Snapshots from Santorini

• The Swedish woman--resident on the island for 18 years--who explained in painstaking terms how to make Greek coffee (to which I am now addicted)
• The tourist sporting a t-shirt that declared, "I'm not a gigolo; I'm just a fucker"
• The hairpin turns on the road to ancient Thira
• The strings of donkeys trudging up the steep winding path from the Old Port to Fira; some looked thin and bedraggled
• The easy music wafting through bars in town, ranging from Bob Marley to Pink Martini, hardly the strains of bazouki one expects
• The sad spectacle of abandoned and semi-feral dogs everywhere, many of them lame from car accidents
• The exhausting climb along the caldera from Fira to Firastefani, a journey we seemed to make several times a day
• The young female shopkeepers who conduct business with teacup dogs on their laps
• The Greek orthodox priests wearing very cool, very expensive, designer shades
• The ghastly disgorging of tourists from the monster cruise ships: imagine 3,000 people overwhelming a small island town for 3-4 hours, truly the invasion of the barbarian hordes