Sun-kissed Santorini

I'm leaving out-of-this-world beautiful, sun-kissed Santorini today for Turkey. Have a ton of random notes I jotted down but don't have my notepad with me so for now just a few random thoughts.

If money and distance were not an issue whatsoever, I think my dream wedding would be a small destination wedding in Santorini with close friends and family. It's so beautiful that you can't help but want to share it with them...although I do wish all the other tourists would stay away. Santorini is over-commercialized and over-populated with tourists (especially from the US, UK, France and Korea), but it's so wonderfully gorgeous that the hoardes of loud tourists is just a minor inconvenience that I'm willing to put up with for the chance to be here. I am so enamored of the Greek Islands...the next extended trip I take (God only knows when that will be) is going to be a 2 month journey dedicated to traipsing around Italy and Greece.

As I sat on Kamari Beach yesterday admiring the amazing volcanic cliffs surrounded by the crystal blue water (and occasionally having my view blocked by a nude sunbather walking past me), I couldn't help but wonder - don't male nude sunbathers worry about getting sunburned down there? Honestly...do you really need to let it all hang out? Please have the courtesy to at least cover up minimally with a g-string or something...unless you are or have the body of David Beckham no one (except maybe your wife or girlfriend) wants to see your private parts, no offense.

I took a windsurfing lesson my last day in Ios and loved it. I think of all the watersports I've ever taken a whack at, windsurfing is the easiest to pick up initially. You really don't need to know how to swim (you wear a lifejacket), the board is so stable that it's virtually impossible to flip it over unless you mean to, and if you're learning in a bay, as I was, the water is generally calm enough that it's fairly easy to climb up on and balance on your board. The hardest part is keeping the rutter of your sail straight up and learning to let go of trying to control the sail and letting the sail control you (meaning instead of you trying to hold the sail up, which is your first inclination, you have to let the sail hold you up so that you are completely hanging off the sail). But once you get the rutter up and understand the mechanics of where the wind hits your sail and how to control the direction you are going, that amazing feeling of gliding on the water is yours for as long as you want, and it's an awesome feeling. It's also an excellent way to tone your arms, legs and stomach while having fun and getting an awesome tan. Which makes me conclude that I will be doing a lot more windsurfing in the future.

Dairy products in Greece are absolutely brilliant. I've had so much milk, cheese and yogurt in Greece that I'm probably good on my calcium intake for the next 6 months. I've practically been a vegetarian for the last week - although Greek cuisine is heavy on meat, it's also very plentiful in vegetables and dairy and it's easy to avoid meat. Actually, it wasn't my intention to avoid meat at all, but when the weather is warm, the last thing I want to eat is lamb chops or heavy moussaka so my meals here basically consisted of yogurt, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and Greek cheese, in various combinations. Greek cheese is quite good (if you like stinky cheese), and it's so much better than the feta we have in the States. All the cheese I've had here looks like blocks of feta, but they all have very different tastes - some are saltier than others, some are stinkier, some are creamier. But the best Greek culinary invention in my opinion is their yogurt, which is indescribably good. I have Greek yogurt with honey everyday and I think I could have it everyday for the rest of my life and not get sick of it. I don't know what it is that makes it so good (I don't even normally like yogurt all that much) - it tastes like plain yogurt...but in the most subtle way it is infinitely better than any yogurt I've ever had before - creamy, smooth, with only the slightest hint of sourness, which is balanced by honey. Yum, I think I'll go have some right now.