I woke up quite early this morning after a restless night of sleep. Part of it, I think, was something funky with the dinner we had last night. Turns out, I wasn't the only one as several others also experienced some stomach aches too.
Anyway, I spent the early morning on the back patio on my computer and worked on my personal statement for my Fulbright Scholarship. The deadline is coming up very soon (as in two weeks), so I'm running out of time.
After breakfast and using my laptop by the pool, Maggie and I went to rent an ATV for the day. Renting one in Naxos is actually cheaper than in Santorini. This time, I drove, and we headed for the beaches. Today's weather was extremely windy (still is), so we were advised to go to some beaches behind a few hills and mountains so there was less wind.
The first beach we went to had some of the prettiest water I've seen in Greece. It reminded me of my sister May's pictures from Belize. We parked the ATV and walked up to the beach. Man, the sand was nice too.
It was too windy to swim though, so we drove on to another beach. It was only a bit further down from where we were, but there were a lot more umbrellas and a few folks lying on the beach. I kept getting sand in my shoes.
Not a whole lot going on there, so we moved on to the next beach. It was on a small waterfront strip with a few cafes and tavernas, so we parked and headed to a small beach where there were a few umbrellas. Again, no swimming for me, but I did take a nice hour-long nap in the sun with the wind blowing sand and other small objects on me. Quite restful though.
After that, we headed towards the port of Naxos and just walked along the main harbor. It's a nice scenic area, and it reminded me a bit of Aegina but bigger. I bought a few little trinkets for my sisters and also managed to find stamps for the remaining postcards I haven't sent yet.
Along the walkway, there were a bunch of small cafes that sold fresh food caught in the waters...like squid (correction: octopus). Pretty cool, except for all the little flies landing on them. After that, we just drove around the island a bit. Pretty neat.
We hadn't eaten since breakfast, so by mid-afternoon, I was quite hungry. We headed back and stopped at the one-stop market near our hotel. I bought a beer, some Pringles, and a few donuts. The ladies there were so nice. They gave us a butter croissant for free before we left and taught me a few phrases in Greek. It was a very nice gesture and made me feel like I was in a small neighborhood. Very welcoming indeed.
Back at the hotel, I ate my snacks and got quite full. But we still had a group dinner, so I joined the others for pizza. Actually, as the food came out, I got hungrier. I ate four slices of pizza. Delicious.
Then we had our final seminar tonight on Al Gore's article. Very intriguing. After our seminar, I ended up talking with the guy at the front desk, Kostas, about Greek media and society. Turns out, he speaks Greek and five other languages (English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian). Man, that's my goal. I've got a few of those down, but still another few to go.
We leave our hotel for Athens at 8:30 tomorrow morning, so tonight is our last night away from Athens before our program ends this Saturday. Sad, this is a really nice hotel.
Our ferry ride tomorrow will be about a six hour trip back, but with the windy weather, we may be a bit delayed. Then tomorrow evening, Taso and I are meeting with a group of educators for a focus group to talk about higher education in Greece today. Should be fun!
It's been a fun weekend, and I feel so lucky to have gotten to come to Santorini and Naxos. Greece is amazing! Oh, gotta go plan for my trip to Crete now.
Ciao,
Sam
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