Tuesday 4 August 2009

I Heart Mykonos

Day 8

Athens – Mykonos

Woke up – SO EXCITED. It’s funny because Miranda and I have been so excited about this cruise from the minute we booked it. We would be on the top of the Eiffel Tower going “we’re going on a Greek cruise!” then in the Duomo going “we’re going on a Greek cruise!”. Pretty good that it was the last stop on our trip. So we walked to the cruise ship at Port Piraeus and got in a line to board. They made us fill in forms asking if we had swine flu and so on – no one looked like a swine so our bags were scanned and taken to the ship. In the line the various crew members were asking people questions and so on and they would just switch languages to suit everyone – they’re amazing! French, English, Russian, Italian, Greek and Turkish! Probably more... We got to the gang plank and as one guy was going up he yelled out “I love you all!”. It was a pretty exciting event. We found our room – at the bottom of the boat – it was the cheapest and it had no window... only one bed – hey we’re on a cruise okay? We were just unpacking our things and I started really noticing the rocking of the boat – turned out we hadn’t even left yet – things were going to get rather interesting ... nausea wise.
Afterwards, we headed to the top of the boat (big walk) to see it take off. Damn it was windy. It was funny because we hadn’t even left yet but there were all these old woman and men who had got their clothes off and were sun baking – come on people! We haven’t even left yet – pace yourselves!

We then had to practice a safety drill – I’m not joking – and wear our life jackets into the dining room as if it were a real emergency. Can’t say Miranda and I were paying a lot of attention... I just thought the whole situation was hilarious – life jackets at the dining table – latest fashion statement DARLING. It was about this time I looked around the room to realise that Miranda and I were amongst the other 15 or so people NOT on a tour group and that the other tour groups mostly consisted of really loud American teens. One of these teens started screeching to her friend at the other end of the table that she “had FIVE martinis, Katie. FIVE. KATIE! I had FIVE martinis already” Five. Wow. Go home. They started making Titanic jokes as well which was lame because Miranda and I made the same jokes eons ago – oh yeah... they’re well behind.

After our life jacket fandango we went up to the top deck to have lunch – buffet. It was perfectly fine as we waited in line but then as soon as we sat down it was SO WINDY. HOLY SMOKES IT WAS WINDY! I’ve never been in such a gale. Food was being blown off my fork before it even reached my mouth! My slice of ham was whipped off my plate and was bobbing about in the pool... oh well. After our windswept lunch we decided to take the advice of the oldies and sun bake for a bit. And bake I did – my poor little leggies got toasted and were rather sore. We learnt our lesson the first day!
It was really nice being in the sun and relaxing though. I felt pretty self conscious though with my English tan and all these bronzed/handbag people around me. Some of the older people looked like leather works because they had just cooked themselves over time – probably weren’t much older than me... ha ha just kidding. In our relaxed state we went back into our dungeon room and had a nap. Because we have no window it is pitch black in our room and the concept of time is completely revoked. When we woke up the boat was really bouncing around... it wasn’t bothering me too much but Miranda wasn’t feeling too great. We had arrived at the island of Mykonos so we got off the big boat onto a smaller one and were bounced all the way to shore.
OH MY GOODNESS.
This island is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL place in the world. You know how various places are depicted in movies and they look amazing? Well Paris is picture looking amazing in films and you get there and – yeah – it’s nice but it’s not as good as the films make it out to be... Mykonos, however, is like a postcard – like a movie set it’s just stunning. Every corner we turned was perfection. Miranda and I decided walking all over the little island that this would be our new home and we weren’t going to our respective countries – so thanks everyone but this is my home now.
Cobblestone streets, few cars, white walls, flowers and pink pelicans! Really – these pelicans are one of the main features of this island and just walk about as if they own the place. They would come up above my hip so they’re pretty big and Miranda almost tripped over one coming out of a shop! And, yes, they are pink – just slightly. One guy was walking beside it patting it on the head. Made me laugh. Another great site of this island is the windmills. They are these really old windmills which I don’t think are used now but are pretty neat. I was more impressed with the general splendour of the island and the colour of the ocean! It’s a beautiful greeny blue – clear and breathtaking. There are just so few words to sum up this beautiful place... I can only really show you a whole bunch of pictures because I need a thesaurus. We had chicken souvlaki for dinner and hopped back on the boat – bye Mykonos! I WILL be back... I swear.
On the cruise ship we decided to be entertained with a stage show called “New York to Paris”. All I can say is – thank god we had strawberry daiquiris. It was the most cheesey and terrible thing I’ve seen. It really made me laugh though because the performers looked like they were enjoying themselves. Especially this one guy in it who was so focused and perfect in his movements despite wearing sequined chaps. They sang songs in various languages across the different countries and did dances too... rather amusing. I can still see the hilarity in my head... There was a sweet part – before the show the musicians were doing their thing and this old couple got on the stage and started like jive dancing – it was so sweet! Everyone applauded them... they certainly gave the performers a run for their money.

After the ‘show’ we went back to our room and were being thrown from wall to wall the boat was rocking so much. It wasn’t so bad – the worst part was having a shower! I don’t know why but the water and the rocking just intensified the nausea and also the nervousness that I might cut my leg off shaving. Trying to sleep was kind of difficult and there was that up and down squeezing in my stomach... managed to sleep though only to be woken up at 5am the next morning... (in Turkey).

2 comments:

  1. So when are we gonna move into our Mykonos house?

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  2. Hi Phoebe, I follow Miranda's blog and decided to check out yours today. I LOVE the photo of your shadows! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! It's so creative and fun. Hope you're enjoying being back home after your wonderful semester in England with Miranda. Sounds like you guys will be friends for life. That's so cool. Blessings....

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