Mediteranean Cruise - Part Deux

Part Deux -- You are excited aren't you?  

I know I am.  

Day 2 

This is where we get our first glimpse of Greece.  

Before this trip, I can honestly say I didn't know much about Greece.  

Now having spent our majority of port stops in cities of Greece, I have a great appreciation 

for the beauty of Greece.  

In the mornings, I, a morning person, had lots of time to read, journal, and workout.  Yes, I 

put in over 12 miles on the treadmill upon the cruise ship.  

The mornings when the sun was just coming up were breathtaking and I really didn't want to miss them.  

Our second port on the trip was Corfu, Greece.  

After the day before taking a guided tour, we decided (since we were experts now) we would 

just play it by ear and explore Corfu on our own.  

We got off the ship and walked a little bit into town.  

In the town square, we happened upon some men giving tours by horse and buggy. 

So we decided to take a surrey tour around the town.  The surrey navigated the labyrinth of streets and showed us the sights in a half hour.    

 We felt just the right amount of educated and relaxed.  

On our way back to the ship we stopped at a little outdoor cafe to enjoy 

milkshakes and again free wifi.  

I wish I could say I completely unplugged for 10 days, and that was the case on the ship, but 

I did send emails back and forth to the kids and Nate whenever I could.  

Getting those short three word emails:  I miss you....melted my heart.   

 I do have to put a disclaimer in my blog posts.  

In the five years I have been a mom, and maybe longer, I have never 

done my hair and put makeup on as much as I did this trip.  No Lie. 

I am so used to running around getting my children ready and their hair made up that 

I literally have no time to ever spend on myself.  (I keep a bag of makeup in the car just for such occasions when I forget to put makeup on before church!)

I even had time to braid Kathy's hair one night.  

I would like to say that maybe this is a new change and I will be all done up in the mornings from now on..... but I hate to lie.
I did really appreciated the time I had to be me.   Not mommy me or wife me.
I know sometimes I did not know what to do because I've never had this much "me" time, but
I understand the importance of it and how not to lose our identity, for it can easily be lost.  

 {All ready for Formal Night on the Ship}

 There were many nights when I would pop up from our dinner table and have to excuse myself so I could hurry outside to take a picture of the sunset before it went down.  Every night we had dinner with fellow guests/staff of the JESUS film.    

It was fascinating listening to stories of people travels and how many of them have lived outside of the States, everywhere from Uzbekistan to Tunisia. 

Day 3 

Well would you look at that, I fit two stops into one blog post.  I can edit... a little. 

Our third port was Santorini, Greece.  

When I saw Santorini and the Village of Oia, that is the picture of Greece that I had in my head. 

Whitewashed buildings with blue domed roofs and the bluest water you ever did see! 

We took a shore excursion on this island, it took us to a local winery and the Villages of Oia and Fira.  

This was the day I was not feeling well.  

As we traveled to the island of Santorini, we had rough waters of the Mediterranean to contend with. 

I am actually feeling the swaying of the ship as I write this blog.  (hopefully this feeling goes away soon)  My body was not so good in the rough waters and before we took the tour I was curled up in a ball on the bed.  When we took the tender boat to the port, I was so happy to be on land! 

{looking a little green}

This whole set of islands is made from a volcano and the volcanic landscape is stunning.  

The "mountain" that the villages of Santorini are on is made up of different layers of volcanic rock, one of which is pumice.  It was cool to see pumice in its natural state in the landscape.  Buildings were set right a top of it. 

From the village of Fira, there are three options on how to get down to the boat.  

1.  Walk.  Yep walk down this zig zagging trail to the water.  

2.  Donkey.  Take a donkey down the zig zagging trail to the water. 

Or option 3.  Cable Car.  

If you remember I was sick this day, so option 1 and 2 weren't really viable options for me, so we took the cable car 4 minutes to the port.  

The views were amazing.  

I use the word amazing alot.... but really how else can you describe it?

On the tender boat back to the cruise ship, a friend of ours gave me a smell of an 

Ancient Chinese cure to motion sickness, and by golly I felt pretty good the rest of the trip. 

After I got a little sleep.
After almost ever day we were bone tired.
We talked about going to the pool, but by the time we got back to our room, all we really wanted was to take a shower and sleep before dinner.

Bored yet?
More to come.
But it is 7 am and my kids are still not awake.
How can it be?
Before I left, the kids had spent the entire summer vacation waking up the
crack of dawn to start the day.
Daddy's sleeping in must have rubbed off on them while I was gone.  LOL
Time for coffee number two for the day for mommy and to wake some kids up.