oops! hello again... sorry that this little blog has been SOO long in coming!
computer time has been limited, and (probably unnecessarily) complicated during travels so i apologize for the lack of blog action!
it has been almost a month since i last wrote and telling you everything would be impossible so i will try to highlight:
-we went to athens, greece, where we couchsurfed with a funny and very hospitable guy named stefanos. he took us out for an amazing dinner, and also for my birthday...
- we took in sights like the acropolis and the parthenon, mars hill ( where paul brought the gospel to athens), temple of zeus, and giant ancient ampitheatres (the odeon perhaps?). so much history!
-gyros. need i say more?
-we went to the island of santorini and ran about 3 km to catch our boat. derek lost patience, karlene lost chocolate bars and socks, and i lost my breath and nearly my life as i tried to keep up. when we finally arrived at the ship and they didnt leave for another 25 minutes, no one said anything. not a word.
santorini was AMAZING though, as we rented a car and just cruised around and looked at the spectacular scenery, hiked around a bit, made friends with dogs and fishermen, and had the most hospitable hotel hosts ever. they picked us up from the el-cheapo ferry at 4am in the rain and gave us a room for free that night, breakfast included. so wonderful!
we drove to the tip of the island to experience the world- famous sunset over the cliffs and just as we found our perfect lookout point and the sun started to sink over the horizon... it clouded over. derek responded by honking the horn and shouting angrily at the sky, followed by us nearly dying of laughter and many lovebirds being shocked out of their sunset-viewing positions.

that was greece! i mean, obviously only a small part of it. i wont even get started on us waiting for buses that were on strike, eating gyros, shopping in plaka, drinking rachonminov, being entertained by a spanish friend who made derek and i giggle all evening... all in all a wonderful greek experience!

this just got really long so ill put some italy highlights in another post.
check ya later