive voicemail and hang up feeling better.

Now before I tell you what happens next, let me explained what happened the day before. Whilst we were exploring the old town, we came upon all these shops selling postcards ranging from 20c to 40c. We probably checked out about 15-20 stores, each time saying "We'll buy them later. I saw another place that sells them for 20c". The problem is, the 20c ones are more like paper than postcard/cardboard. So by the end of the day, we didn't buy a single postcard. Fast forward back to us wandering the back streets, we suddenly see a shop that had a rack of postcards outside. Without even saying a word to each other, we threw ourselves onto the rack and started grabbing postcards like they were for free!! We didn't check the price and we didn't say a word to each other. But we both walked out with about 20 postcards each. I think the whole "We'll buy the postcards later" built up and eventually erupted.

Feeling better with a bag full of postcards, we went back to the hotel to drop our stuff and get ready for the beach. We wait at the elevator, when this guy and girl walks up to wait behind us. This guy looked like a mutation of Hagrid from Harry Potter and a stoned heavy metal singer. My eyes literally went O_O and I quickly looked down at the ground. I didn't, no wait, I COULDN'T look at Moishii, cos the minute I do, I would piss myself laughing. The elevator arrives and I quickly jump in, avoiding eye contact the entire time. I pulled out a hair elastic and kept twirling it in my hand making it look like the most fascinating thing in the world. My body started to shudder as I tried not to laugh. The minute the elevator stopped on our floor, I ran out slamming the door behind me. This is when the laughing fit reaches bursting point. I start SNORTING in my effort not to laugh as I was standing at the stairwell, and I knew the couple was getting off the next level up and would hear us pissing ourselves laughing. I clamp my hand over my mouth and made a mad dash to our room whilst ramming myself into the hallway walls. When we finally unlocked the door, we PISSED OURSELVES LAUGHING. We laughed until we started hiccuping. We laughed until we couldn't breath. We laughed until we couldn't stand and had to collapse into bed clutching our KIDNEYS. I had tears running down my eyes and I thought I was having an asthma attack even though I don't have asthma!!!

We finally catch our breath after 5min laughing fit. This is when reception calls and asked if its ok for the electrician to come and fix our aircon. (Not that it really mattered. I fixed the whole "must sleep with lights on for aircon to work" issue by unscrewing all the lightbulbs). We were heading to the beach anyway so we told them to come up in 5 mins. We walk across the road to the beach, pay for our beach chairs and try to lie down and relax. This is when a 70y.o. woman walks right infront of us, plonks herself down on the chair and proceeds to strip BUTT NAKED. This woman was older than my parents, and she was sitting infront of me without a stitch of clothing on. I quickly close my eyes and pretend to sleep. Next thing you know, when we woke up, we found out that someone had been putting fliers on Moishii's chair. It was like he was a human billboard. We had a look at the flier and it was an all you can eat place for about 5euros each. Thinking it was a good deal, we decided that thats where we will go for dinner.

We pack ourstuff up and walk back to the hotel. The minute we walked into the room, all we saw was chipped plaster, paint, screws, metal grinding and electrician tools strewn throughout the room. PLUS there was no electricity. I thought they were supposed to FIX the problem, not take down the entire electrical system. We bring the reception chick back up to our rooms to fix the electricity problem. I also packed up the guy's left over tools, WD-40 and other crap to give back to her. The woman takes one look at the crap on our floor, thinking it was too much work to clean up, she walks out leaving us there. I used my shoes and kicked as much crap under the bed as I could and vowed not to go barefoot in the room.

Moishii decides to take a nap whilst I laid in bed reading my book. This is when I heard multiple loud burps from next door. Then I could hear them talking amongst themselves. GOD DAMNIT! Next door heard our entire screaming/laughing fit last night! How embarrassing!

Moishii wakes up with a sore throat and starts popping pills meaning no more drinking for him. We head towards our buffet dinner where we had one of the worst meals on the entire trip. The reason they can afford to run an all-you-can-eat place is because they oversalt the food so much, you basically can't eat it. Disgusted with the food, we ask for the bill whilst the sun started to set. We waited about 15mins when the waiter walks out with complimentary drinks (Alcoholic Cordial?) instead of a bill. I slam my drinks and Moishii's drinks down, grab my camera and ran for the beach whilst he sorts out the bill. Apparently after I ran out, everyone left their bags and food at the restaurant and ran out to take photos as well. You can understand why:


For someone who travelled for 5months last year, you don't know how to pack. Somehow you thought you could go around with a suitcase and a plastic bag instead of a handcarry. Well Moishii finally woke up and decided that he should get a handcarry to throw everything in. We walk across the street to a shop that sells luggage bags. We choose a bag from the shelf but then began to argue between us as to which bag is bigger and which would be suitable as a hand luggage. This is when the woman working there decided to settle the argument for us by pulling ALL the stuffing out. You know in those looney tunes cartoons where people are digging through a bag frantically and starts hurling stuff over their shoulders? This is EXACTLY what happened. The woman opened the bag and starts ripping the stuffing out and hurls it all around the store. Trying not to get hit, we slowly back away whilst she keeps throwing things left right and centre. When she managed to empty the bag, she raises it over her head as if to say "I DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!" O_o Not wanting to cause a scene, we pay for the bag, run outside, then stand in the doorway taking a photo of her before making a get away.


We head back to the hotel as the pills were kicking in for Moishii. We laze around watching that british soap called Westgate (?) when this psychopathic chick pulls out a pick axe and starts going psycho on everyone. We called her Cherry. Oh, and we recorded half the show on the camcorder. Suddenly, you hear this banging and sqweaking. The guys staying in the room next to us was making so much noise they could wake up the dead. We run to our wardrobe where we can hear the guy bitching to his wife whilst he kept slamming all the doors in the room. We decided to get revenge by slamming our wardrobe door multiple times, clang all the clothes hangers and slamming them against the wall, slide our balcony door open and close so hard it slams into the wall everytime whilst we filmed it.

Moishii is knackered and hops into bed at 10pm whilst I roam around the streets doing some last minute shopping and decided to give cookiez a wake up call considering the bitch never messaged us back after our abusive voicemail. However, the bitch didn't even pick up her phone even though it was only 6am!!! PFFFFFFT I'll getcha!

The new me!

I haven't been motivated for quite awhile. I guess I keep using the excuse that too much has been happening. Holiday, new job, learning new things, meeting new people, birthday etc etc. But I have put it off long enough. Starting today, I shall head back to the gym, try to keep my room tidy, keep in contact with my friends and stop spending money on stuff I don't need. I will stop buying DVDs until I start watching the ones I bought (With the exception of Rocky and Bullwinkle S1&2 since I only have 3&4, and Firefly. Oh...and Scrubs...and..errr...a few others). I will aim to finish blogging my entire trip by the end of October and have my $220 photo albums and scrapbooks filled. Why am I saying this? My theory is if I post it on the net, I have to follow through with it. Lets see how long this lasts...

 

P.S. I've started using the mail blogger since I can't load blogger at work. Will work on fixing this annoying font issue.

The Secret is Out!

I hate secrets. Just like when I found out that Buffy died in Season 5, more than 3 months before the rest of Australia, it was the most agonising 3 months of my life. Everyone knows that I am a Buffy fan and they all asked me what was happening on the show. All I could say was "YOU'VE GOT TO WATCH IT!!!" without ruining the surprise for anyone. When my fellow Buffy fan's watched the final episode, it was one of the most relieving days of my life where I can finally discuss the episode with them!

Saturday night I get a phone call from dear Euan from Brissy. The conversation went a bit like this:

Me: Heya! Whats up?
Euan: Hello, just thought I should tell you this over the phone…
Me: What? You're engaged?
Euan: Yes! How did you know?!
Me: OMG!!! OMG!! OMG!!!!!!!!! Congrads! I am so happy for you…… etc etc

We then switched over to MSN where I found out that he didn't propose with a ring! *smacks forehead* You need a ring to propose dearie! Even if she doesn't like it, you can always buy a second one for her! :D After a lot of commotion, I was told that I cannot tell anyone until he's made his rounds doing the individual phone calls! Its like Buffy all over again! >_<

Last night I finally got the OK. So the secret is out my friends! Congratulations Euan and Selena! Incase you don't know already, I have already invited myself to the wedding and I am bringing the camera :D I have also volunteered to be the official Euan ass whooper incase he ever steps out of line. And Euan dearie babes, I already have permission from Selena! MAUahaUahaUahAUahaUaaUAha *cracks whip* I so can't wait for the wedding! You two will definitely make a lovely couple!! Congratulations again! *^_^*

Day 6 - Marmaris to Rhodes

We woke up early in the morning. So early that the hotel wasn't even serving breakfast yet. So not only did we not get a tv, or a fridge, got downgraded, had a broken electrical system (That worked to our advantage), but we also didn't get breakfast. We hail a cab and head towards the pier. We arrive and head straight for the ticket office. This is when we find out that we don't get the ticket until right before boarding. When we finally get the tickets, I grab our suitcases and start lining up for Immigrations. We get into the port office and throw our bags onto the conveyor belt to be x-rayed. The next thing we know, theres a huge traffic jam of people trying to get through immigrations and our bags jam up the x-ray machine. They close the door to stop people coming in after us whilst we try to fix the jammed x-ray machine. They had to turn the damn thing off because of our luggage. We stand in line for 30mins waiting to get through immigration whilst about 100 people are standing on the other side of the door, barred from coming in. There was 2 immigrations officers trying to get about 200 people through the gates. We eventually make it through immigrations only to spot a duty free shop.

We make a mad dash for the duty free shop to find that smirnoff and absolut vodka is half the price it is in Australia, and even cheaper than that Turkish crap we bought. Without even thinking, we buy another 2 bottles of vodka and walk towards the ferry. This is when we realised we have 3 bottles of vodka, one for each island. We're going to get plastered. With our Voka in our hands, we head towards the ferry. Most people are only carrying hand luggage and walk straight onto the boat. Because we have our huge ass suitcases, we had to walk to the back of the ferry to store our bags. Now, every ferry has a shiphand (I think that's what they are called). The guy is basically in charge of grabbing the bags from shore and storing it on the ferry. The guy tells Moishii to leave the bags so he can grab them, instead of listening to the guy, he tries to "help" by passing MY suitcase to the guy by grabbing onto the only handle the guy can reach. The guy tries to grab the suitcase off Moishii using the same handle he was gripping on to. There was a split second where my suitcase dropped a few inches in the change of hands, almost into the sea. Luckily, another guy helped at the last minute to grab onto my suitcase and stopped it from falling into the sea. This is what happens when you try to help. Next time Moishii sweetie, DON'T HELP!

We finally board the ferry and grab a seat. We sit in our seats half asleep with our stomaches growling. This is when the bar opens to serve coffee and food. Moishii runs up to order us 2 coffees and a pastry. Because we were trying to "save" money on our Greece trip, we decided to buy essentials to take with us such as coffee powder, honey for toast etc. The only thing missing was sugar. He gets his two coffes and pastry, then he grabs the BIGGEST handful of sugar cubes and smuggles it back to our seat where I end up burning the crap outta me by spilling boiling hot coffee all over my thigh. Sitting there in pain, I did the only thing I could think of. I walked to the bar and grabbed a handful of sugar cubes and pocketed that. I forgot how many times we kept running up to the bar grabbing sugar. But lets say that my pockets started to get really weighed down with it.

The ferry starts to pull into the Rhodes port after an hour. The whole ferry jumps to their feet and starts stampeding towards the door. And I am not kidding when I use the word stampeding! The ferry had another 5-10mins to fully dock and everyone started swarming towards the door. This is when the guy working at the bar started SCREAMING on the PA telling everyone to sit down. At one stage, he screamed "WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE THINK YOU ARE DOING!! SIT DOWN!!!!!!!!". A few people sat down at the screaming, but a majority of them kept pushing towards the doors. After 15mins, we finally get up and stroll off the ferry, only to see everyone pushing and shoving to get through the port authority. We straggle at the end of the line for "foreigners" only to be pulled into a queue for locals because according to the guy "All the lines are the same". ???

The first thing we did after we got through immigrations was buy a phone card to call our hotel to find out the best way to get there. The woman suggested that with our luggage, we should just cab it to the hotel, and do not pay more than 3euros for it. With that in mind, we walk to the nearest taxi stand and ask the guy how much it was to cab it to the hotel. He told us 5euros. Without missing a beat, we proceed to put our luggage into the boot. WTF? Did she not say to us don't pay more than 3euros? We never learn do we? We get to the hotel and check-in only to find out that if we want aircon, we have to pay an additional 4.50euros a night. Thats $9 a night! We decided to live without it......that is until I spent less than 5mins in the room where I grabbed my wallet and ran back to reception. 5mins later, I am standing in the room with the remote pressing every single button I could find to try and turn on the damn thing. We finally get the shits, decided to dump everything and stormed downstairs to reception. The woman kept asking me if I pressed the power button. FFS woman, do I look retarded to you!? Of course I pressed the fuckin POWER button. BITCH. We throw the remote at her and tell her to fix it before we run out to look for food.

We walk into the first cafe we saw and sat down to order Moishii's first moussaka in Greece. We sit and wait for our food when all of a sudden, we get sprayed from head to toe with water from the roof of the cafe. Thinking it was a once off, we continued to sit in our seats where we get sprayed repeatedly every 2mins for the next 15mins. We finally get the shits and move tables before our food came and gets drenched in water. We finally realised why no one sat near the edge of the roof.....

With a satisfied stomache, we start walking around the island and ended up at the Rhodes old town where the camera came out and we started getting trigger happy. 10mins walking into the old town, I started regretting that I wore thongs. When they said cobblestone walk way, they didn't mention that the stones are placed on their edges rather than their flat side. Every step started feeling like someone was jabbing a pole into the bottom of my foot. We walk past a jewellery store where we find a really nice bracelet for Moishii, only that it was a tad too big for his wrist. The woman offered to shorten it for free whilst we wait. We walked into the shop whilst the woman removed a few beads to shorten the bracelet. The next thing we know, she had cut herself with the pliers and started bleeding all over the bracelet. She quickly wraps a tissue around her finger and wipes up the blood before fixing the clasp back on. The woman had to BLEED for your god damn bracelet! I hope you're happy! You're bracelet is probably now CURSED.

An hour later, we really needed to find a toilet. We happened to walk into this ticket stand where everyone was lining up. We figured that there HAD to be a toilet at a tourist attraction like this. We jump into line with my expired student card trying to buy a ticket. We had no idea what was going on because you can buy all sorts of tickets from this booth. I heard someone say something about palace something. The building we were standing under sort of looked like a palace so thats what we bought tickets to. Only after we paid for our "student tickets" did we realise that we were at the palace of knights. The first thing we did after passing through the gates was to head straight for the toilets against the flow of the crowd. Feeling relieved (No pun intended) we start exploring the palace of knights and again got very trigger happy.

We roam around the city for some more when all of a sudden I see a bunch of 4 asians sitting at a restaurant. As we walked by, I heard on chick scream at another "Do you know how much we just ate!? $270!!!". What the hell? How the hell can you eat $270 worth of food for LUNCH? I think they must have ordered seafood and got royally screwed by the restaurant. Pissing ourselves laughing, we stumble into a clock tower where we paid 5euros each to climb. Either we were really unfit, or it was one of the steepest staircases we have ever seen. We got up two flights of creaky rotten wooden stairs when we had to have a pit stop to catch our breathes. When we finally get to the top, a couple stood up there congratulating us for making the hike. We wished them good luck as they practically trip and fall head first down the stairs. After taking some very awesome shots, we carefully make our way down to the garden bar where we get a free drink. This is when I pull out the camera and take a photos of the bartender's ass. And a damn fine ass she had.

We continue to walk around and around and around the old town when we stumble across this jewellery store that sold a silver greek bracelet that Moishii really wanted. It was priced at 35 euros which is close to $70AUD. I refused to let him spend that much on the bracelet and tried to negotiate. This is when he tells the woman that he's not paying for it, and that I am buying it for him a birthday present and I refused to spend that much money on him. The woman turns to me and starts yelling "He likes the bracelet and wants it as a birthday present and you refuse to spend money on him!?" I'm like WTF? I'm getting yelled at cos the woman thinks I am a tight ass. So I decide to play along and said he's not worth that much and we're going to shop around and proceed to drag him out the door. We wander around trying to find another store that sold that bracelet at a cheaper price. An hour later, we head back to the woman's store and stop around the corner where Moishii shoves a $50 note in my hand so I can pay for the bracelet to make it look like I am buying it for his birthday. We walk in to buy the bracelet and end up coming out with a different one. What the hell!? After all that negotiating and shopping around, you choose a different bracelet! FFS!! MAKE UP YOUR GOD DAMN MIND!!!

Starving, we head towards the first restaurant we could find that didn't look like they were going to charge an arm and a leg for a meal and ended up having a Gyros plate.....the first of MANY to come in greece. Feeling all greased up, we look on the map to find out that there is a "turkish palace" somewhere in Rhodes. Now here is the thing about Greece, they don't have street names, and even when they do, no one knows them. Hence the maps have about 10% of the number of streets that actually exist. We wander around trying to find this damn palace and decided to ask a woman at a cafe. I grab a seat on a bench whilst Moishii asks for directions. Now this is the WEIRDEST conversation you will ever see. Moishii is standing there talking for about 2mins trying to get directions, meanwhile the woman stands there going "ohhhhh ahhhhh.....ahhhhhhh.....ahhhhhh.......ohhhhhhh......ahhhhhhh....mmmmmm........ahhhhhhh......ahhhhhhhhh......" and finally she goes "I don't understand". WTF? She stood there umm and ahhing like she knew EXACTLY what he was talking about, and after 2 mins of him babbling, she finally told him she didn't understand a word he was saying. Luckily, I knew something was going to happen from this woman so I decided to get a shot of her.


We finally stumble into this alleyway that seemed to resemble something on the map. We walk past the point on the map of where the freakin palace should be. All we saw was this:


We're assuming that it is the god damn palace. 7hours after we left the hotel, with a feet full of blisters and an aching back like I was 9months pregnant, we decided it was time to call it quits. We start trying to find an exit out of the damn city and end up on the wrong side of it. Exhausted, a taxi drives by where we ask each other if we want to catch a cab back. Without even answering each other, we head back into the city to try to get to the other side. 30mins later, we find ourselves on the other side of the city walls only to see 4 dogs having sex with each other. We grab a video and start filming. When they collapse from exhaustion, we start walking towards our hotel when we questioned ourselves why we didn't cab it. Both of us wanted to cab it, but neither of us said so because we couldn't be bothered. WTF? We start walking and 10mins later, Moishii insists that we're going in the wrong direction and makes us back track. ANOTHER 10mins later, we realised that we WERE going in the right direction (Considering I had the freakin map) and back track AGAIN. 30mins later, the surroundings start to look familiar. We limp down the street as fast as we can and run into our hotel lobby almost in tears from relief. This is when we realised that we were in the wrong hotel. We practically start crying and turn to leave. 2 blocks later, 100% sure that we had the right hotel, I run up to the reception to get our keys. The woman then proceeds to tell us that someone had checked out our aircon. The reason that it wasn't working was cos we needed the main lamp on. Thinking everything was ok, we get into the lift where we suddenly realise that we have to sleep with the light on if we want the aircon to run. We then considered getting a refund if we can't get the aircon to work. This is when Moishii asked if they would even give us a refund. I then screamed "If the bitch doesn't give us a refund I'm going to rip her throat out!". At this EXACT instant, we arrive on our floor and the elevator door opens with 2 guys standing there staring at me. They had heard me screaming about ripping someone's throat out.

We dash out of the lift to have a laughing fit whilst the guys go down the lift. We waited for the next lift and went to reception to clarify if we HAD to sleep with the light on if we wanted the aircon. She said thats the only way and that an electrician will come and fix it for us tomorrow. Too tired to care, we get back to our room, turned on the lights and aircon and flopped into bed. We laid there for atleast 30mins in pain when I decided that I had to use the bathroom. I stood up and immediately stacked it. My feet and calves hurt so much I couldn't even stand. I ended up crawling to the bathroom FFS. I came out and flopped back into bed after turning the TV on. We were watching some british soap when Moishii starts laughing so hard he has an asthma attack. I pull our my camera to film not knowing why he was laughing. He managed to point to the tv and gasped "We...we...wee....weeded...wom...woman!!". I turned to the TV and see a GUY with the biggest mop of head looking like he dragged himself out of the bin. This is when I crack up laughing and we both roll around for about 10mins with tears in our eyes clutching our kidneys cos we were laughing too hard.

When we finally calm down, we head downstairs to the hotel bar and start sculling our 3.80euro cocktails. Moishii gets trashed and we end up back in our room collapsing from exhaustion. This is when we realised we walked for 8 HOURS STRAIGHT around Rhodes.

Recap

I was browsing through all my photos that I have taken with my digi cam for the past 3-4 years and have backed all of them up, INCLUDING last years Greece and Turkey holiday all onto ONE DVD. So far, I have only backed up the photos from MY camera for this years trip, and thats taken up one whole DVD already. Once I get moishii's photos, I predict that I will need 2 DVDs just to back up the photos from this years trip. I think we got a tad too trigger happy. In the meantime, enjoy the first few photos I EVER took with my digi cam. Enjoy....