And they say California drivers are crazy.....

Our day started as most of the other days have....Taylor waking me up telling me to hurry so we don't miss anything....me begging for 5 more minutes of sleep only to give in to the excitement of getting out there and experiencing all that we possibly could. Actually today however, was a bit different. We had breakfast at a quaint little cafe on one of the squares near the hotel but this was after packing up our bags to head south.

Today we headed to Crete, the biggest of the Greek Islands. The arial shots were from the plane and of course Taylor and I can't resist the opportunity to click a picture of ourselves! ;) We had the most adorable couple sitting in front of us and kind of made me want to take their picture. Once we landed in Crete we headed to the rental car company to get our car.

This was my first experience driving in a foreign country and let me tell you...it was quite the experience! We were told it was a bout a 45 minute drive from the airport to the hotel....if you can find the hotel! We headed down the highway the wrong way and had to turn arround. I learned to drive in California but the drivers here are WAY worse! The roads aren't painted very well, if they want to pass you you're supposed to drive in the shoulder and NO ONE does any thing close to the speed limit. So after realizing I could drive this way....it was loads of fun. I think there were a couple times I kind of freaked Taylor out...she made comments like "maybe we could drive a little slower to enjoy the scenery".

She is the master navigator! We got so lost once in the city of Chania. We finally realized we kept driving arround in circles so we decided to stop for lunch. First thing we did when we sat down was pull out our map and ask the kind waiter where we were!

They keep giving us free drinks and dessert here! It's crazy! After lunch we decided to hop in the car again and try to find our hotel. Let me just say I used to think the one way and no right or left turn streets were confusing in Portland....they are nothing like that here! They are way way worse! After realizing I was driving through the middle of their market, closly clipping a moped and being completly frustrated I was laughing, I told Taylor "thats it....we're going to pay somone to get us to our hotel!" So thats exactly what we did! Nice older man must have thought we were somewhat strange to be asking for such a thing but once we got there he had us park our car in the lot then jumped in his cab to ride for a block only to discover that the street we needed to go to didn't allow cars to travel down there! I asked him what I owed him and he said whatever so I pulled out 10 euro and he gave me back 5 AND....2 nuts! Why??? Not exactually sure! But he did...I still have mine to prove it! ;)

We checked into our hotel and an nice bellhop offered to get our bags with us from the car (3 blocks away). He had a hand truck so don't worry! On our way back from the car he was making comments about how he hoped we weren't on the top floor of the hotel and.....you guessed it! We are on the top floor with no elevators. It is soooooo beautiful here! Come to findout however, we had lunch just about 5 blocks from our hotel!

More to come....

Sad....our last night in Athens!!!

After Taylor killed me going on the stairs earlier today (notice the view from the top of the hill and the busy street way way way down there.....thats where we started!)

and after we showered and changed for dinner we headed out to our favorite spot. We like to call it the square. We had great conversation....I think Taylor more puts up with my stories and antics then anything, great food and great atmospher.

We ended up looking for our friend Nikolas (aka Taylors idea of my husband)because he had invited us to drinks the night prior and I declined because it was late. Tonight we joined him at his table after we had dinner. Again the conversation with him was good and Taylor ended up giving him the bowl she brought so we of course used that as another photo opportunity and then he asked for a picture with me as well.....what was I suppose to say! And of course I love pictures!

We have had so much fun here in Athens it's almost sad to leave again! We are looking forward to our flight tomorrow to Crete (Kriti) and to see what the island life is like!

Stay tuned!

I couldn't believe my eyes when.....

There in front of us was.....

We didn't know they had these in Greece! They looked at me kind of funny when I asked for the friends and family discount so I said...."but my mom works here and I want the cost in American money!" Just kidding...why would I go all the way to Greece just to buy Columbia clothes! ;) Sorry mom!

Today was a casual day of getting up late, walking arround their flea market, having lunch at a corner cafe, shopping a little more and then site seeing! This view is the best view in Athens! It's a little church that is on top of a hill!

You'd never really understand it unless you were here but it's very difficult to walk here in Greece. Not because the streets are filled with potholes or ruts, and not because they're over crowded....but because they are all made of marble! You got it....they use marble like we use brick! It's been a little slippery for me in my flip flops and today....I bit the dust! Thankfully I was on a quiet side street and only a family from Miami was there to hear me fall! I didn't get hurt one bit....the workouts with Thomas helped I think.....I ended up in a lunge position! LOL

We are back at the hotel showering (since Taylor tried to kill me going up 10,000 stairs) and getting ready to go out to dinner.

Don't forget to check out Taylors blog at taylorstrax.blogspot.com

I may not end up blogging again until tomorrow when we land in Crete! Off to the islands we go! :)

I couldn't help it....it had to be done!!!!

Sometimes you just can't be to serious! So, I couldn't help myslef i had to pinch the statues hiney! What we didn't realize is that we were moments away from a museum "guard" coming to tell us to delete the pictures because they weren't "serious" pictures of the art! So....Taylor got in trouble and actually I probably did too because I was the one snapping the shots! Unfortuantely this is the only one we have....Taylors were much worse than mine!!!

So this blog tonight isn't going to be about the whole day even though we had a blast today....be sure to check out Taylors blog at taylorstrax.blogspot.com because she will probably have more detail about the Museum.




Tonight I'd like to tell you about dinner. We've discovered our favorite places to go and it seems to be in the same area meeting new people and seeing new things! We had dinner at the top of a little alley way where we met this young man.

There are kids and others who walk arround the square trying to peddle their different products. Tonight this kid just wanted to give Taylor and I a flower just to have his picture taken with us! What a sweetie. We did end up giving him 4 Euro for the flowers. Dinner was delicious but we knew we wern't done.

Taylor seems to have her eye on this one particular "cute" waiter at another establishment so after dinner we headed over there for some coffee and dessert. And of course some spying on the cute waiter!

There was a rather large crowd of children celebrating the end of the school term. These kids were told to be in primary school and all were there dancing and having a great time!!! We had so much fun sitting there and watching them enjoying the autmosphere. They sang, they danced and I took pictures....of course!

See how much fun they were having.

So in Greece the time right now is almost 3 in the morning and we have pretty much just settled in for the night! This is also partly due to the fact that we ended up in great conversation with a man named Nickolas who was sitting having a drink at the table next to us. We talked about everything....Taylor seems to think I've met my future husband! :P

All in all this was a great day! I had a bit of jet lag and ended up taking a 2 hour nap earlier which I think may be causing some of this staying up late business. Now, beauty sleep!

1st Full day in Athens, Greece!! What a blast!

This was our first full day in Athens! We had decided to take a bus tour of the city to make sure we were able to see all that we needed to see. We started our day with breakfast in the hotel which consisted of crossints lots of various breads, some fruit, juice, eggs, little smokies that looked more like mini hotdogs, cheeses and cereal selection. We headed down to the front desk around 8 am which is 10 pm Oregon time. Met our bus and headed into the city.

Chat Tours Guided Bus Tour

We had a great tour guide. In fact she has been teaching at the university for 32 years and does the tour guide gig because she enjoys it. Not only has she been teaching there but is also an archeologist who has helped with some of the various dig sights arround the city. This is Sophia. She has also published at least 2 books which we decided to purchase and had her sign. It was pretty amazing visiting the various dig sights. At first glance they look like a pile of rubble that no one decided to clean up but with more insight and understanding you can discover many magnificint things about each site.

Sophia our Guide

The first place we stoped at was the original stadium for the olympics which seats 60,000 people. They don't use this stadium any more for any kind of track and filed excersizes however, we did learn that they used it in the 2004 olympics for the archery field competition.

Taylor in front of the Stadium

Our next stop was The Temple of Zues. It is actually right in the traffic pattern for the city with 100's of cars going past it every day. It seemed funny to me that it would be located there but I guess you can't exactly move a historic site like that. There are 15 standing pillars and 1 fallen one. The original temple had 104 collums that surrounded the temple. All the enterances to them face east.

Zues Temple Ruins, Athens

Rock sitting arround the ruins

Next was the Parthenon which has The Temple Nike and the Temple of Athena. Pictures are worth a thousand words! :)

Temple of Nike

Temple of Athena

When the Apostle Paul was preaching in Athens it was said that he was preaching from this rock!

With a short break between tours we were able to grab some lunch from a local's hangout! At least thats what the man on the street told us who actually took the time to walk us into the restaurant.

Our next tour was a coastal tour arround the outskirts of Athens. We went to see The Temple of Poesideon. The ruins are in their original found state with no tampering. Aparaently they have had to re-inforce some of the structures so that they don't fall over and with city built up arround most of them it's no wonder they'd want to stablize them.

Temple of Poesideon

We got back to the hotel around 8 pm in time to rest for a few minutes, freshen up and head out for dinner. We have had good luck with the places we choose to eat but we can't seem to get them to stop giving us free drinks or food! Just when we think we're done eating....out comes another surprise dish. This time it was a drink and dessert!

Stay tuned for more!! We're going to visit some of the museams tomorrow and who knows what else! Be sure to check out Taylors blog too at http://taylorstrax.blogspot.com/

Leave a comment if you dare!

It's all Greek to me!!!

Oh my gosh we are finally here!!! After 12 hours of air time, 4 hours layover in Frankfurt and a speedy pass through customs in Greece we are finally on Greek soil! There was no problem getting through customs once in the country and in fact they didn't even check out bags! We came to our hotel rested for maybe an hour before venturing out! The hotel is a quaint and comfy place right in what seems to be the middle of the shopping and dining district. We will be here for 4 nights.

Once we ventured out we had an experience similar to the one I had in Paris in the Latin Quarter. The barkers (waiters) at the restaurants try to get you to come in and enjoy their meals. They hand you their card, offer you free drinks and free dessert until you finally give in to one of them and sit down to have a meal. We had a great tasting dinner, however I ordered chicken and I'm pretty sure what I got was pork! Still good. The picture below was after dinner and after 36 hrs of being up!! So please forgive the "dazed" look as Taylor calls it! She of course is cute as always!

After dinner we took a stroll along the cobble stone streets to see what we could see. We decided to head back to the hotel because I'm sleepy!! We seem to have the knack for getting lost. Of course there are plenty of people on the streets willing to help or wanting you to come in and enjoy more food and drinks! We couldn't possibly eat or drink another thing! So we did get a tad lost but came across this Cathedral in the heart of some of the surrounding streets.

After all was said and done it was a pretty good day! The weather is beautiful, the flights were comfortable and our room is just right for crashing! So hope you all have a wonderful day. Thanks for reading! By the way we are 10 hours ahead of you. Also, Taylor will be blogging on her blog at http://taylorstrax.blogspot.com be sure to catch her blog too!

Nice weather, good cookin' and loads of fun....

How do you spend your warm and beautiful summer days? I have to admit that today I needed to head out to the outlet shops in Woodburn but what i did on the way home was take the long way arround. The nice part about the long way is you're able to think, sing your heart out to the radio and observe all the beauty of the countryside. It was also nice driving through the neighborhoods and smelling all the different cooking going on which made me realize....hey I need to learn to cook! Feel free to "comment" me your favorite summer recipes and I'll be sure to post a couple of them when I can. Also, stay tuned for updates from January through May since I've been such a slacker I have quite a bit of catch up to do! :)