Congratulate me!
I appear to have acquired a touch of food poisoning. I've been feeling lousy since the winery yesterday (around noon), and I'm just not getting better. Bonus, though--at least I'm not getting any worse, and it's not as bad as it could be--my stomach's really fizzy and I feel dragged out, but all in all, that's small potatoes in the world of food poisoning. That being said, though, the only thing that's sat well in my stomach since yesterday has been toast and honey or bread and tzatziki.
Accordingly, I decided to spend my last day in Oia. I'm just taking a little break at the moment to have more toast and honey, and contemplating whether to go out and purchase a box of digestive cookies, which I know from previous experience also helps me with this sort of thing.
In excellent news, I went back to the English bookstore here to ask if they happened to have any good books on the geological/volcanic history of the island. Lo and behold, they did--a huge and comprehensive tome that was just published this year! The author even goes so far as to analyze the frescos in Akrotiri from the perspective of how the island was likely to have looked before the volcano erupted. The guy who sold it to me said that the author was on the island just two months ago to do a reading, and they're the only bookstore on the island so far to carry copies of it--it's that new. I bought a copy for myself as well as one for my dad, and am seriously looking forward to delving into it when I get home. Entertainingly, this bookstore appears also to be very much a mini-commune of Brits and Americans, with books and sleeping spaces (not to mention the obligatory cats) on several different levels. Because bookstores weren't cool enough already, here's one with *ambiance*. :-)
I'm glad I'm not staying any later than today, because it's quite clear from the way the residents are closing things down that this is the very last day of the season. Even Christa's people are putting everything on the terraces away--when I came home after my morning perambulations, all of the chairs from the terraces (including mine!) had been packed up. There are very few tourists out, and one by one the stores are closing. It's a bit cold and gray out, too, though fortunately not rainy (at least at present). I've been wandering around the village in a very desultory way, popping in and out of stores I haven't been into yet and taking a few last pictures from previously undiscovered vantage points. I even walked partway down the steps to Ammoudi Bay (291 steps, though I probably only went 2/3 of the way down) to take closeup pictures of that fabulous abandoned church. It looks as if there's a rough pathway to it from above that I wish I'd had the time and ability to explore, but my bet is that it's not accessible to the public. In any case, though, it's even more lovely close-up.
Okay, on to the toast and honey, then back up to the village for digestive cookies and more wandering.