We take a cab to the hotel where we're staying, which turns out to be huge, and walk up the front steps and into the main lobby.
"Dan, this hotel is amazing..." I stutter, looking around the lobby of our home for the next three days. Marble columns arch towards the chandelier-lit ceilings, and the fancy feeling of the place makes me more than a little uncomfortable. Hopefully there's nothing breakable in our room.
We get the keys to our room in a euphoric dream, running up the stairs to the third floor when the elevator takes to long and practically sprinting down the hall, our luggage banging against the floor behind us as we go.
"Welcome to the royal palace," says Dan, unlocking the door with a flourish. Dork. The room is really is nice, though, and could definitely be described as a royal palace if it wasn't just a two room hotel suite. The bed is bigger than any I'd ever slept on before, and the blanket definitely isn't a cheap and scratchy motel quilt. Dan sets his bag down on the floor, grabbing me and kissing me. I would laugh, except Dan Howell's lips are in the way.
"This room is amazing," I say, falling back onto our massive bed, "Everything is amazing. You spent too much money, Dan. Actually." He laughs.
"I might not be PewDiePie, but YouTube pays well." We laugh at his stupid YouTube joke. People seem to think we're all rich or something just because we can afford nice cameras and go on trips a lot. All bullshit, if you ask me.
We lay on the bed for a while before deciding to change and go down to the pool. I pull on a black bikini and Dan comes out in swim trunks. I'm glad I'm not a guy, their choice in swimwear is so boring. Either wear swim trunks and be normal, or a Speedo and traumatize everyone involved. Luckily Dan is going with the first choice.
We grab our towels and head down to the pool, where I sit at the side trying to get a tan. Dan gets in, but spends most of his time at the edge, trying to get me in the water. I finally decide to jump right in and annoy everyone else sitting around trying to get some peace and quiet. I almost land on Dan, but he darts out of if the way before I cannonball right on top of him.
"Are you trying to assassinate me?" he asks, paddling back. Neither of us really know how to swim except for awkward arm movement and leg kicking without and sort of form.
"It's true. I was hired by the fangirls. If Phil can't have you, no one can." Dan laughs more and splashes me, getting drops on my sunglasses. "Jerk," I say, pouting like a child who hasn't been given candy.
We waffle around in the pool for a little while longer, trying to look a little less pale and splashing each other until we're practically prunes. We both tan pretty easily, as shown by Dan's videos from 2010. Even then, after a while my sunglasses start to feel like they're about to melt on my face, so we decide to go inside and rest for a while before dinner. Dan won't tell me where we're going, but something tells me it'll be good.
"Ready for dinner?" asks Dan, touching my shoulder. After the pool I went right to sleep. Recently, I've been able to fall asleep whenever. I guess it'll come in handy for the jet lag. I wake up with a start.
"Hi. What? Yeah."
Dan smiles. "Good morning, Mia." I smile.
"Good morning to you too. Dinnertime?"
"Exactly. I made sure you had time to get ready." A while back there was a certain disaster where he woke me up to go to lunch ten minutes before and I nearly had another panic attack. Luckily for me, my panic attacks have mostly stayed internal, or at least suppressed enough that no one notices. I hate making people worry, especially Dan. He goes all overboard when he's worry, the kind of guy who runs over in the pouring rain and wraps a blanket around you and makes hot chocolate. It's nice, a great gesture, but I hate it. It makes me feel like I've taken his time, made him worry for no reason.
With plenty of time to get ready, we get to the restaurant without incident. A nice waiter takes us to a little two-person table on the porch. Greek weather is great at night, although it can be pretty warm during the day. We decided that we'd go on a hike tomorrow, which I'm looking forward to and dreading it at the same time. I don't know why we decided it would be a good idea for us two internet people to go on a five mile hike, but it's happening. We're going to the coast the day after tomorrow to check out the islands and beaches.
"So what should I get, Miss Greek?" I roll my eyes. Dan's been calling me by this stupid nickname ever since he found out I was Greek. We call each other a lot of stupid nicknames, but this one is pretty awful, especially since we're in a room full of people who have actually been born and raised in Greece and speak the language outside of the Lord's Prayer and a few nursery rhymes.
"Erm, Spanakopita is amazing. I'm definitely eating that. Souvlaki is good, as are gyros. I don't know, all Greek food is good. Fattening, but good." I proceed to show Dan pretty much everything on the menu, until he decides on a gyros plate. For an appetizer we get pita bread and hummus. It's delicious, probably the best hummus I've ever had. We are in Greece, the homeland of hummus.
Though it's kind of antisocial, we spend some of dinner going through Twitter and showing each other awkward or funny tweets. Apparently Phil mentioned us in a live show, which is a little bit worrying as Phil is pretty much a glass wall when it comes to lying. His attempts at hiding "#Dia" usually just end up making people suspect that we're dating even more.
"Good job, Phil," says Dan, favoriting a Tweet and scrolling. People still seem convinced that we're just friends, though, so all is well.
Our food comes and we eat, pausing every once in a while to gawk at how delicious the food is. Which is very.
After we finish we get some delicious dessert, loukoumades and baclava. We both nearly kill ourselves snorting up powdered sugar, but it's worth it. By the time we leave the restaurant I feel like a stuffed turkey. We shuffle back to the hotel, still raving about the food. I lie in bed, going through my sub box and liking a few videos, then tweeting about Phil's awkwardness.
@WatchMiaRun: yes, Daniel and I are in Greece. Thanks Phil Lester 😆
Most people probably won't get it, but that's okay. I'm obscure hipster trash anyways.
We get to bed early, since we need to get up pretty early for the hike tomorrow. I have some trouble falling asleep, being me, and lie there for a while, trying to ignore Dan's loud snoring. His arms are around me, making it hard to move or anything, but somehow I manage to get out of bed without waking Dan up.
There's a balcony connecting to our hotel room that we haven't really gone out on much, but now I slide open the glass door and step outside. It's nice outside, so I sit down in a patio chair. Someone on another balcony is smoking, I can smell it in the air. Cars honk all around, a party is going on down the street and I can hear people yelling. Everything is moving.
I go back inside and climb back into bed. Dan groans a little, but I kiss him and he quiets down. Slowly, I force myself to sleep to the sound of drunk Greeks down the road.
// yes I know it's short but tomorrow I'm going to summer camp and won't be around for two weeks because it's cliche and won't let anyone bring their phone.
I combined two chapters bc this was way too short and so was the last one also my writing has gotten better to the point where i dont need to rewrite whole paragraphs//
