September 18, 2006 Monday
September 18, 2006 Monday
Today was our “day off”. The Helping Hands team scheduled in this day for us to help us get acclimated to the new time zone, and to enjoy the city and get accustomed to the culture before jumping in to our ministry.
We got up early and headed to the bus station in town at 9AM. We rode the bus out to one of the ports and bought tickets to a ferry to take us out to the Idras island. The ferry, named “The Flying Dolphin”, which was a hydrafoil, left at 11:30am and it was about a 2 hour ride. I slept most of the way to the island, which was great because I tend to get very motion-sickness.
We arrived at the island around 1:30pm. We decided to split into sub-groups, rather than all 9 of us walking around together. David, Erika, and I were in a group, Jean A and Skip were in a group, Jean Y and Karen were together, and Kerry and Cynthia were together.
The three of us walked around for a while, took some pictures, and just relaxed. We ate at an outside café/restaurant. I ordered a cheeseburger but it was nothing like I was expecting. I still enjoyed it. While we were walking around, we must have gone into like 20 jewelry stores. Looking at all of the different styles of Greek jewelry was pretty neat. A lot of it was really cheap, and a lot of it was really expensive. We also just looked at the different trinkets and souvenirs that the different stores had. I thought about buying something for my parents but ended up not purchasing anything. Hopefully I will get an opportunity to get them something before going home.
We left the island around 5:40pm. This time, we got on a larger boat called the “Flying Cat 2”, which was a catamaran style boat. It was a lot bigger and nicer than the Flying Dolphin. I slept most of the way back on this boat too. I haven’t been sleeping well these past few days, so any chance to catch a little bit of extra sleep has been nice.
When we got back to the port, it was raining really hard. I put my camera inside my shirt to keep it from getting soaked. Our whole group was so wet, we looked like we had been singing and dancing in the rain. Erika fell in a pothole and hit her knee but she is fine, just a slight bruise.
When we got back to the metro station, we took some group photos from our rain escapade, and upon arriving back at Omonia square (near where we are staying), we decided to go get some dinner. We ate at a really nice restaurant and planned out what our Wednesday prayer day will look like, and then we headed home. Basically, we decided that Kerry, David, and I will plan the prayer day, since a smaller group could probably make quicker decisions.
Kerry, Cyntha, David, and Erika split up and left early. The rest of us stopped to get some ice cream before going back to the guest house. I got some of the green apple sherbet ice cream again. So good! The way they display the ice creams here is fantastic. It’s not just in a flat cooler like at the Marble Slab (which is really good by the way), they build it up into a nice display at the ice cream stores here, and your mouth just waters looking at it. Mmm…. Describing it makes me want to get some more…
Well, time to go to bed I guess. We start our ministry work with the HH team tomorrow morning! I guess my entries are getting shorter… this one is only a page and a half…
Joe
Today was our “day off”. The Helping Hands team scheduled in this day for us to help us get acclimated to the new time zone, and to enjoy the city and get accustomed to the culture before jumping in to our ministry.
We got up early and headed to the bus station in town at 9AM. We rode the bus out to one of the ports and bought tickets to a ferry to take us out to the Idras island. The ferry, named “The Flying Dolphin”, which was a hydrafoil, left at 11:30am and it was about a 2 hour ride. I slept most of the way to the island, which was great because I tend to get very motion-sickness.
We arrived at the island around 1:30pm. We decided to split into sub-groups, rather than all 9 of us walking around together. David, Erika, and I were in a group, Jean A and Skip were in a group, Jean Y and Karen were together, and Kerry and Cynthia were together.
The three of us walked around for a while, took some pictures, and just relaxed. We ate at an outside café/restaurant. I ordered a cheeseburger but it was nothing like I was expecting. I still enjoyed it. While we were walking around, we must have gone into like 20 jewelry stores. Looking at all of the different styles of Greek jewelry was pretty neat. A lot of it was really cheap, and a lot of it was really expensive. We also just looked at the different trinkets and souvenirs that the different stores had. I thought about buying something for my parents but ended up not purchasing anything. Hopefully I will get an opportunity to get them something before going home.
We left the island around 5:40pm. This time, we got on a larger boat called the “Flying Cat 2”, which was a catamaran style boat. It was a lot bigger and nicer than the Flying Dolphin. I slept most of the way back on this boat too. I haven’t been sleeping well these past few days, so any chance to catch a little bit of extra sleep has been nice.
When we got back to the port, it was raining really hard. I put my camera inside my shirt to keep it from getting soaked. Our whole group was so wet, we looked like we had been singing and dancing in the rain. Erika fell in a pothole and hit her knee but she is fine, just a slight bruise.
When we got back to the metro station, we took some group photos from our rain escapade, and upon arriving back at Omonia square (near where we are staying), we decided to go get some dinner. We ate at a really nice restaurant and planned out what our Wednesday prayer day will look like, and then we headed home. Basically, we decided that Kerry, David, and I will plan the prayer day, since a smaller group could probably make quicker decisions.
Kerry, Cyntha, David, and Erika split up and left early. The rest of us stopped to get some ice cream before going back to the guest house. I got some of the green apple sherbet ice cream again. So good! The way they display the ice creams here is fantastic. It’s not just in a flat cooler like at the Marble Slab (which is really good by the way), they build it up into a nice display at the ice cream stores here, and your mouth just waters looking at it. Mmm…. Describing it makes me want to get some more…
Well, time to go to bed I guess. We start our ministry work with the HH team tomorrow morning! I guess my entries are getting shorter… this one is only a page and a half…
Joe
posted by Joe at 11:46 PM
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