Top 10...or so

Shelly and me having our coffee

In honor of Shelly White, who is on this trip with me, I am going to come up with around 10 things I have learned so far while in Greece.  Shelly has been sending home lists of 10 things each day.  It has taken me three days to come up with ten because there is too much to process.  Shelly said one of the 10 things she learned was that she gets carsick...but not as carsick as me.  Glad I can be of service.

It turns out that originally, the group was supposed to fly into Istanbul on the 23rd of April and then spend a little time in northern Greece before getting on the ship to tool around the Mediterranean...see, I didn't know that because I signed up for this trip so much later.  So, instead of spending the last two days driving as we have (11 hours yesterday and 8 hours today), we would have been here one day less and seen a little more.  Truthfully, we have seen a lot of Greek countryside and only a few memorable monuments/relics/ruins.  Lots of Greek countryside, I repeat.

route from Friday April 25th

Greek Countryside looks a lot like the mountains of North Carolina countryside.  Pretty green covered mountains and some plains.  So, we have had all this driving time and it has given Maria, our tour guide until tomorrow when we cross into Turkey lots of Greek information to share with us.  I have retained a little of it.  I think I might have retained more if we had gotten out of the bus more than twice and actually walked around and seen, touched and smelt the different places we slowed down but still simply drove past.

For instance, I will never forget the green rectangular garbage can where I threw away my motion sickness bag on the side of the highway.  There was a blue garbage can next to it.  It was nice.

Anyway, I have learned more than 10 things, but since I am here and you are there and maybe are interested, I will share some of what I have learned so far.

1.  Those plains I talked about above that are surrounded by pretty green mountains:  those plains are where important battles took place.  The battles took place on the plains because that was often were the food was for both man and beast.  They would fight all day and then fortify themselves and their battlements at night.

2.  Most Greek young adults have moved out of the country looking for work.  There are some here, but in my very informal and unscientific survey, the tour guides' daughters are living abroad for work and the waiter at the restaurant we went to tonight is trying to leave for the Netherlands where he hopes to finish his masters and also get work.  Yes, the economic strain is showing from what I can tell here.  Many many many buildings are either half built or in various stages of disrepair.   So many.

3.  "OK"  means ola kala in Greek, which translates to "always well."

4.  There are over 6,000 islands that make up Greece.  We have seen them only from the bus so far.

5.  The major economic forces in Greece are 1. Greek merchant navy, 2. tourism, 3. agriculture, and 4. money sent to Greece from abroad (from Greeks who live outside of Greece, which I found to be telling and interesting).

6.  Alexander the Great was tutored by Aristotle who was tutored by Pluto who was tutored by Socrates, which means he had a pretty amazing education.

7.  Harry Truman is beloved by Greeks since he provided financial aid to Greece through the Marshall Plan and Truman doctrine.

8.  We saw in the distance a peninsula called Avadon where there are 20 monasteries by which no woman is allowed within 500 meters.  One must get a special dispensation to visit and stay no longer than 1 night at each monastery...only if one is a male.  Even if flying by helicopter the 500 m rule applies.

9.  The Apostle Paul walked nearly 1400 miles during his missionary journeys.  Which is about how far we have driven, or so it seems.

10.  Alexander the Great said:  "For me, any good foreigner is a Greek, and any bad Greek is worse than a barbarian."  I like that.

We drove another long distance today and were able to get to our hotel outside of Alexandroupolis by around 4:30 this afternoon.  We stopped to see the location where Paul baptized Lydia as one of the first converts in the area of Philippi.  We also saw a prison cell near the place where Paul may have been imprisoned and saw a beautiful amphitheater that at one time would have seated 12,000 people and is still in use today.  It was raining, though, so it wasn't as lovely as it could have been.

commemorating the spot where Paul baptized Lydia

the church ruins in Philippi

I really want to return to Kavala, a pretty town jutting up from the Aegean with houses and apartment buildings nearly standing on top of one another.  It was really pretty there.

Kavala-a beautiful city on the Aegean

Finally, we arrived at our hotel and a few of us took a public bus into town and walked around, found a little cafe and had some fantastic coffee (me a double espresso, it was the best ever) and then, we wandered around until we found a little restaurant for dinner.  We couldn't face another hotel buffet.  And, this little restaurant singlehandedly resurrected my love of Greek food.  It was so good.  Not only that, but it felt like we had experienced a little of Greece the way it was meant to be experienced.

the  food that resurrected Greece for me

As I said, we leave for Turkey and Istanbul is our first stop tomorrow.  It might be another long day of driving.  I have loaded up on dramamine so I am good for the time being.

Good night.
  taking too long to upload pictures and I am tired, I will upload them tomorrow am...

a memorial (one of hundreds) that line the roadsides