A Mullet of a Day

DAY 8
This morning I finally had to admit to myself that yes, I have a cold. I was really trying to believe this whole throat, coughing, no voice, night sweat thing was allergies, but I’m pretty sure now it’s a cold. Grrr...  Nothing I can do now. 

J and I ate breakfast and headed out on our excursion. Originally I had thought this one was supposed to be yesterday, but I guess they swapped the days. This excursion included a tour around the island of Santorini, specifically stopping in Oia and Fira. We had gone to both places yesterday so knew what to expect, but Oia was much nicer there during the day today than last night because there were so many less people. It was just a sea of humanity last night and without the crowds, it definitely made it more enjoyable. We decided to skip going to Fira with the group because we didn’t need to walk around and could do so later if we wanted, so we did some research looking for a pool to use today. We didn’t want to go explore Perissa or Kamari beaches because we heard both are black beaches too like yesterday so it would be all rocks and we were definitely done with that.

Initially, we thought we’d be able to get (read: sneak) into a hotel, but after walking around yesterday, we realized they’re all private boutique hotels and we’d never get in. I decided to do some research online to see if we could get a one day guest pass to these hotels. There was no luck there, but something came up for a “public” pool with really good reviews on Yelp and basically said its free as long you order food and drinks. J and I thought done and done and were hopeful for a nice pool day. 

When we were on our own this morning on the excursion walking through Oia, we decided to go and find it. After asking some locals, turns out it was really close to where we watched the sunset last night. We found it, liked what we saw, and got excited to come back later. For the rest of the excursion we went down different side streets and paths we didn’t bother exploring yesterday because there were so many people. We were able to find sooooo many great views of classic Santorini landscapes. It was actually really awesome. We got some really good photo opps and were sweaty messes, but happy sweaty messes. Santorini was redeeming itself.

After walking around, we decided to get a quick snack so we could sit down somewhere with a view and to kill time. The restaurant we picked had an amazing view and I got a milkshake, which I had been craving for days. Soon enough, it was time to go back to the bus and get our stuff. We didn’t want to tell anyone we were going to the pool so they didn’t crash our secret idea, but we obviously told our Canadian friends so they’d join us. 

The pool was great. It was clean and quiet and had a fabulous view of the sea and the mountains. The lounge chairs were free of charge and had umbrellas as well. We couldn’t believe this was free. We ordered beer (lots of it) and food at the pool and just enjoyed ourselves. Being drunk by 2 pm is not a bad thing. It was exactly what we needed. After a few hours at the pool, we headed back on the public bus, then the cable car, then the tender, and back on to the ship where we ate dinner while watching a lovely sunset and called it an early night for once. 

Overall, today is what we decided to call a mullet of a day. Business in the front (the morning), and party in the back (drinking/relaxing). It’s a trip-vacation combo. We had a trip in the morning and vacation in the afternoon. A trip is more site seeing and touring and a vacation is more relaxing and lounging by a pool or beach.  A mullet of a day is the best of both worlds and today was this. We’ve had a few days that were all trip, but this one was a nice mix. Plus after our day yesterday in Santorini, the city totally redeemed itself today in our eyes. Reduced crowds and a relaxing pool will do that and we were just so much happier.  Tomorrow we are onto Crete to see what it has to offer.