Category Archives: Reviews – Travel

Bloggings, Reviews - Travel, Travel

Honeymoon-Santorini- Volcano, Oia, and Fira! Oh My!

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I slept really good last night, probably from all the traveling. I woke up at 350 am and thought it should be 7 am already. I tried falling back asleep, but I don’t know how well that went. Later I woke up to all kinds of birds and a rooster. I opened the balcony doors to find a cat wandering below our room and the sun rising over the sea.
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We decided to eat at an English bar for breakfast instead of the complimentary breakfast. I enjoyed a nice Greece Dr. Pepper during breakfast.
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Breakfast was good. We hung out by the beach for a bit then we came back for a meeting with costa, one of the tour guides.

After the meeting we took at taxi to the port for the volcano cruise. We walked up the volcano; it was very cool but tiring. On the way down I rolled my ankle, it was bad but kept going. It will probably hurt tomorrow. Here are some pictures from the Volcano Tour.
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After the volcano we got back on the boat and went over to the hot springs. The hot springs are not very hot just warmer water created by the amounts of sulfur in the water from the volcano. The boat anchored and we had to do about a 5 minute swim to get to the hot springs. When I got back in the boat there were a lot of waves and I started to feel sick. It was bad.

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We stopped at the island of Therassia and I was feeling pretty bad. I got a coke at the first restaurant we were shuffled into. After looking at the menu and seeing some of the other restaurants we left to go to a different one. The coke made me feel better. We ate at the last restaurant on the waterfront. It had a cat and we saw an octopus in the water.
octupus!

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Once we got back on the boat to go to Oia, we sat in the top back. I had a fear I was going to get sick so I balled up a plastic bag in my fist. I didn’t get sick luckily and it wasn’t that bad of ride. We got off at Oia, the famous part of Santorini with all the white buildings, it was awesome and beautiful. It was probably the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. The only way to get to the city from the port is to walk up the stairs or take a donkey. We decided to take a donkey. It was crazy! When I got on the donkey I thought it would be a nice leisurely ride and I could take pictures, NO! When I first got on the donkey charged up the stairs. It was very fast and rough, but awesome. I had to hang on tight. My donkey would go between two other donkeys or get up close to the wall; I scraped my leg on the wall.
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Once we got to the top we took a lot of pictures. We walked around the city and looked for a restaurant to watch the sunset. The sunsets in Santorini are very famous. We found a restaurant and we saw people staying at our hotel. We watched the sunset, had some drinks and had some food. The sunset was very pretty, except clouds were on the horizon so we didn’t get the full effect.
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After dinner I got cold. We walked around a little bit more then decided to take a cab to the capital city of Fira. We split a cab with another couple who was staying in Fira. They were from Minnesota. When we got to Fira I bought a sweatshirt. We also stopped at an internet café to check in with our parents. From Fira we took the bus home to Kamari. We were both falling asleep and I was just lucky enough to hear the bus driver say Kamari. I shot up and said “we’re here!”
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Bloggings, Reviews - Travel, Travel

Honeymoon-Athens to Santorini

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We arrived at the Athens airport at 1020 am. We found our tour guide with the Gate 1 sign and she gave us instructions about our next flight to Santorini. Our flight to Santorini wasn’t until 3 pm so we had a lot of time. It was so boring. I was also getting so cranky. I was tired of traveling and I wanted a shower. We got a sandwich and shared it and waited until we could go to the gate.

We finally went to our gate around 2 and our flight was delayed by a half hour. It was horrible. I was so tired. We were sleeping in the chairs. We used the internet. They had free internet for one hour in the airport. So not as good as Canada….but hey at least you got some free time. We finally got on the plane and we sat on the plane without moving for a long while. When we took off we both fell asleep. We arrived in Santorini around 445 pm.

We took a bus to our hotel and got our travel documents for Santorini. It had a map and a list of excursions we could do and other things we could do on our own. We decided one of the excursions we wanted to do was snorkeling. Once we got checked in we showered. The shower felt so good after all the traveling. Here’s some pictures of Hotel Hermes.
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Then we left the hotel to find food. We saw a little field with 2 goats and an old woman just sitting there. The walk to the beach and main street from our hotel was about 5 minutes. The beach was black rock and pebbles instead of sand. I think because Santorini is a volcano.
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We walked around trying to find a place to eat and there were so many choices. We decided on a place that had a bunch of cats hanging around at it. The cats were cute. Our first meal in Greece was a mixed grill for two that included potatoes, pork on a stick, meatballs, sausage, chicken and lamb.
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It was soooo good. We walked around more after dinner to pick up some water since we can only drink bottled water. I found a Dr Pepper that I plan on having for breakfast tomorrow!!
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On the walk back to the hotel we took a different way and ended up getting lost. We had to ask another hotel how to get to ours. Luckily we were not too far away and we made it back. I think the reason we made it was because of this church…it was our landmark.

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Bloggings, Reviews - Travel, Travel

Honeymoon in Greece begins!

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Today I woke up and ate some more catering left overs. Then we left for Ohare around 9 am. We checked in and talked to the parents about how great the wedding was.

Our flight was on time to Montreal. The plane was so freaken small to Montreal that our carry ons wouldn’t fit above our seats! I made “friends” with an old couple from nearby Lake Geneva. They were going to Rome.

When we arrived in Montreal we had a snack and used their free wi-fi. Why does Canada have all this free stuff?! Our flight to Athens was also on time! It left around 3 pm and was an overnight flight. We noticed when they were boarding basically no one was getting up to get on the plane. The flight was freaken empty! It was awesome. We could lay down in the middle row and sleep.
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We had a dinner, it wasn’t very good. So then I laid down and watched the movie that was on, Unknown. I fell asleep towards the end and woke up and the new Yogi Bear movie was on. I watched some of it but was so tired and fell asleep again and woke up to something about electronics on. This was boring and I fell asleep again and woke up and No Strings Attached was on but it was towards the end. So I fell asleep again and was woken up by a huge bump. I sat straight up and was kind of freaken out. It was bumpy and I started feeling queasy. The rest of the ride sucked and they fed us some breakfast but I couldn’t really eat. And it was bumpy. I was so happy to be on land in Athens. I was also surprised to see how desert-like Athens looked near the airport. Can’t wait to get our honeymoon started!!

Bloggings, Reviews - Travel, Snorkeling, Travel

Philippines Trip-Boracay-Engagement

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Woke up around 7:15 am and went to breakfast. Then we decided we were going to go snorkeling. We found a guy that said he could take us on a tour from 2 pm to 4 pm. So in the meantime we found another guy that said he would take us. We went on a boat with 2 tour guides.

The beach right in front of our hotel.
The beach right in front of our hotel.

They took us to an island called Crystal Cove. Here we went to a cave, like a lagoon and went snorkeling. It was awesome, I saw a ton of crabs.

Then we hiked along the island to a second cave and snorkeled. Once we were done we got back in the boat and the guides took us and anchored the boat and let us snorkel. The current was very strong so we had to hold onto a rope that was attached to the boat. I felt something sting my shoulder and I didn’t think much of it but then I felt something sting my neck and found out I had been stung by a jellyfish. I was so worried, but all that happened was I got a small rash on my neck and chest. The sting was not too painful. We went to a different location and snorkeled some more then we went back to the hotel.
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Next we met up with the next tour guide, They had a boat that was painted like Nemo and the bottom of the boat was clear so you could see the fish and corals. We saw a lot more fish on this tour and the snorkeling was a lot better.
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Guide swimming under glass bottom boat.
Guide swimming under glass bottom boat.

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Once we got back Don told me to go shower and he would be up to the room in a little bit. After I was done showering he told me to get ready and to put on good walking shoes. A guy was waiting for us down in the hotel lobby. He took us to a truck and we got in the back. I didn’t really know what we were in for. We ended up going to place where you can go on atv/ go-cart thingy tours. We went up a mountain called Mount Luho. On the way up the mountain we saw a lot of wildlife: chickens, dogs, pigs, and monkeys!! Once we got to the top the views were amazing.

Driving the buggy up the mountain.
Driving the buggy up the mountain.

Don asked the guide if we could have a few minutes alone and we stood there…and he was like “Andi, I want to ask you something…” And my mind started racing. He got down on one knee and pulled a ring out of his pocket and asked if I would marry him. Of course I said yes! I was so happy, it was amazing. I was in shock…I couldn’t believe it was happening. Afterwards we continued on the tour…took tons of pictures and still felt like none of this was real.

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Once we got back to the hotel we ate at an Indian restaurant and then came back to the hotel…exhausted. And I can’t believe we are engaged!

Bloggings, Reviews - Travel, Travel

Philippines Trip-Traveling to Boracay.

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We got up around 6 and had breakfast at the hotel then took the shuttle bus to the airport for our 9:30 am flight to Manila. Our flight was on time and it was around 4.5 hours long.

I watched Shutter Island on the plane. Kinda crazy. Then I watched animal planet’s funniest animals. This flight was really good, super smooth. The only problem was that at this point I was done with flying and I wanted off. We finally got to Manila around 1:45 pm.

Here we thankfully got our bag that we had checked in a day earlier. Then we met up with Don’s dad. He had our Boracay tickets and we had to catch that flight at 3:45 pm. He got a cab with us to take us to the different terminal.

Our flight to Boracay was delayed of course…because we rushed, rushed, rushed to get there fast and get through security. We were told that our flight was having to be diverted to a different island so we would have to take a shuttle bus and then a boat to Boracuy after the flight. So our flight took off around 5 pm and we landed around 6.

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Then we got on the shuttle bus, which was super crowded. We actually had to sit on seats in the middle of the aisle that came down from the sides of other seats. It was super uncomfortable and super hot. What we thought would be a 15-20 minute ride turned out to be an hour and half.

We got to the place with the boat around 7:45 pm. Then we took the boat over to Boracay. When we got there we didn’t know where to go because no one came from our hotel to greet us. So we finally figured out we had to take a “cab”, which was really a motorcycle with like a wagon thing hooked to the side. They call them tricycles. It was a crazy, bumpy ride but cool. So we got to our hotel around 9 pm. We had some pizza since we hadn’t really ate all day then just watched a band play on the beach and then went to bed.

Here’s some pictures of our hotel.
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