Visitor

The only person who came to visit us, besides Steve's family, was a gentleman who Steve has been friends with since they were, like, three. His name is Matt Flynn.
Most people working on cruise ships get visitors when the boat is in Puerto Rico or Italy or Spain. But Matt visited us when we were in the port town of Alexandria, Egypt.

This was because he, too, was in Alexandria as he has been traveling the world for quite some time now.

By traveling the world, I don't mean going to Europe and drinking in pubs with other Americans. I mean like sleeping in mosquito-infested tents in Kenya ("I usually spend the extra two dollars for the net. Otherwise, I'm guaranteed malaria," he told us) or hitching rides with sheep farmers in the Sudan. Like, the WORLD.

It was definitely bizarre for Matt to go from seeing the parts of the world that have literally nothing to then bunking one night on one of the biggest, most lavish cruise ships out there. He wasn't judgemental about it, but Steve and I still felt the need to apologize for everything we had. Like clean sheets. Changed daily. Not by us. You get the point.



Here is a picture of Matt post-sip of a delicious glass of orange juice that was delivered, free of charge, to our room that morning, along with cereal and an assortment of toast and muffins and other sundries. The steward who delivered our room service was Kenyan.

Parthe-none

We made it to the Acropolis. It was about 147 degrees out, but we made it.



Just to be clear, "Acropolis" refers to any high city, or the edge of a town (from the Greek "acron," which means edge, and "polis," which means city). The Acropolis in Athens is a complex that includes, among other things, the Parthenon, which is a temple devoted to Athena Parthos, or Athena the Virgin, the Temple of Athena Nike, or Athena of Victory, The Theater of Dionysus, and a lot of sand and rubble and fat tourists.


There is a very good possibility that I am suffering from Important Stuff Immunity. We have seen so much in so little time, that I could be done with freaking out over ancient runes. Perhaps nothing short of Athena herself welcoming me into her famous monument would have satisfied me as we walked up the slippery rocks of the Acropolis.

But I don’t think that is it. I think one of the reasons the Acropolis as a whole is so disappointing is that the site itself is more picked over than T.J. Maxx on a Friday.

A dude named Lord Elgin took pretty much all the beautiful sculptures form the Parthenon back to England with him. Back in the 1800s you didn’t bring back postcards and t-shirts of ancient treasures – you brought back the treasures themselves. It seemed like everywhere we looked, there is a picture of what was there and an explanation of where it is now.
This is the East pediment of the Parthenon.

I saw more of the East Pediment when I was at the British Museum.

I think what I will remember most from the Acropolis is this girl in the green and white striped shirt.

When we were making our way up the stairs to the Parthenon, this chunker climbed over some rocks and smacked Jennine in the face with her sandal. She looked Jennine in the eye and didn't say a word of apology. She made me so. Angry. I'm angry just thinking about her, dressed like a pack of Fruit Stripe gum.
Sometimes the most innocuous thing becomes your clearest memory.

Cody agreed. He told us, “I remember going on this awesome field trip in grade school to the Mayan runes. But the only thing I still remember about the trip is that Robby Herrera got detention for throwing a juice box at a rival school’s bus.”

He paused. "Actually it might have been Incan runes. But, I know for a fact the juice box was a Capri-Sun."

Boo

My biggest piece of luggage (a 52" long duffel bag) is still happily sitting in Heathrow airport.

It had everything in there. Even stuff they tell you to always pack in your carry-on. Like my house keys.

Worst of all, though, it had all my presents in there. I bought a lot of stuff - small stuff - for a lot of people. And I was very excited to give them a piece of my journey and to let them know I was thinking about them while far away.

Until then, here is a picture of the Blue Mosque.


And the inside of the Hagia Sophia in Turkey.

These pictures might seem random, given the subject of this entry.

But, did I mention my camera is in the bag, too?

Please...Stay With Me.

Hi Friends!

Our trip got a little out of hand busy and my blog slowly suffered because of it. Like one of those Nanopets. Remember? You had to play with it or it would die?



But, the blog isn't dead. I've got a lot more adventure to speak of. Like how we saw Woody Allen in Barcelona. Or how we went to a soccer game in Turkey.

So, now that I have some reliable internet, please stay with us. I'll be updating regularly again. Play with the blog and feed it and take it for walks. Because it doesn't really exist without you guys.

Love,
Katie (and Steve)

Turkish Nights

Sorry I haven't been here in a while. How have you been? We've been busy, with Europe and all. Also, Steve's parents were here and Saturday was, ahem, my birthday.

Anyway, we left off in Turkey.
After our dinner, it was time to dessert hunt. Here you can see Steve looking painfully at the honey-dripping baklava.

I'm not huge into dessert. Did you know Turkish Delight is just gummy candy with powdered sugar on top?
I thought it was gross. But Steve was mainlining the stuff.

In the end, we had popcorn and soda for dinner because we went to a movie!

Ah, we hadn't been in a movie theater in months! The only movie that was in English (with Turkish subtitles) was Spiderman 3, but we didn't care.

We were just so happy to be in a movie theater!

We're lucky we didn't care, because Spiderman 3 sucked. Big time.
Also, there is an intermission in Turkish movie theaters. Not at an appropriate time, just whenever. This one happened in the middle of someone's dialogue. Someone's painfully acted, poorly written dialogue.

(BLOG TRIVIA! What 1990s cartoon character hawks soda in Turkish movie theaters? Answer: Fido Dido.)