Saturday, July 05, 2008

Europe - Day 10

Crete and Santorini
Crete - Old Train
Crete - Loved the graffiti
Crete - Bag o' live, squirming snails
Crete- Sweet old lady
K's present the plaque they made for Mary
Santorini!
From far away we all speculated that there was snow on top of the cliffs.
View of Santorini from the active volcano believed to be the cause of the sinking of the great city of Atlantis.

Volcano - Don't get burned!
Uncle Bill gets a rock out of his shoe.
Mom gets left at the dock.
The only picture we have of me jumping off of the pirate ship.

We swam like crazy to shore; I had no idea I had it in me. Swim or drown, I guess.
Em's a wee bit nervous, but I was already in there.


John Allen and one of his many poses.
My favorite hairy helper
Tram back to the boat, so steep!

We should have taken the donkeys.

Never seen such a big wake before. We were about 15 minutes late ...
Yummy little fruit tart.

It was my favorite dessert by far. Dad liked it too, I just didn't give him fair warning that I was about to snap a picture.
















Europe - Day Nine



Rhodes (our first full day at the beach), Baked Alaskan ice cream adventures, and the night of the infamous Karaoke


Rhodes - Flowering tree and mom
Starfish
Platform jumping!


We had a blast swimming out to it and jumping off.


Rainbow speedo Enjoying the swim.
Anna, Em, and I paddling our little hearts out.


"Lookin' out the window, you better believe that's a paddlin'."
Sweet apartment
Best picture of the Baked Alaskan ice cream

Blurry, but I love how excited Eileen is.

While we enjoyed our ice cream, the dear staff entertained us with songs.

Denise Allen (Andrea's mom) always had the sweetest moves and always knew the perfect moment to bust them out.

Karaoke Details:

All of our pictures were way too blurry, but someone, somewhere has this on video. Talk to Andrea Allen.

Later that night, we wandered upstairs, and delightedly realized that there was karaoke going on. Unfortunately, we soon couldn't turn our frowns upside down as we suffered through lame annoying song after lame annoying song (Example: Can You Feel the Love Tonight?), and nobody was dancing or making it enjoyable or anything. I was getting stir-crazy so I told Em that I'd had enough. We were going to spice up the joint.

We signed up to sing ABC by the Jackson 5, I pulled out two headbands, and we nervously waited for our number. We had about a minute and a half of scheming and brainstorming. My heart was beeping when they called our song, and we immediately bolted for the stage, accepted the two mics, and (probably against the rules) jumped up on the stage where the screen was.

We had our backs to the crowd, we snapped our headbands on hippie style, sassily flipped around in unison, and pose-jumped off the stage. I spread my legs, Em slid underneath (sort of, the floor wasn't very slide-condusive, she ended up getting a burn on her hand), and in the mic I planned to jazz up the crowd with, "Em and Amy here. We're ready to rock your world," but got lost in all of the excitement and forgot.

Our group went wild, and we busted out crazy move after crazy move. The singing was absolutely horrible, turns out we only knew the chorus, but our energy made up for the gap. I'm squeezing my lip trying to think how I can describe the moves that we put on our audience. We were all over the place. At one point the words kept saying, "Shake it!" and being sisters, we knew exactly what to do. Again, in Christmas-miracle unison, we turned our backs to the crowd, jumped up and clapped, then pointed with both hands to our butts as we did a masterful booty shake.

We were all over the place, and I tried to end on a breakdance spin, but had so quickly forgotten about the lack of movement that the floor provided. Basically, all the glory in that move was that my shoe went flying off. The song, ended, we got a score of 31 out of 100 (given by the computer based on your singing), and enjoyed the pats on the back from strangers and friends and family alike. We couldn't gauge whether it was accepted as ridiculous or ridiculously cool. Anna kept breaking her sentence with fits of laughter, "I have no right to ever be unhappy again," and Andrea couldn't stop re-playing our sweetness on her camera, "I had no idea that that was coming." It was absolutely invigorating.



Friday, July 04, 2008

Europe - Day Eight

Ephesus, Turkey, and Patmos

The World cruiseship
I was really hoping we'd see someone famous while in Turkey.
Paulo and Mary (our classy, delightful, perfect tour guide)
Paulo and a stray kitty
Ephesus
Ephesus view 2
Ephesus - Guy's restroom
Enough said
Best Friends
Turkish shopping
Birthplace of Pythagorus

Patmos swimmers
Dad waits for us while we play on the beach.
St. John's Grotto
Dad and our cruiseship: Aegean Pearl
View of Patmos












Europe - Day Seven

Beginning of our Cruise and the City of Mykonos
If I could move to Greece, Mykonos would be my first pick.

Me through the porthole
Another EF tour group. Poor Paulo was their tour director, and these ladies introduced themselves as, "You may call me Doctor, and my sister Professor." I shake my fist at them.
Mykonos!
Seashell stand
Squids for everyone.
Mykonos
Mykonos' famous windmills
Dad on the beach
Amazing colors
Sassy guy getting his picture taken (not only by me)

Colorful display of a restaurant's food.
Expect this table setting at my wedding.
Ceiling in the honey shop.
Em and I compare purchases.
The most amazing picture I've ever taken in my life, and it was by complete accident. I should crop it.