20 in my 20th: #3 Drink Ouzo in Greece

Hooray for accomplishing the first of 20 things I wanted to do before next May 10th! Unfortunately I did not get a picture of this event- you see, I drank ouzo a couple times but I was waiting for the perfect moment to really "count" it- and when that moment came my phone was dead and I didn't have my DSLR! the unjustness of it all... anyways, I can describe what I considered the best ouzo drinking occasion in Greece to be.

For those of you who don't know, Ouzo is a clear Greek Liquor with a 40% alcohol content, like most other hard alcohols. It's made from anise seed and so it has a distinct black licorice-y flavor, similar to that of Jagermeister and Absinthe. I'm not a huge fan of black licorice-y alcohols... or candies... or anything, really, but I figured hell, I'm in Greece and I might as well do as the Greeks do ;)

You can shoot ouzo like you would any other hard alcohol, which is what we did before we went clubbing in Mykonos (THAT's a whole other story altogether...), but the more proper way to consume it is in a tumbler poured over ice cubes, which slowly melt and chill/dilute the ouzo.

Anyways, It was July 2nd, if I remember correctly- we were in Santorini, an absolutely gorgeous crescent shaped island with lots of beaches named for the colors of their sand. We spent the first half of the day at the archeological site of Ancient Thera, which was interesting, although by this, the 27th day of our trip, we were all kind of site-ed out.

 Anyways, we then wandered our way down the mountain to the black beach, where we bought 2 euro gyros and half liters of amstel or mythos and strolled down the boardwalk in search of a good place to lay out and enjoy the beach.

  I was with two of the boys I spent the most time with on this trip, Trevor and Kellner. We wound up finding a spot under the shade of a tree, where the black sand was warm but not scalding like it was in the sun. We laid out our towels and spent a while reading our various books for a while before Trevor eventually decided he wanted to get some ouzo. He and Kellner went off in search for a bottle, cups, and ice while I watched their stuff. It wasn't terribly classy, laying on the beach drinking ouzo from flimsy plastic cups which got sand all over them from the condensation, but it was wonderfully fun and relaxing sitting there with the boys, laughing and chatting and joking and people watching and getting just a little tipsy. It was great :)

I'm on the verge of completing a few other things from my 20 in my 20th list, like writing a song and getting a puppy- so look for a few more of these posts coming up in the next few weeks!