Paradise Found

When I was four, I went to sleep on Christmas Eve anxious for what the morning would bring. I fully expected a treasure of presents that would bring unbounded joy.

To this day, walking down the stairs the next day to see a train chugging along a circular track around the tree is one of the best memories of my life. The feeling you get when you have way too high expectations and then get them exceeded by the actual thing is quite possibly the rarest known to man.

Since December 25, 1992, I have not known that feeling. I've had many joys in life, but that one? It was fleeting.

Until this week. Ios, in the Greek Islands, was alternatively described to me as a cross between Cancun, college, Hawaii, and Greece. I was told there would be an abundance of beautiful women, beaches, water, buildings, mountains, and footpaths, not to mention wild bars and clubs.

That was exactly what it ended up being. It was paradise on Earth, no doubt about it, and I was sorry to leave it behind; I actually wanted to change my plane ticket and just work there for the rest of the summer. There isn't much else to say about the island. What can you say about heaven to someone who's never seen it? Those who have don't need words to describe what it's like.

We were only in Athens for a few hours; on the way to and from Ios, we got into town very late and then had to leave in the morning. If you've heard about the unrest there, I have only this to say: it's very real. We left our hostel with little time to spare on the way to the airport and found the subway locked shut; the workers were on strike. We had to rush into taxis, and our drivers were freaking out because a massive march was about to shut down all the major roads in the city center. Things are not good there.

But at least things are cheap and the people are beautiful. And because of the unrest, we had the island largely to ourselves.