A Kid New To Jetlag and Our First Glimpse of Santorini

We left Minneapolis via light rail to the airport at 7:00 AM on Saturday the second of September, all full of excitement and a bit of travel nerves. What followed was 26 hours of airporting, a huge spike in Alex's back pain, and the sweet, sweet relief of touching down in Santorini, Greece. Oh, also I discovered an affinity for disposable hot towels offered with tongs from cheerful flight attendants.

We took three planes, two trains, two busses and a very unhappy rental car to get to Oia, Santorini, Greece. Delta does a pretty good job of keeping folks entertained and sane during international flights and ours was relatively easy. If I were grading airports (and I guess I am) Minneapolis has it pretty good. Our layovers in both JFK and Athens International were hot and uncomfortable. Alex managed to sleep with his huge 6'3" frame sliding 3/4 of the way off of a chair while waiting for our flight in Athens. 

Speaking of Alex, we have a pretty significant re-occurrence of his back problem emerging. It seems that airplane seats are not nice to damaged backs. By the time we were in Athens, he was in so much pain that I was considering our emergency room options. Poor kid. He kept saying that we was scared that his back pain would ruin our trip. Nope. I have no intention of letting that happen, but I do plan on making some calls home to his doctor to solicit advice.

After more sleep deprivation than I've experienced since college, the first thing I did when we arrived in Santorini was drive our rental car along twisty cliff-side roads to the town of Oia, about 40 minutes from the airport. I gotta say, I impressed myself for my not receiving  the blaring horns and sideways eyes from the locals, who were shaming most tourist drivers creeping along the narrow roads. My famous lack of directional sense was barely a hindrance on our drive, given that there was only one road to our destination. The poor car had to climb hills it apparently didn't have the energy for (we commiserated), which make some parts of the trek sketchy.

I'd tell you all about how amazed Alex was with the views, but like most of the trip, he had trouble keeping his eyes open. I've dedicated an entire gallery to Alex's battle with jet lag, as it was a fierce one, fought with valor and ultimately lost. Poor kid has had a rough go of it physically so far. He's been sleeping for over 14 hours straight as I write this. Enjoy the gallery of pictures documenting Alex's first experience with the jet lag beast.

So, maybe I should document a little bit about Santorini, and Oia specifically. Our home for the next three nights is a cave house build into the caldera side of the island. It is access by climbing down some impressively steep stairs to a tiny porch with a tiny door. It's the kind of place that doesn't seem like real life, but instead a movie set from some romantic indie film. Really the place has much too much romance for a mom and son duo.

Oia itself is very touristy, but for good reason. The white buildings, blue domes and maze-like streets are a tourist's dream. Most come from other parts of the island, so at night Oia becomes much more intimate and special. 

We had our first Greek meal in the restaurant owned by the folks who run our Airbnb. It's called Cafe Lotza and the food was almost as good as the views. Filo-wrapped feta cheese with a drizzle of honey and sesame seeds was our favorite dish. We drank the locally made Ouzo, a Greek staple, which is made from anise seeds. It's a hard liquor that tastes like licorice and coconut. Our meal was capped off with comlimentary baklava with freshly made ice cream.

Early to bed was the medicine we both needed. In the middle of the night, though, we got up to appreciate the moon, the caldera and the city lights right outside our door.