Live from Santorini

I did one more long-ish (10 or 12 miles) run in Switzerland, up and down and all around, it was complicated and variable and beautiful and there was a lot of elevation and terrain changes. It would have made a fine blog post (and someday may still do so) but for now that ship has sailed and lots of other stuff has occurred (like a day in Athens checking out the Acropolis and other ancient treasures), more time passed and we find ourselves in Santorini and it's simply awesome. This place is super busy and quite expensive in the summer, but I think now is the best time to come because it's a slower pace, much less people and actually quite reasonable in price.

We got here yesterday morning, wandered around a bit, inquiring at different guest houses and villas and "apartments". There are some super duper fancy places here, costing well over $400 per night, even now in the off season. We oohed and aahed and then avoided such places, eventually finding an awesome little room that would undoubtedly be off of our radar in the high season, but which we snagged for a cool 60 Euros per night We got a funky room in the Santorini cave-house style, complete with kitchenette and stunning view. The cave-house thing (built to better withstand earthquakes) really lends a lot of character:






It's a small little 7 room place, perched along with tons of others on the famous Santorini cliffs. We feel like we really lucked out with this place and are getting a huge bang for our buck, especially after this was delivered to our little private balcony this morning:






It doesn't get much better than that!

Well, actually it does because we got up this morning and decided to journey to Oai, a little town some 6 miles away from where we are staying in Firostefani, via a twisty-turny up and down, concrete cobblestone kinda-pavé sometimes dirt sometimes gravel always changeable path that runs along the cliffside from here ...





... to there ...





And I found out that, much to my chagrin -- at least in this type of variable terrain and constant elevation changes -- Tom's super fast hiking speed and my super-slow running speed are, embarrassingly conveniently just about the same. I'd trot past him on the flats and downhills, he would invariably catch up to me (even passing me once, oh the humanity) on the uphills, averaging out to a really enjoyable time for us both.






Who could this be?

We tackled the 6 hot miles in perhaps an hour and a half (we both walked at a reasonable pace for the first and last half-miles -- too crowded for speed). We then wandered around the little town of Oai for a little while.

If I haven't mentioned it (and oh, I think I have!) Greece seems to have a lot of dogs that .... just wander around and then fall asleep, like, everywhere.





Santorini, obviously, has the same canine population, as well as the feline version:





and no one seems to really care much at all (except for the tourists -- including me -- who were crowded around taking photos of both of these animals. Dumb tourists!). Perhaps no one really minds because this, this! surrounds us all:






Oai.

So we wandered around and around, then had a nice leisurely lunch, did a little grocery shopping for tonight's dinner and then . . . ran the 6 miles back home. In this way I achieved a couple of things: got the exercise I've sorely been missing the past couple of days, got in a two-a-day in preparation for June's big 178 mile relay race (remember that commitment?), received solid confirmation of just how fking slow I really am (though I prefer to think of it as how fast Tom is), and made room in my belly for this little snack (please note the lovely view -- later, we'll photoshop out the power lines):







ps. I think I've swapped my CocaCola habit for a beer habit. I'm considering that to be an improvement.

pps. Santorini is known for its sunsets. Here's what is happening right now:






ppps. Lost 2!!! followers today! Where'd you go?