Spring Has Finally Sprung

I've been very remiss in keeping up with the blog, but with good reason.  For over a month, we've been extremely understaffed at work.  At the same time, I've taken over the position of Line Chief, which basically means taking care of all the problems that come up.  The long and short is that I've been working close to 12 hour days during this time and the blog is one of the things that got squeezed out.  So I will try to catch up on the last month in brief.

Stephanie planned an excellent birthday celebration for me at the end of March that lasted several days.  We also pretty much saw the last snowfall around that time, although it took another couple weeks for the snow to melt.  It was actually a fairly boring time because as the snow was melting, it really wasn't nice to go anywhere given the choice between dirty ice, dirty slush, or mud.  So we made the best of things and celebrated Easter by dyeing eggs etc...  We had some friends over as well and their little boy and Aiden hunted for plastic eggs in the living room.

During this time, the daylight hours have been changing rapidly.  We're gaining about 4 or 5 minutes of sunlight every day, so now it is already light when I get up at 6 and it doesn't get dark until after 9 pm.  We had a couple of very warm weeks in the middle of April, and then it cooled off a bit, but it's still been enough for flowers and leaves to come bursting out.  It's really amazing how it seems that the hard winter makes spring all the more dramatic here.

This past Saturday, Aiden had his second birthday.  It's hard to believe he's already 2 years old.  He had two parties, one with his playgroup, which consisted of about 17 children and their moms.  Then on his actual birthday, we had another party with some friends of ours.  I've been amazed to see how popular Aiden is.  Whenever we go outside, someone is yelling his name.  He still gets shy at times, but seems to be making a lot of friends.

The only reason I've had a chance to write this much is that we are on vacation.  Russia has some big holidays in May and as a result we have a 5 day weekend followed by a 4 day weekend and are taking the chance for a break.  I'm sure there will be more to say later, and hopefully when we get back, work will settle down enough that I can catch up on my pictures!

Winter Fun, But Still Winter...

Happy St. Patrick's Day from a Moscow freshly buried in snow!   It's been awhile since the last update, but as you'll see below, we've been busy. 

Let's see.  On President's Day weekend we went with another couple to the town of Sergiev Posad, one of the most famous of the Golden Ring city.  Our friends drove, but we enjoyed a nice relaxing train ride, which only took about an hour.  I had arranged for us to stay at a home stay where the owner organizes winter activities for her guests.  Our hostess  - Svetlana, met us at the train station and led us on an icy walk to her house near the Monastery.  On the way we passed some of the most amazing icicles I've ever seen on one of the wooden houses. 

Our friends, who also have a little boy Aiden's age, got there just after us and we were all treated to tea and blini (Russian pancakes served with sour cream, jam, and honey) while we waited for the other guests to arrive.  The house was very quaint and luckily Svetlana wasn't too concerned about Aiden's desire to play with everything in reach.

When the other guests arrived, we discovered that Svetlana runs a very strict schedule.  She told us that at 1pm, we would leave for our adventure in the forest. We would return at 3pm and have two hours to ourselves.  Dinner would be served at 5pm.  At 6pm we would all become good friends. at 7pm she would tell us the history of Sergiev Posad.  At 8pm, we would all go to the sauna, and at 10pm we would all go to bed.  I'm exaggerating a little - she didn't tell us we would become friends at 6pm, just that it would happen over dinner.

We quickly learned she meant what she was talking about.  The other guests arrived a bit late, and we figured we would have time while they ate their blini, so we took Aiden up to our room to play.  Shortly thereafter, Svetlana burst in and chided us for being late and told us everyone was waiting for us.  So we hustled on out and joined the rest for a drive out into the countryside.

Our drive took us on snowy roads to the edge of a forest where there were two colorful horse-drawn sleighs waiting for us.  Aiden had fallen asleep in the car and stayed asleep through the sleigh ride, but Stephanie and really enjoyed it.

The horses took us to a little clearing with a fire pit, where we all enjoyed snow-chilled champagne and vodka while roasting sausages over the fire.  Not too shabby, eh?

Aiden woke up shortly after we arrived and enjoyed wandering around in the snow and playing with a bear-skin rug.  There was also a nice sledding hill with great speed, which everyone enjoyed.  It was a great way to spend an afternoon.

After eating and sledding, we went on another sleigh ride through the forest.  This time Aiden was awake and really enjoyed it.  It was beautiful and quiet - a nice change from Moscow!

On our return, they had a samovar going for hot tea so that we could warm up.  I'd never seen one in action, but basically they take a burning piece of wood from the fire and drop it a tube in the middle, which heats the water around it.  Pretty nifty.

And I even got to play dress-up...

When the time came to head back to the car, we were a bit delayed, and eventually one of the guides told us that one of the sleighs was broken and told all eight adults to get in the sleigh together.  I couldn't bear doing that to the poor horse, so the men agreed to walk - it wasn't terribly far.  The guides didn't like that at all, but after much shouting, they agreed.  Sleighs don't really move all that quickly, so we were able to keep up on foot, which the women found very funny.

Back at casa de Svetlana, she was quite agitated that we were behind schedule.  It was already after 5pm, but she granted us until 5:30 to get ready for dinner.  I'm glad we didn't wait longer as it was an exceptional meal.  A generous course of starters, including more blini, followed by one of the best bowls of borscht I've ever had.  The main course was a rich pork stew in a clay pot and by the time the chocolate cake came out for dessert, we were pretty stuffed.

Svetlana started her overview of the history of Sergiev Posad, but she asked Aiden and his friend to leave shortly after starting because they were too loud. I stayed behind to relay the information to Stephanie. I won't get into the whole thing here but the history provided by Frommer's is pretty good if you're interested.  Not covered in Frommer's is the fact that the monastery was closed after the communist revolution and the monks were all sent off to labor camps.  For a time, people actually lived in the churches in little partitions, where their cooking and cleaning destroyed most of the original frescoes.  Today, the monastery is home to almost 1,000 people including monks and students, who must decide if they will be priests (in which case they must marry immediately upon graduation from the academy) or monks (in which case they will never marry).  Since most of the students choose the priesthood, there are apparently a large number of local young women who regularly attend church in the hopes of meeting a husband.

After dinner, I went out for a quick night view of the monastery but we were pretty tired and decided to pass on the sauna.

The next morning, after a prompt and delicious breakfast, we bid farewell to Svetlana.  Her adherence to a strict schedule was actually welcome compared to the usual experience in Russia, where things are haphazard at best.  She was an excellent hostess and took very good care of us.

Other friends of ours who have been to the monastery before have likened it to a fairy tale and we weren't disappointed.  It's one of the most impressive sights we've seen so far. No pictures were allowed in the churches themselves, but I found a good picture online to include for reference.

The sun came out as the morning went on, but it was quite cold, so we didn't stay too long.  We wanted to get some hot chocolate and snacks on our way out at the bakery on the premises but people were so rude, pushing and shoving, that we just grabbed the hot chocolate and left for the train station, taking one parting glance at the view on our way.

We barely caught our train because we were standing in line at one ticket window, and the cashier decided that she was taking a break after the person before us.  She literally just said "I'm on a break", and closed the window in our faces. (Not unusual, but still annoying). So with less than 10 minutes to departure, I had to dash into the train station, stand in line, get tickets, and then we had to walk down to the end of the platform to cross the tracks to get to our train.  We made it with about 2 minutes to spare and enjoyed our nice relaxing ride back to Moscow. 

 The next week we left for a whirlwind trip back to DC.  It was mostly to take care of Aiden's check-ups for his cleft palate, but that meant doctors appointments every day.   We barely got to see our immediate families while we were there and there were a lot of people we wish we had time to see. Aiden was a real trooper through it all, despite the long flights, jet lag, and constant poking and prodding from all of the doctors.  

We got very nervous about the "Snowquester" as it was forecast to snow over a foot at Dulles airport.  We watched as every domestic flight was cancelled, then most of the international flights.  Even though the storm did not turn out to be as bad as expected, we were checking with the airline up to the last minute to ensure the flight wasn't cancelled.  In the end, we left right on time - one of about 12 flights that actually left the airport that day.  It was good to get to see some of our family and nice to eat lots of good food, but overall we were relieved to get back to Moscow and take a break from our vacation.

Moscow welcomed us back with even more winter.  On Friday we had so much snow that we were sent home from work an hour early, which is completely unheard of.  More snow is in the forecast next week.  I think we're all getting tired of winter, but spring should only be a month away.  I think we've handled it pretty well so far. 

This week has been Maslenitsa - the Russian Orthodox version of Fat Tuesday, but spread over a week.  Blini are the star feature of the holiday, and we've been eating a lot, but we've had a hard time finding any of the folk festivals that we read so much about.  There are supposed to be folk dances, bonfires, and blini tastings, but it is actually pretty challenging to get solid information about local events as details are rarely provided.  

For example, I read that there would be a big festival at Red Square today but when we got there, there was nothing at all. Even Lenin's tomb  - which was my back-up plan if the festival was a bust - was closed for renovations   Maybe there will be something later in the day, but we don't have any way of knowing that.  Still, we made the most of our journey and enjoyed walking around the huge GUM shopping mall.  We even found a little blini shop to hold our own little celebration. 

Lucky for me, Stephanie knows how to make a great corned beef and cabbage, and Irish soda bread, so we can at least guarantee a good St. Patrick's Day celebration!

More Winter Fun

After coming back from Greece, we quickly adjusted to the cold weather.  It was pretty frigid at first, with highs in the single digits, but before long it warmed up to the upper 20s - and yes, when the temperature hits about 30, it actually feels warm.  Before that, though, we had a problem with the heat in my office building and for about a week, most of us were interviewing visa applicants in our coats.  Unfortunately, you can't type wearing gloves, so as far as our cold fingers were concerned, we had to just suck it up.

But eventually, they got the heat back on and shortly after that the temperatures warmed up for it to snow, and snow it did.  Apparently this is the most snow Moscow has gotten for over 100 years, and it's still only February.  I was kind of surprised to read that, but I guess it's just been more of a steady snow rather than a single huge storm, which makes the overall total less noticeable.

We've been making the most of the wintry weather.  Stephanie and I got a babysitter for Aiden and went ice skating in Gorky Park.

It took us awhile to get our balance again, but neither of us took a spill.  The park was really nice because rather than just a circular rink, there were a series of paths winding through the park for us to skate on.

There was even some wildlife on display.

As an added bonus, the park had set up a series of neat exhibits with optical illusions and such.  So when our ankles got tired, we were able to walk around and enjoy that for a bit.

Stephanie swears she doesn't see the optical illusion in this room, where she looks disproportionately sized depending on where she stands, but I do. Click on the picture to see the full comparison.

Stephanie scored a big win with a little plastic sled she picked up.  We found a nice little hill in a nearby park and took Aiden sledding.  He seemed somewhat nonplussed by the whole thing, which is a surprise given how much he likes his slide.  Oh well, Stephanie and I had a good time taking him down the hill anyway.

But despite all the fun we've been having, I'd probably say the best discovery has been the movie theater we discovered down the street, which plays English language movies with Russian subtitles.  So far we've seen Anna Karenina and Les Miserables, both of which we enjoyed immensely.  The theater itself is very nice, with smaller, more intimate theaters, an old fashioned decor, and big comfortable chairs with plenty of leg room.  They even have a cafe with excellent food, which makes it nice to get there early to buy tickets and then enjoy a bite to eat.

I have to say, with winter more than half over, it hasn't been half bad. I know that February can typically be the coldest month, but I think we can deal with it if it happens. 

Our Big Fat Greek Vacation

It's snowed for 4 of the 5 days since we got back to Moscow from our wonderful trip to Greece.  Still, the snow is nice to look at and it's been a good excuse to stay in and look through our pictures and reminisce.  Overall, the trip was great, the weather mostly cooperated, and there were only a few hiccups...

The trip out was fine, we arrived at the airport in Athens and got on our way - after going to the wrong place for the rental car because there were no signs and after having to ask for help starting the car because I had no idea how a Prius works. 

So we got on the road to Meteora a little later than planned but things seemed to go smoothly.  The directions I had printed out seemed to take us in the right direction and the weather was warm enough that we didn't have to worry about snow in the mountain passes.  Then, at a roundabout shortly before Karditsa, there was a traffic jam and a Greek police officer in leather pants who pretended he could speak English. From that point on, our directions did us no good at all. It was just us and the road signs. 

It's not that I expected everyone in Greece to speak English, but this guy said he did but when I asked questions he just shook his head and pointed in a direction other than we were supposed to go.  He said three words that sounds like Palamas, Farkadikis, and Kalambaka. Palamas was the next town on the wrong  road, and Kalambaka is where we were aiming for.  I gathered that we could not go the way we wanted to and had to hope that the road signage would be as simple as the officer's instructions.  It wasn't. 

In Palamas, there were no signs for anything like Farkadikis or any other town in our directions.  After several wrong turns, we found someone who did speak some English and was willing to give us directions. It turned out that the police officer's simple detour took us a good hour out of our way, not including the times we got lost.  We eventually made it to Kalambaka, but as I said, our directions didn't do us much good without a frame of reference so we had to wing it.  

Nonetheless, we eventually found our hotel and got settled in.  We had to get the owner to come in a few times to get the heat working, and once that was set I found a restaurant nearby and got some take out.  We were all glad to have reached our destination.  Until the heat went off.  We discovered that in Greece, they turn the heat off completely at night and we are supposed to stay under the covers until it gets turned on again in the morning - it got quite cold.  Charming local custom that took some getting used to.  Still, we reminded ourselves that it was much colder in Moscow and made the best of it. 

The next day made up for the first day's adventures.  Meteora is the name for an area of interesting geography, where these immense rock pillars were left by retreating glaciers or sea levels depending on what source you read.  The rock formations by themselves were spectacular, but they have been augmented by monasteries improbably built on some of the peaks hundreds of years ago...

We spent the day climbing the staircases carved into the mountainsides and exploring the monasteries, stopping only to go back into town for a nice lunch of soulvaki (roasted meat).  We purchased a harness before the trip so that Aiden could spend more time walking around without us having to worry about him walking off a cliff and he seemed to enjoy the added freedom. It really was an incredible place.

That evening, we tried to find a place where Stephanie could try the traditional dish moussaka, which she had been looking forward to ever since we bought the plane tickets. In the off season, a lot of restaurants close down so we had some trouble finding a place that was open.  When we did, Stephanie was excited to see moussaka on the menu, but the waiter said they didn't have any - this happened repeatedly throughout the trip so that we became very suspicious of menus and took to asking about the moussaka status before going in. However, in this case, the waiter must have seen the disappointment on her face and surprised us with leftover moussaka on the house.  He apologized that it was old and not a full portion, but it was free and delicious so we weren't complaining.

The next morning, we packed up the Prius and headed for Delphi.  I guess because we didn't come into Kalambaka the way we were supposed to, we didn't have the correct orientation to follow our directions to Delphi.  Since none of the streets had names, we couldn't even figure them out that way and had to follow the map and markers for the towns along the way instead.  Definitely not the most direct route and sometimes the towns on the signs were not on the map so we would have to ask for directions.  It also often caused us to drive through congested town centers with tiny roads (I actually clipped the mirror of a cab with my mirror once trying to squeeze through - no damage), so that in the end the trip took close to 5 hours instead of the three and a half projected by Google. On the upside, we saw some great scenery.

Again, we had trouble finding restaurants that were open on the road, so when we got to the turnoff for Delphi, we decided to keep going to the small coastal town of Galaxidi for a nice seafood dinner.  It was a good choice as Galaxidi is a quaint town with a busy harbor.  We had a great meal and then walked around a bit.  It was neat to see the orange trees growing everywhere and driving along the coast gave us some great views of mount Parnassos at sunset, with Delphi nestled about halfway up.

Delphi was a nightmare for parking, but our hotel was on the main road and we only had a short walk from where we parked outside of town.  The next morning, we had a great breakfast at the hotel complete with Greek yogurt, which is so much better than anything I've had in the U.S. Then we just walked out of town to the archaeological site for a morning of exploration.

The site of Delphi predates the Greeks and was scene as a mystical site even before it became home to the Oracle.  One of the things that was really neat was learn about how Greek mythology meshed with what is historically known about these areas and how those histories were incorporated into the stories of their religion.

We had a great time exploring the ruins, stopped by the stone that marks the center of the universe, and enjoyed an impromptu performance of Gangnam Style by some Japanese women at the theater of Delphi, before heading up to the stadium, where the 2nd most important Panhellenic games(2nd only to the ones at Olympia) were held. We even took a side jaunt to the temple of Athena down the road.

Aiden was great through all of this and even let us visit the archaeological museum, which among other things holds a Sphinx (Egyptian culture was apparently all the rage for a time), and a bronze statue so detailed that it had eyelashes.

That evening we enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the mountains and the sea, followed by a delicious dinner.  Stephanie found a shop that sells items by local artists and bought a plate made by a family that has been making them for about 600 years.

The next morning after another wonderful breakfast, we said farewell to the beautiful view from our balcony and headed on toward Nafplion. 

Here again, we found our directions to be pretty much useless and relied on road signage to find our way.  Luckily, we had a pretty big target - a bridge connecting the Greek mainland to the Peloponnese peninsula, which was scenic but costly at a shocking 13 euros!  Good thing the Prius was good on gas. Overall we made good time, stopping for lunch near Ancient Corinth.

At the restaurant there, I was trying to get directions to the ruins of Mycenae, which I was pronouncing incorrectly as Mice-ee-nay to the blank stares of the restaurant staff.  Finally I mentioned a place that I knew was nearby - Nemia - and they mentioned a place called My-kee-nay on the way and I put two and two together and figured it out. We all had a good laugh before we got on our way.

We made it to Mycenae to see the ruins before they closed at 3pm.  The Mycenaens preceded the classic Greeks by about 1,000 years and also played heavily in their mythology as they are believed to be the ones who conquered Troy.  It's easy to see why the classic Greeks were impressed considering the sturdy remains of their structures made of enormous stones.  They also had an apparent knack for choosing places with a good view.

We had very little trouble finding our hotel in Nafplion, which was briefly the capital of Greece after it achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire. We had to park a short way down the block because the hotel was on a very narrow road that was only open to residents.  Our room had a nice little kitchenette and a view over the neighboring house and it's lemon and orange trees.  Best of all, there was a split pack that meant we could have heat all night!

The receptionist recommended that we go along the cliff walk by the sea to get to the old town and it was a great suggestion. The walk is along the base of cliffs covered in prickly pear cacti with beautiful views of the Palamidi fortress that overlooks the town and the sunset over the sea.

The next day we enjoyed exploring the town, which really was one of the nicest looking towns we visited during our trip.  Control of Nafplion went back and forth between the Venetians and the Ottomans for many years, so a lot of the architecture comes from outside influence.  Since it's basically built on a big rock sticking up out of the sea, there are lots of neat little lanes and staircases to get around.

One of the great attractions is climbing the stairs of the Palamidi fortress. There are many different claims as to the number of stairs - the hotel said there are 999, but I only counted 921.  Stephanie wasn't that interested so I did it one day while Aiden was napping.  It was work, but worth it for the views.  I had to be careful, though, because there were a few places where a wrong turn would take you down a staircase with a sudden drop at the bottom.

That evening, we drove along the coast to the small town of Nea Keos for dinner at a beachside restaurant. When we ordered the fresh fish, we didn't realize they'd be whole.  Stephanie was brave enough to try them but that was about it, so it was up to me to finish the plate.  They tasted fine as long as I didn't think too much about it.  There was one exception where the fish was a little too big and the head was a little bit too identifiable while I was eating it to get it down.  The fact that I had a silly song about fish heads from when I was a kid stuck in my head didn't help.  At least the wine and appetizers were good and we had a nice little walk on the beach afterward.

One thing that happened while we were in Nafplion is that it got cold.  The third day there, we took a morning jaunt to the theater at Epidavros, which is the largest and best preserved in the world.  It is really incredible.  Aiden was asleep in the car so we took turns going and when I was there, I stood on the top row while a Brazilian woman spoke from the middle of the stage and I could hear everything she said even if I didn't understand it.  Pretty amazing what they could do over 2,000 years ago. While we were there it also snowed.  It apparently also snowed in Athens, because all of the shop owners were talking about it. We didn't tell anyone that it must have followed us from Moscow.

From Epidavros, we went to the small seaside town of Palea Epidavros, which is famous for its orange groves.  We had a nice lunch that included shots of some very strong liquor - not ouzo though - and braved the cold wind for a walk along the harbor.  On the way back to Nafplion, we stopped in one of the orange groves so that Stephanie could satisfy her desire to pick one fresh from the tree.  I don't think anyone would miss it, the whole time we were there people were giving them away everywhere we went.

Back in Nafplion we combated the cold by climbing around the Palamidi Fort, which was a lot of fun.  Apparently the Venetians put great deal of effort and expense into building it only to have the Ottomans conquer Greece definitively just as it was finished.

On our way down from the fort, we found a cupcake shop that was advertised all over town but had so far eluded us.  We picked a few of the more interesting flavors and headed out along the cliff walk to enjoy them and another sunset.  Despite the cold, we also sampled some delicious frozen Greek yogurt as we enjoyed our last night in the town.

 That night I woke up and noticed it had gotten very cold in the room. I realized the power had gone out and was lucky that it was just a blown fuse that I was able to find and fix on my own.  If we hadn't been able to fix it, we would have had a hard time getting up early and on our way.  We had a two hour drive to Athens to catch our flight to Crete the next day. It was a good thing we left some extra time because the place where we were supposed to return the rental car was marked with a do not enter sign and we didn't see the small print below it that said rental car returns only until the second time we drove around the airport.

We made our plane with out any further problem and the 35 minute flight was uneventful but a little bumpy on landing as Crete was experiencing some stormy weather.  The village where we were staying, Zaros, was on the other side of the mountains that run through the middle of Crete and as we climbed, I watched the outside temperature drop slowly toward freezing and the rain change to snow.  With all the hairpin turns it was a little hairy, but as we went down the other side the temperatures quickly rose again and driving got a little easier.

We received a warm welcome at the guest house where we stayed, and it appeared that we may have been the only guests.  We'll never know for sure because our host, a cheerful old lady, didn't speak any English.  Nonetheless we were able to communicate enough to get settled into our room and to learn that the local Taverna was closed and that our hostess was more than happy to cook traditional Cretan meals for our dinners if we liked (which we did).

We used what was left of the day to explore the little village and came across a little church with beautiful roses outside.  As we were passing, it sounded like there was a service, so we went in and sat for awhile listening to two monks who were chanting the service.  They didn't seem to mind us there and it was a really neat experience - until Aiden got tired of it and we had to leave.

We had a great dinner that night although we didn't know what it was.  Our hostess indicated that it was an animal that lives on the mountains with horns that is very traditional.  I'm hoping it was just a type of domestic goat because the only other possible option I've found is a Kri-Kri, which is a very rare species of feral goat that was likely first brought to the island by the Minoans.  It seems to be strictly protected, and I doubt she could afford to feed us something so rare at the prices we paid so I'm going to assume that we didn't eat something illegal.  There was also some sort of beverage that at first I thought was bad wine, but now believe was retsina.  Retsina is a traditional drink of wine with pine resin - apparently the Greeks used to seal their wine with pine sap, which sometimes tainted the wine and somewhere along the way they decided they liked it and now added it on purpose. Not sure who's idea that was, but it did grow on us while we were there.

Here again, we had some heat issues, but luckily the blankets were warm and plentiful. There was also a great fireplace in the dining area where we could warm up in the mornings while enjoying these ridiculously huge breakfasts featuring about 20 different kinds of pastries.  All home made from ingredients from the family farm.  Pretty awesome way to start the day.

That day we drove back over the mountains (now safely above freezing) to visit the palace at Knossos, which belonged to the Minoan civilization. The Minoans predated even the Mycenaens, so it was pretty cool to take another step back in history.  Knossos is also the inspiration for the myth of the Labyrinth and the Minotaur, and it's easy to see why with the sprawling remains of the complex.

We spent the rest of the day in search of wineries that either appear to have been nonexistent or were closed for the winter.  But we did see some nice scenery and visited a couple of cool Monasteries. Aiden was getting lots of practice on identifying different animals between stray cats and dogs, goldfish ponds, and herds of sheep and goats.

As we were heading back to Zaros, slowed down to ask a woman if we were heading the right way and I think she cursed us. Shortly after that I had to drive along the edge of a narrow road to avoid an oncoming car and hit what turned out to be a very big pothole instead of a small puddle. My heart sank as I felt the car rumble on down the road and sure enough, our tire was completely flat. Luckily the car jack didn't sink in the soft mud on the side of the road and the nuts weren't machine tightened so I was able to change the tire before the sun went down and we made it back fine.

The next day was raining off and on so we cancelled our plans to go down to the coast, picked up some provisions for lunch at the grocery store, and spent the day visiting some sights near Zaros.  At Zaros, lake, which is really just a reservoir, the clouds broke long enough to produce a beautiful rainbow.  After that we visited a nearby monastery where Aiden was fascinated by a tiny door in the wall.  All in all, we didn't do much, but it was kind of nice to have a lazy rainy day.

The next day also started off rainy, but we decided to head to the coast anyway and a good thing too, as it seemed that the rain was confined to the mountains, while the coast was nice and sunny.  A guy had recommended the beach in Matala because there were some caves where hippies lived in the 60's.  I can't say I was that interested in the hippies, but he said the beach was nice so we went.

It turned out to be a good thing because the caves turned out to be the graves from roman citizens who lived there a couple millenia ago, which is actually pretty cool. We were able to explore at our leisure, which was even cooler. Aiden enjoyed walking on the beach and the weather was much warmer by the sea, so it was a nice place to spend some time. I also found a cat with one blue eye and one green, which was patient enough for my to satisfy my urge to get a photo of it. On the way out, we even saw a hippy bus parked by a tree that had been carved into large faces.

We had lunch in a small town nearby and followed the map to visit a neat monastery in the country with will preserved frescoes and no prohibition on photography.

On our way back we stumbled across the ruins of Faistos, which was the palace of the brother of the king at Knossos and saw these strange colonies of snails living on the cacti there.

Back at the hotel, I insisted on posing with the antique guns over the fire place before one last fantastic dinner.  We took breakfast to go on our way to the airport the next day and while the food was amazing, and the hospitality the best of our entire trip, we were kind of relieved that we didn't have to eat so much for the rest of our trip.

So we arrived in Athens for the last couple days of our trip.  Our hotel was only about a 10 minute walk from the Acropolis, so we set out to go sightseeing right away.  We didn't start until the afternoon the first day so most things were already closed, but we got to see Hadrian's arch, the temple of Zeus, the Odeon at the acropolis, and some nice views at night. As we were walking along, we passed an old woman who seemed to be very angry and muttering to herself and as we walked by she kicked at us, cursed, and spit.  We saw her do it to some others as well.  I'm pretty sure she cursed us again, but since we had turned in our rental car it wasn't possible to get a flat tire.  So we enjoyed the rest of our day and est of all, Stephanie got to have moussaka that night.

The next day, we spent the whole morning at the acropolis, and even though the Parthenon was pretty heavily scaffolded, it was still a pretty amazing place.

 That afternoon we got to see more of the temple of Zeus and enjoyed a walk around town after dark.

The next day was devoted to the Greek Agora, which was like the downtown of ancient Athens, complete with a reconstructed shopping mall housing much of the remaining sculptures found there.

The temple of Hephaestus was remarkable - probably the best preserved Greek ruins we've seen outside of our trip to Sicily.

We also toured the Roman Agora (same thing but built by the Romans), and the ruins of Hadrian's library - busy guy, that Hadrian.

Going through it now, the trip seems like it flew by, but at the time it seemed to go at a nice leisurely pace and in some ways we were ready to come back to Moscow by the time it was done, which I guess is a good measure of a successful vacation.

Of course there are many more pictures than I posted in the blog, which you can find here.