The 4-month anniversary present is Europe, right?
One of my biggest dreams in life has always been to travel the world with the person I love. I’m young, only twenty-three years old, and though love is still a concept I’m figuring out, I’m lucky to be able to explore the idea while traveling Europe with my best friend, Liam.
That’s the theme of this post: Luck – but not in the sense you think. “She’s so lucky to travel for 6 weeks with her boyfriend.” Yes, I’m fortunate and extremely privileged to have the opportunity to pursue my passion for travel and exploration. But here, I’m talking about luck in the sense of pure chance and karma.
After my 30-day educational experience concluded in Paris, I decided to fly Liam out for 10 days of vacation. He arrived in Paris for a quick weekend filled with buttered croissants, champagne, and tandem Bird-scootering around to every single monument before we embarked on the real adventure: Santorini, Greece.
After the horrible events that were the flight, ferry, and bus ride, our luck began to change when the transport van dropped us off at our Airbnb in Merovigla. We drove 15 minutes to Oia, the main town of Santorini, where we walked alongside the blue-domed churches and watched the sunset. Our dinner location was incredibly lucky, we happened to stumble across the last table at probably the most expensive, most beautiful restaurant in all of Greece. “Sunsets” rests the very top of the cliffs, overlooking the entire city and gives a perfect, uninterrupted view of the infamous Grecian sunset. The view, the food, the wine, the boy, I had an unforgettable night. Apparently, so did everyone else, since we witnessed not one, not two, but FIVE proposals as the sun faded from orange to pink to purple.
The stars decided we hadn’t had our fill of karma yet, and extended their grace to us when we found ourselves hopelessly lost, two hours walking distance from our hotel, in the pitch black. A strange man yelled out the window while whizzing by on the winding road. He pulled over, offering us a ride to wherever we needed, and explained how dangerous that particular road is at night. Hey sorry mom, I climbed into a strange man’s car while lost in Europe. Without Liam, I would have never done such a thing, I barely did it with him- he’s not a fighter if the situation went South. Luckily, the man had kind intentions, and drove us safely all the way home.
But the best was still yet to come. That night, we last minute booked an all-day “sailing experience” around Santorini for the next morning. When we arrived at the port in the morning, we quickly realized the “sail boat” was actually more like a giant double-decker tour bus. Not exactly exciting in any way. We waited for our names to be called to board the cattle-bus, but we received a different colored ticket than the other sheep-people. Liam and I were scurried over to a large, private, all-inclusive luxury Catamaran accompanied by six other couples. Confused, we climbed into the two floor, four-bedroom extravagant vessel and waited for instructions. None came, we set sail for the first sight-seeing destination, followed by four more beach excursions.
Lady Luck gave us a beautiful private yacht tour with amazing people, unlimited drinks, all-inclusive delicious buffet, and an unforgettable day with my best friend, all for the price of your local Duck Tour. I felt a little guilty not paying for the full experience, but our fellow passengers told us to not mention it and appreciate the happy accident. We took full advantage of the experience; tanning on a private lounge, snorkeling, back flipping off the deck, wandering off to cliff jump (we were yelled at) all while testing out my new GoPro.
Can you believe the day wasn’t even half way done yet? The cruise staff drove us back to Merovigla, where Liam decided he wanted to hike to one of the cliffs near our hotel. One long trek and some free-scale rock climbing later, I was staring over the descending sun on top of a 50+ ft. ridge with nothing but sharp rocks beneath. The surface split into two major areas, split by about a 5 or 6-foot gap. Without warning, I decided to test my luck one last time, and leapt across to the side.
I’m not at all exaggerating when I say I barely made it. I didn’t judge the gap correctly, my short legs hardly landing on the perimeter before I tripped and skidded towards the edge of the cliff. When I stopped sliding and looked back, I saw Liam sitting on the ground, colored drained from his face and hands over his heart. I guess I gave him a little scare, since we both understood there was no surviving that kind of fall. Liam was done pushing our good fortune any further. Once I was safe, we climbed down and decided never to hike again.
We ended the day with a small dinner and a bottle of wine in a very secure concrete building embedded into the island, we weren’t falling anywhere. We fell asleep quickly, the exhaustion from the day’s activities finally wearing on us.
Santorini gave me the opportunity to try new foods, find new thrills, maybe develop a fear of heights, all while falling deeper in love with my best friend. This is my first time traveling with a boyfriend, one of the only goals I have for the lifestyle I hope to achieve as a travel writer. We bickered, occasionally letting the stress of early morning travel sway our moods instead of flowing with the situations we were dealt. 240+ hours together without breaks, I’m surprised we haven’t killed each other yet. But I wouldn’t trade even the worst parts of our trip for a chance to redo, because I’ve learned that even the luckiest experiences come with a few bad moments. You know, balance. Plus, 10 straight days with a non-family travel buddy definitely forced me to slow my temper and tolerate (but not love) Liam’s less adorable behaviors, as I hope he’s learned to endure mine.
Oh, and 8 hours on a plane with broken air conditioning and screaming children? It’s safe to say luck eventually runs out.
♡ Abigail Reagan
