Blue and White for Days

It was bittersweet leaving Turkey, but we were totally ready for some beach time and new scenery on the Greek islands.

A trip abroad would not be complete without me sustaining multiple injuries. Besides the dozens of stubbed toes and constant tripping on stairs, I fell pretty hard at the airport on our way out of Turkey. Probably the worst I have fallen in public in my entire life, off of a 2 foot ramp breaking several of my Turkish bowls I had ironically been carrying because I thought they would break in my luggage. I had bags in both hands so my elbow, knees, head and bags of souvenirs broke the fall. Needless to say it left me stunned for hours and I suffered some serious whiplash scrapes and bruising. Moving on...

Mykonos is one of the more slicker and stylish islands out of all of the Cyclades. Tons of boutiques, beautifully tanned people, restaurants, bars and clubs. Nearly all of the buildings in Mykonos are whitewashed with blue trim, which on one hand makes it a very cool cityscape, but on the other hand it is very easy to get lost...especially after some ouzo. Tiny alleyways and streets can make the downtown area one giant maze at night.

famous windmills

door to the ocean 

center of town 

fishing boats

homes in town

where we hung for sunsets

windmills

tiny church on the bay

giant maze

We scored yet again with our hotel. The initial room they gave us was ridiculously horrible in the back corner on a loud, busy street and we were pretty bummed because the hotel facilities were amazing otherwise. We let it be known we were pretty disappointed and the next morning we were promptly upgraded for free to these sick rooms with a balcony overlooking the entire city with a sea view.

balcony view

One pretty hilarious item to note...I was the ONLY female staying at the hotel if you catch my drift. Jimmy was pretty bummed to see only men in fanny flossers and not hot European women.

ordered a pina colada to 'fit in'

meat market poolside

Nights in Mykonos were pretty wild and we were hot messes on more than one occasion. Days go something like: lay at the beach drinking Mythos or Alpha beers. Lay at the pool for Ouzo cocktails. Head to our balcony and watch the pink sunset over the ocean...It's all so tiring!

rough life

sunsets view from our room

ouzo mess

We hit up the famous Paradise Beach which was a ton of fun. Hundreds of lounge chairs and thatch umbrellas line the beach in front of clubs pumping out house music. By about 5:00 the clubs start going off and the entire beach watched this German man and woman clearly on drugs dancing on a podium, wearing leather, doing nasty things I won't mention here. XXX!

posin'

the move that followed was disgusting

One of our best nights here we caught another Euro Cup match at Taverna and had a typical Greek meal of octopus (think rubber) and a gigantic, grilled, whole red snapper. This fish was something Jimmy just had to have and it would have fed 4 people at the least...So of course I had a heart attack when the bill came as the red snapper was more Euro than our hotel room practically. Since the islands have been over-fished, the fish is super expensive now. No more fish for Jimmy.

yummy?

the fish that broke the bank

The atmosphere during the soccer matches has been amazing. Every open air bar and restaurant has several televisions showing them and the places are packed full with fans. We happened to sit by a group of rowdy Italians and by the end of the match they were buying us shots of Greek liquor and passing us bottles of wine! We made friends with 2 guys both named Matteo and we ended up running into them 3 nights in a row. New Facebook friends, yeah! Ha ha.

the Matteos

One of the days we rented a quad and rode around the entire island beach hopping and taking in the rocky and rugged hillsides. There were tiny churches all over, most of them in the middle of nowhere, a ton of goats and farms.

days of thunder

beachy

church in the country

self portraits due to gorilla pod breaking ;(

tired of relaxing

church in the hillside

another beach

Food-wise in Greece we are in love so far. Ouzo has replaced our love affair with raki and it is quite similar in taste. Some of our local favorite foods are of course the late night gyros, spinach pie, dolmades (rice with lemon inside a grape leaf), shrimp saganaki (huge prawns in a sauce of feta and tomatoes), moussaka (almost a shepherds pie Greek style of eggplant, potatoes, lamb and beef meat, greek sausage, tomatoes and a sort of custard like cheese on top) and the good ole Greek salad due to the quality of produce here. The tomatoes are the best we have ever had, so huge and juicy, the olives are superb and the cheese. Oh the cheese...The cheeses here are to die for. Even the feta here is different than at home. It is served in huge soft blocks. Delic.

We had to leave Mykonos because we were absolute disgustingly gluttonous party animals. So much damn fun was had. It should be criminal...Next up, the mellow island of Naxos to revive our aching souls.