Tuesday- March 20
This morning I opened my eyes at dusk, which was really odd because I usually sleep straight through the night. It was perfect timing though because when I looked out the window to my left the sun was a bright orange, red and yellow as it was rising above the horizon to start a new day.
I was the last one to pry myself out of bed around 10:00. Since our hostel room has four people in one room and no living room, it's inevitable that I'm going to have to wake up since everyone else is. I tossed in bed for a little bit trying to go back to sleep, but decided to wake up when I realized I wouldn't be able to fall back asleep.
I had bought corn flakes for my breakfasts for the week, but I quickly realized that the hostel didn't provide us with bowls and only one spoon, which one of us had already used. We also didn't have any way of cleaning them because we didn't have dish soap. So on that note I used a tiny mug and filled it with as much cornflakes as it would allow, topped it off with some milk, and ate it with a fork. I felt like my best friend Paige because she doesn't like using spoons, so she eats everything with forks.
After we were all ready for the day we learned that the bus transportation would pick us up at the bus stop near our hostel at either 11:30 or 12:40. It was about 10:40 at the time, so we picked the 11:30 one. We were all up at the bus stop at about 11:20 but Jess. She was rushing around trying to get everything situated before leaving.
Luckily, she made the bus because it was behind schedule. I was expecting a city bus or something, but it was a fancy coach bus with comfy seats, which was interesting. We walked on and thought we would pay right when we walked on, but we were shuffled to go sit down somewhere. A Greek man made his way back to us to get out €1.60 for the bus ride. The bus ride took about 15 minutes to get to the beach we were looking to find. First we stopped for about five minutes somewhere and we weren't sure what stop we were supposed to get off, so we stayed on. Then the man got back on and I realized we were waiting for this man to get his sandwich from a store nearby. We went about five feet and then the bus stopped again. We sat there because we weren't sure when we were really supposed to get off. We were going to ask him earlier, but he didn't seem too friendly.
He looked at us sitting on the bus and basically shooed us off. It was the first unpleasant Greek I had stumbled upon yet, so I couldn't be that upset about it. So far everyone in Athens and on the island were very helpful and pleasant.
All of us hopped off the bus and stood there as it drove away. We turned a corner and saw water not too far off form where we were at. So we walked down the abandoned street and eventually found the black sand beach. I suddenly was overwhelmed with happiness and jumping with joy because I was seeing clear clue water, something I've always, always wanted to see!
We walked toward the water and I could see everything under the water: all of the rocks and sand. Kate was brave enough to put her feet in first and told us it wasn't that bad. So I followed suit and was surprised. It was still too cold to go swimming, but it wasn't numbingly cold. When I walked into the water I found out that there was a flat rock that went on for a while, so I decided to walk on it. I could see right through the water to my feet, almost like it was bath water. I was like a little girl and kept jumping with joy and squealing. I'm such a beach guru it's not even funny.
As I was walking in the water I realized the rock suddenly stopped and the water dropped and I didn't know how deep it was, so I turned around and went back onto land. When I was walking on the black sand, which was basically just black rocks, my feet were aching in pain because the rocks were digging into my skin. I tried putting on my flip flops and walking, but they kept falling off with every step, so I had to brave it and walk the rest of the way to where Kate, Amy, Bethany and Jess were. Lydia was putting her shoes back on and was saying how the rocks were exfoliating her skin. HA! Beauty is pain then because my feet were not happy with me.
All of the girls were sitting on the beach when Lydia and I reached them. I went and sat by Kate, unfolded my towel and sat down. I took off my shirt and laid out in my bikini, soaking in the sun. It was windy and probably only in the low 60s, but I'm a determined chica. Soon enough everyone else was laying out in their bathing suits too.
I put in my ipod and accidentally fell asleep for probably an hour and a half. It was 1:30 when I realized I had fallen asleep, so I flipped to sleep on my stomach and ended up falling asleep for another hour. I woke up to the girls taking pictures in the water and then when Lydia realized I was awake she made hand gestures asking if I was hungry since my headphones were in.
I had packed snacks to save money so I told them I was just going to stay on the beach while they went to go find food. While they were all gone I laid out reading my new book I bought on my Kindle. It was just the most perfect afternoon.
When they got back Lydia said they had a surprise for me. Bethany and Lydia held out three different types of ice cream and they told me to pick which one I wanted. I thought it was SO nice, and I picked the chocolate covered cone with vanilla ice cream.
Lydia then said she had another surprise for me and she pulled out two lemons. I started laughing. Yesterday I meant to look for lemon juice to lighten my hair but I had forgotten, so they got me two lemons to use. I have never used real lemons before and asked them how I was supposed to cut it open without a knife. She and Bethany laughed and said, "Yeah, that was the dilemma, but we figured you could figure it out."
After sitting around for a bit, Lydia, Amy and I went to adventure onto some rocks where we sat for about a half hour. It was so peaceful and beautiful to look down at the rocks underneath the water and to see the water crash into the rocks.
When I looked back to the beach I saw the beautiful mountains that rose above the black sand grains and had another moment of "is this real life." Pictures I had been looking at for the past year had suddenly become my reality. Amazing.
The other girls waved at us after a while and told us they wanted to leave. We went back to gather our things and started walking to the bus station. Kate wanted to go into a store called Colors of Benedition to look at their bathing suits, but they weren't opening back up until 5 and it was 4:50. So we went to the bus station and went to wait there. A man in his 30s waiting there asked if we were looking for the bus stop because we looked lost. He was helpful at first with telling us about where we were, but after a while I picked up on the fact he really enjoyed talking about himself.
Thankfully he was picked up by someone and I didn't have to listen to him keep talking about who he was and what he was doing. It was really funny though when he got picked up because this slick, black car with tinted windows pulled up and he hopped in and drove away. It was like from a movie.
Kate, Lydia, Amy and I decided to go walk back down to the store to peruse because we had about 15 more minutes until the bus came and the last time it was late. When we got down to the store, it's doors were opened this time, but the lights were off and no worker was there. It was very odd. I looked around for a minute or two and decided to head out because it felt weird. Lydia and I were a few steps out of the store when we saw the bus coming down the street. We yelled back to Kate and Amy, who were still in the store, "BUS!" The four of us sprinted up to the bus stop and turned the corner to find Jess and Bethany running to try to tell us that it was here. We all started laughing because it ended up being earlier this time instead of late.
The bus ride went pretty fast and before we knew it we passed our hostel. "Crap," we all said out loud, "I think that's our hostel."
The bus driver was distracted by talking with an elderly man who was sitting behind him. We weren't really sure before how to get off the bus because everyone who got off at a stop had just stood up and walked to the front. We all hesitantly did that, and eventually he saw we needed off.
We had to walk about 10 minutes home, but we made it safely. We were in our room for maybe a minute when I heard someone talking outside. When I looked out our doors I saw the woman who owned the place waving at me. I opened the door and went out onto the balcony and she told me she and her husband wanted to give us something.
All six of us went over to the main building and she told us to sit down and then her husband brought over a type of pasta and a bean an onion side dish. The two of them had made dinner for us! It was so cute and I seriously felt like I was at home and my mom was cooking me dinner. The reviews on the hostel had said it had a real "homey" feel to it and I immediately got that when I was sitting there.
After dinner I relaxed for the rest of the night and watched some new TV episodes on my laptop. I forgot how tired the sun makes me. After I showered at night I quickly learned how wrong I was about the sun today. I didn't think the sun would be that strong and chose not to use sunscreen because it was so windy and chilly. I was super-duper wrong. I was a lobster. I had a shorts tan line and my chest, stomach and arms screamed tomato at me. Everyone was really worried about me but I just laughed and said I have had it worse — and I have. I was red, but I knew it was going to tan by Thursday and I'd be fine. Thankfully it didn't hurt either, but I could see why they were worried because when I looked in the mirror all I saw was red, red, red.
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