Santorini Pool Attempt and Nassou Revisit

Check out this morning's breakfast--yum! Brownies at breakfast? Yes please! We were talking about how Ethan really loves his sweets and I said, "Except for cake, oddly Ethan doesn't care for cake." And Ethan said, "It's because of all the crumbs." Haha, touché.

They loved playing with this thing and called it the "bug squasher" and ran around carrying on about squashing bugs.

Well, Friday, the hot day we had been waiting for turned out to be pretty cloudy and not really warm enough to make the ice cold pool bareable. But we were determined to try to use the pool, by golly. We sat and kicked our legs in it! And then retreated to the loungers and used the towels as blankets. :)

And then the kids started rummaging for olives:

Sniffing the plumeria:

And making olive pies:

We botched the bus times for taking the Perissa bus to Santo Wines so we stayed in Fira for the sunset and went to this overpriced bar called Character with an amazing view. The kids shared a milkshake for two:

And then we went back to our favorite restaurant, Naoussa. Love this place! We joked around with the same waiters Nikolai and Nikolakini (both are Greek Nick so one goes by Nikolakini which means small Nick). 

Chris' very jumbo prawns:

I really wanted their homemade moussaka (best on the island) but had to try this special. It's called Lamb Kleftiko and is a leg of lamb sealed in a bag and roasted long and slow with garlic, lemon, herbs, veggies and potatoes. Delicious!

They brought us two chocolate mousses on the house for dessert. Love that place! They told us we had to come back next summer. Sounds good to me! :)

Oia, Santorini

We took the bus to Oia and spent the whole day there wandering all around. Good thing we had the carrier--easier to keep Hailey contained and safe and go up all of these narrow steep steps and paths. Wow, it is just as beautiful as the pictures you see of these unique white and blue domed buildings scattered all over these steep island faces. It lived up to all the hype (I asked around and pretty much everyone that had been to Greece said that Santorini was their favorite Greek island.) It did not disappoint and lived up to the hype!

Right off the bat, Ethan was looking at these little donkey snow globes and the shop keeper said, "you can have this." So nice! I went back to get one with a domed building inside for Hailey and was getting out the coins (it cost €3.50) and the lady would only take €2 for it. How generous. Wow, these kids get all sorts of freebies in this country. Greek people are giving them candy right and left and patting their head. It pays to be a cute kid in this country. :) The kids, of course, are eating it up! They are on a permanent sugar high and quite like being on vacation here!

Oia is full of galleries and jewelry and art shops. These are made on old shutters and pieces of wine barrels. Kind of cool!

Fam pic with Oia in the background. Always interesting asking people to take a picture for you (takes a few tries sometimes and isn't really what you intended in the pic but beggars can't be choosers). Sometimes we laugh over the pictures with heads cut off or that don't have the item of interest in the background at all. We crop them later and try to make the most of it. This one cropped down nicely:

Opa!

Ah, some nice green salads (orange chicken and a seafood one with octopus and other sea creatures) at one of the recommended restaurants for Oia called Petra. We sat up on the rooftop deck that overlooked the Aegean Sea and ate while Hailey napped in the carrier.

Ethan quite liked the octopus:

Trying to pick the olives:

She's interested in the jewelry, like her mother... Oh, I forgot to mention that I got this gorgeous gold and silver olive branch necklace and bracelet with little pearl olives. I love it and keep admiring it (I've worn it every day since getting it in Athens). Very unique and handmade metalwork (not the mass produced ones). It was more expensive that my jewelry normally is but I really really loved it and will cherish it and was glad that Chris was on board. Merry Christmas to me. :)

Chris joked that he has a large budget for new tools now. 

Beautiful Oia windmills:

The "pack mule" with the kiddos:

"Pack Mule" resting his back while the kids play for awhile before dinner:

Hailey is doing her favorite activity: fastening all the clips! We always have to unfasten all the clips before putting her in because she is OCD about fastening them after she gets out. :)

Sunset drinks and light dinner at Skala outdoor restaurant. Octopus again, we're on a roll! Oia is known for its sunsets and has the best views on the island but unfortunately there were some low clouds that blocked it.

Still a gorgeous view!

It seemed to be mostly Asian tourists in Oia today. We were laughing at how a lot of the tourists were posing every 2seconds for selfies and having the male do a "photo shoot" for the female a lot of times. It was kind of out of control. We also saw several couples in wedding attire. One of the couples we saw in normal clothes later at lunch and were reading their phones opposite each other and barely conversing. Ha, guess the honeymoon is already over--how awkward. 

Fira, Santorini- Greek National Holiday Parade, Cave Suite Upgrade, Naoussa restaurant

Well, the weather wasn't quite as hot as we expected and was quite breezy so we were a little chilly/had to keep rewearing pants and sweaters during our stay. We came to find out that we were there the last week of the "travel season" and most of the shops and hotels were preparing to close on Sunday (the day after we left). I'm glad we made it in time! When we checked in, we found out we got upgraded (from the triple room) to the cave suite with a huge attached deck and jacuzzi tub. Nice! The lady that checked us in didn't mention anything about the jacuzzi (how to use it or if it was heated) so I asked the owner the next morning how it worked (since it was kind of too cold to use the pool, using the hot tub would be awesome!). However, the owner told us they had already closed the hot tub down for the season and got very defensive saying that we were lucky to be upgraded to that room that was like 4 times as much (and showed me the prices). And that they couldn't fit the crib in our room and knew that we were a family so they thought the extra room would be handy for us. I tried to explain that we were very appreciative and were just asking because we didn't know/the lady that checked us in didn't say anything about the hot tub. Whoa, whoa, whoa... :) We interacted with her more over the three days and got in her good graces again and got along with her really well after (I think she realized we weren't complaining and that we really were appreciative). She always gave the kids candy and we met her 12yr old daughter (she also has a 10yr old son). They are taking a trip to London here soon so we talked about where they were planning to go, etc. and her daughter was in the parade that day carrying a flag (because she had the highest marks in her class). 

The breakfast every morning was very good and included all of these homemade sweet breads, cookies and several other dishes like a spinach and cheese spanakopita and feta and olive breakfast pizza! Delicious! I love how many sweet things they have in their Greek breakfasts!

Eating breakfast in the garden under the pomegranate tree:

Checking out the pool area (hoping maybe Fri. will be warm enough for a swim). Whoops! 

Check out this cool domed cave suite! The walls are really thick and it is built into the rocks.

Nice private deck and outdoor table:

Ha, our cold shut down jacuzzi tempting us:

Elephant shower head! Check out the rock sticking out on the right-very cool!

Walking the 5-10min. into Fira on the paths between the houses. Much safer than the cliff side paths in Oia but you just have to watch out for motorcycles speeding through on the paths. A motorcycle would definitely be the best way to get around in this town!

Today (Wednesday) was a Greek National holiday so everyone was off of work and school and they had a local parade and celebration in the main square of Fira. It was so neat to see the locals beaming with pride for Greece and see all of the little kids dressed in the traditional Greek attire:

Lots of different school classes of all different ages marching as well:

Some spectators:

Fierce looking Greek Air Force bringing up the rear:

What IS this thing? Almost a foot long! We amused ourselves by trying to feed it a fry and some lamb from our gyro and watched it pounce on it and hinge its head back to try and eat it:

That night we asked the girl that checked us in for some recommendations for reasonably priced good restaurants in Fira and Oia (and how to get to Oia). She gave us some great suggestions and printed us the bus schedule for Oia for tomorrow and also suggested going to Santo Wines for the sunset one day. We headed to one of the restaurants in Fira that she recommended called Naoussa. It was a great tip-we loved it!! There was a Greek family eating there that was super friendly and came and talked to us and the kids made eyes at their baby. It was fun to watch this boisterous Greek family and everyone in the family doting over this baby (probably around 1yr. old). One of the waiters kept coming over and playing with Hailey--playing peekaboo, tapping her shoulder, making her laugh... He really took a liking to her. It was just fun to be in this super friendly establishment where the kids were appreciated and could be loud. He told us that we had a beautiful family. The food was really good--I got a lemon chicken dish with pasta and Chris got a whole fish and rice.

Here's Hailey with her massive spoon:

We had fun slurping our noodles:

Tried a few local beers and "got our Fix." The Fix was Chris and I's favorite: