Greece, Chapter 2

The family at the Parthenon. A dream come true to be standing here!


The Caryatid Maidens at the Erecthion. I love these statues. This temple celebrates the competition between the gods Poseidon and Athena over who the city should be named for. Poseidon thrust his trident into the ground here, and a spring came forth. Athena invented the olive tree and planted it right here. The people of the city valued the olive tree more, so the city was named Athens after Athena. How 'bout that?


Mom and I at the Parthenon. Pardon the glistening we're doing. It was REALLY hot, even early in the morning.


The view of Athens from the top of the Acropolis.


The Parthenon; a temple to the goddess Athena. SO AMAZING! To think of the important people throughout history who have stood on this hill and looked at this building!


Natalie and the Parthenon. We had seen the New Acropolis Museum the day prior, so we were able to truly appreciate what had happened to this temple throughout time. It was blown up, it was made into a mosque, the beautiful statues were chiseled off because they were offensive. It's a miracle that it's still standing after 3,000 years!


Then we walked down to Mars Hill, which is where the Apostle Paul gave his sermon to the men of Athens. These steps up to the hill look so ancient, I wonder if Paul climbed them.


Shannon on Mars Hill.


Mars Hill. Dad brought his scriptures and read to us out of Acts 17. So cool!

Rachel with the Temple of Hephestus. I thought the kids would be bored with all the ruins, but they loved it! Of course, my dad is a history buff and a great storyteller, so he made it fun for them.


We visited the Ancient Agora, which is the old marketplace of Athens. It's where Aristotle and Sophocles would have taught. Sophocles was arrested for corrupting the minds of the youth and was sentenced to death by drinking hemlock. Little hemlock cups have been unearthed here.


Kevin channeling his inner Greek God at the Ancient Agora.


Here are my parents, with the Acropolis in the background. They are great missionaries and are doing so much for the people of Greece.


Picturesque shot of Kevin and I with the Acropolis.

Greece, chapter 3

What?!? More posts of Greece? Sorry guys, there are more pictures coming. There was a general transportation strike one day in Athens, so we planned ahead and rented a van and went to the Peloponnese region of Greece to see Napflion. It was this funny little van thing with a funny name -- hence the picture. It had GPS, which we had never used. The kids named the GPS "Aphrodite," and that girl did save our bacon getting out of Athens!

Our first stop was the Corinth Canal. This is a shipping channel that has been cut through solid rock to connect the Gulf of Corinth with the Aegean Sea. It's more than 6 km long and is amazing to see!

We had this great view on a bridge over the canal. Some of us (won't mention any names) couldn't resist spitting to see how long it would take to reach the water. Remember the old poem by Shel Silverstein, "When You Spit From the 26th Floor?" Ah, but I digress...

Here are Natalie and Shannon on the bridge over the canal. They weren't spitters. Boring girls.


Dad goofing off.

Look who's goofing off again, but with help this time? Natalie and my dad with the statue of General Kolokotronis, a hero of the Greek War of Independence.

This is the Palamidi Fortress! Cool looking, huh? It was built in the late 1600's by the Venetians, but the Turks and Greeks also added to it when they took over. It's sitting up on this big hill overlooking the city of Napflion and the Gulf of Argos. Guess what -- we went to the top!

See the view? Awesome! We cheated, because it was a very hot day. We didn't hike UP to the fortress, but we did explore all around at the top, then we hiked DOWN the hill.

Looking for a cool spot. This fortress also served at prison for General Kolokotronis, whose hero status went to his head and tried to overthrow the new Greek government.

Another great view. See the cruise ship? We're very high up.

Hiking down the 982 steps. Yikes, our legs were jelly when we reached the bottom. Correction, only those of us who aren't 15-year-old hard bodies had jelly legs.

Here we are at step #212. If you don't understand the whole "212" thing, don't ask.


Here we are at the bottom of the hill. Tired and sweaty, we jumped into the ocean!

ICE CREAM!!! It was sorely needed and richly deserved today!

Can't you just wait for Chapter 4???

Greece, chapter 1

We had a wonderful trip to Greece this summer! My parents are there on a mission until March, so we took advantage of our United flight privileges and went to see them. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience! Be forewarned, these next few posts will be photo-intensive and are serving as my journal of the trip. They are NOT for the casual blog-reader! Plus, I have siblings
who want ALL the details! So here goes:


We are jet-lagged in this picture, and we don't ever want to see an airplane again, but all that is forgotten when we see Mama Judy and Grandpa! We stayed at the Marriott, which is a 10-minute walk from Mom & Dad's apartment. A couple of the kids would stay at their apartment each night. This is the lobby of the Marriott.

Mom and Dad wasted no time in showing us around Athens. What an experience it was for my kids to see a place where most people get around on the subway. In this particular metro station, there are ancient statues just sitting there. Only in Greece.




Walking through the Plaka shopping area, we came across Hadrian's Library. Impressive.






Mom & Dad's apartment as seen from the street. Almost every morning, Dad would be watching for us and waved to us from the balcony. I'm not sure why Rachel looks cold. It was very hot in Athens the whole time we were there.




This is at the Church/Young Adult Center where Mom and Dad work. There are classrooms and a chapel, but we discovered that the top floor is the place to be! Here, Dad is creaming Kevin in ping pong while the girls try out the pool table. Notice Hadrian's Arch across the street. People just drive by it like it's nothing, but it's thousands of years old. Amazing.






So, we walked across the street to see Hadrian's Arch, and Kevin artistically captured not only me and the Arch, but the Acropolis behind it in the background. Bravo, Kevin!









Here we are on the metro. It cost one euro to go anywhere for 90 minutes. After one particularly crowded and smelly train ride, Natalie said, "I just don't like my fellow human beings THAT much."

The station we get off at to get to Mom & Dad's apartment. We got a little confused when we had to get around ourselves, so we were pretty proud of ourselves when we were able to get all the way to the port and back for our cruise.







Mom speaking Greek to the bakery lady. She's really good at it, too! The lady understood her! Unlike my father, Mom has really studied her Greek. She says she still doesn't know it very well, but while we were visiting, she finished her reading of the Greek Book of Mormon that she started before leaving last summer! Wow!

Here we are at the neighborhood grocery store. I don't know how Mom understands ANYTHING.

An octopus in the frozen food section. This grossed out Shannon.











Most days ended this way. We have a very strict ice-cream-every-day-while-on-vacation policy. Dad was happy to oblige.