6/1/09 Family We found that this blog was never published after all, so here it is. It is mostly just pictures and a couple of interesting observations including. ---- 1. Gas is really expensive here. At $8/gallon, we felt the pain with our last car rental that wasn't as "economy sized" as previously rented cars. The gas cost more than the rental. No wonder there are scooters everywhere. We have seen everything from entire family of 4 to a man with his dog riding a scooter. Of course, no helmets involved. 2. Historical stuff is EVERYWHERE. Laying out along the highway [View Full Entry]

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5/27/09 Family: --- Answer to mystery question from last blog: WE ARE IN TURKEY. That was the Turkish flag. The lucky winner will be receiving some Turkish Taffy and an Evil Eye in the mail (unless customs abducts it). The evil eye is everywhere and keeps evil spirits away. ---------- We have arrived in Turkey (5/13/09). We took a short ferry from Rhodes to Marmaris. Customs asked us carefully about when we left the United States and where we have been. Eventually we realized that they were interested in our potential exposure to Swine Flu. Retrospectively, we were told that custo [View Full Entry]

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Austin and Lily want to get a feel for who is receiving their blog. We know that 40+ people receive it but we don't know who. So here is the teaser to write back and let us know who is out there. Your comment/response will be deleated and not show up on the site for others to see. Where are we? (see photo) Answer: 1. Greece 2. Italy 3. Turkey 4. Ukraine 5. Romania Correct answer will show up in our next blog, but respond now. One lucky random winner will receive a souvenir from that country. [View Full Entry]

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Rhodes - ---- Yes. Another dated blog. We are presently on the island of Rhodes (also typed Rodas). It is one of the southern most islands in Greece and is very close to Turkey. The town of Rhodes is located on the island Rhodes. ----------------------- 5/14/09 Lily: Today I saw a castle were knights lived! It was fun and big! I had the BEST TIME EVER.I GOT VERY HOT. We are right now in Rhodes. It is an island. The knights who lived there were crusaders. A crusader is a knight that went to fight in a holy war. I am [View Full Entry]

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5/12/09 Jon: We have spent the last week on the large and remote island of Crete. Loaded with history and ruins dating back to 4000 BC, remote beaches that make the steep dirt road drives worth it, and cheap prices, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Stephanie drooled on the historical palaces of Knossos. Lily loved wave jumping some huge turquoise waves on ideal sandy beaches, Austin became wrapped up in more mythology, and Jon lived for the views and cliffs abutting the ocean (driving them was part of the fun). One town we came across, Hania, Crete made us feel like we [View Full Entry]

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4/30/09 Austin: Over the last three days we have been in Paros. We went to beaches and stayed in our hotel and walked around town. To get to town from our hotel, we had to make our way through a bunch of small alleys. All the buildings were square shaped, and painted white and blue. Flowers were interesting and everywhere. The world windsurfing championship was going on in one of the bays, and was fun to watch. We are now island hopping onto the island of Santorini and Crete. --------------- Lily: In the past three days, we have been on the [View Full Entry]

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4/25/09 -- Lily and Austin: Over the last couple of days we have looked at some of the sites and history found in the Peloponnese. Olympia was an awesome and sacred place where the Olympics were held every four years. Between those events, no one was allowed to be there. A lot of cleaning up had to be done before each Olympics. In the Olympics back then, the shortest race was one “stade”, the length of one stadium. We both ran two “stades”. -- We also saw the “perfect” beach. It was a sandy crescent moon with waves lapping up a [View Full Entry]

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4/19/09 Lily: Today we saw Meteora, a bunch of big rocks that have churches and monasteries at the top. Monks and nuns stay there. There are 6 montestaries in all. We saw five of them. There are lots of frescos on the walls (a piece of paper with painting from long ago), some have killings on them. ---- Mom, me, and my brother bought Easter Eggs on Easter (today) because they would be nice souvenirs. They are wooden Easter eggs that are painted very fancily. ---- Lily: Today I went in a LONG car ride ! I threw up once . [View Full Entry]

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From Austin and Lily: We have been traveling extensively for the last few days. We saw many sites and views. Two days ago, we saw the city of Volos and the small villages high in the mountains next to it. Our lunch consisted of Tzaziki, bread, cucumber salad at 2pm. Most stores close between 2-5pm, when people eat their lunch. The stores reopen between 5-9pm, and they have dinner at 9pm. ---- Today, we visited Mt Olympus and hiked for 5 hours. There was snow on top of the 9000 foot peaks, but we didn’t make it to snow level. Our [View Full Entry]

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From Jon, Steph, Lily, and Austin We are now in Delphi, site of the oracle of Apollo answered worldly questions. It sits high among the mountains with stunning views into the valley. Lily found the mountain winding roads to be a purging experience, yet not ridding of her spirit. We have gone from sea level to the 3000’ heights of Delphi. On the way to this site, we traveled to Marathon, the home of the original starting point of the marathon. This is also where the Greeks fought the Persians. A soldier ran the 26+ miles from Marathon to Athens to [View Full Entry]

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