Patmos, Greece

Well, I'd say it's time for an update on this here blog. On my last post I noticed that I am precariously close to running out of storage space, so I've been having a dilemma on what to do. If what my sister says is true, I'm just going to pay a few bucks and get a few gigabytes of additional storage so I can continue my fun stories and such. But, in my panic, I started a wordpress blog which I think I will keep and turn into a photography blog/website (it's not ready yet). At least it will get me started...

Ok! So who wants to hear about Patmos?! I do, because I want to go back!! Buuuut, right now I'm not willing to take the 7 hour trip to Athens, 1 hour trip to Kos, and three hour ferry up to Patmos... call me crazy, I know!

Patmos, Greece

We arrived at the Athens airport before daybreak and as you can imagine we were also very tired. Luckily the plane ride was less than an hour long and I slept the entire time. Well, until we were approaching Kos. I'm so glad I woke up because out of my window, I saw whales, fishing boats, coast line and AMAZING sky. Ahhhh. Waking up early was worth it just for that. Touch down at a tiny island airport is interesting. I wouldn't say we landed, but dropped out of the sky. Our approach was normal until then and I am happy to report that the landing gear didn't collapse from the impact. Phew! They opened the front and back doors and we descended the stairs and boarded the buses only to be bused literally 100 feet to the terminal. Rules I guess. I had to chuckle about that. We got a taxi and made it to the port with a few hours to kill before our ferry to Patmos. So, we walked in circles around the fort and docks and messed around taking pictures and such. Oh, and we started to get very hungry so we stopped at a cafe and asked for gyros to go. Well, we both started to wonder if they could handle our large order with the empty rest of the cafe. Even though it took longer than we would have liked, we made the ferry with plenty of time and ha our YUMMY gyro's with fries IN it and all on the deck with the wind in our hair. Wow, that wind was something else! For the first part of our ferry journey we stayed outside and enjoyed the crystal clear blue water, amazing islands and fresh air... buuut after a few hours the wind took it's toll on us and we retreated to the seats inside. I dozed on and off while Julie read the book that we both couldn't put down (The Lost Symbol). After a while of that too, we started to wonder when our island was coming up so I went to ask a nice looking fellow. He didn't speak much English but did understand "Patmos" and waved me away which I guess meant we had more time to kill.

We arrived in Patmos and were greeted by people trying to get us to stay at their hotel/guest room. Thanks to Julie we already had a place to stay so we asked them for directions. We were told it was only 20 meters away. Well after about 50 meters we turned around and headed back to the port. We found a phone and called the number they had given us. The nice man on the phone said he'd call the owner and have them come meet us where we were and we were NOT to move. So, after a few minutes a lady scooted up on a scooter and in a very jolly greek way, said "Yassas!" and told us to follow her to her shop which was half a block away. We met her at the shop and she said that her husband would drive us up to the house. "Great! How nice." I thought. Then they started pointing at the scooted and for us to get on the back of it... WITH all of our bags on. ummmmmmmmm. Really? I stood there stunned trying to figure out if they were serious while Julie cheerily hopped on the back of this guys scooter and shouted "PICTURE" while they drove away. If you know me, and now that I was too stunned to even think about getting my camera out, you should know what was going through my head. I was half laughing, half worried while I watched Julie drive off on the back of the husbands scooter laughing hysterically back at me. After a few minutes he came back with an empty scooter so it was my turn. I was so excited... or rather nervous. I had a lot of bags. So he took my small back pack from me and put it on his wrist, and I moved my camera bag over to the side... and I hopped on and held on for dear life to his shoulders. The ally's/streets were so narrow and with other motorists flying past us he gunned it a LITTLE and it was enough for me to dig my fingers more into his shoulders so he said "OPA! Sorry!" I had to laugh. At that point, I just couldn't stop laughing and in no time we were coming up to the hotel and Julie was standing in the middle of the road ready with her camera to document this hilarious moment in time. So, I'm sorry Julie that I didn't get a picture of you on the back of Anthoula's scooter. It was certainly a sight to behold. We pulled up to a very cute gate with pink flowers EVERYWHERE and two friendly dogs happy to see us. They showed us to our room which was through a little courtyard and up a few steps. Ahhhh, I could get used to that! There was a palmagranite tree outside our window and they picked two off and gave them to us and said we could have as many as we wanted. They were SOOOOOO nice. So after they left i plopped down on the bed and rested and enjoying the breeze through the open window as Julie toured the room, when all of the sudden Mr. Anthoula's head pop's up through the window and say's "Hello! Here you go! From my wife!" and hands us a bag from a pastry shop. They bought us Greek pastries!! I love them.

So, we rested for maybe a half an hour, changed and headed out to walk to Chora, which is the traditional village. We had asked someone and they said it would only take 20 minutes or so. Well after 30 min. and we knew we weren't even close we just kept going and enjoyed the scenery. We were walking on the side of the road up switch backs and up the mountain. (We found out later that there is a walking path that goes almost straight up the mountain, which would have taken near 20 min if we had taken it. We liked the scenery way.) On the way up, we stopped at the cave where John the Revelator received many revelations which comprise the book of John in the Bible. Since we were wearing pants (think back to the monasteries) I wasn't sure if we should go in and was voting we wait until the next day, but brave Julie walked right in and assured me it was ok that we wear pants. We entered in a very small gift shop and out to a courtyard, down some stairs, around a corner and there we were. We walked in and there was a priest praying and a few women scattered around. It was small, and enclosed, with a lot of shrine type of artifacts around, but I found it very peaceful and the spirit there was very special. They had built a chapel around the small cave in the mountain, which really looked more like a very small overhanging rock. With the few people there, it was completely silent, which was very nice.

We continued up the mountain and made it up to Chora red faced and winded. We took a breather and then set out to get lost in the maze of alleys and stairways in the CUTE town of Chora. People still live there. Permanently. In the same houses that their families have lived for hundreds of years. That's all they know. They look down on the port and thank the tourists for coming and buying their food, art and trinkets. We ate ata very nice restaurant overlooking the port of Skala and had great food. Again. Greeks can certainly cook! The owner was very nice as well and talked to us about America and Patmos and even called a taxi for us. I was so glad we didn't have to walk down the mountain! hahhahaha Especially in the dark! Our taxi driver was a young guy and pretty funny. The entire island is busy in the tourist season, but in the off season, everyone's on vacation and relaxing away. Our taxi driver was planning a 4 week cruise in Africa. WOW! So we arrived back to the room and crashed. Ahhhh, sleep!

The next morning, due to my miss calculation of time on my phone, we woke up at 9am instead of 8am. Oops... an extra hour of sleep. I really did misread my clock! So we got up and dressed and went straight to the taxi station and hitched a ride up the mountain to the monastery, which is also in the town of Chora. Taking a taxi up the mountain is MUCH better than walking it. We went in and found the museum which was supposedly one of the best in the Agean. Sadly I couldn't take pictures in the museum! It was GORGEOUS! The architecture itself was incredible, then add the manuscripts, artifacts, robes and paintings and you've got one of the best museums in the Agean! ;) Wow. We took our time and roamed around to see everything and enjoy it. It was awesome. Then we roamed around the monastery and thinking we couldn't take pictures we didn't. Then we saw an elf like looking priest and he said we could take pictures in the courtyard, but not inside the chapels. Oh. So we took a few of the pretty courtyard and one of him. He's so cute! He kinda reminded me of Santa Claus. We loved it. We were prepared this time and called a taxi to come pick us up. Up pulled the same guy who had driven us the night before. He was just as funny. We found out that he was born and raised on the island and did not go to college because he didn't need to of course! He had a job, his family, friends and the beach. Plus, why leave and take the risk of meeting a non-local girl when you want to stay on Patmos your entire life?! His logic was so confident and even though I loved Patmos I couldn't imagine living on a teeny tiny island my entire life. He also said that the population of the island is about 3,000 and the gossip ran wild which made dating difficult. Which made me think of the mormon world. We don't even have to be stuck on a tiny island for it to be a small world in the church. When you meet someone it's incredible how often you find out that you know the same person out west somewhere. So funny.

We made it back to our room and Antony and Anthoula were making lunch. Fresh fish and calamari. It smelled divine. We went to our room to relax a bit and before we knew it Anthoula came up and gave us a plate of fish and calamari and fresh baked bread. Julie doesn't really like fish but tried it anyway. Imagine a small fish about the size of your hand, cooked, eyes, sclaes and all, staring up at you from the plate. Yeah. I had two, but couldn't take the scales after that. But I did LOVE the fresh calamari! After de-junking it of course! Deeeelicous! So after the yummy lunch, we headed to Maloi to take the afternoon off and we found a beach on the other side of town and over a hill that suited us just fine. It wasn't a swimming beach but there was a very old pier so we plopped down and put our feet in the water and chatted the afternoon away. We did see a naked person walking around on the other end of the beach but couldn't really tell if it was a man or woman. We didn't look to hard. After they got dressed and came closer to us to leave we figured out it was a woman. We just sat there for hours. Not a care in the world, hours by boat to any real civilization (airport, haha), and half a world away from home. It was an eye opener. After a while we headed back to town for dinner. On our way back the wind seemed intent on knocking us over and I was momentarily worried the ferry wouldn't make it that night... at 2:30am! Yeah, that was the last ferry of the season until the next Wednesday which we couldn't wait for. Yikes!.

We had dinner at a little place in town and half way through a guy came and sat across the room from us. He was yelling and carrying on so we were ignoring him. He was behind me so I couldn't see what he was doing. After a while our waitress came over with another huge bottle of water (you aren't allowed to drink the water on Patmos... everything is bottled water) and said that the guy behind us is yelling at her to give us the water. Like buying a drink for someone at the bar. Then she chuckled after we gave her a weird look and she said in her Australian accent, "It's a little different isn't it!" Oh and Julie asked her if he was crazy or something and she replied that he has just had a little too much to drink. We really didn't know what to do so we were relieved when he went down to the other section to sit with his friends. But hey, we got free water from it!

We turned in early that night because much to our dismay we had to catch the 2:30am ferry back to Kos. Turns out we picked the VERY last day of tourist season to leave Patmos so we had the very last ferry of the regularly scheduled boats. This one was gigantic! A semi drove in and everything. There were tons of Greek soldiers everywhere so I guess they were being transferred somewhere or going home. We were able to check in to our hotel in Kos VERY early and we slept until 10:30 that morning. It was oh so nice.

Meteora, Greece

What can I say about Meteora... spectacular. It was by far my favorite place we visited while in Greece. We arrived by bus to an overcrowded main street where our bus driver and every other driver around was yelling at a lady blocking traffic. I felt bad for the lady but in true Greek fashion, she parked her car (half in the lane of traffic) and got out to pick something up at a bakery all the while yelling back at everyone. Ahhhh. But this was Kalambaka. So we bade farewell to the bus and nice people we met on the bus and set out to find our hotel. We were lead to believe that it was only a little bit up the road. So, we start walking. Then we walked some more. Then, we got to the end of the town and started walking UP. We found a very nice tavern who gave us directions and let me use their bathroom. Relief. That's all I have to say. So, we found the road they told us to take and then we walked some more up a mountain road, eventually stumbling upon some houses and then finally on to our cute little hotel, nestled in the crevasse of some stunning rocks. The hotel guy (owner) was very nice and spoke pretty much perfect english. So, he told us everything we needed to know about all of the monasteries and which ones to see and which ones would be closed. We freshened up a bit, enjoyed the amazing view out of our balcony and changed into our skirts to go make it to one monastery before it closed. I can't remember the name of the one we went to, but it looks french but the way they say it most certainly isn't french. Our first monastery was very pretty and had an amazing chapel. Our taxi driver was very nice and waited for us for 30 min to take us back to town so that we could have dinner. We found a fun little place and ate on the patio. It was getting chilly so I didn't mind our walk back to the hotel. It wasn't very far this time. Luckily we were away from the hustle and bustle of Kalambaka and were able to enjoy the serene, peaceful village of Meteora.

We were so wiped out that we turned in at around 7 and I emailed everyone some updates from the community computer and Julie read the book. After my lengthy email I stole my book back and retreated to our room and read before going to bed. I could definitely get use to that. Oh, and this room had a LARGE and very nice bathroom. More points for Meteora :)

So, the next day we got ready and decided to wear pants since it was supposed to be on the more windy side. All of the monasteries provided wrap-arounds for women to wear. We got a taxi to the most popular one, "Transfiguration of Christ" and were awed at it's size and beauty. It was at least 10 times bigger than the one we saw the night before. There are lots of stairs to climb down and then up, so they certainly gave us a workout! I took lots of pictures so I'll let them do some of the 'talking'. After the large one, we walked down to the monastery down the road a bit. This one wasn't quite as big but not as small as the first. But, it was partially under renovation or something so we couldn't see much. Our hotel guy told us of a path that connects that one to another small one that is on our way back to the hotel. So, we (Julie) asked around and we were pointed in the right direction so off we went! It lead to a very cute trail through the woods. So, we went hiking through the woods in Greece! LUCKILY we were going down the mountain and not up. I would have cried if we had to go up. But, going down was awesome and it was beautiful. For being October, it was still very green everywhere.

We got to the last monastery we were going to "Niklas" and climbed the bazillion stairs up to see it. At least it seemed like a bazillion. After our treck the day before and our hike down the mountain, I was getting pooped. At least a nice German couple was struggling as much as I was, and they came in a car. hahaha! I must say, the views from the tops of these monasteries are breath taking. We saw the entire valley, a few goats, and even some rock climbers.

So. After Niklas, we started our walk back to the hotel so that we could pack up again, and head to the train station... by TAXI this time. We bought our train ticket and stashed our bags in a locked office and set out to find some dinner. We found a 'fast food' place that had gyro's. YUM. We devoured the gyro's and after a little walking around we came back for a second. They looked at us and laughed. They were soooooo good. Maybe we were just starving, but they were mmmmmm-mmmmmmmmmm good!

Our train ride back to Athens was pretty much uneventful, except for the lady across from us who Julie said stared at us almost the entire trip. It was 5 hours long. But, I didn't mind because I was reading most of the trip or doing my SuDoKu puzzles. Those are pretty addicting! One thing I must say... I. HATE. train. bathrooms. I held it as long as possible and I even went before the train left the first station, but after a bottle of water or two, I had to go. It was awful. That's all I'll say.

So this is Meteora. Enjoy :) (Captions coming tomorrow)

Meteora, Greece

Delfi, Greece

We woke up EARLY on Monday morning to make it to the bus station by 7:30am to head on up to Delfi. We somehow got turned around and sped walked in the wrong direction and took two taxi's to make it to the bus stop. We ended up taking the 10:30 bus, which worked out well. The ride up was great and we got to see a lot of pretty country side.

Almost immediately after getting to Delfi and checking into our cute hotel with the cute little old man who told us everywhere in the US he'd been to, we ventured out and went to the museum and ruins. Delfi is certainly a beautiful place, but they were very riskay to put it mildly. Yikes!!!!

We walked around and went window shopping. We had dinner and a nice family restaurant that apparently a large group from a cruise ship decided to go to as well. It was great though. I had yummy fresh shrimp with bacon. It didn't taste like shrimp I'm used to. I compared it to tasting like how ocean air smells. Mild, fresh, and salty. Yum!

I'd write more, but I must go to sleep. This set of pics has captions so it will tell a little more of the story.

Delfi, Greece

Athens, Greece

We arrived in Athens and found our cute little hotel and set out to see the city at night. None of the night pictures really turned out since I tried to take a shot with no tripod. So, I didn't put them in the slide show. The entire way around the Acropolis is a walk way with hundreds of vendors and cafe's. Also, everywhere we went there were these random guys sitting on the ground with a board and a jelly type toy that they would throw on the board and it would flatten like a pancake and then slowly regain it's shape. People must have bought them, because they were everywhere... we didn't buy any of those.

The next day was Sunday so we went to church (we met some missionaries the night before and they showed us where church was) and met the very nice members. There was an awesome lady who I think is a 'typical' Greek woman. Now, when I think of 'typical' Greek woman I think of the mom in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"... "The man may be the head of the house, but the woman is the neck. She can turn the head which ever way she wants :D." Ahhh. Soo funny. This was that lady. She pretty much ran the branch from what we saw. She was a fireball.

After Sacrament meeting we ventured out to the Acropolis to see the ancient wonders of Athens. Wow! What a view, and what amazing architecture! To think that has been standing for thousands of years. Woah. I learned about the Parthenon and the surrounding buildings in my Art History classes, but sadly I couldn't cart the 15 pound books to brush up on the plane. I did have my Dan Brown book "The Lost Symbol" though, so never fear. The building across from the Parthenon with the four ladies as the columns was beautiful. It was roped off so we couldn't get too close to those, but that is what a zoom is for.

We met a very nice English couple who talked with us for a while about Obama, America, England, their Yatch, traveling, and health care. Actually, he and Julie did most of the talking. His wife and I chatted a little and joined the conversation every once and a while. They were nice chaps.

We found a lovely cafe and had Greek food and watched people pass by and had smoke clouds passing our nose. Smoking is definitely accepted pretty much any where, any time. AND, the old men flocked to the street corners and cafes like you wouldn't believe. They watched the world go by on their little street corner and chatted until the sun went down... and then some. People in general were always out and about. Always out side.

We were only in Athens for Sunday and then we got ready to leave for Delphi the next morning.

So, be ready for the post of Delphi (Delfi) tomorrow and our adventure getting there. Or at least to the bus station to get there. All of the pictures are done, but I will try to do at least one post a day, maybe more.

Enjoy the slide show!

Athens, Greece

Another reason I haven't edited my Greece pictures yet... :)

Mike and I went to the Renaissance Festival in Maryland yesterday and had a blast!

Here we are at a comedy show.


Here we are as King and Queen of the festival!


Mike hit the bell 10 times in a row and got the hammer prize! Woohoo!


Me with a princess hat on. I should have taken pictures of the people all dressed up... wow!!


Here are the Stocks. I was a "Fop" (excessively vain)


And poor Mike was a Sloth. They didn't have very good choices.

Greece... The flight over

I'm home!!! Greece was amazing and I have tons of stories to share. I was going to start tonight, but this darn jet lag is catching up with me so I will start with what we started with, the plane ride and amazing views once we closer to Greece,

I love getting stamps in my passport... oddly we went through customs in Madrid and not in Greece so no Greece stamp. Bummer.


My awesome travel companion and amazing deal finder... Julie


Blue sky


Love it


Amazing


Ok, and here is Athens in all it's crowded, polluted, beautiful glory :)


And me at the Parthenon! Who'd a thunk I'd make it here in my lifetime?!


So amazing!

More to come soon...

All my bags are packed.... I'm ready to goooo!!

I'm off to Greece tomorrow night after a full day of work and wrapping things up and getting things ready for a temp to fill in a few days while I'm gone. Phew! I will be so glad to go on vacation!! I haven't taken many days off this year so they've built up and I'll still have a few more to use before the years done. Yippee!!

I'm sure I will get access to the internet a few times while I'm there so I will post travel updates and stories when I can.

See ya when I get back!