Athens

Our second cruise stop was in Athens. It was hot, hot, hot, hot!!! Still, the experience of seeing the Pantheon was incredible. We hired a private taxi through Spiros taxi services before we arrived, based on a few recommendations. It was well worth it! We had a 15 seat taxi-bus complete with a car seat and air-conditioning. We met 2 nice couples on the cruise who came with us. Jacques and Suni were from South Africa and Olivia and Stephen were from New York. All were very nice and interesting people to meet. We first saw some sites from the bus before heading to the Acropolis. What was impressive was that the Pantheon was visible from almost every spot in the city. It was awesome (in the true sense of the word) to see the 2,500 year old temple still standing proudly above the city. We walked up the path to the Acropolis along with about 5,000 other tourists. There are several ancient structures on site including the Pantheon, Nike Athena, The Erechtheion, and The Theatre of Dionysos. Many are being reinforced to make sure no further corruption takes place. The buildings have actually been taken apart, stone by stone, had titanium run through them and painstakingly put back together exactly as they had been found. Apparently other attempts to reinforce the Acropolis have taken place twice before. We'll see if this is the last. Jay was pretty unhappy with all the heat and people, especially because we lost his binki at the bottom, until Nona started fanning him with our guide book. He laughed like crazy when she did that! Of course, then he wanted the chew on it (did I mention it was our taxi-guide's book and not ours?) and screamed his protest when we took it away. He ended up compromising for a pack of postcards bought for 1 euro. You do what you can. We enjoyed seeing the sites with the heat, crowds, Jay's compliants and all.
After the Acropolis we went on to see The Temple of Olympic Zeus. In it's hayday it was actually larger than the Panthenon. There are currently only 15 of the origional 104 columns remaining. A few that have toppled over still lay on the site. It's interesting to see how the round cut rocks were stacked to create the enormous columns.
We also saw the old Olympic stadium built in 1896 for the first modern Olympic games. While there we learned the history behind the sometimes deemed most famous Olympic event, the marathon. The marathon was thought-up for the first modern Olympic games. The marathon race commemorates the run of the soldier Pheidippides from a battlefield near Marathon, Greece, to Athens in 490 B.C., bringing news of a Greek victory over the Persians. Pheidippides collapsed and died at the end of his historic run. When the first modern Olympic games were held in 1896 in Greece, the legend of Pheidippides was revived by a 24.85 mile run from Marathon Bridge to Olympic stadium in Athens. This event was especially important to the Greeks. Greece was hosting the first Olympics, but hadn't yet won a medal. Spiridon Louis, a Greek postal worker from village of Marusi and veteran of several longmilitary marches, crossed the finish line a full seven minutes ahead of the pack. His time was 2 hours, 58 minutes, 50 seconds for the 40 kilometer distance (average pace of 7:11 minutes per mile). When it was all over - nine runners finished (8 of them Greeks), the host nation was ecstatic, and the marathon was born. Interesting bit of history for all you crazy marathon runners out there.
After the stadium we went on to see the city Palace, complete with a statue-like gaurd and all, and the Plaka district, part of the old city where all the tourist shopping takes place. We had a wonderful Greek lunch with our new friends. The food was wonderful! Another good day. We were exhausted after everything, except for Jay who rolled around our bed like a crazy man until he finally zonked out around 11:30 pm. Goodbye routine!

Mykonos

Our first port was Mykonos (heads up for all y'all who've read or watched The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Mykonos is the island Lena goes to to visit her Greek grandparents). Mykonos was absolutely beautiful! It looked just like you might picture Greece to look - little white stucco houses accented with bright blue trim. The people must white wash them about once a week to keep them such a brilliant white. We ate some delicious Greek crepes, some with chocolate and banana and some with cinnamon and sugar in them. It's was almost as fun to watch them being made as it was to eat them. After exploring the town Mike and I caught a bus to Paradise Beach while Nona and Papa watched baby Jay. We definitely recommend taking vacations with grandparents! While we were gone they saw this cool pink pelican! I guess they're pretty popular on the island. Mom and Dad were so wonderful to us! Paradise Beach was very nice; the water was a rich, blue color. It's definitely a big tourist party spot on the island. There was a large, mostly under 30 crowd dancing and drinking at the outdoor bar/club on the beach. It was fun to hang out for awhile and wade in the cool water. We made it back to the main town just in time for a beautiful sunset. We also got to see some lovely, old windmills up on a hill above town. Very picturesque. All in all it was a great day!

On The Move

I interrupt my posting of our trip to announce... Jay crawled yesterday!!!! He's been up on his hands and knees, back to his belly, rolling over, sitting up from laying for weeks now and yesterday he finally put it all together. It's not the best video to see him in action, but it works. Check out our little guy on the move...

Traveling Time

We headed off to Venice on Friday complete with 3 rather large suitcases, 2 smaller ones, 1 child carrier pack, a diaper bag, a stroller and 4 carry-ons. Whew! It's no wonder Mike and dad had to get to the airport by train while Jay, Nona and I were dropped off by our friend John. We had a stop-over in Barcelona with a 2 hour layover, which thanks to Vueling Airlines turned into a 7 hour layover!!! Yes, our plane was FIVE hours late! We finally made it into Venice around 1 a.m. The city was actually quite beautiful in the wee hours of the morning without the usual bustle of tourists and the hot sun beating down. We were almost glad to be there 5 hours late. We stayed in a cute little bed and breakfast, Al Gallion, hardly recognizable from the street. We had chocolate cake for breakfast and homemade apricot jam. We only had a few hours to see Venice the next morning before heading to the cruise ship and had to make the most of our time. We made our way to St. Mark's square walking through the cobblestone streets and across several bridges, stopping for gelato along the way... our favorite! Dad loved the shopping in Venice. He could have spent a whole week or more looking through the stores but we were on a tight schedule. From St. Mark's square we took a water bus back to our hotel, which was a wonderful experience. I think it was a lot better than taking a gondola because it lasted longer and was much less expensive for a similar experience. As Mike and I saw the beautiful city float by we decided that someday we're going to live in Venice - hey, we're in Spain now, it could happen! Here's our future house!We made it to our ship around 4 p.m. ready for some pampering after our tiring night in the airport. We weren't disappointed. The ship was wonderful, fit with 2 swimming pools and a rock climbing wall. The food was incredible! We met many nice people including a very kind woman from Costa Rica, Jacqueline, working on the ship who fell in love with Jay. In fact Jay was pretty much the star of the ship! He was the youngest passenger and everyone loved playing with him. He did so well the whole trip. He was a great little traveler. We were amazed by his adaptability! We sure love our little guy. One of Jay's favorite parts of the cruise was the gourmet food he was able to eat. Since bringing baby food jars with us was too heavy we just bought some at the ports along the way and ordered food he could eat on-board. He especially loved the soups... roasted peach soup, zucchini soup, potato and leek soup, apple and cinnamon soup, and on an on. He was in heaven! Our first day of the cruise was a day at sea. We had a great time lounging by the pool, watching Mike climb the rock wall, eating way too much food and enjoying the on-board enternainment. Well, I've about had it for today... I'll write more soon. Thanks for listening!

We're back!

Hello to all our blogger friends! We have finally returned from our adventures and are home safe and sound. We had so much fun and I will try my best to blog everything over the next few days...

Birthday Boy

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE! We've had a fun day here in Spain (although Mike did have to work). I made Mike a smoothie and blueberry bagel for breakfast - I would have made muffins but I added 1 1/2 cups of water instead of 1/2 to the mix, so that didn't work out so well. I had been up since 4:45 a.m. with Jay. I guess he must have been excited for daddy's birthday! We met Mike on base for lunch and after we ate we had cake at his office with friends. We had a great BBQ dinner (Mike was the chef) and later that night Mike and I went to see Ocean's 13 in Spanish! I didn't understand super well, but we still had a good time. John, Maria and Lunisana brought Mike a cake with candles, so he even got to make a wish! We'll celebrate more in a few days when we leave for our cruise to Greece and then on to visit our good friends, The Price's, in Zurich!

The Weekend Away

We had a great time this past weekend with the fam! We stayed a night in Rota at a beautiful little hotel next to the beach. There was a path from our hotel through a wooded area and straight on to the ocean. We showed Jay the water, walked along the shoreline and enjoyed the sunset together. Papa Lee even had the bonus opportunity of finding some very pretty beach glass along the way. He could make great money in Hawaii turning it into jewelry!

The next day we went down to Gibraltar to show everyone the monos. It was a great day! We saw all the major sites and this time we had some great interactions with the monkeys. Our guide was so much fun - he encouraged the monkeys onto Rob and Mike's backs. Jay loved seeing them play. He laughed and laughed at them. We saw some really tiny baby monkeys holding onto their mommies too. We watched one little monkey try and try to climb up onto our van when it was parked- it was pretty funny to watch him fall back down over and over again. He was very persistent! It wasn't a clear day, so we couldn't see to Africa this time, but it was still beautiful. At the top of the rock we could see the clouds rushing up and over one side. We enjoyed our time being together, even though we had a crazy British lady giving us wrong directions back to Jerez the whole time we were driving. GPS? I'm not convinced yet.