CN Tower
Niagara Falls
Golden Gate
Mt. Fuji
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Grand Canyon
Hoover Dam
Pyramids
Petra
Colosseum
Leaning Tower
Parthenon
Stonehenge
Big Ben
The Chunnel
Eiffel Tower
Mt. St.Michel
Empire St Bld

Alaska glacier
Tokyo Tower
Forbidden City
Sum'r Palace
LaBufadora
Bilbao Museo
BlarneyStone
Disney Paris

Think "Greek islands." Did an image of a blue-domed white church overlooking a turquoise-blue sea pop to mind?  Turns out that's one of several churches dotting the cliff town Oia.

After taking this photo, I head over to a nearby cafe overlooking the crystal blue sea.  At the next table, two couples are debating whether, relationships should always be for 'eventual marriage,' or can be 'just for fun.'  So of course, I butt in to add my two cents.  We start chatting.   It turns out they're quite a lot of fun:  George and Tina (both from Athens), and Nikki (Athens) and Harand (Austria).
George, Alice, Harand, Tina, Kev at sunset reminds me of that one Friends photo.
They think it's funny I'm so obsessed with finding the blue-domed church for a photograph.  Athenians think of Santorini as the "volcano island with great sunsets,"  not the "church island."  So I catch a volcano tour to find out more....    

Gives an idea of the little ripped up cliff islands resulting from volcano exploding

Volcano Island Tour
I catch a half-day tour of the island.   Turns out that once upon a time, there was this volcano island.  Then its core erupted, pulverizing the center of the island and carving out these huge cliffs.  That's the layout of Santorini.  Two cliff-halves of the island surround a rebuilding new volcano-island in the center.  Our glass bottom boat takes us from the main port Fira, to the volcano center island, Nea Kameni.  It's littered with so many mountains of jagged black basalt rock it looks like a coal quarry. Reminds me of that comet in Armageddon.  I meet up with Jeff and Angie from Australia, and tell them I'm kinda bummed we don't see any steam or smoke like I saw in Rotorua, New Zealand.  This is a volcano after all.  Then suddenly, right on cue, we see some steam coming out of this crater and we make a hasty retreat back to the boat.  We then head over to Palea Kameni, a small volcano vomit island with hot springs.  Except these American girls who go swimming find out it's cold springs in the spring. Then finally, we sail over to Thirassia, the smaller cliff half island.  Jeff sets a good pace for hiking to the top, dodging donkey dung along the way. The boat then drops me only off at Oia, cause I'm the only one crazy enough to hike it, but the view's worth it:

Black, Red Beaches
Santorini's also famous for its beaches with black and red sand.  Another side effect of being a volcano island I guess.  The black beach is kinda eerie, the sand really is black.  Must be really hot to step on in the summer.  The neighboring red beach isn't really a beach, more like a red rock quarry near the water.  These red cliff rocks crumbled Bam, Bam into the water, creating a red Pebble beach.

NIGHTLIFE.  George, Tina, Alice and Harand invite me to join their international tour group to some late night dancing at the Koo Club, which is a cool club.  From the outoor dance stage, you can see the water on both sides of the island.  During the Greek dance song set, George teaches me some Greek dance moves the guys do (snapping fingers and shaking arms in the air), while Tina and Alice gyrate their hips and their wrists in the air.  Sorry, definitely no photos of me Greek dancing.  Ya had to be there.  At 4 am, we leave the club to grab munchies at the late night pita shop.  When I screw up ordering a gyro, Tina sets me straight on the names for Greek foods, which I thought I knew, but guess I didn't.  Here's the way it works: Souvlaki refers to any sort of meat meal, whether it's in a pita or on a kabob.  Gyros is really just the meat spinning on the vertical skewer.  So if you want what I thought was a gyros, you say "souvlaki in a pita."   After a lot of fun hanging out with the Friends gang, I tell 'em I'll be back in town in 2004 for the Olympics.

Next stop: Meet my friend Jen in Rome.

Oia church with a triple arch play.  See why Santorini's sunsets are famous.

Really hard to screw up taking photos of the blue dome churches once you find them.  They really do look like that perched on the side of a cliff because well, Oia is on a cliff - check out the side view...

See, the houses are really up on the top of the mountain.  I climbed up the staircase from the port to the top, avoiding the donkey crap along the way, twice in one day.  So I think Santorini the Stairmaster Island.

My hotel has a great view of the alley, but I can see a little white dome church in the back ground.

I meet up with Jeff and Angie from Australia on the volcano tour.  We're on the small volcano island.  Check out the black basalt rocks.

American girls on sping break from Europe study abroad program practice synchronized swimming in the not-so-hot springs

Black beach...

Red beach...

I meet up with Gunther and Annette from Germany on my way back from the black and red beaches. They're camping the islands for 2 weeks, much to Annette's dismay. Gunther says they recently woke up to find four small little lizards staring at them.

Food: Greek coffee and a fruit cup overlooking the Mediterranean's a great way to relax.