European Vacation

I was warned before heading to the island of Ios that it was a party island which didn't have much to offer during the day apart from the beach. By all accounts the island only comes to life at night.

Sounded like fun, although I did have doubts whether it was my kind of island even before setting sail from Santorini. As I quickly found out- no it was not my kind of island. Nothing against the 3 people I was travelling from Santorini as they're all great people, but they only added to the fact that Ios felt like a bad mix between being stuck in the Big Brother house and an underage blue light disco.

After having been out in town on the second night and needing to help one of my fellow travellers back to the hostel as she was too drunk to walk on her own, I decided that two nights was definately my limit on Ios and it was time for me to leave.

Although I make the analogy to the Big Brother house, I was told that Ios actually has a much closer link to Australian Idol for those of you interested in some gossip. I've been told by a couple of people who've experienced the night life on Ios (a little more than myself) that Millsy certainly got a good start on Australian Idol. He was on series 2, I think and infamously slept with Paris Hilton. Well, he's now a doorman for one of the clubs in Ios. Who ever said reality TV couldn't give you the start you need to make it big in the world!

While waiting for my ferry to Paros I bumped into an Australian couple who I had also met in Santorini and who shared my views about Ios. We ended up travelling to Paros together and stayed in a cute little villa called Villa Galini in a small fishing village on the island.

Paros certainly was a change from Ios in that not only is Paros sleepy during the day, there's not a lot more happeninng during the evening either.

The most exciting thing we did on Paros was probably the fact that we had to do some trespassing on private property (a school by the looks of it) to find our way back to the hotel. I realised that climbing over fences was a lot easier when I was a kid. No need to worry though, the police were much friendlier than I had expected them to be and as long as we never return to Paros again, they won't report us to Interpol!

After all that hard work the three of us thought we'd treat ourselves to a nice seafood dinner. So, we chose a nice looking restaurant by the wharf and chose the special of the day- fish fillets in garlic and lemon sauce. In my travels I've eaten in restaurants before where they don't have the menu in English and you end up having to order a mystery meal, that is, point at something on the menu of which you haven't the faintest idea what it is and hope for the best. In this case, the menu was in English and the special sounded mouthwatering enough...

Alas, the looks on our faces would have been priceless when they brought out soup bowls for each of us in which they had emptied a cold tin of Sardines (still in their oil), added some vinegar and chucked half a lemon on top of the concotion. At about 13 Australian Dollars it was the most expensive tin of Sardines I've ever eaten and not surprisingly they didn't taste any better than the No Frills variety you can buy for 80 cents back home! When clearing our plates the owner realised that we weren't satisfied with the meal and tried to explain to us that it was a different kind of fish, with a different taste. I know Sardines when I see them and I'm quite aware of what they taste like and had I known that's what we would get I woudn't have ordered them so no need for the lesson! He did try to make it up to us by giving us half a carafe of wine on the house. At least that went some of the way to try and get rid of the taste, the double ice cream cone I had for dessert did the rest!!

While we were waiting for our boat to Mykonos we experienced home delivery- Paros style...

Although we only ended up staying in Mykonos for one night, it certainly lived up it's reputation as a party island and the most expensive of all the Greek isles. It is beautiful island and given that it's now getting late in the season, it wasn't too crowded either.

I went into town by myself on the night that we were there as the others didn't want to go out. Ended up having a great night. Probably had something to do with the fact that I had a couple of old queens buying me lemon drop martini's as, according to them, I simply couldn't leave Mykonos without trying them- of course I felt it necessary to oblige, couldn't let them drink alone now could I!

Last night we took the overnight ferry to Athens. We had bought tickets for the deck which means it's every man, woman or child for themselves to try and find something that resembles a comfortable enough seat/ bench on the boat, hopefully inside and sheltered from the wind. While others slept in their cabins or their specially reserved seats, we found a couple of seats but ended up sleeping on the hard wooden floor. If I didn't look trashy enough already sleeping on the floor, my eye mask, bright yellow ear plugs and travel pillow certainly finished off the look. Needless to say I don't think it will ever make the cover of Vanity Fair but it did get me at least 40 minutes of uninterrupted sleep in the 7 hour journey- now all I need is a chiropractor and I'll be ready to set of on the next leg of my journey- a leisurley 30 hour boat trip from Greece to Venice leaving at midnight tonight! Whoever said I didn't have stamina!! I really didn't want to take the boat, but at a third of the price of an airfare I figured it was all part of the backpacking experience although I have paid the little extra to have my own seat so I won't have any ugly confrontations where I might have to throw someone overboard to keep my space.

PS: No need to worry, we didn't actually get stopped by the police while trespassing on school property. Instead we made a clean get away without anyone noticing so there's no record of me with Interpol...not as far as I know anyway!