Sunday, May 23
Well, I suppose I should start with yesterday first. We got up and went to the Monastary of Daphni, which is one of the earliest monastaries in Greece. It was neat and stuff, but so much of the inside artistry has been destroyed. It was really sad. Dr. Shackleford had us sing inside of it, which a couple other tourists thought was neat. I was really disappointed to find out that very few people in the group like singing, and fewer can do it well. No big deal, really, but a bit of a let down. The monastary had great acousitcs, but after singing in the National Cathedral in Washington DC with a good choir, I though we sounded pathetic. Just don't repeat that to anyone, please.
From there we went to the National Archaeological Museum, which was really incredible. I got really faint about 20 minutes into the tour, though, so I didn't get to see the rest. :-( I don't know why I got sick; it was really really hot in there, but that doesn't usually bother me. I left the camera with Greg and sat out in the lobby where a good breaze was coming from the open doorways. The crazy boy took 10 pictures. I still don't know what of.
After that we came back to the hotel for free time. It was only 2:00, but I just wanted to lie down. So we found a few English shows on the tv in the room. Hercules and Xena, which I thought was funny.
Today we had all morning free, so we slept in until 10:00 or so. We went out to a Greek cafe to eat around noon. Greg tried the mussels, which have to be the most disgusting-looking food on the planet. He said they tasted good--meaning like seafood, which I hate--and that he was looking forward to trying more wierd stuff like squid. Yuck. Anyway, after that we had a pizza. It was good, but no big deal. Oh, horror story: we found four hairs in/on our pizza. Don't think about that too much, though. The price was around $20, which was higher than we wanted, but couldn't really argue with. The cokes cost almost $2 for each bottle (about 2/3 the size of a can).
Then we went to the plaka--the local flea market. It's about the only thing to do in Greece on Sunday. It was wonderful shopping. Greg and I bought lots of cool stuff. We got two plates: one in black ceramic with colorful figures on it, and one in pottery with ancient classical stuff on it. They're hard to explain. We also got a statue of Artemis, who is naked. I didn't like that, but I was too tired to argue at that point. Besides, he'd already given in on two things I wanted: a plaster relief-type wall statue-like thingy, and a 3-D painting-type wall hanging of the Parthenon. Like I said, it's all very hard to describe. I'll take pictures of it all later. Right now it's wrapped up for shipping, which we're going to do at the local Mail Boxes Etc (they are all over Europe!) for about $30-$40. It's a lot to pay, but we just don't have room to pack them with our stuff, and I don't like the way airlines handle luggage.
Then we walked about 2 or 3 miles to the church. We would have gotten lost except for the preacher's daughter, who was with our group and led us to it. It's right in the middle of a busy part of Athens. The service was really neat. They have lots and lots of different nationalities who gather there on Sunday nights for an English service. Apparently it's the universally-known language. Cliff Ganus, the Chancellor of Harding, was the speaker (he just got to Athens a few hours before that) and he spoke for a long time. But it was all really neat.
Then we came back, ate, and collapsed on the bed. My feet hurt so much. I guess I'm just not used to these sandals yet. No one else seemed to be as uncomfortable as I am. Oh well.
We leave tomorrow for our cruise. I don't really know what to expect, but I just pray that I'm not sick the whole time! I just don't have 4 days worth of Dramamine! Heh, Greg says that we can't spend any more money. We've already spent about $160 so far, but we've bought all the big things that we want. So hopefully the rest will just be spent on ice cream and cokes. ;-)
Well, we've got to pack up and I'm still exhausted, so goodnight!
--Angelique