Greetings All! Today I write from a delightfully "free" wifi spot outside of the Pelican Hotel in Fira, Santorini. We walked around with the laptop open scanning for a signal, and found a nice restaurant across the street from The Pelican...This is how I am uploading the pics to fotki ( finally). I had Mousakas, a traditional greek dish, which looks like a pot-pie, and inside is potatoes, eggplant, ground beef and cream. Troy had greek meatballs and rice, which have a different and delicious flavoring than any meatballs we've had.

We had to come here ( which was 30 minutes on a sweaty, tourist-stuffed bus) to get the ferry schedule and tickets for the other islands...as we have seen each nook and cranny of Santorini, and now we are fully relaxed, rested and ready for another island. We asked the manager and son of the owner of Armeni Village ( the place where we will stay one more night) which island he would suggest for us. Sifnos and Milos are the best, he said. Sifnos for the traditional greek masonry and Milos for the incredible beaches and colorful cliffs. The minerals apparently color the cliffs bright white, purple, yellow and green? Once in Milos, there are several ferries daily leaving to Sifnos...We'll see if we have enough time...If not, we'll just hang on the beaches in Milos.

So we need to stay two more nights in Santorni ( the ferry to Milos doesn't leave until Sunday night) and we will move from Oia to Fira as it is even less expensive.

Troy convinced me to try "adventure".

His definition ( at least in these circumstances) means taking the night ferry to Milos arriving at 1:30 am and not having accomodation booked. We will either be flogged with eager hotel salesmen, as we were upon arrival in Santorini ( but mind you this was 3pm not 130am) or we will "sleep-in-shifts" and then check into a hotel first thing in the morning :)

So, we don't have anything booked, and we'll see what plays out...

Since being here, we have done nothing but sleep in, read, lay out, check out the donkeys milling around, eat, lay out some more, and read some more. Very stressful as you can imagine ;-) I am well rested enough ( and will definitely be by Sunday) to try adventure, as he calls it.

We are both very excited about Milos as the Greeks say it has the best beaches in all of Greece....which is saying a lot. Just on this one island there are black and red sand beaches that are just gorgeous. Pics of both are on the fotki site now.

I've just finished some Greek coffee and ice cream concoction, and now we will stroll around Fira to bargain for a room and catch the sunset before heading back to Oia...

The sunsets here are the best I have ever seen in my life, topping California, Key West and even Hawaii. I guess there is just something about the way the sunset looks with the whitewashed buildings that makes everything look dreamy, mystical. See blog pic...took this last night from our balcony.

Well, until we pirate another wifi spot....

ALSO, I am assuming we will not immediately find internet in Milos ( as it usually takes us a day or two) so we wanted to wish our Mom's BARBARA and DEBBIE the best mother's day for 2006! Its a few days early, but we wanted to make sure both of you got the message :-)

WE LOVE YOU VERY MUCH!

Cheers!

xoxoxoxoxox