It looks like Greek to me!

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Hello from Paros, a Greek island in the Cyclades! Today is our 2nd Anniversary and we are having fun!

We've seen a lot since we started in Greece two weeks ago. I will try my best to hit the highlights... We intended to go straight to the main land on a ferry from Brindisi, but we met up with some really fun Aussies, a Quebecian and a Hungarian on the ferry and they convinced us to join them on Corfu. Side note, the french Quebec guy's name was Pierre-Luc Picard (we called him Captain) and the guy from Hungary was named Atilla (as in Attila the 'Hun'). We all went to the famous party hostel, called 'The Pink Palace.' In the middle of the summer every one of their 900 beds is filled with college students and sun seekers. At the end of October, however, they had only about 40 guests total. That was just fine for us, I don't think us old timers could handle the huge drunken crowds. The Pink Palace was...well, very Pink. Everything was painted in this bright, tacky practically neon pink. When we arrived to check in, we were all given a welcome shot of Greece's favorite liquer- Ouzo. That's funny, a hotel giving us our room key and then a shot. They had a nice beach and scenery and we had a great time. Andy and I were thrilled to practice our rusty dance moves on their big dance floor, so it was all worth the sidetrack journey.

We bid farewell to our new friends and took a short ferry back to the mainland and set our for Kalambaka. Our goal was the famous Monasteries on top of huge rock pinnacles. The area was named Meteora. For any James Bond fans out there, the climax of the movie 'For Your Eyes Only' was filmed here. We had a fun day walking around and learning a bit about the Greek Orthodox church. We saw many buses of Greek pilgrims going into the churches, kissing everything in sight, making the sign of the cross about 30 times in rapid succession and leaving money in front of their favorite statues. We felt very awkard to not understand their religion, but they are all very devout. Also, in two of the monasteries they had some pretty gruesome fescos painted on the walls. They liked to depict the way in which many martyrs were brutally killed. There were paintings of beheadings, boiling in oil, stretching by the rack, shooting with arrows, hangings and all sorts of torturous deaths. I wonder why they felt it necessary to cover their walls with those scenes. Maybe it was to remind themselves that life as a monk ain't so bad?

Our next destination was Delphi. Andy was leaping out of his seat to get here. He is practically an expert on Greek and Roman Mythology. It is funny the things we are learning about each other on this trip... Anyway, Delphi was, according to ancient Greece, the center of the world. Supposedly Zeus let two eagles loose to fly around the world and where they met back up was declared the center of it all. They met on Mount Parnassos, and the god Apollo set up his oracle on the slopes of the mountain and the area was called Delphi. The oracle was the human link to the gods. You could go to her (the Pythia)and ask for advice, and the oracle would go and breath into some wacky weed and give you a very cryptic reply. It was a beautiful place, we really enjoyed it. Of course, everything is in ruins and you have to use your imagination to see what it was really like... isn't everything like that in Greece? There were many temples and statues and treasuries. Treasuries you ask? Well, advice isn't cheap. If you wanted a good answer, you just had to bring plenty of gifts for the oracle. Our gift to the oracle was the $18 dollars admission price to get in to the ruins.

After Delphi, we went to Athens. Athens is named after the Goddess Athena. Back in the old days there was a contest to see which god would get to be the patron protector of the city. Athena and Poisiden competed by giving gifts to the citizens of the town. Poisiden put his big staff (Trident) into the ground and a spring of salt water poured forth. Athena gave the citizens an olive tree. She won easily because, after all, the citizens had plenty of salt water- they live on the Med! So that is the story of how olive trees got started and why the town is named Athens. See how much I am learning from my smart husband??

Athens was a bit of a let down. They are hosting the Olympic games in 2004 and they are thrilled to have them. There is major construction and renovation projects all over the city. We planned to spend one full day at the National Archeological Museum, but it is closed for the next year and a half! The are cleaning all the pollution off of the Parthenon so there is a lot of scaffolding and equipment all around it. We spent almost one full day inside because it was pouring buckets and lightning like crazy. I guess that was our first experience with 'Greece Lightning.' Ha.. haa, sorry, I couldn't resist.

After a couple of days of disappointing tourism in Athens, we hopped a train to Corinth. There is a pretty big excavation site of the ancient city of Corinth. There are the standard temples, shops and homes that have been uncovered, but we found one spot in particular to be pretty cool. There is a large raised platform in which lectors or politicians could address a large crowd gathered in the forum below. If you know your bible very well, this spot is of interest to you. In the Acts of the Apostles, the Apostle Paul frequently wrote letters to, and addressed the Corinthians. It was at this spot in 52 AD that Paul stood and preached Christianity to the Corinhians. Pretty cool, eh? There was a small group of Catholics that arrived while we were there to admire the spot. They even held a small mass there. It was really neat to see.

Andy and I had one funny evening that I want to tell you about. Most of the movie theaters in Greece just put greek subtitles on the screen and leave the language in the original English version. We haven't seen a movie in months so we saw were thrilled to see two movies in Corinth. One of the movies was called 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding.' Since we were in Greece, it seemed like the logical choice. I guess it was pretty popular in the States so many of you might have already seen it. It is the story of a Greek family in Chicago and the pressure they put on their daughter to marry a Greek man. It was hilarious and we highly recommend it. It was so ironic to be watching a movie in Greece that pokes fun at Greek traditions. We were worried about their reaction at first, but the audience loved it. They were howling and clapping at some of the best parts. In fact they laughed at parts we didn't understand and we laughed out loud when the rest of the crowd was silent. Thanks to our travels in Greece we could understand a lot of the jokes. Especially the little old hunched gramdmother that wears all black and looks mean. There are many, many women here that really do look like that.

Well, we are starting our island adventures. For the next two weeks we plan to work our way towards Turkey via the islands of Santorini, Crete and Rhodes. We will be in Turkey around Thanksgiving. Ha! Isn't that ironic!!

Much love to all, thanks for reading our site!

Jennifer and Andy