Kalimera!!

That is how you say good morning in Greek. Our tour guide would usually greet us with this every morning on our tour bus and continue to talk about the day's agenda when all everyone wanted to do is sleep!! So highlights of the trip: in Athens we stayed in the city ..... we saw a demonstration by the communist party, stumbled upon the bank that was burned down during riots (very sad), visited the Acropolis ( Parthenon!!), took boats out to several very lovely little islands where you actually see the white houses on the hillside with blue roofs!!, saw the port of Corinth where Paul visited from a distance... In Crete we stayed in the port town of Chania... it was gorgeous, our hotel was right off the port and within walking distance of the lighthouse, small town with lots of little open air retaurants - loved this place!!......we visited ruins of the Palace of Knossos, felt an earthquake - 4.5 on the richter scale, went to the beach several times and took a dip into the cold mediterannean ocean, saw folk dances and listened to folk music, hiked the Samarian Gorge - 11 mile hike, went on a bicycle ride through the countryside- orange orchards and olive orchards and old gree grandmothers waving at us saying kalimera!! On a rocky backroad, I hit a rock and fell as I was trying to correct myself, this was the last day of the trip, so currently nursing a really nasty banged up knee.
Dogs and cats are allowed to roam free in Greece and are protected by the government, so dogs would be laying around in random places on the street in the middle of the day - you would step around them and their poop all over the sidewalk... cats would crowd around you when you sat down for a meal.. not all the time, but at most places....
We devoured delicious greek salad, greek yogurt with quince ( kinda like a nice smooth jam - my fav was with rose petals - i bought some!!), lots and lots of gyros, soulvaki( grilled meat and veggis.. kinda like what would go inside a gyro but separated and without a pita) and seafood- I had lots of shrimp! Lon drank a frappe daily- an iced coffee made from nescafe, sugar and i think evaporated milk?.. not sure but delicious!! and.....Many of the kids devoured alcohol!!! Major craziness ensued as a result of this... the drinking and blantant disrepectful behaviour got so bad that we contacted the school and the president of our school threatened the drinkers, who were all graduated seniors, with a letter to their colleges explaining their behaviour and that it was not exemplory of a Webb student. After that things calmed down to a 'working' relationship.. they didn't go crazy in front of us as much, but i bet they did when we were not around. There were still so many great students, who relaly loved and enjoyed the trip for what it had to offer culturally and artistically!
Overall the trip was a whirlwhind of wonderful and extremely frustrating experiences, extreme exhaustion and lack of sleep and delicious food! I brought a little bit of Greece back for the both of you! I will try and post a pic later!