Cretan Christmas!

We haven't seen any reindeer yet, but we are keeping our eyes open. If ever there was a place that Santa and his crew would hang out, this is it!
Imagine if you will this scene from Tyrn's point of view in the driver seat. Kelsey, his lovely wife, is trying to take a picture of a roadside donkey, when it decided to come right in the window. Animals are very friendly here and we couldn't help but think of Mary riding a donkey to Bethlehem at Christmas, quite fitting.

Christmas Eve

Even though Greece is not a balmy 25 degrees in the winter, it can be quite nice, especially on the south coast of Crete. Even if the locals thought we were loco, these Canadians relished in the fact that we're not in 3 feet of snow and headed to the beach for a swim. We'll admit, it was a bit chilly, but at least it wasn't frozen.

It was tricky, but we did manage to do some secret Christmas shopping in Athens before we came to the island. Buying gifts while backpacking presents the continual problem: "Would I want to pack this with me for the next 6 months?" We bought socks from street vendors in Egypt, and then filled them with goodies. Alas, the stockings were hung by the chimenea with care, in hope that Saint Nick would soon find them there.

Christmas Day

Ty REALLY loving his new touque that he pulled from his stocking. It seems that even across the world in Europe a Canadian style gift had to be given at Christmas. Hey Kelsey, you're looking a little sleepy. Wake up, don't you know it's Christmas?
These socks aren't quite as big or stretchy as our wonderful stockings at home, but we did the best we could.

Kelsey with her Christmas gifts. She is back to lying down, apparently she needs a little sister to properly wake her up on Christmas morning.
Ty's favourite is the model plane that he has already put together and moved on to a puzzle. Not the most practical backpackers gift, but the funnest one for sure.

Pretty much the rest of our Christmas was spent trying to communicate with people back home. We were fortunate enough to borrow a laptop from the people who own the hotel that we are staying at to say Merry Christmas to Canada. Unfortunately, the connection is not very good here and so we had to try for a VERY long time to actually get a signal to call home. We were able to talk to both families back home. We would like to say that we did our best to have a great Christmas in Greece and we did a pretty good job. But we definitely felt that something was missing when you're not spending Christmas with family and friends.

Touring Crete

We had to say goodbye to our beloved 5 speed yesterday and so we are limited to our very immediate area from now on. But before we gave over the keys, we got to know the middle section of Crete quite well. The island is large and as you can see from the above picture it is very beautiful and the roads very windy. So, we did have grand plans to see it ALL, but we soon changed our minds when it took us all day to drive an inch and back on the map.

Silver olive groves are really putting on a show for their visitors, they are gorgeous. This is the season to pick the olives and the trees are bursting with fruit.

The sunset never seizes to astonish us. We could have many pictures here, as well as more of the landscape or activities that we have done, but we will wrap it up, so you readers can get back to your holiday fun. On one of the outings we took the car to was the gorge that is a 10 minute drive from here.
After hikng down the steep gorge, we were welcomed with a clear stream to refresh our feet in.
Our first days on the island were greeted with amazing weather! However, the last couple of days have turned sour. We are being blasted by very strong wind and small spurts of rain.
This is the tree outside of our window. It may not look too crazy to you, but it normally has it's fronds hanging down like an umbrella and is now being whipped and pulled by the wind. Don't worry this weather won't stop us, despite the real issue of being blown off the cliff, Tyrn and I decided to walk in the wind today.

Now that Christmas is over, we look to the beginning of 2008. So to everyone reading,

Happy New Year!

K & T

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

We're spending our first Christmas together on the isle of Crete in Greece. We wanted to find a special place for us to wash out the sand from Egypt as well as start some family traditions, and we found it. The criteria: 1) It had to be a bit nicer than our regular backpacker digs. We wanted our own bathroom, a comfortable bed, and a kichen. 2)It had to have an ocean view. 3)It had to have a great place to read and relax with a hot chocolate. 4)It had to have internet so that we can tell you all about it and send you Christmas wishes. 5) It had to be warm and cozy and feel like Christmas. 6)In had to be in the Christmas budget.

We thought this would be a tough bill to fill, but Ty spyed this sweet locale and these fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants backpackers actually made a Reservation . (Oooooooooh!) If that's not impressive enough, we hung up our walking shoes for a swanky little 5 speed rental so that we can explore our home for the holidays.

This is our building. Check out the stylin' white hatchback parked in front. That would be our swanky little 5 speed. We have an ocean view, but we haven't captured a good picture of it yet.

Our front door.
Home sweet home.


Crete has an AMAZING landscape, and can not be reduced to any photo. We haven't actually gone hiking around yet, but we snapped this one from the car. Stay tuned for more pictures of Crete and our Christmas celebrations.
To get to Crete, we took a surprisingly luxurious ferry ride from Athens. This is no BC ferry. This one has a pool (closed for winter), a movie theatre, multiple dining rooms and lots of shopping. (Great for last minute Christmas shopping). Our "Deck" seats were plush recliners in a cozy carpeted room with TV.

Athens was beautiful, but our time there was bittersweet.
Bitter..

When you leave the Bahariyya

where you ate Egyptian Pita..

Diarrhea Diarrhea

We don't actually know what made us sick, but we thought it would be fun to sing a song about it. Because of our affliction, we had to stay fairly close to home.

Sweet:
During our more adventurous quests away from the toilet, we did manage to see some sights as well as do some secret Christmas shopping for each other. The shopping was tricky in our area because of the insane density of hardware stores, and although Kelsey may have wanted a power saw, it wouldn't have fit well in her backpack OR her stocking.

The Acropolis is the ancient Greek icon. Like every other famous site we've been to in Europe, the Acropolis was dressed in scaffolding. Still, it is beautiful and stirs the imagination.

The goddess, Athena, from which Athens was named.
The ancient theatre of Dionysus is not only an archetectural masterpiece, but is also one of the cornerstones of western art and culture.
Merry Christmas once again to all, and to all a good night.

K & T

Luxor By Day and Night

In a place famous for it's ancient tombs and embalming facilities, you need to keep a sense of humor. Luxor (aka al-uqsur) is one of the ancient capital cities of Egypt, south of Cairo along the Nile river. Ancient Pharaohs like Tut and Ramses made their tombs on the West side of the Nile, where the sun sets; the side of Death. On the dry and rocky West side lies the "Valley of the Kings", where Pharaohs had their tombs tunneled deep into the mountain side, up to 250 m deep. Every bit of surface in the tunnels and tombs is symbolically carved and painted so that their ka or soul would recognize their bodies and take them into the afterlife. SPOOKY STUFF!

None of these tombs were ever intended to be visited again by people, but since Howard Carter unearthed Tut's tomb in 1922, the Valley of the Kings has become a major tourist spot. This is the scene today:On the other side of those mountains is a huge structure built into the side of the mountain for the sole purpose of the embalming of ONE Queen. It took 19 years to build it and was used only once for the 70 day long embalming rituals of Queen Hatshepsut (aka Queen Hot Chicken Soup). Pretty serious stuff for a woman who married her brother and had all of her statues made with beards so that she'd look more like a man.

Luxor is a very hot and dry place, which has helped to preserve the carvings and paintings that dress every stone surface. The colours are still bright and the carvings haven't eroded at all. Speaking of antiquities, Egypt is on a completely different scale than Europe. These carvings were made sometime around 1150 BC.


CONTRASTS:
Egypt is the land of contradictions and contrasts. Headscarves vs. Bellydancers - The Nile vs. The Desert - Shiny shoes vs. dirty streets. In honour of these, we'd like to show you some of the contrasts we saw in Luxor.

Day

Night

Day

Night (this one has a few contrasts within itself)
ps, I think I know the secret of how they built the Pyramids!

Serious

Silly

Serious

Silly

Serious

Silly

Serious

Sexy

SeriousSilly

This one speaks for itself

Cars without pyjamas

Cars with pyjamas

And with the end of our trip to Luxor came the end of our time travelling with our good friends Marc & Kylie who are heading to Israel, Turkey and onwards. Check out their blog (sidebar) for their take on Luxor and Egypt, as well as many other things.



Ok, this post is getting long, but we really haven't said enough about how great it has been to visit our cousin Jody who is teaching at an international school in Cairo. Jody, we love you, and not just your great apartment! We ended up staying with Jody a little while longer than expected since we MISSED OUR PLANE TO GREECE! Oops! (Moms and Dads, we know you're thinking "Didn't we teach you anything?!") It's true, we set our alarm for the wrong time, and then slept through the alarm. On the bright side, we get to spend a couple more days with Jody in Cairo. Also, it will be hard to go from the Egyptian Pound back to the Euro.

Jody took us "whomping" in the Wadi, which translates to walking in a dry river valley. Jody bikes and hikes out here often to get away from the craziness of Cairo.



And, to finish this long post, here's a laugh. I decided that my hair was too long for travelling. I bought this high quality device so that I could keep it short in the hot Asian and Indian climates ahead. There's no better time to try a buzz cut than on a trip around the world. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.


Maybe the 3mm comb was a bit too short...

- Tyrn