Chasing ferry's and taxi's

Friday, August 13, 2010
Our original plan was to stay up all night and then catch the metro for our early morning ferry at 5. Well we were exhausted and ended up going to bed at 4. Heather set 11 alarms on her ipod and we slept through all of them. We told Scott to come wake us up, which he tried but wasn’t sure where we were. He came into our room which was apparently left open, and had his Iphone right up to my face but couldn’t tell if it was me and didn’t want to wake up the wrong person. Haha! After we found out that it was me that he was flashing his light at. Anyhow, at 7 our roommate Sofie woke up and was like don’t you guys have to go? YES!! Our ferry was in 25 minutes and on the other side of Athens. We threw our things into a bag and ran down to grab a taxi. We flagged one down and got him to drive really fast. We were yelling at him to drive faster and being really bad backseat drivers but he did well. The cab ride should have taken 20ish minutes and it took only 15 which was great because we only had exactly 15 minutes to get on the ferry. We pulled up as the boat was leaving...we ran on at the last possible second as the back was going up to close. The man asked to see our tickets which of course we didn’t have, but did have a reservation number. He really wasn’t too happy about it but looked up our reservation and let us go. As we walked onto the deck we were talking and laughing and Theresa was like “I hear Americans”! Her and Scott’s faces were priceless. They couldn’t believe that we had made it! They left over an hour before us and got there just in time. They took the metro and had to buy tickets but still. The best part about it was that in Greece we were told that the cab drivers will likely rip you off as a tourist and the crazy cab was only 7 euro. It was fabulous! So we were off to Ios with our buddies and slept most of the way to the island. The ferry was a slow one so it took about 8 hours to get to Ios but we were ok with resting and recovering. When we got to Ios we had to figure out a way to get to our accommodations. The Americans didn’t have any reservations/place to stay so they just tagged along with us to Far Out Camping and hoped that they could stay. They had a shuttle bus to the beach which was amazing!! So we headed to Mylopotas beach to check out our place. We pulled up to this sweet beach and our camping was a resort. It had a pool, restaurant, mini market, bar and a beautiful beach. Heather and I had a bedtent which is a floorboard with walls and a canvas roof with a locking door and of course it was at the very top of a steep hill. So we trekked up to our tent, which was disgustingly hot, and settled in. We put on our bathing suits and headed for the beach. It was absolutely gorgeous there. We lounged on the beach for awhile before grabbing a quick bite to eat and hitting the stage/dancefloor where everyone was partying and dancing. This went on until about 10 when the music stops, everyone gets ready and then takes the bus into town. So we got ready and grabbed the local bus into town. The town was just crawling with tourists and is pretty much run by Australians who come for holidays and don’t leave. So it was a good night. We actually met a guy from Brisbane which was cool because we haven’t met anyone from there yet. It was really cool to chat with him a bit. We danced the night away but when it came time to head home, we had really only one choice. A half an hour walk home! So we followed the way that most people were going and actually ran into some Greek guys and they showed us the way as they were staying at Far Out too. As we were walking I was mindlessly talking to Scott when I walked onto some uneven part of the road fell and twisted my ankle. It was a really severe pain and I actually felt so much pain that I thought that I was going to be sick to my stomach. It started to instantly swell and was really, really painful. So the one Greek guy, hailed a taxi, gave the taxi driver directions and even paid for the taxi. He was so worried about me and it was really, really sweet. I told him not to pay but he insisted and told the taxi driver to go. So, off we went and when we got back to the campground I sat down at the entrance while the guy got me ice, and peroxide and gauze for my scrapes. My right leg was pretty scraped up and it was my left ankle that was injured. So Heather cleaned me up and iced my ankle and Scott offered to let me sleep in his bed which was just at the entrance and he would sleep in mine as I was able to make it up the hill. Very, very nice of everyone to be so helpful! So I iced my foot and fell asleep. I woke up several times in a lot of pain and soaked from the ice. I didn’t much care though because I couldn’t move or go elsewhere even if I wanted to.