Goodbye Europe

Someone told us that last post's windy picture didn't look that windy, so Ty decided to show you just how windy it was.

This is our last post from Europe as we will be heading to Thailand tomorrow. Aaaahhhh! Today marks the end of the first part of the trip. In case you haven't noticed, we ocassionally put a poll question on the blog. According to the 2 people who've voted so far, Europe was boring but Egypt lights it up.

These Are A Few Of Our Favourite Things:

Greek. It's a fun language to try to figure out. They use both the english and the greek alphabet, so you're always switching the way you pronounce things you read. Spelling is an art here, at best. We've seen words, even names of cities spelled up to 5 different ways.

The Landscape. The Cretan (we love that word) landscape is extreme. Steep rocky mountains rising out of the sea. It reminds Kelsey a lot of Norway, actually. We had a car for a week so we got to cruise around the switchbacks and gorges. Gorgeous. ; )

Olive Groves. Olive trees are olive coloured, but have a silvery shine to them and twisty, knarled looking trunks. PS, olives are NOT tasty when eaten off the tree!

Christmas Lights. Greece has great Christmas lights up on the streets and Christmas tunes playing in the stores. We probably only noticed it because we were in Egypt a few weeks ago, and although there are Christians there, Christmas isn't "in the air" like we're used to.

Random Thoughts & Observations:

The town we stayed in was a real beach town. Plakias is layed back, and pretty quiet in the "winter".
Greeks love to smoke! Right up there with Portugal, no public place is safe.

Tyrn finished his masterpiece. You're looking at 500 pieces of a Canadian lake, put together in Greece. Go figure.

And so ends Europe, well, for this trip. Thank You, Obrigado, Gracias, Merci, Grazie, Shukran, and Efkaristo. (It's the only word we remember in every language we've used so far.) Please feel free to look back on our trip and vote. The winning country will recieve a prize.

See you in Thailand,

T & K

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