March 4

I woke up naturally this morning at 7:15, that’s easy to do when you go to bed like at 10 year old at 8:30. It was a beautiful morning, again. I ate an orange and took a shower, waiting for Allie to wake. I think my moving around the room may have halted her own sleep cycle, but she didn’t seem irritated. I put a bit too much water in the pot for the oatmeal this morning, so it took longer to cook, but it was still just as delicious, particularly when eaten outside on the balcony. After breakfast, Allie smiled and said she could cook the oatmeal tomorrow.
I spent the morning reading, writing and listening to music. Around 2:30 pm we ventured out for some lunch. We went again to the little fish tavern, but they didn’t open till 3. To pass the time we went up to the grocery store to buy some vegetables for the spaghetti we planned to make for dinner tonight. At 3 we walked inside and sat down in the exterior section of the restaurant. We perused the fish menu, but when told that the first item we intended to order, swordfish and snapper, were not in stock (but would be tomorrow), the waitress took us to the freezer to show us what fish they did have. I didn’t really recognize any of the fish, but they all were very fresh. We ordered what she suggested, Hake, and split the dish. It was a salty, white fish and very delicious. While eating, the fisherman posted in the pictures around the room, decked out in his fishing attire. If I ever come back to Santorini, I must come back here. We ordered a white wine to go with the dish and had a lovely meal. The waitress brought us a free dessert: yogurt with cherry preserves.
After lunch, I ventured out for a walk and Allie let me take her camera. I made it down to the beach on the convex side of the island, but the sand here is black. The sun was setting at this point so the light wasn’t great for pictures, but I still had a nice time walking and observing the people going about their normal day. A very old couple was tending to their garden and several dogs came out to greet me in the street. By 6, I was back in the room and came out onto the balcony so I wouldn’t wake Allie, who was taking a nap.
For dinner tonight, we chopped up some eggplant, onions and green peppers and cooked them down in the oil from my kalamata olive jar. Then we added the barilla tomato sauce and boiled the noodles. It ended up a great (and cheap!) meal that we enjoyed in our room. Allie did the chopping and I did the sautéing. It was a great team effort.
So far, at this hotel, we have met some interesting, but questionable people. The best have been Steven and Melissa, a cute married couple in their 20s. Followed distantly by two girls in the room next to us, who claimed that they were Canadian and college graduates, but Allie and I are suspicious of their story. They have very good American accents and they seem a bit young to have graduated college already. Way down on the list is this guy - I think his name is Daniel – who stopped by Mary and Elizabeth’s room as we were all discussing our plans for tomorrow. He just wanted to chat and then detailed his travels the past year and revealed himself to be kind of a creep.
Now I am back in our room and will probably be asleep shortly. We want to get up on the early side tomorrow so we can rent an ATV and travel around the island. I want to make sure we get plenty of pictures.