Guess what?!  This isn’t a TTD!  See?  I haven’t forgotten how to write things outside a numbered list.  Yet.

Unfortunately, though, this is a year-in-review entry.  I know, I know, these are annoying and irrelevent.  But I just looked at my 2008 round-up and I can tell you one thing – this one will be shorter.

2009 was easily one of the most arse-kickingest years of my life, if not THE most arse-kickingest (me rite gud).  And most of this is due to magical strokes of luck, rather than any wisdom or cleverness or deserving on my part.  Which is kind of annoying, in a way – it’s annoying to have tried so hard for so long, only to discover that, sometimes, quitting is the best decision you could ever make.

The one thing I didn’t explicitly say at the end of 2008 was that I had quit.  I quit performing.  I didn’t care if I never got on stage again.  I wasn’t emotional about it anymore, either.  I was just done.  Then I got an email from someone I respect a lot asking me if I wanted to be in a cabaret show.  That was one thing I’d never tried and I still loved singing.  So I said yes.  Little did I know what other huge events I’d end up saying yes to as a result.

Then came the job upheaval.  I had a choice to make there too.  To stay on and do more of the same (in a thinly-disguised ‘different’ package), or to quit and see what happens next.  I quit.  And, lo, it was amazing.

Yes, luck, luck, luck.  There’s been a lot of luck flying around for me in 2009…

I was lucky this year that, by sheer coincidence, I travelled.  A lot.

I was lucky this year to discover that some amazing people believed in me enough to put me on stage without me having to beg or to organise it myself – other people actually said ‘yes’ to my brand of silliness.  And, in the process, to realise how much I still love being ‘up there’.  And to find guidance through a most excellent vocal coach.  Yeah, all this stuff kinda rocked.

I was lucky this year because a global financial crisis meant I was granted a second chance at, well, life.

I was lucky this year that, for one mad month at least, I got a glimpse of what life could be like if my luckiness became more permanent.

I was lucky this year that my long-held theory that I could be a freelancer has come to fruition.  So far, so good.

I was lucky that, once again, my resolution to have “more music in my life” continued to be realised.

I was lucky that, all the learning about fun I did in 2008 paid dividends in 2009.

I was lucky that I’ve not only kept all my delightful friends, but I’ve made some amazing new ones who I hope continue to influence me in wacky and wonderful ways.

And I was lucky this year because I, and the people closest to me, have remained healthy and safe.

(actually, my health track-record for 2009 was impeccable – two minor colds… and that’s it.  BAM!)

Luck, luck, luck.  It was everywhere this year.  I have no idea why.  And I have no idea what lies ahead for 2010 – whether it could possibly be as fortuitous as this year.  Or more so.  Or not.

But for this year I am immensely grateful.

Our accommodation at Nomikos Villas boasts not just any cave, but a cave that, as became abundantly clear, should just be filled in with cement and converted into giant Aegean waterslides.

The living room (remember? lino floor, fluoro lights, weird smell) has a couch with a 10cm thick mattress on a wooden frame – this is bed number one.

Then there’s the bedroom (a cave) which has bed number two, as well as this mysterious crevice in the wall with a light globe in it (a mini cave). Is it a shelf? Is it a shrine? Is it a mistake?

Is this all one big, expensive mistake?

I take one look at the bedroom with its low, dug-out ceiling and no windows. With great relief, I recall that I’d slept on the last available big bed and, so, this time it was Marilyn’s turn.

“You can take the big bed this time,” I say. “Plus, I’ll have an anxiety attack in here.”

‘Here’ being a cave. But, I guess, we asked for it.

And then there’s the bathroom – aka “that f–king bathroom” Marilyn wanted so badly. I guess it kind of looked like the brochure. But what do you get when you coat a cave’s walls in that same shade of cement they use in beach toilet blocks, with no windows, no ventilation, and lots of water?

Ah, so that’s where the smell is coming from.

Back in the livingroom, meanwhile, there’s a TV – plus satellite, with hundreds of channels! Of course, these are in every language other than English. We pass the evening, exhausted, watching music videos and attempting to drink local wine that tastes like liquid raisins.

Sleep time arrives. We say goodnight and retire to couch and cave respectively. All of five minutes passes.

“Keira?”

She says my name with a familiar inflection – like a scared child with a desperate sense of humour. It’s one I’ve heard countless times before across a broad spectrum of disasters.

I turn my head and look up to see Marilyn standing in the cave doorway (a caveway?) with her pillow under one arm, blanket under the other.

“I can’t sleep,” she says. “Whenever I close my eyes, I can see that mini cave behind my eyelids. It’s freaking the $hit out of me.”

“Do you wanna swap?” I offer, hoping the answer is no.

“No, that’s okay, I’ll just sleep in here on the floor…”

“You’re not sleeping on the f–king floor for 130 Euro a night!” I protest. “Do you want me to get a deckchair from the patio?”

“Okay,” Marilyn replies, making it sound like a more reasonable idea than it is.

So, in my pyjamas, I step out onto our patio – which isn’t partitioned from patios for other rooms – and walk over to our solitary deckchair. Thanks to a full day’s rain, it’s wet.

I look over to our neighbour’s deckchairs – they’re stacked on top of each other and have been under cover all day. So I grab one of theirs and bring it inside. Then I take our wet one and stack it on top of their remaining one. The perfect crime.

I complete this bizarre post-midnight task, stifling a guffaw all the way.

Marilyn layers towels and blankets onto this black wicker deckchair, dresses it in a sheet, grabs her pillow and lies down. And I go back to my rock-hard couch.

After a night of attempted sleep on these, it’s our turn to “feel so bad”.

Bring on the bottomless breakfast… right?

The lights come up to reveal a thin, solitary figure, dressed in black.

She claims the epic space with her broad, flowing hand gestures, musical phrasing, and unintentional air of absurdity. The figure’s hair is larger-than-life, like Medea or Medusa. She plays both lead and chorus like a choir leader… or Medusa.

“I feel so bad,” is her refrain.  “I feel so bad for you guys.”

Even though we’re at Nomikos Villas in Santorini , I’m transported back to The Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Athens. I can just hear this woman’s words bouncing off every stone surface of that extraordinary 5000-seat monument to live performance built thousands of years ago.

“I can’t.  I can’t give you Room 6 like your friends because there are people in it.  Who told you that you could have it?  A guy?  Well, that guy is an idiot.  Here, let me show you another.”

We’re sitting at a tired tiki-hut bar by a stagnant swimming pool.  Above us looms a cluster of white villas that, yes, are carved into the cliffs of Santorini – just like the Canadian couple said.

Our thespian hotel manager points toward an open door to the left of the closet-sized reception office.  It looks like a storage room – no, wait a minute, it IS.  That’s where the unmarked man put our luggage!

“Take a look at this one.  It’s bigger than what you were promised, but I’ll give it to you for the same price.”

We walk inside and, to be fair, it is kind of big.  But it’s also dark, dank, claustrophobic and full of other people’s luggage.  It’s nothing like the brochure.

“Is there anything a little less… dungeon-like?” I ask.

“We really want this bathroom,” Marilyn says, showing the woman the brochure.

“For that same price?  No.  I can’t.  I can’t do it.  I feel so bad…  It’s not your fault that the guy you talked to on the phone was an idiot.  But there’s one more room upstairs.  The people are checking out today if you don’t mind waiting.  15 minutes.”

She runs off and we plant ourselves back at the tiki-hut bar.  We’re drinking this nice red fizzy booze which has made the whole thing slightly comedic.  At least, for me.

“Dude, I’m happy to just go back to Atlantis,” I tell Marilyn.

“I want that f–king bathroom,” she says.

Medea returns, hands clasped, ready for Act Two.

“Okay, the room upstairs will be free soon.  I can’t give it to you for the same price, but I can still give you a discount.  Do you want to see it?  I feel so bad for you guys.  You’re on vacation…”

She’s giving us a performance aimed at bringing 5000 ancient Greeks to their feet in that oh-so-steeply-tiered amphitheatre back in Athens.

Instead, she’s got a two Aussies with flip-flops and blank expressions.

“You can see it and make your decision.  But it’s not cleaned yet, the people just left.  I made them leave faster.  For you.”

We climb up and up and up the stairs.  One thing’s for sure – the view of the Caldera never fails to disappoint.

We walk inside and, well, it’s a cave alright.  A cave with linoleum floors, fluorescent lighting, one small window, and… what is that smell?

“So this is for the same price we were quoted?” Marilyn asks.

“No, I can’t.  I can’t do that.  I feel so bad…”

She shows us a folder with the regular prices.  “Here, see?  Usually 330 Euro.  My boss won’t let me do any lower than 165.”

Marilyn and I look at each other.  Medea won’t leave us alone to discuss it.

“I feel so bad…  Let me check.”  She runs off to the ‘wings’.

Marilyn and I decide that if she won’t give it to us for the 130 Euro we were quoted, we’re gonna hit the road back to Atlantis.

Medea returns for her third and final act.

“Okay, because you were lied to by that idiot guy on the phone, my boss says you can have this one for the 130.  Okay?  Now we’ll clean the room for you.  15 minutes.”

Lights down.

Nea Kameni is a volcano that was once part of the land mass of Santorini.  When it erupted, it sent a large chunk of the island hurtling to the ocean floor, leaving the island in a ball-and-cup formation called the Cauldera - a circular volcanic mass accompanied by the crescent-shaped main island.

That main island is a spectacular place that’s famous for its clusters of dramatic cliff-face buildings, wedding-worthy sunset, association with the Atlantis myth and Minoan civilisations, and tasty tomato patties which my best friend and I feasted on at a ouzoeri in the main town of Fira.

“Our friendship is like that volcano,” Marilyn muses over our lunch.  ”They don’t know when it’ll erupt.  All they know is, it will.”

It couldn’t have been clearer the day before when we went sailing around the Cauldera and climbed Nea Kameni.  But today, like my hair, is unusually gray.

“It’s been 16 years and we’ve never fought,” Marilyn continues.

Well, there was that one incident in year 8 when I’d imprecisely folded some cardboard she had for a geography assignment.  We didn’t talk for a day.

But as for those notoriously bad fights that best friends can have, well, it’d really take something extraordinary for one of those.

But what?  We’re very different people, but bizarrely harmonious in a way that makes me wonder if we were identical twins in a past life.  We’re both obsessive about hygiene (we went through a bottle of hand sanitiser on this trip).  We both can’t stand wearing nailpolish because it makes our fingertips feel hot.  We never, ever like the same boys.

We can’t even play scissors-paper-rock without presenting the same freaking object every single time (I know, right?).

“Maybe we’re due for a fight,” she says.

We’d already had our share of meltdowns on this trip.  In Athens, en route to Mykonos, we hauled all our luggage to Piraeus port, only to discover we should’ve gone to the port at Rafina instead – a train, a bus, and an hour-and-a-half away.

In Mykonos, aka “the stupid island I never wanted to go to” (quote comes courtesy of my fed-up rant at Rafina), we got lost in the tangle of streets of the tiny Old Town.  After all, those streets were built to disorient pirates, punctuated by shops designed to dazzle.  So, just like pirates of old, we too walked around in circles for hours - Marilyn nearly in tears, me nearly asleep on my feet.  It’s a good thing no swordplay was required.

Even in a place as breathtaking as Santorini, we’d had our moments.

The day we climbed the volcano, we swam in open waters to get to the hot springs (something neither of us were sure we were capable of), scaled 300 or so steps up a cliff in Oia, waited for hours for the “famous” Oia sunset, only for it to cloud over, and then sat on a bus for ages in damp clothes encrusted in volcanic minerals to get back to Fira.

We’d spent a large chunk of that day being whipped by the sea on the pirate-esque ship that took us around the Cauldera.

For my part, my flip-flops broke at the volcano’s peak AND I got an Ayers Rock-shaped sunburn on my back while on the small island of Thirasia (note to self: putting sunscreen on your own back is neither clever nor effective).

All in all, it was the amazing kind of day that shows you what your limits are.  But, as it turned out, it also highlighted the main difference between Marilyn and I…