This morning was slightly more leisurely than the day before. After having breakfast on the Lido deck
(which serves Hildy’s favourite pickled Herring), we made our way to the
Queen’s Lounge where they gave us tender tickets. The line wasn’t too long and soon we were on
a small tender taking us to the shores of Santorini. The cruise ship couldn’t dock close to the
island because there wasn’t a pier to accommodate such a large vessel, so Santorini
is the only port in our itinerary that required a tender.
Once we were on the island, we had three options of getting
up the mountain where the city rests. We
could take a donkey ride up the steps, we could walk the steps (and navigate
around the copious amounts of donkey droppings) or we had the option of taking
a cable car. We chose option number
three. Hildy however wanted to bond with
the donkeys before we went up. I have
come to learn that she’s not just crazy about cats…. She loves every
animal! She has talked to pigeons, dogs
and donkeys on this trip so far, and we’re only a week in.
The line for the cable car took over an hour as there were
three cruise ships docked in Santorini that day. Once we finally got up to Fira, we began
looking for the city bus station. We
navigated our way around the busy streets (full of tourists) and were invited
into every restaurant we passed. Soon,
we found the bus station and were able to hop onto a bus immediately going to
Oia. The bus was only 1.8 Euros, so it
was much more economical than a tour, and it offered us a slightly more
realistic view of the town and the transportation within it.
The ride to Oia was stunningly scenic; it was full of dramatic
cliffs and turquoise waters reflecting the pristine white washed houses and
churches. It took about 25minutes to travel
from Fira to Oia and when we got there, there were fewer crowds than Fira. We walked about the beautiful cobblestone
streets and admired various galleries and restaurant menus. I can’t describe the feeling of looking out
at the turquoise water in front of me, and taking in all of the immense beauty
that surrounds it. Oia is perhaps one of
the most beautiful places on Earth!
Later in the day, we settled on a little restaurant facing
the water for lunch. We ordered fried
calamari with tzakiki sauce and mixed vegetable dish including potatoes,
eggplant, spinach, tomatoes, zucchinis, grape leaves and garlic… very
delicious! As we enjoyed our lunch, we
took the opportunity to utilize the free Wi-fi and call home. Mom and dad received a very early wakeup call
from us (around 5:30am). They were both
very eager to talk about our adventures so far and hear our travel stories.
When we left the restaurant, we saw one of the many dogs
sleeping in the shade on the cobblestone streets. Hildy loved this sight so much and wanted to
feed the dogs (fortunately we had no food…. I think he had a home, but Hildy
didn’t agree). She is always taken aback
when we see dogs and cats on the streets in the places we visit—immediately she
draws the conclusion that they are poor, starving and unloved—clearly in need
of a home; she refuses to be convinced otherwise. It is cute to see that she feels so strongly
for the animals we pass in our travels, when they very well may have loving
families to return to at the end of the day.
As we continued along our shopping path, Jessie and I
encouraged her to come into shops with us, which she often declined and merely
waited outside. At one shop, she decided
to come in and saw a necklace she was interested in. The shop owner immediately came over to her
and started pitching his sale. The
necklace was silver with a turquoise stone (according to him, it was real, but
I wasn’t confident that this was true).
Anyways, he told Hildy that the necklace could be hers for approx $400
USD. I could tell that she was feeling
pressured and overwhelmed. Also the
price he wanted for this mediocre necklace was beyond absurd. When I looked closely at it, the enclosure
around the stone was already browning and tarnishing—not a good sign when
thinking about dropping a bunch of money at a place.
I learned that Hildy does not take confrontation well and
hates to disappoint people. She felt
pressured to buy the necklace and didn’t know how to get out of the deal that
was forced on her, or barter a better price.
Personally, I don’t mind this type of conflict too much so I told the
owner that she didn’t even have a credit card with her and wasn’t interested in
spending that much money. He then told
her that she could spend $80 on the necklace in cash—what a joke! If he was willing to decrease the price by
$320, off the bat, you can guess what quality it is. We then proceeded to leave the store. Hildy had had enough!
From then on, she decided to wait for us outside while we
shopped. It dawned on me that people
aren’t able to pressure me into a sale as much.
Perhaps because I’m young, or perhaps because I speak my mind, but I
never feel overly pressured. Hildy on
the other hand is a target of sales people.
I think they can sense her uncertainty and unassertiveness, so it’s
important that she have someone to play the ‘bad guy’ when shopping (especially
in bartering situations). I would not
let anyone take advantage of my little ‘Kleiner!’.
Moving forward on our shopping expedition, Jessie and I
found a lovely little shop, Athens Protasis Santorini, which made nice jewelry
at reasonable prices. Jessie and I both
picked out some ceramic beaded necklaces we liked and Hildy came in soon after
admiring the green one I chose. She
asked to see it and then proceeded to immediately buy it! I found another
necklace in the exact same style and bought it (now we match). We also found Hildy a beautiful turquoise
pendant for a very reasonable cost of 5 Euros… not everything has to cost ‘an
arm and a leg’. She was happy that she
got the pendant she wanted and that it didn’t break the bank.
As we were getting ready to leave Oia and head back to Fira,
we got onto a bus that was almost full.
They overfill the busses, and sometimes people are left standing. The only empty seat I could see was beside an
Asian woman who had done lots of shopping.
She had six or seven shopping bags taking up the seat beside her, but I
knew it wouldn’t be comfortable for Hildy to be standing up for the next half
hour when the bus drove along winding roads.
Against Hildy’s wishes, I asked the woman to move her bags and allow
Hildy to sit down, thankfully she complied and the crisis was averted. Jessie and I also found seats available in
the back of the bus, so we all had the opportunity to have a comfortable
journey.
When we were dropped off in Oia, we did a bit more shopping
(such tourists) and Hildy bought t-shirts for Aaron and Emily. I bought a slightly disappointing Greek
frozen yogurt and we headed back to the cable cars. There wasn’t a line heading down this time,
so we made it to the bottom of the cliff within several minutes.
After the tender journey, we made it back on board and
headed upstairs to the deck for a Mediterranean BBQ party. There were grilled souvlakis, gyros,
spanikopitas, tzakiki etc. We only
grabbed little plates of these treats because we had a dinner reservation
directly following the BBQ. We ate
quickly and then proceeded to the dining room for a three course meal. It’s fair to say that we are not suffering on
this ship.
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