Dan's Birthday!

Last year we were in California for Dan's birthday and went out to Monterrey to go whale watching. If you know this boy, you know he loves whales, sharks, and turtles. Unfortunately the weather was too poor to go last year and whale watching was canceled. HOWEVER! this year, we went out to Boston to play with the Drs. Hansen (as it was Ashley's birthday on the same day as Dan-o's) and we got to go whale watching! It started out cloudy, but ended up absolutely perfect!

Captain Dan ready for whale spotting...

We sat on the deck because it was so windy when the boat was going at full tilt to get out to the whale area. Even sitting down was freezing and windy.

Then we saw them....  WHALES!

So big and awesome!

There were two that kept following around our boat.

Dan took over the camera because he wanted to make sure he got his whale shots.

Yay for friends and yay for birthdays and yay for whales on birthdays!

Santorini

Last but not least would be the wonderful island of Santorini. We had to take tender boats in from the cruise ship to the island and of course were dropped off at the complete opposite end of the island from the famous little city where all the gorgeous pictures come from.

40 minute drive later, we were there

So perfectly quaint and gorgeous

It really is beautiful

If I drank alcohol, I would have definitely sat down with a glass of wine and soaked it in. As it is, I don't drink and so we bought delicious crepes and thoroughly enjoyed walking around the little streets.

Then we went back to the capitol city on the island and proceeded to walk down the most ginormous staircase I have ever encountered.

A quarter of the way down, we turned the corner and ran into a wall of donkeys. The walk down might have been somewhat pleasant if the entire staircase was not covered in donkey poop and extremely stinky. Not romantic at all.

We finally got down that dang hill with shakey legs. And were back on our little cruise ship to head back to Athens and back to NYC.

It was a whirlwind adventure and not very relaxing, but lots of fun and wonderful to see so many new places.

Crete

Crete was pretty uneventful. We only had a couple of hours and the area we were in didn't have a whole lot other than the tourist market.

But they did have amazing doughnut balls! They fried them right there, doused them in honey and sprinkled them with chopped nuts. So yummy!

Gorgeous sky again.

The super fun thing was I got my feet cleaned by fishies!

Isn't that crazy!

I'd never seen this before, and I couldn't resist. I just sat down and they went to town. I may or may not have screamed a little when I first put my feet in. And your feet kind of feel like they're vibrating. But I have never had softer baby feet evah. It was fun.

So even though we didn't do much "Crete" stuff, it was a nice relaxing morning.

Rhodes

 We woke up bright and early to get on a bus and travel up the coast of Rhodes to go check out some gorgeous views and an old fortress.

 Beautiful, beautiful water!

 We got crepes on our way back to the bus.

 Then we drove back down to the medieval city and wandered around there for a bit.

 We later went to the beach (this was the only day that we were only in one port for the day instead of two) with our Contiki group.

 It was really windy and a bit chilly so I didn't get in the water, but one of the guys in the group challenged Dan's manhood and of course they had to go out and jump off the huge stairway in the water.

 Such a gorgeous if chilly day!

Patmos

Patmos was raining throughout our short time there. Our tour guide sweet talked the local bus driver to drop us off at the Grotto of St. John instead of making us hike up the hill.

Your not allowed to take pictures inside of course but here's the entrance.

I wish we'd had our phones so we could have read the Book of Revelation while we sat in there. There was an amazingly gorgeous huge Byzantine piece of art depicting the revelation and it would have been neat to read through it and pick things out. But it was still beautiful and peaceful in there.

Ephesus

The next day we stopped in Turkey. We decided to do an excursion to see the ancient city of Ephesus. I was intrigued because our tour guide said that it was even more amazing than Pompeii and Pompeii had been my life dream. So of course I had to check it out.

The port we entered was gorgeous.

Then after a short bus ride we were at Ephesus!

We were one of the first groups so we didn't have a lot of people wandering around the ruins.

There is so much there!

And you get to walk around and inside just about anything.

This is the toilet house. Rich men would pay to go and handle their business and share the gossip.

This was the library! Isn't it amazing!

Dan decided he'd be a statue.

Of course another amphitheater.

She said this is the one that Paul came to to try and teach the Ephesians about Christ. I had forgotten how much New Testament stuff there is in Greece and here in Turkey.

So beautiful! And so much fun to see ruins. Do other people obsess about ruins and how cool they are? I used to have a slight dream about being an archeologist, but I don't think I would have been good at the lifestyle... but it's fun to go and visit and admire.