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Archive for October, 2005

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Santorini, Greece (Post # 58)

Thursday, October 20th, 2005

Just a brief blog to keep things up to date…

After hanging around Santorini for 4 days and 4 nights, we will be departing on the ferry back to Athens at 7:15 tomorrow morning.

While here, we walked around the shops and restaurants in Fira, had lunch and drinks on the other side of the island (we’ve been staying in Fira) at the beach in Perissa and walked down to an interesting church on the side of the cliff of the caldera (Santorini has a caldera in its center as a result of a volcanic explosion a few thousand years ago.

The biggest news is that today Mike spotted a small lizard eating ants!

Here are a few pictures…
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Athens, Greece (Post #57)

Tuesday, October 18th, 2005

Hi! Yes, it’s been a few days since we blogged. It hasn’t been laziness but rather we have been spending our computer time researching and planning our next countries (Kenya, Tanzania, Egypt).

Anyway…Michele here on October 18, typing from the most beautiful Greek Island ever – Santorini (if you ever see a picture of one of the Greek islands, chances are it’s Santorini) – but I’m getting ahead of myself.

So, when we last blogged (Oct 12) we were catching a train from Marrakesh, Morocco to Valletta, Malta where we would stay one night before taking a plane to Athens the next day. Why are doing all this? Because the flights between Casablanca, Morocco, Valletta, Malta, and Athens, Greece were very cheap if you did it the way I’m about to describe – but I’m not sure I would do it this way again since we got very little sleep and were basically toast for 2 days. We took a 10:50pm flight to Valetta, Malta, arriving at 3:45am. We waited in the airport until 5:30am when the public bus came. It was raining and in the rain we walked to our hotel. Dripping wet, we talked to the night manager who first tried to tell us that check in time was noon. We said we would sit there in the lobby (dripping all over everything) until noon if that was the policy. After chatting a bit more with him and making friends with the man, he informed us that we could in fact check in at that time (about 6:15am) because he felt sorry for us. O.k., fine. So, we hung up our stuff to dry and laid down for a nap. I had made a hair appointment to get my hair highlighted 3 weeks prior to this day and the appointment was at 9:00am. So, as I was saying, we laid down for a nap and set an alarm. Well, neither one of us woke up and all of a sudden I look at the clock and it is 8:55. Oh @#($*&#! I scramble like mad to get out the door and I run to the hair dresser. I am a bit late but no problem. So, for the next 3 hours as I am drifting in and out of sleep I get a hair cut, highlights, and wash and blowdry. Wow! A blowdryer! Something I haven’t used in almost 5 months now. After the hair appointment, I go back and wake up Mike. We have a list of errands to do including shopping for 1st world items (e.g., hand sanitizer), burning a CD off of my camera’s SD card, and sending some stuff back to the U.S. Dragging and dog tired, we go out to run our errands and we get the CD burned but then realize we have to go back to our room to get the stuff to mail to the U.S. Big mistake! We laid down and got up at 6:30pm. Oh well!

We go to sleep in Valletta on Thursday, Oct 13th, setting the alarm for 2:00am. We get up on Oct 14th and catch a 3:00am taxi to the airport. Our flight left at 5:40am and was scheduled to arrive at 8:10am in Athens, Greece. Gawd, we were both so tired when we arrived in Athens. However, the much of the metro system in Athens is brand new and very easy to use (thanks to the 2004 Olympics being there). We found our hotel, checked in, and had grandios plans for not wasting the day this time and getting out to see the ancient sites. Yea, well, about 7 hours later, we wake up from our “little” nap and realize that most things would be closed. So, we simply walk down to the shopping/restaurant district, have dinner, then go back to sleep!

The next day (Sat, Oct 15) we got up early and were determined to see all the sites in one day that we had planned to see in two days. The day started with a trip to the Athens Archeological Museum, one of the most famous museums in the world because it houses many of the statues found at the ancient greek archeological sites.

We went to all the ancient sites including:
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High Atlas Mountains, Morocco (Post #56)

Wednesday, October 12th, 2005
Mike and Michele write... Today is October 12 and in the next 1-2 hours we will head for the Marrakech train station to ride to Casablanca where we will catch our plane back to Valletta, Malta. The next day we ... [Continue reading this entry]

Draa Valley and Sahara Desert, Morocco (Post #55)

Thursday, October 6th, 2005
Hello...Michele here...Today is Thursday, Oct 6 - exactly 4 months since the day we left. Yesterday we returned from a 3 day, 2 night trip through the Draa Valley (described below). On our last night we rode a camel ... [Continue reading this entry]

Marrakesh, Morocco (Post #54)

Saturday, October 1st, 2005
Today is Saturday October 1. It is hard to believe it is October! This is Michele typing using a French/Arabic keyboard so my punctuation will probably not be correct. We left Chefchaouen, the beautiful small mountain town ... [Continue reading this entry]