Mykonos! (July 19)

Rise and shine, it’s 5 am! Sadly, I was already awake when my alarm went off thanks to my very upset tummy. In fact, it hurt so bad that I honestly didn’t know if I would be able to do Mykonos. I was planning on going up to breakfast at 5:30 to tell the girls I couldn’t go with them. As I got ready, I started to feel a little bit better and realized that I was going to be in pain either way—and who knows if and when I’ll be back in Greece…so might as well spend the time in Mykonos. Yes, it would probably be painful and slightly miserable, but Mykonos is better than no Mykonos! We met up at breakfast and I had a little bit of toast—that did not settle well and I paid for later. We grabbed all of our stuff and quickly left to buy tickets for a ferry. Michelle and Brittany were going faster to make sure we would get there an hour before ferry left so we could get the tickets, and I lagged behind and pushed myself to get there. We went from kiosk window to kiosk window, and the only tickets left were for the high speed ferries (more than double the price of normal ferries). Finally we found a travel agency that could give us slow ferry tickets—we lucked out!! We got our tickets, jumped on the ferry, and found out that we had to be outside. We found some seats inside where the food was, and asked how much the seats inside (like airplace seats) were. They were 2 extra Euros if you bought them while you bought your ticket, and 4.50 Euros if we got them right now. We got them right now. It was a 5 and a half hour ferry and we were exhausted! We paid the extra money and got our assigned seats.

Michelle and Brittany were together up front, and I was a little further back in a very random seat. I’m not sure how I managed to be the one to get the seat, but I was sitting smack dab in the middle of a HUGE Greek family. I’m talking probably well over 40 of them. Let’s see if I can describe this to you. You know in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, where the family is huge and extremely loud and some people in the movie find them slightly obnoxious? This was that, in real life. Let’s just say that 4 grandmas were present, and ALL of their kids and grandkids. Old, young, you name it and they were there. Luckily for me (not), the young kids chose right next to my seat to play with their trucks and cars and dolls and play tag and yell at the top of their lungs. Now don’t get me wrong- I love kids. And normally, I don’t think I would have had much of a problem with this. But with being on 4 hours of sleep and having excruciating stomach pain, let’s just say it wasn’t the most pleasant 5 hour situation. Thankfully, mom suggested earplugs to bring this summer, and those finally came REALLY in handy. However, they cut the sound about in half. The other half of the sound was definitely still there, and loud, no matter how far I shoved those bright pink earplugs into my ears. Yes, if you haven’t caught on- I probably did look like the annoyed insensitive American we’re stereotyped to be. I have been trying to disprove all stereotypes this whole trip, but this one time I couldn’t do it. All I wanted was a tiny nap without being woken up by a truck being driven on my armrest and a loud “OPA!” in my ear- by either the kids or the grandmas. I think the grandmas were being little gossip queens, but I can’t be sure. But they stood up in their seats and had long and loud conversations with every member of their family, one by one. You can only imagine the looks I got (and what was being said about me) when I would get excrutiating stomach pain and double over with my head between my legs for a good ten minutes. At that point, I couldn’t care less. All you Pfohls out there, let me try describing this family another way. Imagine OUR family, but ten times louder (try hard to imagine), four times as many of us, and Greek. Yep, that pretty much does it.

The ferry stopped at a few islands before Mykonos, so I took the opportunity of people leaving (people were also getting on) to find a new seat, but I only had 30 minutes before the ferry got to Mykonos. At least I got a little nap. About 15 minutes before we arrived, I went to the food area and got an overpriced (what isn’t?) and set out to find some plain bread. What could be milder than that? Finally, I found somewhere that might have it and asked if they had plain bread. When I asked, they looked bewildered- “Bread?” Yes. “Just bread?” Yes, please. “Eh, bun? Bread?” Yes, I’d like bread please (don’t forget the language barrier). “Uh, bread. Okay.” When the guy working in the back brought out my bread, he looked at me just as oddly as the first guy. I took my bread and went back to my seat. I ended up going back and getting another bread (imagine the scene with the word “again?” tagged onto the ends of everything) and some more Sprite. Turns out I would pay for this bread later, too. Bummer.

The ferry got into Mykonos and we were faced with our next mission- finding a place to stay! Well, right when we got off of the ferry there were SWARMS of people trying to convince us to stay at their hotel. We would talk to one person, find out their price, and tell them we’d think about it and find them if we wanted to stay there. Let’s just say that at one time, we had about 7 of them following us around to the next person we talked to. It was like we were growing a fan club, and they all were trying to talk to us at once! If you can imagine chaos, just do that and you’ll get the picture. And in the middle of the chaos, imagine 3 confused girls trying to figure out what in the world to do. We finally ran into a very cute older couple offering 15 Euros per person. That was much cheaper than all the other places! The cheapest we got before that was 70 Euros total for the 3 of us. We talked to the couple some more, and they said they’d drive us to their place now, and back to the ferry the next day when we had to leave. They told us we could see their place now, and if we didn’t like it they’d bring us back to the port. They seemed sincere, so we got in their car and the wife drove us to their hotel. We got there really soon, and got out to look at the room. It had two beds, and she was going to bring in a third. There was free internet, and breakfast in the morning was 5 Euros if we wanted it. They showed us their bar, their wi-fi/eating/living room, and told us about their family and their family business they’d been running for 40 years now (the hotel). We heard about all of their kids, and at the end (once we’d decided to stay here) we were instructed to call them “Momma” and “Poppa.” How cute! They said we’re all family here. When Brittany asked if they had shampoo, the wife replied with “Yes, I do- you can use!” Later, she brought us her own shampoo to use! We heard Paradise Beach was the place to go, but it was pretty far away. They gave us a map and showed us where everything was and gave recommendations, and for the afternoon we just decided to go to this cute little private beach right across the street. When we got there, there was one other person on the beach. Talk about private! We sunscreened up and laid out for the next couple hours. We climbed on some rocks that were nearby, explored around, and then took naps on the sand. It was really hot, but there was a really strong breeze that made it the perfect temperature. We went down to the water for dips every so often, too. The water was so blue and clear! We strolled along the water’s edge, looking for pretty shells and rocks and each got pretty big collections. The ONLY negative about the beach was that the wind was so strong, it would blow sand at us that really stung! At first, we made a fuss and “OW!”-ed every time, but then we realize it was going to keep going and that it was pointless to complain. So we sucked it up and only commented when it was an especially long or painful one. Imagine us three girls in our bikinis on our private little beach in Mykonos, ducking our heads and stinging with pain when the sand came! Oh, I shouldn’t say that was the only negative. My stomach definitely was a bit of a downer. It would come in waves, though, so there were times that I did feel okay. When it would start hurting, I’d have to curl up into a tiny ball for awhile. My stomach was something I just had to deal with on the trip, and I knew it going into it. I’m glad I was able to enjoy the trip despite all the pain.

After a long afternoon at the beach, we walked back to our hotel and saw kittens galore! The neighbors of the hotel had so many kittens and they came over to our side of the wall- they were SOOOOO cute! I’m not even a cat person, (dogs all the way!) but OHMYGOSH. These things…they couldn’t have been more than a couple weeks old. They were tiny and so cute. Some would come up and rub on your legs and purr and want to be picked up, and some were more scared. Then we saw them on the other side of the wall NURSING! Mommy cat with all her babies piled on top of each other getting milk…it was so cute!!! They were just the sweetest, cutest little things. We named on Callie, because she’s a calico. :) Another one was black and didn’t like when I got close- I soon realized it was because he was missing an eye. :( So sad! We could not get enough of them!

When we were about to go to dinner, we asked Momma and Poppa for suggestions. They wanted us to order something and have it brought here so they could eat with us and they could take care of us! They were so sweet! We wanted to go into town though and see what it was like there. We walked there as the sun was setting and went to the coast where we “HAD TO watch the sunset..best ever, don’t watch anywhere else!” At that point, my stomach was acting up a whole lot and I couldn’t really walk for long. I was texting my Mommy and she recommended Greek yogurt with honey. I went to a mini mart and got some Greek yogurt, honey, a 1.5 liter bottle of water, and a 1.5 Liter bottle of Sprite (all for me!), and brought it to the restaurant Michelle and Brittany wanted to eat at. It was so pretty, right by the water! And there was a huge pelican not far. I’m talking HUGE! I have pictures. They ordered their Greek food, and I ordered pita and hummus. I ate some of the bread on the table and some yogurt too, and thought I’d be good. Well, my stomach still hurt. As we were sitting there the waitor came over to our table and we asked for tap water (they rarely give it to you in Europe- they charge you for bottled water). He looked shocked at our question, and replied by saying that he does have it and he can give it to us if we really want it, but that it will make us “guaranteed sick, no question.” Guess what Brittany and I had had to drink before we went to the beach? You guessed it—tap water. The feeling that came over us can’t even be explained. We figured it took about 6-8 hours for something like that to set in, so we calculated how long it had been. For her it was about 4 hours later, and for me it would be….6, in just a couple minutes. Really?! That was the last thing I needed on top of whatever horrible stomach thing I already had. I guess the feeling was just like a layer of DOOM. Well, the good news is we didn’t get sick from the water! My bad news of stomach pain still persisted, though. Turns out, dinner wasn’t a good idea for me. Not even that bland food. This night was definitely the most miserable by far. I could walk for about 2 minutes, then I’d have to sit doubled over in so much pain for about 5 minutes, then run into a restaurant asking if they have a bathroom and barely making it in in time. Over and over. And this is nighttime in Mykonos, where the rest of the world is all dressed up, enjoying nice meals and starting to go out for the night. Romance, fun, relaxation—and then there was me, miserable and doubled over in pain the majority of the time. Just like on the islands yesterday, people would try to get Brittany and Michelle to come to their restaurant when they would walk by, and when they’d see me it was a “You look so sick! Feel better!” type of thing. Seriously! Well, with my mom on the other end of my texts, I got some suggestions of medicines I should look for in pharmacies there. We set out to find them and it took a pharmacy visits to find what I needed. What I needed most was Ciproflaxin, but that needs a prescription. I was proactive and did bring it—but it was on the ship, and I was in Mykonos. Bummer! We couldn’t figure out where to buy bus tickets, so luckily we ran into some guys from SAS who were heading back to their hotel close to ours so we walked back with them. It was a painful walk, but I didn’t want to get left behind so I pushed myself to keep up with them!

When we finally got back to the hotel, all the little kitties were out PLAYING. I’ve never seen little cats play like that! They were rolling around, chasing each other, climbing up trees and falling out, pouncing on each other…so cute! One kitty took a liking to me- she was white with lots of grey so I named her Ash…Ashley to make it prettier. :) One of the kitties- the tiniest, babiest little one- had such a bad eye infection. It was so sad, and it looked like it was in so much pain. :( We hung out with the kittens for a good hour or more, then finally went in and went to sleep!