Doors of Greece

I love museums and I love seeing great scenery when I travel, but I tend to be really taken by something more unusual - like food, or architecture... in Greece it was the doors!  So much of the architecture there is the typical white washed material that you see in movies, and it's beautiful, but I found so many unique doors as we walked around the islands, that I was just taken by them and started photographing them.  I am planning to make a "Doors of Greece" poster - inspired by this poster that I've seen in New Orleans...

via

So, here are some of my favorite photos of the doors of Greece -  

The last one might be my favorite photo of my whole trip... 

Greece: Crete & Santorini

After a night on the ship, our next stop was Crete.  We were only there from 7:30 am-11:30 am, which was definitely not enough time - especially since we slept until 9:00 am.  It was also kind of an icky day, so although we did leave the ship and walk a little ways in to town, we didn't get to see much of Crete.

Crete - on an icky day   :(

From there, we set sail for Santorini - the island that we were all looking forward to the most, and it did not disappoint!!  When we got there, we were scheduled for a tour - our tour took us up to the highest point on the island as well as around the island with stops in two small villages.  It was a really great tour and we got to see a ton of really cool things!

View from the highest point

The first place we stopped was Oia (pronounced ee-yuh)Village.  It was beautiful!  I took SO many pictures on this island and there are so many that I loved!  We stopped in to a beautiful Greek Orthodox Church before we started through the villages small walkways...

As we walked through the village, there was beauty every where you looked - between the white washed houses and the beautiful blue water, it was such an amazing place to just walk and look around.

This little book store was so whimsical - I took this pic because
I knew my cousin would absolutely love it.

On the bookstore wall

After a little while in Oia, the bus took us back to Fira, which is on the same side of the island as the port, but WAY above it.  This was our last stop and we had a little over an hour to enjoy a wine bar with a great view and even better wine - and of course, our last chance for some great Greek food.

Wine, Saganaki, Pita, Tzatziki and a view
I also got to FaceTime with J while we were here

View from the wine bar

A little dessert wine - on the house

If I lived in Greece, I would drink wine EVERY DAY - it is by far the best wine I've ever had and I didn't try any of their wine that I didn't like... it is so smooth, but also has so much flavor, especially Santorini grapes.

To get back to the train, we took the cable car from the top of the island (Fira) down to the port...

We had to get on smaller boats to take us back to the ship, and I could not sum up our time in Santorini any better than this...

It was a great last day - I would go back to Mykonos or Santorini in a heart beat.  We finished our last evening on the ship by having dinner with a Turkish family - a husband and wife who were both engineers and their two kids, a 14 year old a the cutest 6 year old ever.  They were so friendly and we talked and laughed and it was a great "last night".

We packed and got our suitcases out before midnight so they could take them, and we had an early breakfast and then went to the airport.  We were REALLY early for our flight so we had a good amount of time in Athens to kill... I would not recommend spending too much there - it's pretty boring.

We had a really nice flight back - pretty good food, and more great movies!  On the way back to the states, you're supposed to stay awake to get on US time... it was much easier when I was watching movies.  We got delayed at JFK, but finally made it back to Chicago about 24-hours after we had gotten up to leave from Greece.  It was a really long day, but I took a shower and slept great in our hotel and felt back to normal the next day!  It was a trip of a lifetime!!

Greece: Rhodes

After having a day split between Kusadasi and Patmos, it was really nice to get to Rhodes and have a whole day there.  It is a nice island with a number of churches and ruins, but is also very well known for their beaches, which is where we spent our day!

We had a pretty good walk to the beach, but there was some scenery along the way...

When we finally got to the beach, we picked where we wanted to be an rented a few chairs!  The beach that we were on was really rocky, so it wasn't exactly the kind of beach you walk on, but it was still a relaxing day and a chance to lay in the sun, read a book and enjoy the beautiful water!  I preferred to enjoy the water from my chair for most of the day - it was cold, and it hurt our feet to stand on the rocks for very long.

We set up camp right in front of a little cafe, so they brought us lunch and of course, a Mythos beer  :)

We walked back to the ship along the coast and got to see some more of the scenery that we didn't see when we walked through town the first time.

I really wish I wouldn't have gotten a new tattoo right before I left because on the way back, we saw a place where you could get one of those pedicures where the fish eat your dead skin off... I totally would have done that!!!

We got back to our room to find this cute little guy on the bed...

And here are some of the other friends that we made on the cruise - or should I say the friends that were made for us...

We got this extra special guy because my mom bought a
towel animal "how to" book from our housekeeper  :)

We had dinner with a very nice lady from New York, who was traveling with her father and a Japanese tourist group - she spoke English - and it was really nice to talk with her!

Next Stop - Crete and Santorini

A Crazy Couple of Weeks...

OK, so it's been a couple of weeks since I've posted anything, and it's been a busy couple of weeks, to say the least.  The weekend after my Birthday, we packed up our house and moved... it was quite an adventure. We had a ton of help from friends and family and that made a huge difference in the amount of time it took us to get done. 

When we left Bloomington, I was driving J's truck and I had 3 box springs in it... well they weren't tied down very well and I had the most stressful hour of driving that I've ever had in my life.  We stopped at a gas station and I sweated like crazy while I got it all tied down with cinch straps.  The rest of the drive was fine - but it added about an hour and a half to my trip.

So, we officially live in Michigan now, and after a week off that was spent at the lake, and one week of work at my new job, I'm pretty sure Michigan suits me  :)  Our apartment is nothing fancy, but it's temporary... we'll have a year to figure out where we want to live and have the chance to take our time finding/buying a house, which will be MUCH different than our first home buying experience.

The rest of this week - I am going to finish my posts about Greece, especially now that it was almost 2 months ago, and then I may do a look back at some of the stuff we did at our old house before we moved.  Either way, I have a lot of content that I've been meaning to post... and it's probably time for a new look on the blog - ALL COMING SOON!!

Have a great week!!

Next Chapter - A New Car

For the past three years, I've driven a great car - her name is Beans...

She was the first car I ever bought - well, leased - and there is nothing about her that I would change.  Unfortunately, when the end of the lease came along, I had a decision to make... I really wanted to buy her, but I also really wanted to lower my car payment and buying her would not do that for me.

SO, my dad let me know that he was looking for a new car for my mom and that if I didn't want to buy Beans, they would - which they did.  So, I set out on a quest to find a new car.  For about 7 years, I'd driven Hyundais... I had a Santa Fe before Beans, and I didn't drive any other cars before getting Beans 3 years ago.

For the past few weeks, J and I have been visiting dealers and seeing what else was out there.  I drove a Santa Fe, another Tucson, a Nissan Rogue and a Ford Escape.  They were all great, but the Santa Fe and Escape weren't going to lower my payments.  I was deciding between a less equipped Tucson and an even lesser equipped Rogue.

Then, I started working at Michigan and found out that we get a Ford discount!  So, I looked at inventory online and went to a dealership up here (Briarwood Ford in Saline) where I test drove the Escape one more time and got GREAT service.  They guy gave us a straight price, and there was no back a forth... 

SO - here it is... I'm the proud new owner (well, leaser) of this 2014 Ford Escape (name still TBD)!!!