The next morning, Monday, Susan took the class on a walking tour of Parikia, the town we are staying in. This picture is up on one of the terraces looking to the north thru the harbor. The ferry just arrived bringing new passengers to the island.

Immigrants Aran and Cathie fresh off the boat in Paros. Notice the matching "swave and deboner" t-shirts courtesy of KLM airlines-two new members of the SkyCrew. Cybele and I also are new inductees.

Anyhow, we made it!

We're off to Paros, Sunday June 14. It took us about 4 hours from Athens to Paros, but the ride was beautiful. There were many islands we passed, most were uninhabited. In fact, of the 2000 islands or so, only about 200 have people living on them.

After arriving at the Athens airport sans luggage, we were approached by an older gentleman who offered to take us downtown to our hotel, about a 40 minute drive, for "only 90 Euros (1 Euro=$1.40 US). We politely declined. Susan and Bob (Cathie's boss and her husband, told her not to pay more than 35 E for taxi). Cathie found us a bus to downtown from the airport for 1.40 E each.

Once we made it downtown, we got off the bus and walked toward our hotel, meeting Susan and Bob having drinks in front of the Acropolis. After making plans to meet them for dinner, we went to our hotel to refresh our weary bods. The pic to your left is the view from our hotel balcony. What a way to start our trip!

Chris here again. I'm going to back up to our arrival in Greece last Saturday, June 13, and will upload more pics as I continue to figure this dang blog stuff out.

As you can see, Aran, Cybele and Cathie are absolutely thrilled to be landing in Greece. Unknown to all of us at the time, we were going to be wearing those clothes until Monday afternoon, when our luggage arrived at the Paros airport. But I'm getting ahead of the story a bit. Back to our arrival in Athens.

Chris here. I'm taking over for now. By the way, it wasn't octopus, it was squid tentacles. And they weren't that bad. A little chewy, but I pretended it was chicken.

It's been quite a whirlwind of a trip so far, but we are adjusting well to Greek island living. Cathie and I keep pinching ourselves. This is a lifelong dream for both of us, and we're finally here. Aran and Cybele have made friends with the college students, and so far they've been great. No complaints. The ouzo is good, but the Greek salad is awesome. Nothing like back home. Fresh tomato wedges, green peppers, capers, olive oil, red onions, and a big slab of feta cheese. Yum.

More soon. It is a 7 hour difference from east coast time (12:36 a.m.) so off to bed.

Paros

Octopus!