In the islands at last....

andros at its best

this is actually "our beach," the rig and warship aren't the prettiest, but the water feels great and is crystal clear

Hello friends...greetings from Andros, a lovely Greek island in the Aegean Sea. It is still over 100 degrees, but right now we are cool and sitting in the one internet cafe on the island. We had to take a bus to get here from our hotel, wait outside for an hour and a half, but finally here we are again on the blog. :)

First, a few words about how we got here:

We traveled to Thessaloniki after Meteora. Now, I don't like to say bad things about places that I travel to...after all, I'm a tourist in and out in a few days; how could I really judge a place? But let's just say that our activities in Thessaloniki included buying a DVD of My Big Fat Greek Wedding and watching it our hotel room...sleeping...struggling through the incredibly stifling city on a self-guided walking tour...and then sleeping some more until we could get the train out. Here are a few pictures:

there I am, locked out of a 3rd century church that we had just watched a man get admitted to...and here is the Roman agora, under excavation since 1973...we especially liked the lovely apartment buildings surrounding the whole thing.

This church, modeled after Hagia Sofia in Istanbul, had some real, real, old frescoes and mosaics. These are from the 8th century:

So...we left Thessaloniki in the morning, and traveled twelve hours yesterday to get here...via our feet, the train, taxi, bus, ferry, another bus...and finally found ourselves at a lovely beachside hotel at a little harbor town. We grabbed our usual dinner and dessert (gyros and ice cream, PLUS a beer this time, all for 12 euro total), and headed for bed. Today was a lazy day at the beach, and then the pool...and we plan the same for tomorrow. :)


Hey, see below for new pics added from the monastery hike!