Back home, and gone again

We got home last Friday night and left again early Sunday morning for YMCA Family Camp. As you can imagine, it's been NONE STOP so we haven't had a moment to update the blog. Crete was our last Greek Island stop and we enjoyed it just as much as the others. We'll post pictures from Crete and Family Camp when we get back next Sunday. Hopefully we'll be able to fit in a post before work starts on Wednesday! Wow, I think I need a vacation! :-)

Santorini

Who could resist feeding a starving kitty some of your bread crusts?

The caldera of Santorini as seen from our hotel patio

Faf, Geoff, DeeDee, Arcia and Velina go for some caldera rim wine tasting

The view of the caldera from the out of the way town of Oia (ee - ah)

Some unique cycladic architecture

Out of the way Amorgos

After Naxos it was on to the town of Katapola (Kah - tah - poll - ah). We stayed on the left side

The Impressive cliff-hanging moni hozoviotissis on Amorgos...

Boasting an impressive set of stairs up to the entrance

The happy couple on a scooter ride overlooking Amorgos

Could there be any doubt Geoff's ready to take the plunge?

Naxos and Friends

DeeDee and Geoff overlook the interior of Naxos island on their rented ATV

Fariba, Valina and Arcia arrive in Naxos

DeeDee, Arcia and Geoff (not pictured) explore Naxos' historic old town

The sun setting through the remains of a ancient greek temple at Naxos

The team (DeeDee not pictured) in front of what is probably the least reliable ferry in the history of the greek islands, the Super-Jet

Athens to the Islands

The sights in Athens were absolutely amazing! We spent one frantic day of sight-seeing there but we could easily have gone for two more (well... Geoff could easily have gone for more, DeeDee on the other hand was loosing some steam by the end of our historical-fact-filled marathon).

We started our day with the Acropolis, which we'll post some pics of because it is cool beyond words.

The Acropolis seen here from afar

Next we spent about an hour looking for Socrates "prison" only to learn when we found it that it was probably not really Socrates actual prison...

We ate our lunch at the best little Gyro stand around (albeit boiling hot) and spent the rest of the afternoon perusing the awe-inspiring archaeological museum

Later in the day we met up with our friend Carolyn and her friend Alex who are both living in Athens for a real Greek dinner experience. It was great! They were both awesome tour guides and they gave us the low-down on Greek culture and showed us some cool things like this changing of the guards at the Parliament building.

The next day were were up bright and early to head off to Naxos on the ferry. Some hours later we arrived, got settled in and climbed a little hill in the harbour to have a glass of wine and watch the sunset.

That's all for now because we can hardly handle the girl who's not really smoking her cigarette next to us, but rather letting the second-hand smoke drift our way while looking really cool.

Goodbye Croatia, Hello Greece!

After recovering from our vomerific ferry ride to Split we relaxed with a nice breakfast of eggs and multiple cappucinos while waiting for the agency renting us our room to open. When we finally made it over there DeeDee used her legendary charm and a bit of opportunistic engagement news reporting to get us an upgrade to a nicer place with AIR-CONDITIONING, hooray! Unfortunately the weather didn't really permit us to make full use of the AC because it was actually pretty cold.

Our activities in Split consisted of a nice walk up Marjan mountain that rises out of the edge of the city by the water and sports a decrptid communist era zoo. We didn't make it into the zoo but we did get a couple of cool pics of the view.

Later on we went on a Geoff-guided walking tour of the most interesting piece of history in Split. It is the oldest neighborhood in the city and is actually all contained within the walls of the vacation palace of the former Roman Emperor Diolectian. We saw all the touristy stuff like the Roman style marble maloseum turned Catholic Church and shopped for goodies in the basement market. As per usual, the best part of the palace was the more off the beaten track stuff we got to see. Since the engagement we've been thinking about different things that are representative of this trip to incorporate into the wedding. One thing we've been inspired by is the huge bougonvillias that are all over Croatia like this one we found in a corner of Diolectian's palace.

After finishing up with a less than mediocre day trip to Trogir and some "castles" (the only one we found wasn't much to look at) we flew off to Athens where we had a fantastic time despite having to stay in our first youth hostel (emphasis on "youth") of the trip.

Sunny skies!

After we finished our last post the rain cleared and the sun started shining. We rented a scooter and went galavanting about the country side of Hvar. Geoff was the driver of our 100cc scooter and did so with ease, manuvering around the steep country roads taking us to see sights that will never be forgotten.

It was nice to get out of the press of the city. It felt as if we had finally had an experience that was somewhat unique, which is something that we had been craving since we began our trip and where faced with the picture-taking, ice cream-eating hoards of tourists.

It was so much fun striking out on our own that when we reached the end of the paved road we decided to test the off road capabilities of our scooter. This might not have been the wisest move, but the man inspecting the scooter for damage at the end of the day didn't suspect a thing.

Another welcome relief from the yacht-oggling ice cream eaters was the hike that we took up to the medieval fortress overlooking the harbour. The view was spectacular and we were able to have some quiet moments taking in the scenery.

We left Hvar early yesterday morning and survived the worlds roughest and most vomit-filled ferry ride enroute to Split. The details are too grizzly to post, so let's just say we were both glad to have our Ipods to drown out all of the hurling.

We've had a good (but a bit cloudy and rainy) 2 days in Split and leave tomorrow afternoon for Athens, Greece. We'll update again soon. Love to all our friends, family and random bloggers!

Rain, rain go away!

It's raining here in Hvar which definately limits our activities for the day. We had a full day planned to rent a boat but instead we're just hanging around town enjoying the relief from the heat. Even with the cloudy skies and wet feet Hvar is still a beautiful town!

Lovely!

Thank you all for the comments and emails! We love you all and are so touched by your sweet words!

We are having a great time and loving spending time together in engagement bliss! We left Korcula yesterday and took a 3 hour ferry to Hvar.

Not much time so we thought we'd post a few pictures!

Engagement champagne and dinner

Sunset from our balcony in Hvar

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Notice anything special in this picture?!?!

Yesterday we took a local bus from Korcula to Lombarda, a small coastal town with not much more than a supermarket, restaurant and beaches. On our walk on the path by the sea we saw this small island.

We guessed it to be about 100 yards away from the mainland so we decided to go for the swim to have a nice quiet place to relax for the day. We were both excited about the trip until Geoff thought it was necessary to take a bag full of "things" across to the island by swimming with it over his head all the way there. DeeDee questioned his judgement but Geoff would not be deterred. Trying to get into the water was a comedy of errors. DeeDee waddled in with her sausage foot (see pic and story below!) and Geoff found that wet flip-flops have absolutely no traction when he fell directly on a sea urchin and had the spikes in his ass to prove it! We eventually made it there safe and sound but found the island already inhabited.

So it was just us, the sheep, a few lizards and sweet little purple wild flowers on the island. After catching our breath and taking in the sights Geoff decided to set up the camera to take a picture of us. Geoff set up the camera for the picture but little did DeeDee know that he had set it up to video record the proposal.

We spent the rest of the day on our island enjoying the moment and Croatian beer and peanuts which were transported to the island at great personal risk, but well worth it.

Everything was perfect and I could not have asked for a better proposal nor a better man to spend my life with!!

We can't wait to celebrate our engagement with you all! xoxo

Dubrovnik Continued...

Our time in Dubrovnik was great because the town was a lot of fun and it was a great place to ease into our travels. After a hectic and hot hike through the walled in old town we found our place at the top of 100 stairs in a neighborhood overlooking the harbour. The main problem with staying in private accommodation is that reception is not open 24 hours, and in this case, not ever open, or even a phone call away. After waiting at the top of the stairs with our bags for a couple of hours we made it into rooms Duje (doo-yay) where we discovered a nice spacious room and bed with only 15 pictures of Jesus on the cross looking down at us and an antique calendar from 2002. The best part about the accommodation was that it was in a cat infested neighborhood and far from being the blood thirsty, tourist-feasting cats we were expecting they were super friendly and Geoff wanted to save one in his backpack.

The main attraction in Dubrovnik is the old city walls. The view from atop the walls is simply amazing and we enjoyed it with a bottle of wine smartly purchased from the grocery store. A tip for the informed traveller: visit the wall close to closing time because you can enjoy the sunset from the towers and won't have to contend with as many of the endless hordes of tourists that pack into Dubrovnik.

Geoff and DeeDee at the top of the wall

Another highlight of our trip was having a drink at a bar nestled on the rocks between the wall and the sea. Listening to the waves crash on the rocks and drinking a cold beer was the perfect way to end our day of beaching and sight-seeing.

Here you can see the aftermath of a crazy insect sting that DeeDee got on our first day of walking around. As of press time her foot is still pretty swollen, meaning that the swelling hasn't gone down for almost a week (just fyi we've been treating DeeDee's foot with alergy pills and antihistamine gel, but any other advise would be welcomed). But, undeterred we press on to Korcula (kor-choo-la) for bigger and better things...

London, Dubrovnik and Korcula, oh my!

Our trip started off about as nicely as you could imagine, with Kelly and Clay Bavor playing host to an unbelievably nice day of jet-lagged sight seeing in London. DeeDee's expatriate college friends Kate and Cameron came down from somewhere in the boonies of England to hang out with us and enjoy the sights as well. Apparently when the weather gets at all sunny in the city, all the Londoner's strip down and find any little patch of grass there is to lay on. Who can blame them when they live in a place where the annual rainfall is about 150 feet.

We stayed up as late as possible to beat the jet lag before crashing for our early morning flight out of London to Dubrovnik, and that's where things got interesting...

Tune in to the next episode of the DeeDee and Geoff show when you'll read about crazy things like roving packs of blood thirsty cats and attacking insect swarms.

Where ya goin?

Just to get you as excited as I am, here is our itinerary! :-)

London

CROATIA:

Dubrovnik
Korcula
Hvar
Split

GREECE:

Athens
Naxos, Naxos
Katapola, Amorgos
Oi, Santorini
Chania, Crete
Heraklion, Crete

London (round 2)

Music recommendations?

I'm prepping my IPOD for hours and hours of travel and I'm at a stand still. Does anyone have any good albums/songs that I should download? Post a comment or email me!


PS- Still no GOOD news from the airline or hotwire (who we booked our ticket through), but I'll keep you posted.

4 days!

(wow, 2 posts in 1 day!)
As you see from my counter above, only 4 more days before our trip! I am so excited and I've made some time this week to read through our Lonely Planet and I keep getting more and more pumped. Geoff has done most of the planning and has really gone above and beyond. Well, no one is perfect.... let me explain.... Geoff innocently booked my ticket to Europe (7 months ago) under DeeDee instead of my legal name, Diane. We realized this over the weekend and thought it would be a pretty simple error to fix, maybe a fee of $150 or something, but nothing like THIS. In a nutshell, we have talked to every supervisor, every supervisors supervisor and NOBODY is budging. We have tried the get mad approach, that didn't work. We tried the cry and sob and make up extravagant stories, that didn't work. We even went to the airport with documents from the Superintendent of our district saying that my nickname is DeeDee and that I am, indeed, Diane. Nothing. Meanwhile, we've put another reservation for that day on hold (thanks to my parents air miles-- so grateful) and we are just hoping we won't have to use it and they'll let me (DeeDee) on the plane! We've been making several calls a day and won't stop until we leave. It just seems ridiculous that we can't get help with this. If you have any ideas of what to do, I'm all ears.

AFH 2008

What a week it's been! After 3 crazy days of work last Wednesday Geoff and I flew up to Seattle for our 2nd annual Abodeely Family Holiday. All 6 Abos, plus each of our loves were together all weekend at our house on Whidbey Island. The weekend was lovely and we we had just the right amount of activities and down time to really enjoy ourselves. We all really cherish our time together since it doesn't happen with all 10 of us very often. It was a perfect weekend, other than getting sick on my first day up there. Luckily I had my hippy siblings to pump me with all sorts of herbs. At one point they were giving me a piece of bark to suck on that apparently is given to bears before they hibernate - supposed to boost the immune system - weird, huh!!??
I'm so blessed to have such an amazing family, and an amazing partner to share them with!

Michelle and Tamara (Paul's love) at our Hulla Hoop party at the Whidbey Island 4th of July parade!

A few pics from the river

River rafting

Last weekend Geoff and I went with 10 friends to the American River and rafted the Middle Fork. We did the same trip last year, but this year stepped it up a bit and did Class III and IV (last year we did II and III) rapids. It was about 105 degrees on Saturday so being on the river was awesome- the water was freezing, and perfect! It was great to camp with friends and be away from the suburbs for awhile! Geoff had a complete impulse (and not so sober!) buy on Friday night at the store on the campground and bought an overpriced underwater camera, so I'll post pictures as soon as we get them developed.

Summer?!?!

It's officially summer, which by teacher standards means relaxation and fun. Things have been crazy though, and there hasn't been much time to relax! We finished the school year last Thursday and jumped right into summer school on Monday. I'm training two new teachers to take my job and also trying to make my transition over to my new program. It's been absolute insanity coordinating new staff and new students. Week one of summer school ended today, so only 3 to go and then we leave for our VACATION to Croatia and Greece.
Last week was very eventful with end of the year activities. My dear friend Erica came to visit and stayed the weekend with us. It was so nice to spend time with her. We managed to fit in plenty of parties and had a nice weekend.
I have a few pictures to post... but it is SO hot here today that I can't handle being on the computer for another minute!!! So, that's all for now....! xo

Teacher at heart

My dear friend Patrice "googled" me to find my blog and found this article.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/archives/1995/9502270041.asp
It absolutely made my day to read it this morning! I remember being an aide for students with disabilitities in junior high, but this really brought back all of the memories! This was such an amazing program and I think it speaks wonders to say that it's what first sparked my interest in being a special education teacher. And look.... 14 years later I'm still passionate about it!

Graduation video

My sister's boyfriend graduated from Chinese Medicine school this weekend in Santa Cruz. We are very proud of him and all of his hard work. Here's the video of him entering into his graduation. Congratulations Shawn!

My new car!

After dozens of sleazy salesman I decided on the 2008 Subaru Legacy. I picked it up today and was able to cruise around a bit and I love it.... there was one little problem. There was an unexpected spoiler on the back! This was definitely not something I new I was purchasing and when I asked about it they told me they'd "take care of it" if I wanted it off. What do you think? Spoiler, or no spoiler? I'm not all that thrilled about it, but I also don't want to go through all of the hassle of trying to get it taken off.... I'm sure it won't be as easy as I'd like it to be.

Anyways, here's the new beauty and I promise I won't take this one up against a garbage truck!!