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Wedding

The wedding was everything we hoped for! The weather was perfect. So many of our friends and family came to share it waith us. Thanks to evreryone! Want Pictures? Professional photos: You can view (and purchase) our photos here. There are three galleries: Two galleries of photos are here, one B/W and one color The third gallery, additional shots (color) are here. Friend's and family photos: The most comprehensive of these albums is Fern's. It has a few from my camera, my mom's and Grants, as well. Click on the view for "detail view" - it shows large thumbnails as well as any comments or photo names Fern has given the pictures.

ATHENS
The first of two days in Athens we hustled around the city. We got quite a tour of the neighborhood lugging our bags around an exciting teacher's protest rally in Syntagme Square and up cobblestone roads, circling around to finally find our hotel. As half our day was now gone, with the flight being a few hours late, we hurried to find food (the most fabulous Greek Salad we'd ever had. Turns out Niles' LOVES feta…just only in Greece) then off to the archaeology museum. Fighting the drowsiness of the time change and a week without sleep, we trudged through and actually made some sense of what we were seeing. On the way back to the hotel we stumbled upon a local street with several very cheap but YUMMY restaurants. Gyros and beer and tzaziki, then it was off to bed.

Twelve hours later we awoke, ready for our hotel's breakfast (all the hotels had breakfast included). It, as they all were, was great and we stuffed ourselves (are you sensing a pattern?) Then it was off for a day of seeing old piles of rocks. First the Acropolis, then The theater of Dionysus. The Greek Agora, the Roman Agora, and finally the Temple of Zeus. It was the perfect time to be there - the tourist season had just ended, so it's not crowded but everything is still open. The weather held pretty close to 70 degrees (F) most of the day. After walking up and down and around we dragged our aching (and still sleepy) bodies to the hotel for soaking in the hot tub on the roof, which offered a view of the Acropolis. While we'd been at the Acropolis we noticed them setting up a concert in the still working outdoor theater. Turns out it was a symphony performance featuring a vocalist. So we got some tickets and headed out to see the show under the stars, looking over Athens, with the lit-up Acropolis behind us. It was pretty cool. All the music was fairly popular and the crowd loved the show. Other than the horribly stiff rendition of Porgy & Bess' "Summertime" by the British vocalist, we enjoyed it as well.

The next day we had scheduled a tour of Athens. We waited outside the hotel for our pickup. A nice young girl with the tour company came up to us and said "follow me." And we did - all the way to the meeting point of the tour. The tour mostly consisted of a guided tour of the Temple of Zeus and the Acropolis. Oh well. It gave us a chance to better understand what we had taken millions of photos of the day before. Our tour guide was great, and was greeted by all the stray dogs and cats each place we went. There are over 15,000 stray dogs in Athens (and many in all places we visited). They rounded them up before the Olympics - they were going to kill them but of course after a public outcry, they just sheltered them. Once the Games were over, the newly spayed and neutered pups were released back into the city. After the tour it was back to the roof, then to dinner.

MYKONOS
The next morning we caught a very short flight to Mykonos. We walked down to the water and ate facing the harbor. Then (after a quick nap at the hotel) we headed out to see the famous "night life," which was in full swing at 2:00 a.m. as we had been promised. It was amazing. We were too tired to participate, but we walked around and checked out all the clubs, and sat outside and listed to the music and people-watched.

The next morning we walked around Mykonos town, took some pictures, and of course ate lunch. Then it was on a bus and off to the beach. We grabbed some chairs under an umbrella, had a couple beers and read and relaxed. Then back to town for dinner and off to bed.

SANTORINI
We caught a couple of ferries over to Santorini. Once we arrived at our hotel we didn't want to leave. Still beat from the lack of sleep and all the activity, we were relieved to have a few days to relax. Our hotel was on the side of the caldera (cliff that remains after the volcano last blew and the rest of the island collapsed into the ocean). It looked down on the ocean and over the volcano. Our room had two (semi) private decks with a table and chairs. The nice young Greek man who checked us in, Demetrios (born in Charlotte, NC) gave us a bottle of Santorini's finest wine and we watched the sunset from our porch while enjoying it (this is repeated most all of the 4 nights we are in Santorni).

The next day we walked the mile or so down into Fira (capital of Santorini) and checked it out. In the afternoon it began to threaten rain so we hiked back up the hill in time to seek shelter.

The next day was overcast with sprinkles here and there, but it didn't stop us from enjoying our boat tour of the island. First we hit the active volcano, where our guide (who obviously was very into the study of the volcano) told us all about it and it's last eruption, and that of the old volcano (in five languages). Then we parked the boat by the old volcano, swam in the cold but bright green water over to the hot springs. After this boat-bonding experience we docked in Thirassa, another island that was connected to the rest of Santorini before the volcano. After lunch here, we were dropped off in Ia (town at the top of the island) to watch "The best sunset in Greece." The closer it got, the more people crowded around at the edge of the island. It was pretty spectacular, until the sun went behind the clouds that were low in the sky. Oh well - next time.

Our last full day in Santorini began with downpours. However, we forged on to the bus station and went to a Black Sand Beach. We bundled up and sat in beach chairs with our pitas and beers. We pretty much had the beach to ourselves except for all the pups.

Before catching our afternoon ferry the last day, we decided to hit the red beach briefly. The day was gorgeous and the beach was unbelievable: red cliffs against green water with black sand. We had trouble leaving though - the bus never came. We waited two hours and, fearing we'd miss our ferry, caught a ride back into town with a nice German family. From town we got a cab to the hotel then back down to the new port.

CRETE
We got to our hotel in Crete so late we decided to skip dinner and go strait to bed. The next morning we went to Knossos, where our tour guide was fabulous. She was an older lady but a complete spit-fire. That night we did a "Cretian Evening" dinner and traditional Greek dance in a Traditional Greek town. It was ok, but nice to see another part of the largest of the Greek Islands.

The next (and final) day in Crete, we attempted to visit the Archeology museum, but it was closed due to the election. Shops were closed, too, as it was Sunday. Heraklion is a small city, so we walked it pretty quickly, then sat at lunch and people-watched until time to leave for the airport. A little trouble at the airport - we didn't have Amie's ticket, and even though they had the reservation, we had to buy another ticket to get back to Athens. Back in Athens we did what souvenir shopping we could do at the late hour on a Sunday, had dinner and ended our trip.

The next morning it was off to the airport for the flight home. Our gate was in a room all by itself. There were tons of people, so the room was a bustle of activity. We put on headphones and began watching a movie. After the announcement for "families with children" to board, we put our headphones back on. After a while we noticed it was quiet. We looked around and only a handful of people remained. Thinking we must have missed the general boarding call, we got up and got in line. THEN they called general boarding. Needless to say, the mass number of children on the plane made it a less than quiet trip home.

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