My story starts out when I was 14 years old and I went to see a movie called Summer Lovers with my cousins while visiting my Aunt. My Aunt and Mother would have never approved of me seeing the movie at that age, but they never knew. The movie was filmed in Santorini, Greece and I was immediately drawn to the exotic island. Later, when I was 19 years old, I bought a poster of Santorini. It was most likely taken years prior to me buying the poster. It’s been up in any home I’ve lived in ever since. I stared at the poster every day dreaming of getting married on the dirt road over looking the Aegean Sea with exotic white painted odd shaped buildings in the background. I wanted to be there in person and see it for myself so bad, and I felt the feelings of myself being there.

I was able to go to Europe for 6 weeks when I was 20 and was even on a yacht in Greece for 3 days which was part of a tour group, but I was too scared to leave the group to see Santorini and then try to find them again. So I told myself that I would be back. For many years other trips came up for different reasons and when I finally turned 35, I told myself at the beginning of the year that no matter what, I would see Santorini that year somehow. I figured out how to go back, and a friend that I was going with cancelled last minute, so I decided to go all by myself out of determination.

I had never traveled by myself yet, so I was a little frightened but very excited at the same time. Prior to leaving, I looked up places to stay on the internet, not knowing exactly where they were or how the island was laid out. Only one place stood out for me amongst pages of choices and I called there to find out if it was safe for a single girl to go out at night and get home safely at night and if it was close to town. Women ran the villas, there were only 6 rooms in total, and said it was perfectly safe, and to just come. I trusted them and just booked the room at Asteras Villas.

When I arrived in Athens and needed to change flights, my flight had gotten cancelled, so I waited for the next. My plan was to arrive in Santorini by flight and then catch a boat to Ios for the first two nights and then stay for the remaining 8 nights in Santorini. Because of the flight delay, there was no boat to Ios by the time I arrived, which meant I had no place to stay the next two nights. I had sat on the plane from Athens to Santorini next to a younger man, who was reading a Greek newspaper. I asked him if he spoke English and we had a nice conversation for the 45 minute flight. Once we touched down in Santorini, I was so excited, that I said goodbye to Stefanos, grabbed a cab and decided to go to Asteras Villas since it’s the only place I knew about and maybe they could help me find something. The cab driver just pointed up a large amount of steps and it should’ve been much harder to find, but I just seemed to walk straight to it. As it turned out, they were booked except for a tiny room down many, many steps. I of course took it. I threw my bags down, and left immediately to go explore.

The beauty was everything I expected and so much more! As I was just leaving my villas going up the last set of steps, Stefanos and his family were coming down the steps and were scheduled to stay there as well. I couldn’t believe it. What a coincidence I thought. I went out for a bit and then hung out with Stefanos pretty much every night for the next 8 days until he left. I was there for a total of 10 days, skipping Ios. Stefanos and I became amazing friends and still talk often to this day, over three years later. My last day there was the day before my 36th birthday.

Well, once I got home, I immediately stood in front of my poster again and just stared. I knew I should know where that was at by now because I scoured the island. My eyes suddenly became huge in shock and disbelief and I ran and got my digital camera and pulled up a picture I knew I took from my balcony. As I blew it up I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was comparing the buildings in my poster and in the picture I took with the ocean and volcano and other islands in the background and it was true, I ended up on my poster without even knowing it! I took the same exact picture, but it was probably 30-40 years later and filled in and it had changed a bit. On the poster was a dirt area in the very front, and the place I stayed in was built on that dirt lot. I then realized that the dirt road I had wanted to get married on, was actually the steps I took to the villas every day, several times a day, and that’s where Stefanos had appeared when he arrived at the villas. No, I am not marrying my wonderful friend Stefanos, but I realized that my dreaming of being married on those steps for so many years actually brought me a very dear friend instead, which is perfectly fine with me.

I still may go back and get married there one day if I meet the right person, who knows, I’m still visualizing it! I could have ended up in other towns on Sanorini, in many other places within Fira, but I didn’t, I ended up at the very hotel that was built on my poster. I wanted it so bad for so many years and I was finally in alignment with the energy source, which I have now learned recently through The Secret. I blew up the picture I took to 20X30 and it’s gorgeous. I now stare at that daily as a reminder that anything is possible and that I can have anything I desire, I just need to ask.

Three weeks ago I was half glancing at a hand painted plate I bought while in Santorini. It was of the Caldera, but I never really paid attention to where exactly it was. I found myself getting up and staring at it in disbelief once again, 3 years after my return, realizing that the plate, which is up on a wall in a different room, is the same exact spot as well. The same buildings, etc. I just had never realized it. So I stared at a poster for 17 years, took the exact picture myself and bought a plate that matches it exactly. I couldn’t have been more in alignment!