Today we had decided to go to the beach for a nice swim. Rose had suggested some beaches that were good for swimming and after a nice Greek breakfast we headed out (SC: 462). Rose had pointed to some points on the map which we went to, there were no beaches that we could see ANYWHERE near where he had marked on the map. So after about 45 minutes of driving and only finding one VERY shady (as in, I think they are going to strip my car while I swim) beach we decided to turn back and visit the beach that we knew existed, Ammoudi Beach.

Ammoudi beach is made up primarily of rock and sea weed.

That was fine so we decended the climb down the side of the cliff (there weren’t any real stairs) to find the beach nearly empty which was fine. The water was very clear but the bottom of the sea was all rocks so swimming with shoes was essential. It was a lovely little swim in enjoyable temperatures.

After this we returned to our hole in the cliff (SC: 504) to clean up and get ready for another round of wine tasting. Santorini has some great wines (some in bottles shaped like Santorini) and Oia even has a few vineyards of its own so we decided to set a course for the largest Oia vineyard. As we ascended (SC: 546) we noticed that the “back in 10 minutes” sign was not up and Rose was in so we made a reservation at the la – de – dah resturant of 1800. Apparently after spending all their money on fancy shit they could only afford numbers for their name. Rose set us up with a reservation for 7pm.

Feeling like it was a good plan to put something in our stomaches before wine tasting we headed to Roka for lunch.

Even though I had not had anything to drink yet I managed to almost fall down a stair on the way through a bunch of twisting back alley white washed walls on the way to Roka. We were seated in a nice table beside the kitchen over looking the Aegean Sea, in fact we were the only people in the resturant except for another roudy bunch of people. We decided not to get mains and we would kick it Greek style and go for some mezes.

Jill decided that now would be a good time (right before wine tasting) to have Greek beer, so she order up one Bud, I mean Mythos. I almost had Jill beliving that Mythos contained .5% alchol as the back of the label said 500ml Alch.5% but after a few minutes it dawned that it was just a shortened version of Alchol. We ordered for lunch the Santorinian Fava bean paste, Tomato Fritters, Honey Fried Cheese and sausage and peppers. The fava beans were pretty flavourless as you had to add extra stuff like lemon and purple onion to make them taste good. The tomato fritters were OUT OF THIS WORLD good and Jill hoarded them like a stray dog that just found a bone. The honey fried cheese was pretty fantastic and the saugages in peppers were also quite tastey (however I didn’t feel the Greek vibe from this one).

With Jill in the naviagation seat we made our way to the vineyard after only going down one Donkey Trail. The vineyard was awesome, we decided to try all the wines and were given 24 glasses of wine to drink.

The lady who brought out the wines provided us with a run down of what each of the wines were and what we should expect (Video to come later). Before we drank out wines the assisted the only other people there with a group photo as they were from Australia and they in turn said that I was American. I cried a little into one of my wines tastes. Edit by Jill for historical accuracy: They picked him out as an Australian living in the states, likely because he was traveling with an American.

Most of the wine was enjoyable, only a few were not to my liking. We ended up getting 5 bottles of wine from here partially as gifts and partially for ourselves. At this point we decided that it would be a good idea to actually check the import restrictions on wine, and we will have some money to pay when we arrive back in the US.

So we returned with cartons of wine and happy smiles on our dials (SC: 588). After sometime we decided that we would go and enjoy our dinner at 1800 (SC: 630). This experience I will break into two sections, the meal and our company.

1800 The meal.

Please keep in mind that this is a really fancy pants resturant which I decided to wear shorts and a shirt to with my sandles, Jill however got dressed up so apparently I missed that memo. The food had two choices, order what you like, or a tasting menu which was a 3 course set menu for 95 euro a person. To me that seemed pretty steep for someone who doesn’t eat super heaps and was full of wine so I decided to do just a main. Jill followed suit. The wait staff seemed very “Im super posh” so they turned their nose up a bit when we only ordered the mains. They did give us some facy gazpacho with feta bubbles and some fancy celery soup (which was actually pretty good). Jill had the rooster which was quite good and I ended up getting the sea bass which was about the size of a cassette tape.

After our meal we declined dessert and then we were promptly ignored for the better part of an hour before they were able to be asked for the bill.

1800 the dinner company.

This was prolly the high light of the 1800, in the left corner beside us was a couple from an Asian orientation. The man spent the entire evening burping and then chuckling under his breath like a school girl while the woman sat muted making eyes at him.

In the right corner weighing in at 350 pounds of pure bullshit we had the pretensious table featuring Mr Not to be outdone by. I don’t normally judge others by their dinner conversations but this whole table was so full of themselves it was not to be believed. After hearing their conversation I looked at Jill and made the Greg pattened hand motion for wanker and Jill was unimpressed that I beat her to it as she had just started the motion.

So at the table was some dude who upon joining the table made sure (by saying it 3 times) that he could not drink much because he had a 10 hour all hands meeting to run so he would have to make it a quick dinner. He then went on to explain how he was a doctor and he had consulted on this persons book and someone elses book. He then went onto talk about the nutritional benefits of stool swaps between family members as an effective alternative to antibiotics. There was a conversation about how cardio exercises was a waste of time and that eating french fries or anything fried is the best way to loose weight.

One of the guys at the table (mr book consultant) then hassled the waiter about wine because he wanted a specific type of wine, understandable however the way he approached it was super wine snob trying to drop as many places that he had been in the request for wine it was unbelievable.

There the coversation took a turn to speak about their pets, apparently one of them had a dog that they had to perform an emergency tracheotomy on because she was feeding it the wrong kind of dog food. Now that she knows what type of dog food to feed her dog it does much better. Also she carries around purified water when she goes running between delivering premature babies.

One of them had an allergy to pretty much everything and seemed restricted to just meat. This sparked a conversation about how everyone had an allergy to gluten it just depends on whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.

At this point in the evenings entertainment it got a little chilly so one of the ladies requested that a table cloth be provided as a substitute for a shawl that she neglected to bring in her haste to arrive in time for dinner. Most of their table then requested the same including one of the fellas.

The entire table just ended up going around and around telling more fantastical stories trying to 1 up each other on their experiences.

We had finished our meal before they had even started on their appetizers so it was fine that we stuck around however at the point where they were getting setup for the main meal they requested to be moved to a warmer part of the resturant which was our queue to depart.

On the way back to our super secret white washed lair we stopped by our now good friend for some pastries, tonight we dined on dark chocolate and cherry pastry as well as peaches and cream pasteries.

Both were excellent when consumed in the warmth of the hot tub (SC: 672).