Dancing With The Stars, Here We Come!!

So, we went to this dinner theatre-type restaurant in Athens with several friends from the Bible College on Wednesday evening, and oh! the fun we had!  It was a delectable feast of traditional Greek food, and 8 traditional dances were performed as the entertainment, with the dancers in the traditional costume for each particular dance.

The funny thing about these previous two pictures is that this dancer was standing on OUR table to do this--right in front of me--OH MY!!  

Well, the advantage of being at a table right next to the stage was that we had a great view of all the dances...the DISADVANTAGE was that when they choose people to come up on stage, folks from those close tables were chosen...So, here is yours truly trying some sort of Greek move with traditional Greek music...you see Brad up there too...oh yes, FOUR of us from our table were sacrificed to the stage...

Brad was a natural, even adding twists and turns...I was proud of my man!!

Next up were Myrto, who not only danced, but sang with the gentleman in white, and Viorica...

...who very wisely opted to cheer on Myrto, thereby not having to sing with the Greek crooner..

Brad's rave of the evening...this gentleman was a master on his instrument 

Caleb and Viorica enjoying the show...

Our friends Robert and Myrto...

On our way home we stopped by the Olympic stadium there in Athens where the 2004 Olympic games were held.  This stadium was built over the earliest Greek stadium where the games were originally held.  Still today the corridors underneath thru which the runners run to enter the field are THE SAME ONES used by the ancient Greeks at the first games...impressive...

Gorgeous Greece

Our first full day here in Pikermi, Greece, we decided to take a family walk down a pathway near the Greek Bible College, where we are staying and where Brad is teaching.  We discovered all kinds of things...like this heavily laden orange tree...  (Their fruit is D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S!!)

  

...lots of beautiful blooming bushes...



...and the boys favorite... this type of tree with itty-bitty (1-cm long) pine-cone-type appendages that they discovered if they ruffled the branches, the pollen would douse everyone walking behind them.  They found this GREAT fun, and we all came home bearing plenty of pollen to prove it...

The village of Pikermi is just a few minutes from Rafina, a coastal village, so our first afternoon we headed down to the seashore.  Our friend Jeff insisted we borrow his car, and we were off...(I was so thankful that they drive on the RIGHT side of the street here, unlike our Irish driving adventure!)  We were struck how the buildings here look like we'd thought they'd look in Greece...mostly all white-washed with the rocky, hilly countryside looking just like it does in books...we were not disappointed!

The most interesting thing we saw today was right here on the beach.  This gentleman was an octopus fisherman, and he took the time to show the kids the steps of cleaning an octopus (right in front of our very eyes - Egads!, as my daddy would say), which includes squirting the ink (and innards) into a bucket of water...

(Side note:  note the ship in the background...this is a port town, and it is not uncommon to see ships such as this in the harbor, some of which carry passengers to one of the many Greek Isles...)

...then "beating the fire" out of them with what looked like a small cricket bat to tenderize them.  The octopi still had reflexes as they were tenderized...they weren't the only ones cringing at that point...

We ended our day with dinner by the beach with Myrto, our friend from Cambridge; Jeff Baldwin, the headmaster at the Greek Bible College, and Robert, another friend from Cambridge.  We ate souvlaki gyros, which is a SCRUMPIOUS typical dish, along with a Greek salad (no lettuce), which can be seen in the foreground.  The feta on these salads was fresh, and so yummy.  I didn't think I was a feta fan, but how wrong I was!  I could NOT stop eating the stuff!

Our first day ended with loukoumades, a traditional honey-dipped pastry, similar to beignets, and equally as yummy.  The kids have been great at trying new foods--even ones they can't pronounce and don't know exactly what is...we are REALLY enjoying Greek cuisine!!

London Memories...

Daniel, quite the budding photographer, snagged this shot of Big Ben...

Here it is again with the Parliament Building to the right, along with two dashing young men...

The London Eye...takes just under an hour to go around one time.  Do you see the way the pods are perched on the OUTSIDE/TOP of the wheel?!?!?!  GUARANTEE only 4 Greens will be headin' up...

River Thames...

So, for the record, just how long ARE the buses over here?

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre...hard to tell, but it does have a thatched roof.  This one, still used today, is an exact replica and in the original location as the one in Shakespeare's day.  Cool.

This one gives a little better view of the stage.  There was a trap door both above and below the stage, which the kids found immensely intriguing, and then where the people are standing was actually (in Shakespeare's day) where hundreds of people would stand throughout the entire performance.  If the people didn't like the play or the performing of it, they would throw fish and rotten vegetables at the actors.  The one benefit the boys said for standing thruout an entire play would have been for better aim with the veggies!  :)

Mmmmmmmm....

So, we went to the Museum of Natural Sciences, where we had heard that they had the last remaining dodo (bird), in stuffed form, of course.  So, ladies and gentlemen, may Victoria present...the dodo!

Also in this museum is an extensive dinosaur museum (note tail over our heads).  Note of interest here.  We went to this museum on a school holiday (BIG mistake)...any guesses how many people had been thru that day?  500?  1000?  Are you ready?  We were told (by the lady up front with the people-counter) that by 1pm, more that 20,000 people had been thru, and we decided that they were ALL still in there when we were there! 

The kids loved this silhouette of Sherlock Holmes.  The mystery of this photo is getting it to face the right direction on the blog.  Oh dear. :)

This ranks as one of the best things of our ENTIRE trip...

Winston Churchill's wartime bunker underground.

Group hug before the Vintzels headed home...

HELLO-O-O-O London!!

LONDON IN A DAY...

Buckingham Palace.  Liz says hello.

Buckingham Palace Gardens

Something we'll always remember is taking the Tube (subway) around London.  The kids have become real pros at this.  It's been gratifying to see them feel confident on something so different for us...

Victoria's FAVORITE tube stop!

Westminster Chapel, where D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached for nearly 30 years, from 1939-1968.

Westminster Abbey. 

 FUTURE TRAVELER'S TIP:  Ask for CHILDRENS tour headsets.  There's CHOCOLATE at the end. :)

Popular Punting Pleases Passing-thru People

These memories will always bring smiles...

Peter and Ilona Greyling joined us for dinner one night.  They are special friends here who lived in Atlanta 28 years and now live in Cambridge.  They befriended us the first week we were here, when we went on a walking tour of Cambridge which Peter was leading from the Round Church.  They've been loving on us ever since....