Santorini!!

well, we decided that ios is just a litttlllleee too party-ish for us... after talking to four friends we made in the hostel (jason, anthony, david and justin), we decided to come to santorini for the rest of our stay. we took a ferry here yesterday from ios, and decided to stay at a hostel recommended by our ios hostel neighbors, a couple from canada (allister and rachel). we showed up at the place, which is called tony's villas. we walked in to the room and oh my goodness... by far it was the dirtiest place i have ever stayed. the accomodations weren't half bad, particularly for a hostel, but it looked like they hadn't cleaned it in ages. the sink had hair and marks in it, the whole place smelled like mold, and the bathroom smelled like a septic tank. we spent the rest of the day outside of the room and were pretty creeped out going to sleep. i don't think either of us slept very well- we both kept waking up uncomfortable and worried (i was a bit afraid that the place could have bed bugs). we decided to check out this morning and found a place called anny's studios, which was recommended to us by four good friends we made in ios (jason, anthony, justin and david). the place is super clean, we have a pretty decent room, there is free laundry (which is a major plus compared to the 9 euro per load in ios!!), 2 nice looking pools, a bar and a common area where people gather to watch tv and hang out. we are soooo much happier with this place and plan on staying for 2-3 nights, until we find a more long term place. santorini is really beautiful, and definitely more of our scene. we are staying in an area called perissa beach, which feels very much like a bummy beach town. there is one main road a block back from the beach, which has some mini-marts, restaurants, car rental places and travel agencies, and then a main road with restaurants, bars, etc. all of the bars and restaurants on the strip on the beach are super cool - they are all open air and covered with a thatch roof type thing, so you are sort of indoors and outside at the same time. they all have a trendy/loungy feel, which with both prefer to the crazy party places in ios. the beach is a black sand beach, which is pretty neat. i've seen one black sand beach in hawaii before but this is pretty different. the sand is actually pretty fine, almost like a regular beach, and the beach is super long!! we haven't even walked end to end yet. there is apparently a red-sand beach here too, that we want to go to at some point. the other big beach is called oia, at the other end of the island, which is supposed to be famous for viewing the sunset. i think tomorrow we are going to rent an ATV again (if any of you didn't catch what it is, it is a four wheeler), and head to fira, which is the big city here. we were originally going to come to santorini over the weekend of tony's birthday... i booked this super super nice hotel for 2 nights (runs 600-1000 euros per night!!- thank you starwood points!!!), but are happy to be here for the rest of our time. on the way in, we passed the hotel, called the vedema, and the driver commented that its one of the nicest hotels on the island, and all of the celebrities stay there when they come - apparently angelina and brad stayed there not too long ago. this made us even more excited to stay there (especially after staying at tony's villas! :P)we already have a couple of leads on jobs (thanks to tony's networking skills), though will def keep looking. tony has a lead at one of the nicer restaurants here, on the main street, as a server. he has to go back on thurs b/c the owner already is "trying out" someone on a trial shift on thursday. i have a lead at a place called beach bar on the strip on the beach, and have to do a trial run tomorrow. will be interesting since i've never truly served before, but we'll see how it goes. not too excited about the hours, which would be 6 pm or 9 pm depending on the night, until 4 or 5 am (yuck). the upside is that i'd make half decent money probably, with the tips and all (although people do not tip much here like in the US), and that at least i'd have the days free to sight see, go to the beach, etc. tony is off chatting with some people now, but will see if he wants to post anything else. hope everyone is well and we love reading comments, so post some if you can!!!
best,mel and tony