Let the journey begin!

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!!

ATHENS:

Athens was not exactly what I expected. For one, it was REALLY dirty! Everything was kind of rundown and shabby looking. It didn't help that the garbage workers were on strike so the garbage was everywhere! All over the streets and piled up so high in the dumpsters! Yuck!

One of the things we were able to do is see the changing of the guards at the Parliment building. We all got a kick out of that! We wondered who came up with the idea to put grown men in a skirt with pom poms on their shoes and tassels on their calfs and have them march in such a ridiculous way?! I'm sure at the time it seemed like a good idea! 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....