Riding Donkeys on Palm Sunday

St John the Baptist Cathedral

 Another warm sunny day waiting at the bus stop to go to Fira for mass.  We got the bus times wrong and ended up getting to Fira an hour after we had planned.  On a mission, we walked to try to find the church in a stressful power walk through the confusing streets.  Finally, we found St. John the Baptist Cathedral (which happens to be the only Catholic church on the island) and entered into the small but highly decorated chapel. We sat in the back row not sure what to expect out of a Greek Mass.  When the priest began mass, he shouted something in Greek all the way to the back of the church and everyone turned toward us. A lady behind us whispered, “he wants to know where you’re from.”  “Uh,”  I stuttured, “American?”  “Ah!”  He smiled and

Donkeys!

jabbered excitedly in Greek.  Well, we felt welcomed right away.  He had someone in translate for us in the homily to explain that because Catholics were the minority on the island, and many of them come from mixed Orthodox families, they go by the orthodox schedule (for school and work) and so, being behind the liturgical schedule, they were not celebrating palm Sunday mass today under permission by the Pope.  After mass he stayed true to the friendly Greek mannerism and hugged us and kissed our

Fira- My dream view!

cheeks.  Afterwards, we tried to find the old port where we heard we could ride Donkeys.  Spotting a Donkey in the street we decided to follow him.  He led us to a string of donkeys led by a man who motioned for us to follow him.  So here we were, walking down these thin stairs following some donkeys, trying to dodge poop, and having no idea where we were going in this hilarious parade.  Finally they stopped and we got on and began our descent down the cliff to the old port.  Riding Donkeys on Palm Sunday was not the most graceful thing, and so I can better understand how humble Jesus must have been riding in on these stubborn creatures.  I was so afraid they were going to

Oia 

throw me over a cliff or trip down the steep steps, but all the while I was still laughing hysterically.  The old port was beautiful.  There were Greek men in circles arguing over fish (I assume), and little shops where we picked up some traditional blue-stone gifts.  The cable car wasn’t working so we decided to walk back up the mountain.  Bad idea.  Over 1000 stairs up the side of a cliff in the hot sun with donkeys coming down definitely gave us an excersize we didn’t anticipate.  Finally at the top we awarded ourselves with Gelato and went back to the bus to go to Oia, the tip of the island where you can see one of the most beautiful sunsets in the world.  We discovered there was no way to see the sunset and get back to Perissa with the bus schedule, so we had to problem solve and borrow a phone from a guy in a snack shop to call the hotel and work out a taxi.  Before taking the bus we grabbed lunch at a restaurant “Niki” overlooking the cliff where we had just walked up and rode donkeys.  I had the best Greek Salad I’ve ever tasted.  Once we got to Oia we walked around and shopped.  One of the places we went into was really cute and it ended up being the lady’s living room.  She lived downstairs.  She saw us eyeing a beautiful silk and sequined scarf and tried to get us to buy it.  But being way over our price limit we explained to here we were poor students.  Instead of being a typical Italian shop owner and losing all interest in us for not giving them money, she simply said, “that’s ok, you have your whole life to buy things like this.  For now, try it on, and feel beautiful.”  She then grabbed Emily and showed her all the different ways she could wear it and had us take pictures of her.  She made us feel so beautiful by just wanting us to enjoy it, without feeling the necessity to buy.  It was wonderful.  We still had some time before the sunset so we stopped at a restaurant to try what we’ve been waiting to eat since we got here: Baklevah.  The restaurant was all out so we had to settle for spicey feta cheese with honey crust.  We ran out to the spot we had picked out for the sunset and had the most incredible 20 minutes of our trip so far.  I couldn’t

Oia at Sunset

believe my eyes at the shear beauty in front of me!  I blinked and it wouldn’t go away!  I named this as “My happy place” I would go to whenever I am feeling sad.  It’s easy to think that God exists when you see a site like this.  Afterwards, we took the bus and taxi back to our hotel and commemorated our fabulous day by buying a pan full of baklevah and eating it in our hotel room J while going over the pictures from our day.