A Healthy Journey: Fiona Goes to the Greek Islands

Part 3: A Real Greek, and London to Santorini

We don't always think we have a choice about what we do with our lives, or where we live, or who we spend our lives with, but it's possible to change. I heard about a man who went to a Greek island a few years ago, and loved it so much that he quit his job in the States, and returned to the island to open an Italian restaurant. It's taken some time to turn a profit, but the simple quality of life there has changed his life for the better. One of my friends in Corfu, Stella, refuses to do a computer course even though she knows she could go home to Austria tomorrow and get a well paid office job. Instead, she shares a big house in the Corfu countryside, and makes ends meet by selling Indonesian sarongs, jewellery and flip-flops, and working in a restaurant during the summer. In October, she goes to Indonesia where you can live cheaply over the winter, and returns to Corfu every spring.

London is an expensive place to be if you have no job, and after almost 2 months of looking and finding nothing, it seems logical to leave. There is no temp work, yet ironically there are some permanent music/internet jobs, but I don't want to stay here. Yesterday I decided to leave as soon as I could get a flight out. I spent all day searching for flights to Greece, but there were only a few flights and they were expensive. I went to make a cup of tea and called one more travel agent. There was one, one-way seat, London/Gatwick to Santorini on 26th August, at 6.25am. Interesting, because If there's one island that's the complete opposite to lush, green Corfu, it's the barren, volcanic and mystical island of Santorini.

(Read Fiona's interview with Theodore Kyriakou, the "Real Greek," now...)

Reprinted by Permission. Originally published online.