ABOVE: I'm such a dork.
After breakfast the intellectual adventure continued; we walked over to the coolest bookstore we'd ever seen. The college roommate of Annie's mom recommended Atlantis Books to us because her sons were friends with the owners, and it was an English bookstore plopped down on a Greek isle.
We weren't sure if the owners decorated themselves or outsourced the job, but they maximized their space while keeping with the rustic/scavenged driftwood theme of the store. The shelves kept books propped up with driftwood and twine. The winding staircase became a twisting bookshelf as well...
ABOVE: Great multi-purposing.
There was even a bookshelf made from overturned chair backs...
ABOVE: Great RE-purposing.
When we visited, there was only one employee there--a volunteer from San Francisco--who said she and two others work there in exchange for free room and board for a month. She showed us their modest bedding within and above the store shelves.
ABOVE: Would you like a novel, or a nap?
If you could hack living in a fairly public spot for a month, the perks are pretty sweet. The store had a rooftop terrace with a fantastic view of the caldera, so Annie and I found ourselves envying the young woman her good fortune.
ABOVE: There are uglier places to hang laundry.
We bought a couple books: a Laurence Sterne novella for Annie because it looked aesthetically cute, while I got The Ponder Heart by Eudora Welty. I was tempted to buy a Faulkner tome, but thought the cross-cultural ramifications of reading Faulkner on a Greek island might make my head explode. And no one wants that.
I got to choose our day's itinerary as birthday boy, so I directed us back down to Ammoudi Beach for more skin-diving--except this time I wanted us to explore the rocky outcropping of an island with its tiny church called Agios Nikolaos.
ABOVE: American girl preparing to Godzilla a church
The cobblestone tiling of the church's porch was far more ornate than we expected. The terrace had a beautiful unobstructed view of Oia and the rest of the caldera, and at one end a promontory stood for us to leap into the frigid waters of the Aegean.
We estimated the height at around 20 feet, with plenty of depth to the water. Our trusty waterproof camera does not have a shutter speed control for action shots, but trust me when I say we both looked studly and photogenic mid-air:
ABOVE: Annie leaping gracefully.
After drying off on shore in the sun, we made our way back to Ammoudi Harbor for a waterside dinner at Dimitris Fish Taverna. We ate olives and split a Greek salad as mezedes(appetizers), then selected a scorpionfish for dinner because it sounded deliciously prepared: soaked in garlic, lemon, and pepper, then wrapped in foil and thrown on the grill to soak up the juices.
Voilá!
We watched the sunset from the harbor with full stomachs, then braved the now-familiar-but-still-formidable Ammoudi Steps back home. This was our last night in Villa Ambrosia, so we got a bottle of Santorini white wine and some chocolate straws [i.e. Birthday cake] with which to celebrate.
ABOVE: Keepin' it classy.
After Skyping with my mom and sister, we finished the wine, had some "cake," then crashed with tentative plans to locate a nearby beach on the morrow. What an amazing birthday!
Santorini Day 5 (June 6) Album:
 |
| Santorini: June 6, 2011 |
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Νικολάου Νομικού,Oia,Greece
No comments:
Post a Comment