Sunday Around the World

I decided, because I know I tend to get a little lazy as a solo traveler, that I would pack my days with visiting as many islands as possible after Christin left.  I succeeded in hitting up five Greek islands in 11 days.  I thought I would give you a little dose of my fav. moments from each. 1. Santorini By far my favorite island!  The best sunsets and the BEST company! 2. Mykanos Ahh, dancing til' 7am.  Just like Alexander the Great... 3. Paros The best part about solo traveling is you are ready to chat with almost anyone.  Getting free iced coffee and cake and chatting the day away in a small village with Stavros.  Yes, they are really named Stavros over here. 4. Naxos Getting so lost on a bike and cursing whoever thought it would be funny to draw a map with their eyes closed. 5. Syros Oh maaaan, the flowers on this island made my heart hurt.  This was my last island before heading to Spain. Now, I hop over to Spain for some quality...

I mean, its a totally normal thing for me to start taking my nap at 11:30pm, pull my friend out of her deep slumber on a lounge chair and force her into the shower so we can get ready to go out at 2am.  Yup, just like home.  At first we sort of thought it was a joke and we would get down to the bar area and there wouldn't be a soul around; not at all.  So, we joined the ranks of the locals and sat down to a lovely dinner (of a crepe) at 2am.  Mind you that is usually when im ending my night with pizza in hand. We met some lovely locals who had made it out of Athens alive and were enjoying some much needed R&R.  After getting lost in the alleys of Mykanos and passing the same creperie 27 times, we made it to the dancefloor! Then, as I was breaking it down to the 4th round of "When Love Takes Over" (ps. thank you K. Rowland for giving me my travel jam), Christin grabbed my hand to pull me outside.  I forgot the world keeps spinning while I am on the d...

Usually I like to walk on the safer side of life, (I realize traveling alone in Asia and swinging on trapeze above rocks doesn't fall into that category), but for the most part I keep it Kosher.  But there is something about zooming around on a scooter that makes life just a little sweeter.  Putting Papa and Mama Sunday's best wishes aside, I jumped on an ATV with Christin and checked out the rest of Santorini.  Phenom! We ended the day in the classic Greek way, a dinner of chocolate crepes and white wine.  And yes, another sunset for dessert. After 3 glooorious days on Santorini we decided to jump on a ferry and check out another one of my dream islands: Mykanos! One of my favorite moments happened in the first few minutes of being on the island.  After getting the run-around by a hotel rep (taking us to a different site than promised) we ended up in the smoky office of a travel agent.  We sat there for a few minutes watching her fumble with a sea...

You know you are traveling with a good person when you hear from your B&B hosts, "There is a 6 mile hike that takes 4 hours..." and without even hesitating both of you look at each other and say, "Oh hell ya!".   Anyone that knows the Sunday family knows that we are hiking people, so I was pretty stoked to find out I could hike on the cliffs of Santorini and maybe get an ice cream at the end.  We started the day with pouring rain, which made me want to cry cause all I have wanted to do is take some fabulous pictures of the cliffs and houses I wished I owned.  I don't know who or what heard this from above, but as soon as we pulled up to the town of Fira, the clouds parted, sun shine poured down, and im pretty sure I saw unicorns dancing about.  I was a happy girl.  So...our 6 mile hike began! We trecked for hours, stopping every two minutes to either say, "Oh myyy loooord this is amazing" or take pictures of the same things eight times just fr...

Aw man, I love chasing sunsets around the world.  This was the one of the "must dos" on my list for Greece and thankfully, as long as I threw some wine and cheese in there, CSmith was game!  (She liked to do things sans wine and cheese too, but lets be honest, its all better with a little vino).  After getting good advice from our hotel parents and missing the much-needed bus, we hopped in a car with Spiros who drove us to our destination.  That is a stellar hotel dad who doesn't want you to miss the sunset so he drives you himself.  You can see why! We were some happy girls at the top of the world!! Perfect ending to a perfect Santorini night!

Out of the Middle East and into the land of white houses and blue water!  Not that I don't love the architecture of Israel, but honestly...nothing comes even remotely close to what Greece has to offer.  C-Smith and I were only a little stoked to set food on our black sand beach. We arrived in Santorini after a night of getting up at 2am to catch our bus, Christin on about an hour of sleep, so you can imagine we were ready for our first amazing Greek meal.  Yesss..from here on out it was wine and crepes anytime we stopped for food.  In between, we managed to squeeze in some gyros. Our first B&B was a HUGE step up from our place in Tel Aviv that smelled so badly of smoke we could hardly sleep.  It was called Hotel Zorzis and for anyone ever traveling to Santorini, please take my word and go stay here.  The owners, Loco and Spiros, were an amazing couple that were like our Greek parents.  One night I was sharing pics I took of their place (seen be...

Just a few more from our tromp through the city.  How all good travelers do it these days: navigation via IPad: A good reason to NOT bring a leopard rolly bag to go backpacking through a few countries.  I think she learned her lesson as soon as we hit the mass crowds in the Arab Quarter.  Don't let this fool you, by the end we were carting a huge mirror, coffee set, mugs and my favorite, a huge knife that she thought would be a good idea to purchase.  All in the name of tourism, C-Smith...this is also a pic of the streets at 1am sans tourists and shwarma. We also visited the Wall on Shavuot, a holiday here in Israel.  Everyone flocks to the wall at midnight to start the celebration.  I wish I could say we made it that late, but I decided to play with a cat earlier that day and couldnt breathe by the time 12 rolled around.  Here is a pic of some Jews we decided to follow down the alley (multiply that by hundreds and that was what it looked like), and ...