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October 17, 2009

Greece -- Islands and Museums

OK, so, after a long delay, our website is functional again. My apologies if anyone was having difficulty accessing the site. We has some problems when our server switched platforms (meaning -- the site got really messed up). Thanks to our good friend Dan (and his friend who did most of the work), our site is functional again. And, as such, we have a number of posts to catch up on. This will be the first of two posts on our trip to Greece from back in August. Then, we'll post on a trip to Wisconsin, some images from here in Washington DC and a weekend trip to New York City.

Before I get into the post, we have some BIG NEWS TO SHARE: ANNA IS PREGNANT! We're very excited. We'll post more as things progress, but the baby is due in June, which will be after we move to France. So, we get to experience French health care. :-)

Now back to Greece. It was a great trip and somewhere we'd wanted to go for years. We finally made it for a short visit. We began by exploring Athens and the islands nearby. So, here are the images.

Athens Web Aug 09 09.jpg

This adorable boat was on the island of Poros. We took a speedy hydrofoil boat to get to these other islands. The hydrofoils are a great way to travel, but we realized that the are bumpier than expected.


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Anna by her boat.


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The harbor in Poros.


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All the cats we saw looked very Egyptian with a smaller head and large ears.


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The weather and temperature were perfect.


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The whitewashed buildings with blue doors and trim is very Mediterranean. It reminded me of Sidi Bu Said in Tunisia, but I'm not sure which was decorated first.


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As usual, we found a flower to take a picture of. :-)


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Who wouldn't want to live here??


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Next stop for the day was the island of Hydra. There were no cars on the island, and the white and blue adornment wasn't as prevalent. It was a great place to just chill (exactly what we needed for our trip to Greece). We went swimming in the azure waters, had a few meals in outstanding restaurants, then headed back to the Athens metropolis.


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This picture isn't terribly unique but I really like the color.

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This is our friend Reut, who we met in Athens.


These next images are from our exploration of the museums in Athens. As you might expect, they have a wealth of artifacts and information. It was fascinating.


Athens Web Aug 09 01.jpg

The guy on the right is Paris from Greek mythology. He is famous for the apple you can see him reaching for (or holding ... depending on how you look at it). Perhaps the most famous role is his elopement with Helen of Troy .... which supposedly started the Trojan War.


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Athena, goddess of wisdom and virgin patron of Athens.


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OK, that covers the first half of the trip.

Until the next post...

--Jim


Posted by jim at October 17, 2009 10:38 PM

Comments

Dear Jim,
I am so happy to learn of the new baby on the way! That is such exciting news. And I'm supremely happy that you have completed your assignment in Afghanistan. I hope you are safe wherever you are.
Sarah

Posted by: Sarah Markwardt Stout at November 11, 2009 07:33 PM

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