Candia Athens

... We were each given a glass of "ouzo" which is a licorice tasting Greek liquor that is extremely potent. Though it is usually taken as a single shot, we were each given a glass with a rather large icecube in it, making it impossible to take in a single sip. With nothing to chase the terrible taste of the strong alcohol, we all declined to drink more than a sip of each of our drinks and opted for lots of water instead. Greece is the first European country I have ...

Corfu Island is located on the vast Ionian Sea. Over the years it has become a popular tourist destination among travelers. This island enjoys pleasant climatic conditions. You will not find a perfect sunny weather during your stay on this island and maybe some showers. Corfu's beautiful verdant vegetation is due to the island receiving the highest rainfall that results in scores of vegetables and herbs to ...

... the challenges of our day and age. I like worshipping in old venerable buildings but not when they're relics that have lost their relevance and are sitting empty. I love new, creative ministry, but not when it's done in arrogance, as if it's superior to anything that's gone before. Mission can't be frozen, nor can it have so much intertia that it can't change courses when necessary. Subways and antiquities can coexist. So can our church's heritage and contemporary mission.

... owner, that guy was pretty much a tourist attraction in himself. Every time someone walked "through" his restaurant, he'd pounce on them informing them they should have a drink before heading up to the Acropolis ("Have a drink to break up walk to Acropolis, yes?"). This simple technique lured endless customers to his tables and was well worth the price of my beer on it's own. It didn't work every time- he tried to be too clever by shouting "our friends from Chicago" at a ...

... pottery and things. The national museum though, is so absolutely awesome. You know that iconic picture of Zeus in the bronze? I GOT TO SEE IT. I've seen that picture since I was like 6 and I got to be up close to it and photo it! They have an amazing collection of things like funeral stele, and as someone who studied the damn thing in classics boy did I get ripped off in terms of the good ones. There are some really, really awesome ones with ornate grapes and priests of dionysos ...

... restore it, so that was really hard to get a view of, but just to imagine these places in their old days of glory is amazing. Some of these sights are absolutely massive. After I was finished up on the Acropolis, which has spectacular views of the city in every direction, I wandered down the other side to the Agora, which was the old market place of Athens. Not much is there, aside from one Stoa that used to house shops, the Temple of Hephaestus, and the Church of the Holy ...

... to a local restaurant (at the receptionist's recommendation). The food was fabulous and we all swapped our Euro-travel stories... they were in Barcelona for the tomato fight thing... it sounded like tons of fun!! Tomorrow we are planning on sightseeing a bit here in Athens and then seeing if it would be possible to catch a ferry to Naxos in the afternoon/evening. We were thinking of going to a travel agency ...

... escape route. Turns out though that the campsite does not open until 25th June but they are friends of the French owner and he and his wife had driven from Germany to come here. They are letting us stay for 5 euro per night..... its fantastic, so quiet.... All we hear is the sound of the rolling waves and the birds cheeping in the trees.... Bliss... it makes the aching muscles worth every second. Sunday 10th June, 2007 Well here we are ...

... Strike! Out of non-dairy coffee whitener - Strike! So thanks to our friend Dia, our time in Athens was great - though not without a bit of diffictulty. On our last morning in the city I decided that I would go alone to the post-office to send a "Thank-You" package to my wonderful cousins who so graciously stored Tania's and my junk for a few months (thank you Stacy and Risha! Cool stuff coming your way soon!). I decided to go alone so that Tania could ...

... when we said we were from San Francisco (I’ve found it’s easier to mention a big city name as opposed to where we’re actually from). He said he’d spent some time in San Francisco, which was where he’d learned to speak English (which he spoke very well). I then decided to let the cat out of the bag and told him that we were trying to find the Apetonia because we were to go on a bus tour from there. His face dropped slightly when he realized that we ...