Sunday, November 8, 2009

lazy bones

Helloooooo! We have just 1 week left of our backpacking adventure.... and we have been totally crap at updating!!! Thankfully, there's not too much for me to type. :)
We spent lots of time in Dahab after Jordan, diving twice a day, eating yummy Egyptian food at local shops, reading, smoking (and buying our own!) sheesha... We were meant to head off to Luxor to check out the sights, but then.... Oli got the Temple trots, Cairo craps, whatever you may call them. Anywho, 18 hours on a bus (egyptian bus, no less) was not the best plan, so we decided to push our trip back a day... and the following day he was no better and I was worse for wear as well. Doesn't it figure, at the end of our trip!? Well, what better place to be ill than next to the Red sea, surrounded by the nicest locals yet. We made lots of friends at our hotel/restaurant/dive shop, and basically spent the rest of our time hanging out with them within running distance to the bathroom! Not what we planned, but not too shabby! We loved Egypt anyway, so we will be back, and next time we will head to Luxor first before we fall into the Dahab black hole. On the 1st we headed to Cairo for the night, hung out with an Egyptian friend of ours for the evening, and headed out the following day on a flight to Athens.

Dahab piccies:



Upon arrival in Greece, we headed into town to pick up a bag we had left in storage at the hostel, grabbed a few drinks, then "slept" in the airport. Of all the airports we have slept in (5, 6?) Athens was by far the worst. The shops never close, so music is blaring all night, and thoughtfully they have chairs with awkward armrests, so you can't even recline. I slept on a table, and Oli hunched over himself. We were please when 3:30 came and it was time to check in. Zoom forward, we landed in Chania, Crete! After a bit of waiting, our rental car arrived, we plodded on down to a grocery store to stock up on the essentials (taramasalata, wine, pita, and tzatziki) then to Almirida to meet Jo and get the keys for our new temporary home! We are staying at the holiday home of some friends of Susie and James', and we are so so pleased! Gorgeous views of snow capped mountains to one side, the blue blue sea to the other, a full kitchen, and a COUCH. We had some lunch, smoked our sheesha, then took a nice 5 hour nap. Luxury! Then next day we headed in for a wander around Chania, oblivious to the fact that Crete practices the ancient art of the SIESTA. Shops were closed for 4-5 hours, so we had a bit of a walking tour, grabbed more groceries, and headed home. And it was a home that we hibernated until today. Sleeping, reading, reading, sleeping, eating, relaxing. We needed a bit of down time after this past year, and as we will still be hopping around from parents home to parents home then moving to parents home, we relished the quiet and solitude. We emerged from our cocoon today to find everything closes on Sunday. Drats. Ah well, this next week will be busy- we gotta make our last week count! Next Monday, we fly back to London, then I head off to Melbourne until the day before Thanksgiving. We must enjoy this lovely weather while we can. LOVE and MISS you all!!! We're comin' home soon.