The second day was, unfortunately, not as grand. We were conned into a boat tour of the rest of the islands around the caldera and, leaving later than we should have, we got off to a rough start. We were forced to run down the near 600 stairs made slick by constant wear and donkey droppings to the old port, most of us in flip flops. Some of our group made it down quickly and hopped on the boat to stall it for the rest of us...only to find out that our boat wasn't there yet. A little irked, we waited for our heart rate to slow down and ultimately were off for Nea Kameni--an island formed in the 16th century by volcanic eruptions. 
We failed to listen to any sort of explanation on the way there so we arrived ignorant of both purpose and direction. As a result, we did what anyone should do in that situation--mindlessly followed everyone around us. What we discovered was a small pit that turned out to be the active crater of the volcano and if you looked closely and used all of your imaginative muscles you could see it emit gases. The best part was sticking our hand in a hole to feel the ground, the temperature of which was hot enough to cook an egg...or maybe just smell like an egg.Next stop: Palea Kameni, the site of the volcano's hot springs. This turned out to be an inlet off the ocean where we jumped off the boat and swam into water that turned gradually warmer and more and more coppery in color. There was also a sign that said, "Call me to my cell phone to save you." We seriously considered it.
Instead, we sailed for Thirassia, the only town unharmed during the last volcanic eruption. 
Determined to ride donkeys somewhere on our trip we forfeited our lives to a Greek man who sounded like a woman and went to discover what Greek life looked like 50 years ago. We were completely unprepared for what 
ended up being a crazy, jostling ride where legs met donkey in discomforting places, we ran down helpless tourists on their way down the stairs, and we were in constant jeopardy of being tossed over the wall ourselves. Good thing it was worth seeing a completely desolate town with no good views and one overpriced restaurant where McCall ate octopus for the first time. Opa!
Determined to ride donkeys somewhere on our trip we forfeited our lives to a Greek man who sounded like a woman and went to discover what Greek life looked like 50 years ago. We were completely unprepared for what 
ended up being a crazy, jostling ride where legs met donkey in discomforting places, we ran down helpless tourists on their way down the stairs, and we were in constant jeopardy of being tossed over the wall ourselves. Good thing it was worth seeing a completely desolate town with no good views and one overpriced restaurant where McCall ate octopus for the first time. Opa!
Our final destination was Oia located on the northern tip of Santorini. Exhausted by disappointment and heat stroke we casually shopped and walked around. There was only one thoroughfare so there was no chance of losing each other. 
Eventually we made our way to the old castle which was purportedly the best place to watch the famous Oia sunset...so famous it was difficult to find a place to sit among the hordes and hordes of people. We alternated between watching the actual sunset and watching the angry Asian couple in front of us take picture after picture of each other. 
When it was over and the Asian couple was gone we took our time getting to the bus stop...where all the buses were done for the night...and people fought tooth and nail for taxis. After getting ousted a couple times by tourists with no sense of a queue--Europeans--and waiting for the pay phone behind a girl talking with her 20 member family we took matters into our own hands...and razed the place to the ground (which meant we called a taxi company on someone else's cell phone and made sure everyone knew we were next.) Thus ended the day after the best day of our trip.
Now it's a place where hairpieces are found lying on columns, where little girls still peek over the walls of the boy's dormitory, where nine stone lions built to protect the city from ruin lie in ruin themselves, and people can't help but ask themselves, "Were the Greek gods real?" 
Going to Delos was the first planned activity of our trip and of course we were excited. So we set our alarms, woke up bright and early, and hurried to the front of our hotel to catch the bus...to find out it wouldn't come for another hour or so. So we hitched up our shorts, tied back our hair, and walked--on a perilously windy street with no shoulder. We arrived in Mykonos Town in one piece--which was weird because we started out as 6 separate entities--just in time to catch the ferry and land on the island already populated by hundreds of other tourists crowding around the front gate in order to buy a relatively overpriced ticket to a barren city overgrown with weeds and a sparse museum. I was overjoyed.
Compared to other archaeological sites, Delos is left fairly open to the generally unguided and unrestrained tourists. Of course some people took it upon themselves to see more than was obviously open to them and naturally, being an archaeologist...I was the exact same way. We had just barely made it past the most famous part of Delos, the Naxian lions guarding the Sacred Way (built around 600 B.C.), and were admiring curiously intact pottery jars when the horn from our boat sounded signaling its preparation for the return trip. Seeing as it was only 1:20 and seeing as I didn't hear Becky instruct us on the departure times I thought we had until 2:00 and was, as a result, unhurried. My friends however began to walk quickly...and the horn sounded again. So we ran and we ran and Becky tripped and the dry vegetation took 2,500 years of pent up vengeance out on her leg and still we ran and continued running into the sun with the repeated strains of Becky yelling, "12:00, 1:30, 3:00!!" behind us. 
We hopped onboard the ferry and snagged the last few spots in the shade completely unaware that our near miss was portentous of things to come. When we arrived back in town we ate at a little shop painted entirely in pink where McCall and I choreographed a dance using only our heads and the very long but very scanty sandwiches we got for lunch.
Instead of wading through waist-deep water for 100 yards to get to the cottage my parents and aunt and uncle used a canoe. Yep, a tippy canoe. Then they lugged all the ruined furniture to higher ground. Aah...just like the flood of '59...or was it '58...no, no it was '59.
In order to give ourselves some recovery time we headed to a beach called Platy Gialos. There we made friends with Massager Boy--an actual title, not a nickname--and spent some time both seaside and poolside. Gretchen and I got in trouble for trying to investigate a church...we were kind of scaling a hill and she was about to climb the wall...so instead we snuck into a hotel pool. Later we bought dinner from a different hotel and earned some pool time just above the Meditteranean.
We spent the remainder of the day wandering around Mykonos Town and stumbled across 16th century windmills--you know, the kind you would expect midget archers to inhabit and shoot flaming arrows out of. Down the hill from there was an area called Little Venice where we ate dinner just off the beach...again, watched the sunset, took 50 pictures of an authentic Greek man and his paper mache bagpipe, encountered Petros the pelican--the Mykonos mascot, and had a Canadian kindly tell us his country is bigger than ours.
Not bad for a first day, I'd say.
