ITALY!! Cruise Time

Sunday, May 27th, Disembarking:

Monday, Messina, Sicily, Italy

 

Tuesday, Day At Sea
Rock Climbing:

Basket Ball:

Dodge Ball:

Mel's strategy: hold all the balls and run at the opponent! 

 We won 3rd place!...out of 3 teams. :(

 Formal Night:

Wednesday, Athens, Greece
People (especially kids and physically handicapped people) were playing music all over the place for money. It created an awesome ambiance.

There were also stray dogs all over the place. They did not look so diseased as the stray dogs in many countries probably look, but they were not as rambunctious as dogs in the US. They just laid there. We were told by our guide at the Acropolis, that stray dogs have only recently (in the last decade or two) become a problem, and that Greece has started to catch them, insert a micro chip with their information, neuter/spade them, give them all their vaccinations and then set them loose again. They are considered Greek citizens. 

 

Acropolis: 

Amphitheater at the foot of the Acropolis:

With special seats for VIPs:

 The view:

The Agora:

 Nike Temple (Nike means "victory") atop the Acropolis:
 
 A building atop the Acropolis:

 Parthenon, atop the Acropolis:

  

After the Acropolis, most of our group went to the Archaeological Museum, which they said was really cool. Kim, Danny, Brian and I went to the downtown area, grabbed some gyros (pronounced "gear-o", by the way. I have heard it pronounced both "hero" and "euro" in the US, but both are wrong. And the lady looked at me like a crazy person when I said I wanted a Euro Sandwich).

 Then we went to Syntagma Square, to the tomb of the unknown soldiers and watched the changing of the guards:

 Thursday, Kusadasi, Turkey

At this point, we were ready for a break from ruins, so we opted not to go to Ephesus, and we did a little shopping...

and then hit the beach!

We had asked our waiter, the night before, if there was a good beach we could go to in Turkey, and he recommended "Ladies Beach," then made the joke that only ladies were allowed, and that all the men would be in the bushes, like this: 

Haha, he was a funny kid.

Crete:

Crete was not huge...not a ton to do, there, but it was ok, it made for a nice break. It seemed like the population may have been a little more wealthy than the other countries. Maybe, economically, they don't rely so much on tourism. But it was a cute little place, with some honest to the point of funny signs, like in Turkey...

They have these "spas" of sorts where their foot treatments involved letting little fish eat junk off your feet....I did not participate, but I found it picture worthy!

Speed Climbing Competition:

Brian won 2nd Place! There was actually a really good turn out to this competition, and everyone did a really good job, I was impressed.

 Our new friend that we met on the boat also competed. He was only about 2 seconds slower than Brian, but he didn't place.

 Ship Karaoke: Brad, Becca and Fran, Kim, Mel and I all participated. We are giving our votes (1-5) on how well they did.

 Brad, Kim, Mel, and I all made it to the Karaoke Finals, but none of us actually won. It was fun, though!