One of our last stops was the birth place of democracy, Athens and the Acropolis. Athens was named after the Goddess Athena. The story goes that Athena and Poseidon were fighting over who the city belonged to. The people living in the city decided that they should each give them a gift and whichever gift they liked the best would have the privilege of having the city named after them. Poseidon struck the ground and water flowed. Athena struck the ground and an olive tree grew. They picked Athena because if you have an olive tree you have food and heat, you have a source on income and you have free time because while the olives are growing there is nothing to do and so you can spend time philosophizing. The olive tree above is at the Acropolis in honor of that story.
The word Acropolis means high place and this was basically the main part of the city and where they would go if they were being attacked. The above picture is the Parthenon. This amazing structure was built in ten years. Which is amazing because most of the other ruins we saw took hundreds of years to build. This building was built to represent the people working together for a common goal. One of the greatest symbols of team work. It was built by the people for them to use and is basically the birth place of democracy. It is where the people in Athens would come to discuss their ideas.
This is another temple that is up on top of the hill. I can't remember what God this temple was built for.
This is a view from the top of the Acropolis. The structure you see in the middle of the picture you might recognize if you have ever seen footage of a concert at the Acropolis this is where they are held.
This is a ceiling that took 14 years to restore. That gives you an idea of what a task it is to restore these structures. The dark pieces are original pieces and the white pieces are ones they had to make. The black stuff is from a fire that burned when the Acropolis was attacked and they can not get that damage off.
This is a view of the city of Athens from on top of the Acropolis. Athens was a huge city and it was made of 8 story high cement builds and was very dirty and just not a very pretty city to drive through. But it looks cool from this view. There are a few old neo classical building that they have kept in good condition. You can see those further down.
This is the stadium built for the first modern Olympics in 1896. It has absolutely no parking and so when they just recently had the Olympics in Athens they held the archery competition in there.
Here is one of the old neo classical building. They are used to house government offices.
It was getting towards the end of the trip and we were all running out of steam.
This is a statue symbolizing the unity of Greece.
Here is another piece of art we saw in the city.
This is a running man made from sheets of glass.
Here is a picture of some great thinkers of our time.The Acropolis and Athens was such a cool place to visit and have a glimpse of that part of history.
One more day of pics left.
This is a picture of Kusadasi to give you an idea of what the city looked like. Turkey was one of the most frustrating places to communicate with the local people. I had a very hard time understanding their English. The other countries we were in everyone had accents but you could understand them really well. Here asking a simple question like "Where is the restroom...the bathroom...the water closet...the toilet....?" "Ohhhh over there." Very frustrating. But Turkey was a beautiful place and even though we could not communicate well the people were nice. 
This is me. Can you believe I went scuba diving. I have always had a fear of drowning and thought this was a perfect way to conquer that fear.
This is Nicolle showing off her cool swimming moves.
This is me feeding the fish. Our instructor found these little spiky black balls and cute them in half. The stuff that was in the middle the fish loved and swarmed around to eat it.
This is the sign for yes I am still breathing and everything is OK.
Nicolle feeding the fish.
I love this picture of Nicolle. Her eyes make her look like she is very nervous. I don't think that she was though.
Our next stop that day was the ruin of Ephesus. We took a private tour so it was just the three of us and our tour guide and a driver. When we got out of the car at Ephesus it started to down pour. When we got back in the car it stopped raining. that was the way the rest of the day went. Also I don't have a lot of explanation of what the pictures are because I understood about half of what the guide said. I did understand that the excavation that is done here was done by foreigners and the Turkish government takes taxes to say they are spending it on excavating but they aren't really doing anything. 'The above picture is of the amphitheatre.
This is the library which was said to have housed over a thousand books, or scrolls as they were in that day.
This is a view looking down the main street of Ephesus.
This is us hiding out under and archway with our guide waiting for the rain to let up. Our guide was really nice and every time he was ready to move to another place he would say "Come my friends." I have not idea what his name was. I could not understand what he said it sounded like R2 to me so that is what I called him.
This is a river running down the street created by all the rain. I was smart today and had my tennis shoes on so I was not slipping on the marble street.
This was part of the bath house. It should not need any explaining.
This was inside the Basilica. Does it look familiar to anyone? Can you guess it's purpose?
This is a view from the basilica. Very green and pretty country side.
Our other memorable stop was a carpet factory or school as they called it. Our guide says that we were right near a school where girls learn to make rugs would we like to go see. Of course that sounds like a cool cultural experience. Of course what it really was was a high pressure sales jewelry and carpet store. This is Nicolle testing out the rug for flying capabilities. I thought is was the only way we were going to get out of there. Luckily Nicolle did want to buy a rug.
After the purchase then they taught us how to tie know for rugs and let us try it out.
This picture that looks like snow capped mountains is a view of Oia, one of the most unique places I have ever seen. More pictures of Oia are further down.
Santorini is known all over the world for it's award winning wine. (no we did not taste any) Because of the high winds that they get there they weave their grape vines into a sort of a basket and get them to grow low to the ground in order to protect the grapes. They also grow a lot of pistachio nuts.
We took a tour where we walked through a few little villages. This was a road we were walking down. I thought it was more like a sidewalk. I guess I am used to the wide open spaces of the west. Above the car you see a gate which was very common and the beginning and end of the villages. The bells symbolize the 3 saints watching over the village and the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Santorini was full of Greek Orthodox churches. I think they said there were over 300 on the island. Most are privately owned. It is a great honor there to have a church built on you property. There are only 8 priest to service all those churches.
Here is a piece of prime real estate. Our guide told us and land is sold at a premium and this plot would sell for about 150,000 euro. Is anyone looking for a summer home?
We saw these guys selling fish on the side of the road. I was tempted to buy my lunch there. ("Ew")
This was a very interest old castle built by the Venetians. It was being renovated and people were living in it. Our guide told us houses in here were very expensive. Everyone wants to live in the castle.
This is me sitting on some one's front porch in the castle.
Nicolle and I walking through the castle. How would you like this to be the sidewalk you walked up to get to you home everyday?
I put this picture in here because this guy was so cute. As we walked by he waved and smiled at us. of course we could not communicate with him but he was so cute.
Julie snapped this picture. She was trying to get the little lady in the background but this cute family stopped and smiled for her. It was the first day back at school and we had just passed the school and they were returning from walking an older child to the school.
You may have notice the blue door and gates in the picture. Until recently it was a law that you had to paint your house blue and white. It is one of the things that make Santorini so unique. Our guide told us that 80 percent of the pictures that people see of Greece were taken in Santorini. The white house with blue are what you think of when you picture Greece. Nicolle was on the hunt for pictures of cute blue doors. This was my favorite that we took.
After our walk through the little villages we spent some time on a black sand beach. Black sand because it is volcanic rock.
This is a view of the little resort where we were at. It was the end of the tourist season so there was not a lot of people around. This is really the only beach time we had the whole trip. About 30 minutes after we left here is started raining.
This is Nicolle and Julie using our beach towel for protection from the rain.
This is a view of Oia. It is a village built just hanging of the top of the cliff basically.
Isn't is just beautiful and amazing?
Of course this beautiful village was a little perilous for me. I was wearing flip flops. (Day at the beach!) They did not have any traction on the bottom and all the streets were paved with stone or marble, very pretty and very dangerous for me. I had to wander around in my bare feet. I know I look great sporting the wet dog look.
This house was amazing to me. These people basically put a house front on a cave. They are living inside of the cliff . I wanted so bad to go knock on the door and ask to see inside. I was very curious as to what it would look like.
This was another place where basically they had put a door and some window in the rock to make a cave house.
I put this picture in because I think Nicolle's face is the best. We had ridden a city bus from one village to Oia and were waiting to catch it to go back. There was not really a formal bus stop we just went back to the place where the bus had dropped us off. It sort of looked like there was a line and so we tried our best to fine the back and like good little girls who are not used to using public transportation we waited. As soon as the bus was in sight all of these people came out the the wood work and started pushing and shoving to get on the bus. They didn't even make room for the poor people who wanted to get off the bus. We of course did not make it on that bus. We Waited forming what we thought was a line for the bus. Second bus shows up. Similar problem. Finally we made friends with some Australian ladies who had been waiting about the same amount on time. We did our best to form a line. We were now at the front and afraid of getting trampled we held hands and formed a semi circle that would allow the people getting off the bus to get off and held off the masses until we go on. It was a great experience to make me grateful that I don't have to us public transportation on a regular basis.
I put this picture in because it was one of my favorite pictures of Nicolle on this trip. I just think she looks beautiful in it which is not really fair because we had been walking in the down pouring rain. You saw the picture of what rain does to me.
Despite the rain we had a great day in Santorini. It is definitely and place I would love to go back and visit for a longer amount of time. If you have seen the movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling pants it was filmed here and one thing we did not get to do is ride a donkey up the mountain side. Next time I guess.