Beautiful Greece

Well life has sure been busy lately! I wanted to share some pictures with you from our belated Anniversary trip to Greece! When we moved here, Jordan and I both picked a #1 priority place that we wanted to visit while we are here, and mine was Greece! We decided to do a Greek cruise, because it was the most cost efficient way to see the islands. It was fast and furious! Here are some picture highlights from our trip!

 

Izmir, Turkey

We flew into the city of Izmir and met up with an American friend of a friend named Karen Dubois. She has been living in Turkey for over 20 years and is a beautiful witness of Christ's love to the Turkish people. Even though we had never met her before, she offered to let us stay the night with her. Let me just tell you, we would not have made it on our boat if it weren't for her! Karen is such an angel! I wish we took a picture with her! She took us around the city and we had such a lovely time with her! We saw the sights, visited some members of her church, watched a man attack another man with a hatchet in the street, tracked down the tickets to our cruise, ate Turkish ice cream (twice), had a delicious dinner, ate some mussels from a street vendor, watched the sunset, and then walked back to her adorable little apartment!

Beautiful sunset in Izmir. We are standing in the middle of a bridge. Such a lovely night with our new friend, Karen!

Patmos
The next morning we took a bus from Izmir to our port city, Kusadasi, Turkey. We got all check in on our boat, and set sail to the island of Patmos! It took us about 4 hours to get there, and once on shore we only had 4 hours to explore. This is the island where John the apostle received a vision and wrote the book of Revelation. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to travel to the cave where all this happened...but we still had a blast! Patmos was one of our favorites of this trip.

It was so beautiful! We walk all around, and then found a little restaurant on the beach and had the most delicious food we've had in ages! Then we enjoyed some wine together and just soaked it all in.

Handsome Jordie in Patmos!

This was the bruschetta before our meal. I wish I could describe how delicious this was. After eating Turkish food for way too long, we indulged! We got way too excited to eat our food that we forgot to take a picture of it first!

Enjoying the sunset from out boat. So beautiful!

Me and my handsome, so happy to be traveling together!

Rhodes
The next morning we woke up in Rhodes! We had 8 whole hours on this island, so the first thing we did was rent a moped. We had such a great time riding around! We stopped at some beautiful view points. At one point, we were riding up to a view point of the island, and we saw a sign that said "nudist beach" (in English, too!). We thought that was amusing and kept on heading up the hill. At the top of the view point...wouldn't you know it, the nudist beach was right beneath us! Everyone seemed to having a good old time in their birthday suits. Who would put a nudist beach right below a popular view point of the island??!

We drove on further and found a castle and did a little exploring. Then we decided to spend some time on the beach! We rented a couple of chairs, did some swimming in the Mediterranean, and relaxed for a few hours. I'm so glad Jordie loves sitting on the beach as much as I do!

We headed back to town eventually, and realized that there was an amazing square in Old Town! By this time, we only had about an hour left. We ordered some delicious gyros and did some people watching. Then we bought some gelato and espresso, mixed them together and enjoyed the tasty treat on the way back to the boat!

We were so stinkin cute on that moped. Trust me. Also, I officially have the tiniest adult head ever. No helmets fit me ever. Then when Jordan is driving really fast, bugs and bees fly into my helmet and I scream like a little girl.

Here's the sign for the nudist beach!!

Here's the nudist beach!! Those are tiny little naked people!!

My love and out scooter! This is the beach we relaxed at for a couple of hours! (Not a nudist beach)



Something pretty and old in Old Town.

Heraklion, Crete
The next morning we woke up on the island of Crete. We only had 4 hours here, starting at 7am. Unfortunately most places didn't start opening up for an hour or so after we arrived, so we just walked around aimlessly for a while. Once the stores opened up we were looking for a cute hat for me...but because I have tiny head syndrome (THS), literally ever single hat was too big! So Jordan got a hat instead. =) Needless to say, Crete was not our most favorite Greece destination.

My love in a neat old building. Nothing was open at this point. Except Starbucks, clearly. =)

Jordie's new hat!  Fortunately he does not suffer from THS and hats actually fit him. What a stud.

Santorini
Ok, so the town of Oia in Santorini was the whole reason that I wanted to go to Greece in the first place. Ever since I saw Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants I just really really wanted to be there! Unfortunately, our ship was only in Santorini for 4 hours, and in order for us to visit Oia we had to go on one of the tour excursions through the ship.

Santorini is the result of a huge volcanic eruption, and so the island is pretty much a big hunk of lava. There is no natural water source on the island, and they depend on rain water, dew and water that is shipped in.

We took a tender boat into port, and hopped on a bus and started driving up the mountain to the highest view point on the island. We took a few pictures. It was nice, but I was anxious to go to Oia! Then finally we got in the bus headed for my dream!

We only had an hour to explore once we got there and it was everything I dreamed it would be! We wandered and took pictures for about 50 minutes, then enjoyed a Greek beer, and headed back to the bus! Just look at the pictures so you know what I'm talking about!

Santorini view point!

The pretty island.

He's falling!! (It was steeper than it looks...)

Finally in Oia!! It was ridiculously crowded because of the cruise ships.

It's so beautiful!!! Look how blue that water is!

Cute yellow doors and windows!

This is what I wanted to see!! So pretty!

Pretty pink flowers!!

I love this pretty place!

Yaaaay Oia! Me and my lover!

I was happy to be here! Notice all the tourists in the background.

Me and my love watching the sunset together from the boat. Check that off the bucket list!

Athens
We were originally really excited to see Athens...I mean who wouldn't want to go to Athens, right? Unfortunately we had quite a terrible experience. First of all, our boat ported at 6am, everything opened at 9am, and we had to be back on the boat at 10am. As you can see...this doesn't really add up. The second we got off the boat we were heckled by taxi drivers. Really it was one taxi driver in particular. Without going into boring details, his annoying persistence quickly made my husband more angry than I've ever seen him. We finally broke away and decided to ride the city bus into town.

One in a half hours later (yes, you read that right) we made it to the city. We had about 40 minutes to look at a few things and then take a taxi back to the bus. We don't even know what these things are...but they're old and cool and we were in Athens by golly!

Back behind that handsome man's head is the Parthenon! See it? Good. That's as close as we got to it.

Hey look, something old and cool! We're in Athens!

Back on the boat. This is Jordan's "I'm unimpressed with Athens" face.

Mykonos
We honestly didn't know what to expect with Mykonos. We were pleasantly surprised!!! It was amazing! We arrived around 6pm and didn't have to be back on the boat until midnight. It was such a fun little party town! We walked around for a little while and took pictures, and then we decided to have some dinner at an adorable little restaurant with a tiny deck on the water. Ironically there was an American couple to our right and a group of Army guys on our left! We had a delicious dinner and enjoyed the beautiful sunset! Then we just walked, and talked, and took pictures and ate gelato. We were so stinkin tired that we only made it to 9:30pm and then went back on the boat. It's safe to say we're officially old.

Church

This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip! If you don't know what planking is...it's time to be introduced.

This is what the streets looked like in town! Sooo idyllic!

Our delicious, romantic dinner!

How perfect is this?? We are so blessed!

Walking to get some good pictures of the sunset. We weren't the only ones.

Beautiful sunset!

Gelato. Mmmmmm!

A perfect little church in the twilight!

Kusadasi, Turkey
Back to Turkey! We had a few hours to relax before we caught our bus to the airport. We had some coffee, read a little, and relaxed! Our entire trip was 5 nights long, one night in Izmir and 4 nights on the boat. Fast and furious!

This was a sign in a bathroom stall. It still makes me giggle every time I look at it! My favorite is the picture of the person squatting on top of the toilet. Is this really occurring so often that there needs to be a sign posted? Our only rational explanation was that Turkish people who are used to squatty pottys might not know what to do at an actual toilet...so they try to get on top of it.

Back in Turkey relaxing!

Jordan and I feel so blessed to have such amazing travel opportunities at our fingertips!


There's always time for fun

Well I have come to realize that spring time in Turkey is warmer than summertime in Washington...and I'm not complaining! Jordan and I have been busy with work and our graduate classes, but we still manage to find time for fun!! Here are some pictures from our last month of adventures!

One weekend we went on a beautiful hike with some of our friends! We hiked to a waterfall in a beautiful canyon, and then we went to visit the "James Bond Bridge". If you have seen the latest Bond movie, this is the bridge that Bond fell off while fighting with the bad guy on the top of the train. It was a beautiful day for hiking and we had a blast with our friends!

Me and my love and my puppy

My prego friend, Tasja!

Tasja, Lindsay, me and Cheryl at the waterfall!

We even got to see a train go by! How idyllic.



Tasja, Lindsay, me and Cheryl jumping on the bridge! The two on the end are pregnant but you can hardly tell when they are jumping!

Me and my Lindsay!

Another weekend Jordan and I joined the Beer Belly Bike Club for a morning ride. There were 11 of us total that biked about 19 miles off base. The town that we live in is out in farm country and it is really quite beautiful. It was a really tough ride for me, so I maintained the position of caboose for most of the ride. My poor sweet hubby took a spill and got pretty banged up. All a part of the mountain biking experience...right?

  

This was about half way through the ride. We had already biked about 9 miles and then stopped for a break under this tree in the middle of a wheat field! It was so beautiful to hear the wind rustle through the wheat. Ahhh!



Beautiful poppy field!



Jordan's boo-boo on his arm. His whole left side was pretty scraped up!



Jordan and I both had the day off for our one year anniversary, so we headed to Kizkalesi (Castle by the Sea) for the day. The weather was perfect and there was hardly anyone on the beach! We sunbathed for the afternoon. The salt water really stung Jordan's cut up body, so we only went in the water for a little bit. It sure helped heal it up though!

When the sun started to go down a Turkish man came up to us and asked if we wanted a picture. He then decided to pretty much give us a whole photo session, which was really nice of him! After the pictures, he suggested a delicious fish restaurant for dinner. He then told us that there was another couple going to the same restaurant, so we could just follow them. We met the other couple, and they led us to dinner! They were both Turkish, but born and raised in Germany. They were visiting for a wedding. We decided to have dinner together. It was very random, but fun! At the restaurant they took us to a big ice box and we got to pick out which fish we wanted to eat for dinner! It was seriously one of the best meals I've had in Turkey so far! What a perfect first anniversary!!



Waiting for our lunch to come! We thought this was the only picture we would have from our anniversary...but we were wrong!!

The Turkish man told us to look into each others eyes with a serious face. We weren't very good at it.



Enjoying the view and each other!



The Turkish man told us walk out a ways and then back towards him. I was just sure that someone would steal all our stuff while we were walking away...but they didn't!



Me and my love at the Castle by the Sea!



It was so beautiful!! I'm so glad we got these pictures! Yay for nice people!



This is the ice box fully of fishies! Mmmmm 

This was our beautiful dinner view!

Last weekend we headed out to Cappadocia with our friends Lindsay and Jordan! I went there for the women's retreat in March, but Jordan had never been before. This is the same Cappadocia in the Bible that heard the Gospel in their own language from Galileans on the day of Pentecost shortly after Jesus was resurrected (Acts 2).

We stayed at a perfect little hotel. In the morning, we got up early to have breakfast and watch the hot air balloons. We then had a delicious cappuccino and a clever little coffee shop called Coffeedocia. Then we headed out to the Open Air Museum in Goreme. The area has dozens of churches cut out of the rock where early Christians met in the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries. There are beautiful frescos on many of the walls. It was so crazy to me to be deep in the heart of Muslim country surrounded by rich Christian history.

After the museum we went on a 4 hour ATV ride through the country side. Jordan chose to ride a motorcycle and had the time of his life. I thought this was the best part of the trip. Cappadocia is stunningly beautiful, and this is a great way to see everything! We made a lot of stops for pictures. By the end of the 4 hours we were sweaty and completely covered in dirt. Naturally, the next thing we did was go to a Turkish Bath!

I absolutely LOVED the Turkish Bath! It was my first time...and I would seriously go every day if I could. Obviously I didn't take any pictures...so I'll explain it! There is a separate area for men and women. We first went into the sauna for about 15 minutes. Then you rinse off in a shower. Then you go into the bath area where there are lots of naked people. You lay down, and a Turkish lady pretty much rubs all your dead skin off. Then you get a wonderful soap massage with big huge soap bubbles. Then they rinse you off, and you jump into a cool pool and swim around for awhile. Then you go into a steam room for a bit. Then you dry off and sit and have some tea. And that's it! It was amazing and I felt like royalty! Lindsay and I had a great time. You'll have to ask Jordan about his time. =) Let's just say he wasn't quite as enthusiastic as I was.

We had a delicious dinner together  after we were all squeaky clean! The next day we got up early again to watch the balloons. We then went to a different coffee shop and had the most delicious coffee ever. I got a blended coffee and it was amazing! (yes, we are addicts) Then we went shopping...mostly for others, a bit for ourselves! We had a delicious, lazy lunch and then went wine tasting for a little bit. After that we started the long drive home! Ahhhh perfect weekend with good friends!  Lindsay and Jordan are leaving Turkey next month and we are very sad to have to say goodbye to them! =( This trip was their last Turkey hoorah!



Hot air balloons on our first morning. This picture was taken from the veranda where we were enjoying our breakfast!

I thought this sign was funny at Coffeedocia. Cappadocia is a tourist town, so there are many signs in English, and most people speak English as well.

The Jordans waiting for their cappuccinos!

This was taken at the open air museum. If you look closely you can see the little caves.

Me and Lindsay listening to our audio guide at the museum!

Jordan in captivity at the museum. How can you say no to that face?? I can't.



There was a shovel back in this cave and so I told Jordan to act like he was digging a hole. And he did. Yeah, we are those tourists!

Hanging out at the beautiful museum!



First stop on the ATV ride. Some beautiful valley that I don't remember the name of.



Jordan, myself, and Lindsay being silly. Apparently I forgot to take my ridiculous helmet off. This is Jordan's favorite picture from the weekend.



Another beautiful valley! Enjoying the view with my love!

Lindsay is a gymnast and insists on doing handstands in dangerous places. She did one on the James Bond Bridge too! Her Jordan was right behind that rock ready to catch her if she fell. But she's a professional, so she didn't fall. Also it looks like she is missing her left hand...how strange.  

If you look closely you will see some proof that God has a sense of humor! They are called fairy chimneys and people used to live in them!

Taking a little break from the AVT. Jordan made me do this.

More fairy chimneys! This was a stop that we made where we rested and had some tea. The Turks drink hot tea year round...it's not particularly refreshing in the heat. This little valley was absolutely beautiful and these are all different fruit trees.



This was after our Turkish bath. We were looking for a place to eat dinner...this was not it.




This is the start of day two! I was seriously so excited about the hot air balloons that I couldn't sleep. It was about 5:45am here. I counted 67 balloons! Crazy!

Good morning Cappadocia!!! You're beautiful!

My beautiful friends posing with our yummy coffee!

This is where we tasted some wine. I love that man!

Jordie found this amazing door and thought it would be a good photo opportunity! He was right...as usual.

I love this one so much! My love!