Summerdays in Ios

As you may already know, Kyle and I lived in Ios over the European summer, experiencing a life that seemed almost too good to be true! The Lost boys bar family decided to invite us to come live and work for them for the entire summer, after we met them during our time in Ios the previous year. By day we were adventuring and exploring new parts of the island, and by night we were working with a bunch of great friends in one of the busiest bars on the island. And should I say the best! If I wasn't working there every night I would have been in drinking and hanging out with the crew. I reckon I will look back at this stage of my life when I'm older and think how insanely lucky I was to live so free and careless in such a remote and beautiful part of the world.

This island is something special. Everyone seems to have this impression that you only really come to party. But boy is everyone so wrong. Trust me, it is soooo much more than just nights out and beach parties. Don't get me wrong they are fun too, just try not get stuck between Chora and Mylopotas beach for your entire stay. Get out and explore! During the summer I rarely even partied, mostly saving my energy to explore every part of the island that I possibly could. The owners of Lost Boys, our dear friends Reece & Caz (love you guys), had the same spirit as Kyle and I about spending our days riding around the island and finding the best cliff jump and swim spots. They know the island more than most, and were the first to ever capture the beauty of Neverbay. Hence the name :) We would get a big group together and drive out there regularly spending hours on end cliff jumping, swimming through caves and taking photos. It was a fantasy world.

Not only does Ios have some amazing areas to explore, the food is the best in the Cyclades. I'm not just being biased, the restaurants here are phenomenal! Our favourite places to eat were Harmony (happy hour & falafel salad!), Katogi (try the pasta parcels. Tapas style so try go with a group), Lord Byron (huge portions and fresh ingredients, Sallys (rooftop dinner, great for veggie and vegan), Thai smile (best Thai food), Unique (mountain top restaurant with an amazing view. Go for sunset), Thai me up (good for brekkys, avo toast and smoothies). If we weren't at Lost Boys, we were at Harmony. I can't imagine a summer without our daily afternoon Harmony sessions. Jumping off the rocks, falling asleep on the bean bags, or playing back gammon was a staff trend. So thank you to Harmony and Harmony crew for providing some of the best times of the summer.

Lastly I just want to say a HUGE thank you to the Lost Boys Family, especially Reece and Caz, for taking us in and welcoming us with open arms. You couldn't have made us feel more at home from the minute we stepped foot on the island! I had the time of my life!!! Heres to all the laughs, tears, drunken nights, strawpedos, dabs, popcorn overloads, beer pong, listening to chameleon and house every weekend on repeat, dress ups, fisk shots, double vodka red bull pleeeasse, taking our tops off to banquet by block party, HOSH, Thai smile take away, shut the box, Sensodyne being sensitive, Reeces OCD with the lights & excellent dance moves, Timmys goofy laugh, Klaras short shorts and way with boys, Cazza looking smoking hot always, BFG drinking every person on the island under the table, Christine in her yellow lost boys singlet, Bosys all black get up and charming smile, Mitch's nightly presence and Amaretto Sours, aaaaannndddd soo much more but I can't go on forever. Love you guys. Family forever. LBB!

Also if you want to know the exact location of Neverbay, you will have to come into the bar and ask for yourself ;)

The unthinkable happened during my last week in Ios. There is no explanation. Which still eats away at my brain to this day, but somehow my hard drive, yes that thing that I store all my images I've taken ever on, mysteriously disappeared from our place. The only explanation I have is that it was stolen, but with that nothing else from the house. So either I have gone completely crazy, or have stalker (very unlikely, and kind of a freaky thought) or someone has come into our house, heard us coming home, panicked, and grabbed the first thing they saw. My hard drive. That I had carelessly left on the kitchen bench the day earlier and from that moment never saw again. I try not to think about it now, but the positive outcome was that I still had most of my Ios photos and a few albums throughout Europe and this blog :) RIP to all my other treasured photos and memories, and heres to making new ones! I have left little anecdotes in the caption of most of these photos, sharing where it was taken and a small memory of the time it was taken.

And yes, please don't ask "why didn't you back them up" cause I have been asking myself that every day since.