Thankful for Thanksgiving!

I've been thinking that I really like Thanksgiving. What a great holiday, I mean, it started from two ethnically different groups of people celebrating the ways they helped each other out. Another great thing about this holiday is that there isn't a whole lot that the commercialization sector of society can do to ruin it. There's no stress over what to give someone or what you're getting (don't get me wrong, I love a good gift as much as the next gal but sometimes it can be too much) and the decorations aren't even that different from the Halloween ones (similar color schemes at least--unless you go way into the scary stuff). It's a whole holiday about eating good food, being with friends and family, and taking a moment to think about all the things/people/situations that you're grateful for. What could be more uplifting than that? Yup, this holiday is quickly becoming one of my favorites. I am a bit sad that I won't get to help my mom and sisters whip up a cooking frenzy the day before and the day of the feast--not to worry, I'm grateful for those memories, and am looking forward to having a great time this year! Since I won't see any of you on this gratifying day, let me know at least one thing you're thankful for in your comments.

First Snow in Denmark!

Just so you know, it's snowing here. We've been listening to Christmas music for about two and a half weeks now.

Cruise Rundown

So this is the post that you’ve all been waiting for. I know it’s a month after the fact but all I can say is sorry, and here it is. (Sorry it's so long, I tried to make it concise.)

Our first official stop was a small Greek island, Mykonos. I really didn’t have any desire to go swim on a beach (European beaches are a little too “open” for my tastes), but the Keetch kids were all about swimming so we went to the beach and I watched. The beach was pretty rocky and the water was kind-of cold. (This is not a picture of the beach where they swam, I just liked that the road/walkway was so close to the water.)

Then I walked around the town a bit and took this cool picture. Mykonos is the typical “Greek” city, with the whitewashed buildings and blue trim. Myriad walkways between houses and few streets.



Our second stop was Kusadasi, Turkey (said, kushadas'ie). While here we took a tour out to see the ruins at Ephesus. These were really some of my favorite ruins that we saw. It was truly incredible to think of all of the stuff that happened here. There are tons and tons of ruins, you could spend days exploring them all. We felt a bit gypped because our tour was only a few hours and we had to move on so quickly. I really enjoyed seeing the amphitheater where Paul preached and then later was taken before the tribunal when he was imprisoned.

This is in front of the facade of the Library.
One of the Ancient Seven Wonders of the World (designated such by Alexander the Great) used to be here. The British now have the Temple of Artemis in their museum--but originally it was here.

The third stop was on the Greek isle of Rhodes. This is a truly medieval town with the outer walls and the fortress intact and in really great condition. A second Wonder of the World was here--the Colossus of Rhodes. It fell in an earthquake but it was said to stand at the mouth of the harbor. This was a great place to shop.



On Sunday September 28, we were in Cyprus. As everything was closed, I didn’t even go ashore but took this picture from the boat. Isn’t the water beautiful?



The fifth stop is another biggie--Egypt. Alexandria (where we docked) was the sight of the mighty Faros--the lighthouse that Alexander the Great built. But as most of the ancient Alexandria is now under water, the small sandy island that was the foundation of the lighthouse washed away soon after the lighthouse burned down. Actually, they have found remains of Cleopatra’s palace underwater and are currently beginning to build an underwater tunnel through which tourists can walk to see the palace. Of course, here we saw the pyramids (the Great Pyramid of Giza is another and the only standing Ancient Wonder). Yes, they are huge.



And amazingly the three famous ones are practically inside the city limits. There have been no restrictions put on where people can build so they’ve built almost right up to the “doorstep” of the pyramids. I felt like it was very sad here. Sometimes I think that we (by we I me that this is what I’ve done) let our idea of what Egypt was once like taint what we think it’s like now. That’s wrong--there are no vestiges of a great civilization now.

Next stop was Athens. We went on a tour to see the Parthenon. As you can see, they are still restoring it. Did you know that none of the columns are exactly the same? If they were, you couldn't tell that there were so many of them.


From the Parthenon, we saw Mars Hill, where Paul preached again. Yeah, it's the big rock with people all over it. On the right side of the picture, you can see the Agora, where the people would have gathered to listen to him preach.

What an amazing thing it is to see all of these great ruins of incredible civilizations still existing. And there would be more of the Parthenon left here if it wasn’t for one Lord (or maybe he was an Earl) Elgin who decided to take statues and pieces of the engravings back to England to decorate his garden. When he got back, he realized that he’d spent too much money and ended up selling them to the museum anyway. Boy, those British sure didn’t have much sense for preserving things for the country that owns them. We also got to see the Olympic stadium where the first modern Olympics were held. I’m not posting that picture because it wasn’t great as they were setting up for the opening celebration of MTV in Greece--Bono was coming.

Our second to last stop was Naples. We went on the tour of Pompeii. There is an amazing amount of artifacts still intact from this city because of the volcano in their backyard, Mt. Vesuvius. Knowing what kind of civilization they were in this ancient city made this day less “fun” for me.Token shot of the dead dog. Interesting that the people here died of asphyxiation from the gases and ash--they weren't burned. There would be nothing left if they were.


I liked the cross walks (stepping stones) in the streets. Notice the wheel ruts.




Our last tour was back in Rome. This was probably the worst of all the tours we went on. They really were just going through the motions. At the colosseum Scott wanted to go up to the second floor to get some pictures and the tour guides were really bugged with him--but he wasn’t going to leave a second time without seeing the upper level. Also, because it was a Sunday, the tour guides couldn’t take us into St. Peter’s Basilica (because they can’t be giving a tour on the sabbath in the Basilica)--this was fine, I thought, as long as they gave us a good spiel before letting us go in--but they didn’t. I did learn that all the “pictures” in the Basilica are actually mosaics. If you didn’t know this, you probably wouldn’t notice--I didn’t the first time I saw them.





Oh, we did see the Pope-mobile driving the Pope back to the Vatican--just a regular car with two little flags on the front.

So, that’s pretty much the two-cent version of the cruise--sorry that it took me so long.

Election Day Jitters

Just so you all know, it really is not fun to know that I am hours and hours ahead of you--I don't really get to wait up through the night as election results come in. Since the east coast polls don't even close for another four hours--I think--and I'm going to bed. I guess I'll just have to watch the progress throughout the morning tomorrow.

I know, I know I'm way behind in my posts--they're coming, I promise--don't give up on me now.