Invincible Summer

More reviews have been scheduled (Finnikin of the Rock, the Battle Royale manga series, Stephen King’s On Writing/Gail Carson Levine’s Writing Magic: Creating Stories that Fly), but I’m firmly in the grips of the weekend. Today I’m feeling like more reading, less writing and more imagining, less analysis. I can think of no better way to handle this than with my first picture post! (It is relevant, I swear!)

To set the scene: The summer of 2009, before I graduated, my BFL (that’s “best friend for life” or “biffle”) and I took a little “research trip.” She was writing her thesis and had to go to Greece. I was her, um, advisor. We had a grand time cavorting around Athens, Santorini, and Rhodes, but I left my heart in Oia (Eee-Ah).

Located on the northern tip of Santorini, we first made the trek there on a bright orange ATV we named Argo. (Greek pun alert! "Arga/o" means "slow" in Greek and "Argo" was the name of a certain Jason's ship.)

Here was our route (in black). It took us all day, but we stopped to rest on a few beaches. (Much faster than the donkeys we rode the previous day.)

The ATV rental guy proposed to us both.

That breeze-through wasn’t quite enough, so we returned later to watch the famous sunset and do a little exploring. (Here’s where the post gets relevant!) It was then that we found Atlantis Books.

It was like Peter Pan meets quirky shipwreck.

The employees all lived in the store, which was co-founded by a couple of Tufts alums! Small world, no?

Surprises around every corner.

Look what I found in the recommended section!

After I bought a book of Aesop’s collected fables, we went to dine at a place called Ambrosia and Nectar. (Food of the gods, indeed!) In the middle of some delicious pumpkin ravioli, I spied a bride on a donkey and a parade of people coming ever closer. We thought it was a drive-by, but they came to a stop and ate at the long 15-seat table reserved behind us. Magical.

And there you have it, folks. A little bit of sun in this snowy winter. May everyone clap at the end of every sunset. (They did that on Oia, and I thought it a lovely tradition.)