Capturing the beauty that is life!: 06.2010

These pictures are from when I first arrived in Athens so sorry they are a little late, but it gives you another look of this city.

The first Sunday that I was in Athens Josh and I decided to head down to the main square in front of Parliment and watch the changing of the gaurd.

Enjoy!

The next couple images are just some random images I have taken while walking around the city.

Kimberly, other teacher from the states, went headed back to Iowa in the middle of May, so some of the teachers from ISA took Kimberly out for one last Greek meal. Luckily for us - they invited us along.

The next night Josh took me to my first soccer game. We went to the ticket booth and said, sorry but we only speak English. They sold us 2 tickets; however they sat us in the "fan" section... Let me tell you, it was an experience.

Olympic park at night.

So for the rest of the long weekend we decided to drive down along the east coast of Greece.... At least that is what we intended to do - that darn scenic route snuck up on us again. Stupid Greek street signs.

But first we had to check out that castle on the hill. This is kind of a long post so hang in there!
Enjoy!

I think Josh was missing Jon's antics on this trip so he is now starting to think like him.

Once on top of the wall - you could see down each coast line.

This was what was left of an old altar. Similar to the old monastery the colors that were used on the walls were pretty neat to see.

You can kind of see in this picture that there were actually 2 different layers of walls here. Apparently they would just spackle over the old wall.

This is me saying - I am hungry and get that camera out of my face....

Then me saying if you don't leave now I am going to leave without you... I am hungry!

Across the street we found a cute little cafe where we decided to have dinner.

After dinner they brought us out a treat. mmmmmmm they were so good.

The next morning we left Mt. Olympus behind and headed south.

Along the road we came to this house. This house is Josh's dream house. It is an eco project that a group created in order to make others aware of different eco friendly ways to build houses and structures.

It would have a nice beach if you could find a way down....

Things were going great for the first couple hours; however at one point we took a wrong turn, ended up heading inland. We started seeing all these tree farms along the way but we couldn't figure out what they were. Then when we started seeing cherry stands pop up along the road we put two and two together....

We stopped and picked some up and they were delicious!

Unfortunately the long drive inland was not as interesting as our last scenic route, but we finally figured out where we needed to be and made it to the camp grounds just in time to watch the sun set over the Aegean sea from the Pelion Peninsula.

Aw my vanilla gorilla

What else is there to do while we wait for the sun to set?

Mmmmmm - Mushrooms - Steven this one is for you!

Jon and Amanda - we found you a kitty!

The next morning we got up early packed our Hunydi Getz and headed to see the other side of the peninsula.

We went a little further - there was supposed to be a beach at the end of the road; however it turned into a dirt road and we were not sure if the Hunydi would make it back up the hill. There was a lot of driving in 1st gear to make it up the terrain.

Along the way we came to this waterfall - so we pulled over to go explore.

At this point Josh was thinking to himself... Thank goodness I got the extended warranty on that camera...

Further down the road we came to this stairway... Maybe it is the stairway to heaven. (wish I could say that was Josh's line, but nope all mine :)

After many arguements over when and where to stop - Josh finally decided he wanted some sweets so he pulled over. I am glad he did - these treats were sooooooo good.

These pictures obviously do not give this drive any justice... every turn of the road had a similar view to this one - it was amazing how the people just build into the mountain. Looks really cool.

About this point we needed to start heading back to Athens and back to work for me :(

However there was one more old church we saw along the way. This church set up on this little hill overlooking the city. It was pretty cool - hard to explain.

Greece: Heading out for the week

A walk around Athens....

And the rest of the Mt. Olympus weekend....