Opa! - Greece 2007

The good times keep on rolling! Ravi and I had the opportunity to surprise my dad on his 65th birthday in Greece! Straight from India I met up with Dad, Mom, Ravi, Parag, and Supriya. It was great to take a family vacation together, especially to an ancient historical location such as Greece. We visited Corinth and Athens, plus the islands of Mykonos, Rhodes, Patmos and Ephesus, Turkey. What a great experience to see some of the famous landmarks, plus walk in the paths of history. Here we are on the right in front of the Parthenon in Athens. Links to more pictures are on the right hand side toolbar, under "Priya's Pictures." While travelling on a cruise to all the islands we almost were in the middle of a hurricane. The wind was blowing very hard and it was hard for Ravi, Parag and me to walk towards our cruise ship. Due to all the wind all of the passengers were directed to wait out the storm inside another cruise ship, since ours was not close enough to the dock. We were stuck approximately 5 hours on the other cruise ship. Not to mention the other ship was much fancier than ours, so we could have just stayed on that boat the entire time. It was amazing how the sky got dusty and very mysterious. Besides that fun adventure, we did enjoy eating plenty of Greek salads, spinach pies and olives. We also were able to enjoy a live orchestra at the National Archaeological museum in the evenings. With Parag and Supriya as our tour leaders, we hiked up hundreds and hundreds of stairs, weaved in and out of random alley ways (check out the photo at the left of a typical street in Mykonos). Saw some amazing views of the Acropolis in Athens. The all you can eat cruise food and crisp Aegean sea was refreshing. The cruise by itself I can pass on in the future, lots of middle age to elderly people. Definitely not like our spring break Carnival cruise a few years back. The ship was old, small, and not kept up very well. But, at least we didn't sink! The biblical history of the early Christian church was also quite interesting and amazing. We were able to go inside the cave where the apostle John received the revelation on the island of Patmos as well as walk the streets of Corinth and Ephesus where Paul preached. Much of the ruins are continuing to be excavated. In Ephesus we saw the theater where the apostle Paul preached to 20,000 people. After experiencing a small part of Turkey, it is has now moved to one of my top 10 places in the world to visit. Overall, What an Amazing Trip!