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.