ATTENTION! I had to do FOUR posts to include our entire adventure!!! SORRY ABOUT THAT!!! We took almost 500 pictures and it was SO hard to narrow it down to just a few!!
Our journey began with these words (spoken by Joey)..."I have a feeling that somethings going to go seriously wrong on this trip." How prophetic he was!! We all said "Stop it! Think positive!" We started so excited and ready to have the greatest trip EVER! Very quickly, we ran into problem after problem! Thanks, hon, for jinxing us!!! Joey and Justin had matching "Medium Pimpin" outfits on. He explained what that means but I still don't fully get it. It's a High School thing I guess. 
The problems began during our first layover in New York City. We were sitting at the gate and Joey said..." Man. my back itches." Then pretty soon, within minutes, his entire body was covered in this bright red rash with big welts. All over his body. His voice started to change and I could hear that his throat was closing up. Luckily, I had some anti-histimine in my bag which I gave to him. This rash lasted for THREE days! This had NEVER happened to him before! It was strange indeed!
There was somekind of crazy person running down the runway in JFK so our layover of a few hours turned into EIGHT hours of sitting at the gate.....waiting and waiting (and in Joeys case, itching!) Luckily, as long as I have a good book to read I can sit for hours perfectly content!
We finally made it to our SECOND layover in London. They have book vending machines there! How great is that??
When we finally arrived in Athens (30 hours after we left home) we soon found out that NONE of our luggage made the trip. All 46 people in our group were without luggage!! Man, all we wanted to do was shower and brush our teeth...but we couldn't. It stunk. Seriously. The next day, some of the luggage came (mine and Joey's included) but most of the people were still missing bags. It trickled in the next couple days but about 20 people had NO LUGGAGE until the very last day of the trip. And when it did arrive, the clothes inside were soaking wet and mildewy!! It was a rough trip for those with out their stuff. No doubt about it! Other things that went wrong included several illnesses (stomach problems, earaches, fevers, motion sickness, and one girl ended up in the hospital with alcohol poisioning!) While on the cruise liner, one of our students started a fire on his bed! Thank goodness he didn't burn the boat down! Geez! It was a rough trip...fraught with problems but in spite of it all we somehow managed to have so much FUN!!
Greek food....um. What to say. A polite way to put it would be that its "different". The truth is it's disgusting! Well- the boys liked it. They even ate the mystery meat logs that were a popular dish there. Tia and I stuck with the pita bread and french fries. It's the only thing that seemed safe for human consumption. Nobody got sick so it must be okay to eat. I take that back...one lady did get sick and she was pretty sure it was the food. It's just strange looking and smelling.
Standing underneath the Arch of Hadrian..... Yes..I do have to go to the bathroom in this picture! Very badly, in fact.
A visit to the Romain Agora. We got a whistle blown at us...apparently you're not supposed to stand on ancient ruins to have your picture taken! Who knew? Some of them are roped off and some are not. We made a wrong assumption that the ones that were not roped off were okay to step on. Not so.
The one thing in Athens that is absolutely amazing and totally worth the trip is the Acropolis. It's hard to imagine how old these structures are! I mean THOUSANDS of years old. They were here before Christ was even born! It was incredible. Below is a picture on the Acropolis ( which means the highest point of the city) of an ancient ampitheatre. Too cool!This picture got mixed up somehow. It's supposed to be in the next post with the other pictures of the Acropolis. Oh well. Sorry.
Trying to read a confusing map to find our way back to the hotel. Thats the Temple of Zeus behind me....
The view was killer, too!
So we got to Kusadasi and there was not really any ruins or sites that we could go see. Really the only thing we could do there was shop! Which was an experience! Joey and Justin went back to the boat after a little while so Tia and I were on our own. We wandered up and down the little alleys that are full of little shops and there were clusters of Turkish men just standing around staring at us. We kept wondering "Where's all the women?" It was only men in the shops. They were very friendly but downright pushy. If you even glanced at any of their merchandise they would pounce! "Oh! You like magnet? I have more magnet! Come in shop! Come in! I show you!" And then you feel like you have to look at all the magnets in the shop and then you feel bad if you walk out with out buying one. Eventually, we figured out that you just can't make eye contact. You just have to be a little rude because they are so PUSHY! After a little while, I started to feel uneasy. I wondered if we were safe. Here we are in Turkey, in the back alleys of Turkey, surrounded by groups of men that are not hiding the fact that they are staring us up and down. There were very few other tourist around. Finally, I told my sister that we needed to get back to the boat. I just felt weird. Our tour guide assured us that it is very safe but I've learned that when the Spirit tells me that something is not right, I should listen.
Back to the boat after sightseeing!
Behind us you can see where the Collossus USED to stand before it fell down. What a cool thing that would have been to see!! We saw pictures of it..it was HUGE!!
On the top of this mountain you can see the monestary that we climbed up to. It made me nervous...NO handrails! But the view was incredible!! You can see the cute town of Lindos below the monestary.
After we got back from Lindos, we explored old town Rodos. What a COOL place! By far my favorite island I think! It was just so quaint and full of history. We walked up to the palace but couldn't get in.
CRETE AND SANTORINI:
The city is on the very top of the mountain. You can get there three ways- you can walk up, you can take a cable car up, or you can ride a donkey up. Well, hello! How fun would it be to ride a donkey up??? Of course thats what we would do! Um....bad decision!! I have never had a more terrifying experience in my LIFE!!! Below is a pix of my donkey...bless his heart! I think I almost killed the poor thing! He kept having to stop and rest. He was breathing SO hard! He kept stumbling and almost falling down! I felt so bad! I mean, lets face it, I'm no anorexic! I've got some meat on my bones-no doubt! Poor donkey!
The path up the mountain was SO steep and winding and there was just a little wall between you and a STEEP drop off the cliff. This wall had giant donkey size peices missing from it and my donkey insisted on walking RIGHT next to the edge!!!! Every time he stumbled, my heart literally STOPPED and I thought I was going to be thrown off the side of the cliff! To make matters worse, some of the girls in our group would SCREAM because they were scared and the donkeys would FREAK OUT! A little Greek man was yelling "CALMA! CALMA!" trying to get the girls to stop screaming! It took forever to get to the top of the mountain. I thought it would never end! Especially since my poor mule had to take so many rests! I have never been so happy to be alive as I was when I finally made it to the top of that mountain!
Joey was the smart one among us and decided to WALK up the cliff. I thought he was going to have a heart attack when he finally made it. He was panting and grabbing his heart like he was going to die!! It scared me! He is in really good shape from all his working out the last few months but he was dying! I don't have a really good picture that shows just how high and STEEP this path was!!
