Home Safely

We made it home safely on Friday after a LONG travel day. We got to the airport in Athens at 6:30 AM. I was worried about our luggage and transferring in Athens. I thought we would have to claim and recheck our luggage in Amsterdam and if we would have enough time. Luckily, they were able to check our luggage through to Continental and Houston at the Olympic Airlines counter in Athens. That made me feel a lot better and took the stress off of the trip.

The flight to Amsterdam was uneventful. We didn't have to go out and check back in at Amsterdam - we just had to go clear to the other end - that is where the Continental gate was. Luckily we didn't have a time crunch. We made it no problem and had a good (long) flight back to Houston. No nasty people behind us trips trip.

We wanted to get back into the swing of things and didn't sleep much on the plane - only about an hour. That made us good and tired by the time we got back to Houston. Ben picked us up in Houston and we ate dinner and went to sleep around 9:00 and slept for 12 hours! We were a little tired.

a great trip and an uneventful return.

Final day-Athens

The ship arrived in Athens this morning. We got off the ship and caught a taxi to the hotel.

We arrived expecting to have to check our bags and come back later to check into our rooms. Well, thanks to Marriott and the request for early chrck in, we were able to check into our room at 9:30 in the morning! Yet another reason I love staying at Marriots.

They have a shuttle bus that runs to the city center every hour. So, we go downstairs to get on the shuttle. There was a pretty good sized line. The bus finally pulled up and people started to get on the bus. Well, the driver stopped people from getting on and asked for two more people. Naturally, the last two folks were right in front of us. I asked the driver if we could just stand and he said no, it is not permitted. Very annoying.

So, we asked the bellman if he could call us a taxi and he asked where we were going and we told him. He said we would be better off walking 800 meters (about a half mile) to the subway station. In his words "you don't want to deal with taxi drivers". I guess that means he didn't trust them.

Subways are fine with us, se we started walking. It was sprinkling a little and we thought our last day was going to be rainy. It kept spitting rain till we got to the subway.

We got on the subway and got to where we needed to go and we go outside and the sun is shining again. Go figure.

Our first stop was the Roman Agora and the tower of the winds. The tower was a way for them to tell time and wind direction-fairly advanced. From there, we were trying to find the ancient Agora, but I got turned around and ended up at the Acropolis. That actually worked out better in the long run.

- tower of the winds

The Acropolis was very cool. Very massive structures and pretty well intact. The only dissapointment is that they are doing conservation and reconstruction on most of the ruins in the Acropolis (including the Parthenon, the temple of Athena and the Polysporius). Those are the three main monuments. Even with scaffolding all around them, they are very impressive feats of craftsmanship. Hard to believe that it only took the Greeks 9 years to build the Parthenon. Ironically, they have been working on the restorations for longer than it took for the original construction!

- view of the Acropolis

- Parthenon

- porch of the Carytatids

They had a museum of the Parthenon as well that was good to walk through. They had a lookout that we could see other areas closeby, such as the temple of Zeus and the Olympic stadium.

From there, we walked though the ancient Agora and another museum. Very interesting. We also saw the only ancient temple that still has its original roof intact.

We then stopped and ate lunch at a restaurant and had some great greek food. We have had a lot of great food on this trip, but we are actually ready for some good chips and salsa when we get home!

While we were eating, a storm came up and we thought we might be in for a rainy afternoon. We could actually see the rain coming down close to us, but it blew by and we had great weather the entire day.

Our last stop was the musuem of ancient archaeology. Very worthwhile. Very impressive. Very large. We were beat by the time we were done.

We did get some bonus pix for our friends that we will post later.

- picture for Ben of ancient hockey players

We then took the subway back to the hotel and took a shower and walked down to a restaurant. More great greek food. I always find misspellings interesting. For instance, tonight Rachael had the "Mashroom" pie and I had the vegetarian kabobs with......"Mashrooms". Spelling aside, the food was fantastic.

Now we are done repacking the suitcases and are ready for the dreaded day of travel with multiple flights and tight connections. Joy.

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Ephesus

Today we visited Kusadasi, Turkey. We actually visited the ancient ruins of Ephesus. They are remarkably well preserved and quite extensive. We hired a tour guide and driver for today as we had not been there and it was recommended to get a guide.

they had plumbing, running water and toilets (as shown here)

- library of Celsus

Our guide's name was Haluk and was very good. We first visited Ephesus itself. Very impressive, especially the theater. It holds 25000 people! The library was also fairly complete.

- theater from the top row

From there, we went by the ruins of the temple of artemis. When built, this was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Now, the only thing remaining is one lone column.

We then visited the Basilica of St John. Purportedly, the Apostle John was buried here when he died. The church was fairly impressive, but was desrtoyed by earthquake in the 1300s.

- reported gravesite for the Apostle John

The last place we visited was the House of the Virgin Mary. Supposedly, this is where she moved after Jesus' death.

- they had a fire recently in the area. the fire burnt everywhere around the House of the Virgin Mary, but not the house itself.

We then went back to Kusadasi and saw some pottery and carpets being made. Large carpets will take years to create! Consequently, they cost over 8000 to buy--needless to say, we didn't buy any.

We bought a few items in the bazaar and went back to the ship.

- another great sign in the shopping area for Fake Watches

Our last day was a good one. We leave the ship tomorrow morning in Athens and spend the day there.

More to come later.

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Malta

Today, we visited the island of Malta (famous for statues of Falcons and Knights bearing the Maltese name). It is a pretty small island, so we just rode the local buses around the island.

The buses are all pretty old, painted yellow and stinky diesel burners. Charming in their own way. The are a tradition on the island a a main mode of transportation.

We first visited the main Cathedral on the island. It was very ornate. I especially liked the floor. The entire floor consisted of separate gravestone covers for the various Knights of Malta that were buried there. Each one told the story of their death and deeds. The really cool ones showed skeletons. Not sure why that was so cool, but it was!

The other main part of the cathedral were two paintings by Carvaggio, who fled to Malta after he was suspected for murder in Rome.

From there we rode a bus to Mdina (no, that is not misspelled). Mdine is a very old city that hasn't changed much over the years. The oldest building was built in 1233.

We then came back to the capital, Valletta, and caught another bus to two ancient temples, Hagar Qim and Mnajdra. They were (purportedly) built in 3000 bc. That makes them older that stonehenge and one of the oldest structures in the world.

We caught our last bus back to Valletta and walked through the town and back to the ship. Another great day!
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Standing around in Rome / a four gelato day

Well, today was Rome. The ship was supposed to dock at 7:00 and we were ready to get right off to take a train to Rome. The train is about an 1:10 to Rome and the 7:35 would get us there before the Vatican Museum opened and avoid the lines. Well, we didn't get off the ship because they hadn't cleared customs till after 7:30. We got on a train at 8:00. The line for the Vatican was over 2 hours by that point! My patience wears a little thin in lines.

However, the wait is worth it. The museum is incredible. It was, however, packed today. So many tour groups, so many people. I really don't like crowds.......

I found out some valuable information today. Rachael really can't stand the little disembodied heads floating arounf in many renassaince paintings. We made a little song up about it and sing it every time we see them in paintings. Angela, I can see some new, annoying artwork in Rachael's future!

The highlights are always the papal palace rooms and the Sistine Chapel. We could spend quite a bit of time in the Sistine alone. The chapel "police" are so funny. They keep shushing people and they do it so often and so loudly, it is more irreverent, in my mind, than the noise from the admirers.

You also can't take pictures in the chapel. You can't take flash pictures anywhere in the Vatican (for fear or exposing the precious works of art to light), but no pictures at all in the chapel. You always have some boneheads who use their flash in the museum and get yelled at to not use a flash, but the ones that kill me are the ones that use their flash in the chapel.

The reason you can't take any pix in the chapel is because it was restored a few years ago (that brightened it up considerably) and the company that worked on the restoration negotiated for the picture rights, meaning they are the ones who get all the money from any pix sold. So naturally, Rach was able to surreptitiously snap a few pix (without flash of course). She is so sneaky! However, there was one snotty comment by a girl behind Rach something to the effect of "I guess the rules don't apply to all of us". She is such a lawbreaker.....

From the vatican, we went straight into St Peters Cathedral. Truly a stunning building. Apart from the sheer size of the cathedral, the art work and artistry is great as well.

We left St Peters and ate our lunch. On the way to the Castel Sant Angelo, we had our first gelato of the day (chocolate). Gelato is Italian ice cream. For those that haven't had it, it is the best and smoothest ice cream you will find.

We then walked to the Castel. It was originally the tomb for Hadrian and then turned into a fortress. It was very interesting. We had not seen it before. As an added bonus, it was free today! Not sure why, but I certainly wasn't complaining.

We then tried to catch a taxi to go to our last spot, the Borghese Museum. We couldn't find one and saw an express bus to the main subway station, so we took that. One very bumpy (and not very express) ride later, we caught the subway to the stop closest to the museum.

Well, the maps I have do say "not to scale" and they are not! We had quite a little walk through a great park. The only challenge was that the museum is small (and popular) and you must have reservations. We had them for 3:00. I hurried there and got there just a little after 3. Luckily, they still gave them to us (and for whatever reason, only charged 1/4 of the price) and we went in. The museum has some of our favorite statues, mainly by Bernini. They are almost lifelike. A great last place to visit.

We then took a much more leisurely walk through the beautiful park and had our second gelato (chcolate chip). We caught the subway and had our third gelato (strawberry). This one was actually the smoothest of all three.

We got to the train station and saw that one was leaving for the port (Civitavecchia) in about 5 minutes. Wow, we thought, what great timing. Well, it was on track 25 and we followed the directions to tracks 25 to 29. It took FOREVER to get there. We commented that if we don't make this train we had better hope that the next one is near track 25 because we are kind of committed at this point!

Well, we just missed that train and the next one was about 25 minutes later. It was on the next track over at 26, so no problems. The train got to Civitavecchia on time. On our way back to the shuttle bus to the ship, we got, you guessed it, our last gelato of the day. It was the best-it was a Nutella and coconut combination. Very unique and tasty - kind of like a Mounds bar.

A very full but a great day!
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Monte Carlo

We spent a few hours in Monaco / Monte Carlo today. Monaco is a very small principality (about 1 square mile). We visited the royal palace (still in use and lived in), the cathedral where princess Grace was buried and the aquarium (if you care, Jacques Cousteau was the director for years). We definetely got our walking in today!

- this is a statue of one of the princes of Monaco. We thought he looked like the Gordon's Fisherman, so we took the picture.

- one of my favorite signs of the entire trip, for obvious reasons.

One note on the museum in the Royal Palace - the display cases were very clear and well cleaned. that led to one of the girls in the the group in front of us pulling a "Danielle". For those that know Danielle, you probably know about the infamous incident in Peru where Danielle was in the mall and wanted to take a closer look at a display case and rammed her forehead into the glass surrounding the case. It is still funny thinking about it. We, of course, laughed at her while she was in pain. Back to the girl who did that at the palace, her friends laughed at her (as did we).

After we viewed everything, we went back to the ship and put pants on to go to the casino (you can't wear shorts or tennis shoes). The casino is beautiful on the inside, but very expensive to ay anything. Rachael played slot machines and left a winner so that was great.

Monaco was small, but beautiful. Tomorrow we have an early morning for Rome!

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Barcelona

We visited Barcelona Spain on Thursday. We have been there once before, so we wanted to visit key places we loved and some that we hadn't.

We wnt straight to the Sagrada Familia when we left the boat. This is a church that has been worked on since 1882 and is still not completed. It is truly stunning and will be incredible once finished. We saw it three years ago and can see the progress they have made since then. This time, we went up inside of the towers and were able to see the construction.

From there, we took the subway to Montjuic, which is the mountain overlooking Barcelona. We went to two museums up there, the Joan Miro and the National Art Musuem.

We also got to see the Olympic stadiums and the Olympic parks. Rachael was humming the Olympic theme the entire time!

After the museums, we took the subway to Las Ramblas, which is the main pedestian road and is full of markets, shops and tapas bars. We went into the local market where you can find any kind of fruit, flower, meat or cheese you want. We then ate some Tapas and headed back for the bus to the docks.

We were supposed to be back on the ship by 4:30. Our plan was to be back to catch the bus by 4:00 since it only takes 10 minutes to get to the ship via bus. We got there at 4:02. We then proceeded to wat over 20 minutes for the bus and none showed up. Since we were slightly panicking (as much as we love Barcelona, we weren't planning on staying there!), we asked another couple from the ship if they wanted to share a taxi back to the docks. They did so we grabbed a taxi and headed out. As we were pulling away, the bus did finally show up, but we don't think everyone fit on it.

The taxi ran into EVERY red light that he could have. We didn't get back to the dock till right at 4:30 (just ahead of the bus) and we got on board at 4:35. There were a lot of people after us as well.

We heard later that the ship had a problem with a lifeboat and we didn't leave till after 7:00-so all that rushing for nothing! Well, better safe than sorry.

It was a great day and we look forward to Monaco!

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Cadiz / Seville

Today, we docked in Cadiz, Spain. Our plan was to take a train to Seville, which is 2 hours away, to see that city. I had looked at the train schedules and knew that there was an 8:50 and 9:55 departure to Seville.

We were supposed to dock at 8:30, which would make for a tight, but makeable walk to the train station.

Well, there was fog this morning in Cadiz and we didn't dock till around 9:30. Very frustrating. They did at least make our departure later so we can aty longer in seville.

So, once we could get off the ship, we went to the train station. After getting turned around, with help from locals and my spanish classes, we found the station. We got there and bought our tickets, but the ticket agent said that the next train was at 11:05. We went out to the tracks and the 9:55 was still sitting there so we just hopped on and rode to Seville.

The train was really hot-no air or windows or anything! We did see a lot of scenery on the countryside. Apparently, cotton is a big crop because they were harvesting as we were going by.

In Seville, we visited the cathedral, which is the third largest in Europe. It was truly stunning. Even though they were doing some renovation for the anniversary of Christopher Columbus' death, it was very beautiful.

The pipe organ was huge-over 6700 pipes. The main altar had over 1500 carvings and was covered in gold leaf. Christopher Columbus' remains are (purportedly) housed there-that was neat to see.

They also had a treasury that has relics and other artifacts.

One of the coolest things in the treasury was a crown. It had over 10000 precious stones and it has (again, purportedly) the worlds largest pearl. I don't know if it was the biggest, but it was HUGE!

The largest pearl is the body of the angel in the middle front.

The cathedral also had a bell tower that was 330 feet tall. We walked up the tower for some incredible views. It was really cool (even with all of the walking).

After that, we visited the Alcazar, which was the palace of the kings. It was formerly a Moorish palace. It was very ornate (at least the original Moorish-influenced portion). It also had a huge series of gardens. They seemed to go on forever. I can't imagine the staff it takes to maintain the gardens.

After that, we were out of time and had to grab a taxi. Well, that was a bit of a challenge because they are doing a tremendous amount of construction in Seville and most of the roads surrounding the Cathedral and Alcazar are closed or severly restricted. We walked around for a bit and couldn't find any so we headed back to the square and found one. We made it to the train station with 20 minutes to spare and got on the train. This one was much cooler and was on time!

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Lisbon, Portugal

Our second port was Lisbon Portugal. We did our own thing that day. We decided to go around the city using the trams and trolleys. They were pretty cool, and a little disconcerting on a few of the streets. The main one we took aoround the city was a single car and it would go up steep hills and really narrow streets.

We visited a couple of places. The first was the Castle of St. George. It was a medieval castle that they restored. We had to walk a bit to get to it, but it was worth it. From there, we took the trolley all over town, got lost, and then got back to where we needed to be.

One of the other sites we wanted to see (that was open) was the San Roque church. It was supposed to be pretty impressive, so we walked up a VERY steep hill for quite a way to get there. It wasn't really worth the walk! We then found some stairs to go down.

From there, we took a tram to a little town called Belem that has a beautiful monastery that we wanted to see. It was incredible - from the outside. See, we visited Lisbon on Monday, when virtually EVERYTHING is closed- all of the museums, most monuments, most churches, etc.

It was a fun day nonetheless. I think it would have been more memorable if it would have been ANY day other than Monday. You would think that the cruise line would know that as everyone else did and changed the itinerary. Thanks Holland America!
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At sea

We spent two days at sea after Normandy, so we got to experience ship life. The first day was really spent adjusting to the jet lag. We really hadn't adjusted our bodies to the time zone difference the first couple of days.

They always have activities on board, like dancing, sports contests, etc. The only one we participated in was the trivia contest. We finished second the first two contests and finally won on the third day (a glorious victory!)

For dinners, we are seated at a table with three other couples. One is from Toronto, Canada (Lyle and JanMarie), one is from Fort Worth-another Texan (Dean and JeanMarie) and two gentlemen from Finland (Peter and Harry). They are all very nice and we have a great time at dinner. It is funny that on a ship of 1300 you will keep running into the same folks. On one of the excursion days, we kept running into Lyle and JanMarie all day!

Sometimes, however, you get to know a little TOO much about your table mates and get a little confortable with them. For instance, one night, Dean and JeanMarie were talking about how they met and that JeanMarie was a cheap date because it would only take one drink to get her drunk. Dean said that this is why they got married! Well, that left the door wide open for smart remarks and Rachael said (jokingly) "so are you saying that you are cheap AND easy?". I thought it was hilarious and a couple of other folks laughed. Rach immediately felt bad and apologized a couple of times and again afterwards. No harm no foul (but I still think it was a perfect comment for the situation!)

With being on the ship for a few days, you have a tendancy to lose track of days. The cruise ship has a clever way of reminding people what day it is. The carpets in the elevators change every day and have the day of the week on the carpet. Clever......

More to come later

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Normandy

Today we docked in Le Havre, France. We decided to rent a car and do our own "tour" of the Normandy D-Day beaches.

We took a taxi to the Budget rent a car place. Once we got there it seemed to take forever to get the paperwork filled out and get our car pulled out. While we were waiting, another american couple pulled up and they realized what we were doing when we asked the rent car clerk if she had a map or directions to get where we were going (which, by the way, she DID not have a map--what kind of rental car place doesn't have a local map??)

Well, they asked if they could join us and split the cost, so being the thrifty ones we said sure. So we headed out and found our way to Normandy. It was a great day. We first went to Caen to see a museum of D-Day and a documentary. From there, we went to Arromanches, where the Allies built an artificial harbor after D-Day that still has portions in place. A very impressive engineering feat!

We then went to the American cemetary in St. Laurant and it was a very sobering experience. They have 9386 graves there, all with tombstones laid out in perfect rows. Something about the symmetry and neatness of the graves is in stark contrast to how they died.

On the way back, we visited the gun batteries at Longues sur Mer. These are 4 huge artillery gun placements that were in operation on D-Day for a while before they were put out of action by Naval shelling. The concrete around the gun placements is still fairly intact. They were pretty stout bunkers.

While we were at Longues sur Mer, a D-Day veteran was in the parking lot. He was a 19 year old British soldier on D-Day and had befriended two French girls while they were liberating their town and had stayed friends ever since. He visits every year and we were fortunate enough to meet him, shake his hand and get a picture of him.

After seing the beaches, the movies and what they had to go through, the price was high. I was so glad to meet a veteran and thank him in person. If you know one, go thank them as well!

That is all for today. We have two straight days on board so no new posts for a couple of days. We will try to post some pics soon.

Later!

Night flight to Amsterdam

Well, we made it safely on the ship today. We had a very long (9+ hour) flight to Amsterdam last night. We arrived in amsterdam around noon local time and then took a bus to Rotterdam where we boarded the ship.

We are glad to be done with travel and settled in.

Our first stop is tomorrow in Normandy France. We have rented a car and will do a self-tour of the D-Day beaches. I am really looking forward to it.

It wouldn't be a trip without a travel "challenge". This time, the challenge was mine. We boarded the plane in houston and got in our seats. A woman (either Dutch or German- I couldn't tell) sat behind rachael and her son behind me. Her son was probably about 7 years old. After we were going, I felt him pushing on my seat. No big deal, that happens.. Well it happened a couple more times and I looked back to see what was going on.

After a while, it happened again. So, I turned around to ask (nicely) if they realized he was kicking my seat. I turned around and didn't even get a word out of my mouth and she lit into me and asked why I kept looking back. I explained that her son was kicking my seat. She proceeded to (in an increasingly loud voice) tell me that he is just a child and that I shouldn't worry about it. That got me a little cheesed and I asked again if she could please make sure that he didn't kick my seat and she started getting louder and actually said "you are just stupid and shouldn't worry about this-he is just a child"m. At this point she was making a big scene and getting loud - loud enough that others were taking their headphones off to see what was going on. I decided to just drop it and asked if she could please not have him kick my seat.

So very annoying. Later in the evening, she actually had her son sleeping on the floor with his head in the aisle.

Well, that is all for today!!!

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Maranatha Trip Preparations

We are getting ready for our upcoming Maranatha mission trip to Guatemala. Our team will be constructing a church and conducting a medical mission in Santiago Sacatepeque, Guatemala from March 9-21. Our advance team arrives on March 9th and the remainder will arrive on March 10th.

We will start construction on that Sunday the 12th and complete the church by Friday the 17th. We will worship with the members on Sabbath to dedicate the church and then spend the next three days relaxing and seeing sights in Guatemala.

We will do our best to post daily to the Blog to keep you informed as to our progress.

You can check our progress at http://whsdamaranatha.blogspot.com