Island Cruise

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Our journey continues on from the Island of Mykonos onto the cruise ship joining 1500 others to sail the Greek islands and Turkey.
Our first day started off way too early after a night of dancing in the disco aboard our ship (very difficult to do in heels). We spent our morning visiting the historical site of Ephesus a Roman city built over 2000 years ago in Turkey. This city was only discovered in 1923 and as of today they have only uncovered an estimated 50% and are currently working at excavating the site. This was truly amazing to see and learn how the Romans were very advanced for their time. We saw Roman baths, toilets, heating systems and sewer pipes. This place was rich in history and we were very lucky to have an extremely knowledgable tour guide who was passionate about history and taught us a lot about this era. We even got to ride a camel!! This historical site is considered one of the 7 wonders of the world. It had the Roman's 3rd largest library and what is believed to be he first billboard advertisement. Oddly enough this billboard was selling prostitution. There is a massive theatre still used today for classical shows. After seeing the historical site we headed to a local bizaar only to be stopped a half way when the tire on our Mercedes bus exploded. After changing buses we went to a local rug shop and tasted traditional apple tea and learned the different methods of rug making. Finally we bought a box of Turkish delight to try - it was good!

Our afternoon was spent at the island of Patmos where we opted to do an intense hike up the mountain to visit the cave where St. John is believed to have written the book of revelations after he was banned from Ephesus. This site was extremely religious and shoulders and knees had to be covered to enter. The hike continued up the mountain to the Monestary however Alyssa and I decided we would walk back down the hill at this point in time and save ourselves the sunburn. It was about half way down the hill where Alyssa's "thong" (the Aussie word for Sandal) broke and she was left walking on the hot rocks barefoot. We spent the afternoon shopping and drinking Frappe before heading back to the ship to dress for our toga party. We were lucky enough to discover a green vine and white flowers that suited the theme and Alyssa used her charm to convince a Greek man to let her pick some.

The Toga party was a lot of fun. The Contiki tour groups (about 40 people) were the only ones aboard that participated in this and we got many comments. I got a little sea sick this night but after a Gravol and a nap, I made it back out for the end of the night and a few pictures. Lucky enough for us the next day we had a sleep in day and we took full advantage of it. We tanned on the top deck and spent before docking on the island of Santorini were we took a hike up an active volcano and swam out to a natural sulphur hot spring. Very interesting but coloured our swimsuits (and Alyssa's hair) brown. We got on a bus afterwards and headed into the village high up on the hills. We needed half an hour to get down and were limited on time so we decided we would find our way down right away. Due to the steepness of the island, we had two options of how to get home: donkey or cable car. We chose the donkey. The donkey ride was interesting....I got a painful war wound to remember the experience. Unfortunetly, our clothes ended up smelling like a barnyard when we got back on the ship. We spent one last night having dinner and dancing before leaving the ship in the morning. We stayed up all night visiting with our new friends and were very tired leaving the ship in the morning. The Aussie guys were kind enough to let us use their hotel room for a day nap and we spent the rest day touring Athens and enjoying our last day with our friends and authentic Greek food. Sad for this part of our journey to end and to say goodbye to our new friends. We are already planning our next trip to Australia.

Lessons of the past few days.....

If she looks 16.....she probably is! and yes those probably are her parents!
Heels are not the best choice of footwear!
Charm gets you far!
Always bring extra footwear!!!!!
Good idea to wear clothing under your toga!
Even straight boys put bobby pins and flowers in their hair!!!
You can be very very sad to say goodbye to friends you just meet!
Check the label on the medication before you take it!
Leeker means wicked in African!

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