Athens again...

So much to report and I don't have my travel journal with me (thanks Anne for the perfect gift). Plus we are paying by the hour for internet access. But as soon as we get home, I will backfill with a detailed account. We have, in short, completed our cruising portion of the trip and leave early tomorrow morning for a 3 day tour of the Peloponnese. We saw some wonderful islands, towns and cities. Most enjoyed the less touristy  spots such as Syros, Paros, Aegina. We had a great day puttering around the Plaka and Athens Flea Market and have decided we need to buy an additional bag to get stuff home. I'm struggling with the whole jewelry thing...there are simply so many jewelry stores that it's overwhelming. We have seen lots of monuments and ruins--details and hopefully pictures to come. The islands were incredibly scenic, but it has been hot and humid until yesterday when we got an unusual heavy rain and it cooled things off a bit. Exploring the islands always means climbing either roads or stairs, so we get plenty dirty and sweaty. Athens traffic is crazy. Greek food is wonderful. We have eaten way too much, thanks in part to the great cook on the boat. Got rained out of our folk dance performance last night, but hopefully can use our rain check when we return on our way to Crete. That's it for now. Oh, did I mention how weird it is to use the internet in Greek. Not even being able to read the alphabet, much less the street names, gives whole new dimension to "it's all Greek to me" :-)

We're going to Greece!

I think it finally sank in when I counted out my last vitamins into the daily pill minder last night. NO, I haven't left all the planning and packing to 3 days before the trip, but it finally feels like we're going...WOW!
{An aside is in order. BUFA is a small exclusive organization limited--I think--to just the extended McMillen clan. It was established a few years back by the talented Joanita McMillen.] Anyway, we're going for 3 weeks. The first two will be with a smallish group from Las Vegas and California with a woman who runs "Drifter Sister." She does small group tours to Europe primarily and you can see our itinerary (or an approximation of it) here. The third week will be on the island of Crete and we will be joined for about 3 days by dear friends from England, Di & Brian Gowers. I don't know how often we will have access to computers, but we'll try to keep this updated. If we can figure it out, maybe we'll even post pictures...or put them in after we get back. Stay tuned!