Halfway

Last week was my one year anniversary of stepping off the plane in London.... crazy. I'm one year down with 1(??) more to go (Dad, just pretend the question marks aren't there). I was feeling reflective last week in the tube on my commute and tried to come up with a top ten list of superlatives from this past year (but only got to 8). Apologies for the slight deviation from my usual pictures-only posts!

1. Favorite thing about living in London: getting to travel, obvi. In the past year I've been to 6 new countries (India, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, and Greece) as well as a few repeats.

2. Worst thing about living in London: commuting every day using public transport. No question. From the bodily odors that ought not be to the incessant violation of personal space... I miss driving in my car in peace!

3. Biggest surprise: how little TV I watch, and how much I don't miss it. Don't get me wrong, I'm still religious about watching the Backelor/Bachelorette every week on slingbox, but that's literally it. There's just no time anymore!!!

4. Hardest: feeling isolated from everything going on back home.... becoming farther and farther removed from the day to day details of my closest friends' lives... and not knowing how to keep them in the loop on my life and how much this experience is changing me.

5. Most ignorant culture moment: my first month, a group of British people told me I had good teeth, at which point I proceeded to explain to them why, and that we have these things called "dentists" in the States.... they were appalled. Apparently they have them over here too haha. You'd never be able to tell though with the way everyone's teeth look!

6. Most random: the fact that our basic cable package includes like 10 porn channels hahaha! So horrible! (And no, we've never clicked on them!!!!!)

7. Newest thing I cannot live without: skype. It's my lifeline!

8. Biggest turnaround: my feelings toward work. I absolutely and utterly hated it for the first 6 months, and now I can't imagine ever working anywhere else!

I was in a taxi on the way home from work the other night and we drove past Big Ben, Parliament, Buckingham palace, Hyde park, and Harrods and thought to myself "how did I get here?" I'm not really sure the answer to that, but I'm so thankful for the amazingness (and challenges) of this past year and for the journey God is leading me on over here!!! Can't wait for year 2! Yay London!!

Stockholm....

This past weekend we went to Stockholm - the weather was horrific but we tried to make the best out of it. Here are the pics!

Group picture our first night at dinner...

She had the hiccups, I was helping with the never-failing remedy (plug ears and nose and drink water)

The story of the trip. Rain :(

Breakfast the next morning - trying to stay dry (it was so rainy the entire day on Saturday)

We trekked across town in the rain to go to a museum... here are a few shots from along the way.

Haha... LOVE these two.

At the Vasa museum. This ship took 3 years to build and only sailed for 30 minutes before sinking hahaha.

How ADORABLE?!

The rain let up toward the end of the afternoon - we could actually start to look up and see how beautiful the city is!

In front of the palace with the (woman) guard...

So excited for the blue sky!!!

Right before our 20 minute blitz through the ice bar... everything is made of ice and you have to suit up before going in - we looked like such idiots.

Sunday morning we took a boat ride to the Archipelagos!! Highlight of the trip by far.

So pretty when it's not raining!!

We grabbed a snack on the little island (Voxholm)

LOVE this picture - it's of Voxholm from the fortress' island.

Enjoying the sun on the boat ride back to Stockholm....

Greece!

After Allison and I got back from Ireland last summer, we instituted an annual (and in this year's case, semi-annual) international sister trip. This summer's destination... Greece! It was so. hot. But so amazing. Here are the pics (and by "the" I mean "some" - we took over 600 between the 2 of us)!

This is when we first arrived in Athens. 900 degrees outside pushing all our luggage up the hill to the hotel and not thrilled about it. Then she made me laugh which made me sweat even more!

Totally shocked at the heat!!?!

First night, and little did we know but one of the best meals of the whole trip. I've recreated (attempted to recreate, rather) the Greek salad you see below every day since being home.

On the ferry to Hydra bright and early the next morning. The family next to us (background) was hilarious... typical American tourists with fanny packs, color coordinated motion sickness bracelets, and non-stop chatter the entire 2 hours!

Hydra! It's the cutest little island. No cars allowed anywhere so it's very rustic feeling... they use the donkeys you see here to carry everything from suitcases to appliances. Poor things!

Hiking up to the hotel - the little back streets were straight out of a movie!

Some views of the little town...

We hiked to a beach along the coast... omg the water!

More views from the hike to the beach the first day...

This is the view from above of the beach where we spent our first day.

Mmmmmmm... I want to go back!

Saw this on the hike back to town - cute little port.

Hahaha I was NOT doing well the first night after our 2 hour hike to and from the beach in 100+ degree heat! Trying to cool down at dinner...

Walking around after dinner... enjoying the cuteness that was everywhere!

Maybe one of the donkeys dropped it :(

Hanging out at a new beach (Bisti) day 2... we had watermelon every day which I'm convinced tastes better and better the hotter the temperature gets!

The view from the boat as we arrived...

I may or may not have spent the first 4 days of the vacay engrossed in this book!!!!!

Grabbing dessert (yogurt and honey - yumskies) at sunset in the harbor!

Such a peaceful place.

So, from Hydra, we went back to Athens for a few hectic days of sightseeing. This is in front of parliament where all the riots took place a few months ago which was, oh wait, RIGHT outside our hotel lol.

This is us at the beginning of Rick Steve's "Athens walk"... we thought it would be a good way to get our bearings and see some of the city.

This is the center of the Greek Orthodox faith.

This is how I felt about Athens. Sorry to any fans out there, but it's a total dump! Worse than Rome, which I didn't think was possible.

There are random ruins everywhere. This is the Temple of the Olympian Zeus. Whatevs.

SO TIRED and exhausted from hoofing it around the whole city in the sun and heat for 4 hours... having seen NOTHING interesting at this point. Like, really Rick Steves?

We did come across this cute building, which was... cute. But not worth the 4 hours of misery it took to get there!

We then decided to hit up a museum - even though it was on the outskirts of town - because it came highly recommended. So, after 45 minutes hiking down scary streets (thank you, taxi strike), we finally arrived. Didn't look too impressive from the outside but we were happy to have made it and to spend some time in the AC out of the sun.

BUT OH WAIT - it had temporary hours that day so it was closed by the time we got there. Allison was fuming, and I wanted to cry.

... so we headed back to the hotel and decided to splurge on a dinner in the rooftop restaurant overlooking the acropolis! It was a highlight of the trip - totally turned the day back around!!!! Delish food and an amazing view!!

The next morning we decided to go back to the rooftop for breakfast. It was a feast - here she's particularly excited about the rice pudding (among other things) :)

Yummmm!

After breakfast we headed out for a day of sight-seeing. First up - the olympic stadium - the only marble stadium in the world.

Of course my audio malfunctioned halfway through.

Hahahaha I made her do this.... nice form Al :)

More posing...

Hiking up to the Acropolis... this is some stadium that was used for something important back in the day.

LOVE. this. picture. We took so many with the acropolis in the background, but this is my fave.

Hanging out on Mars Hill where Paul gave his sermon in Acts about the "unknown god". It was so cool to sit there and know that someone from the Bible was once there too!!!

After the Acropolis and Mars Hill we went to the Agora - I was wasted by this point but Allison loved it. Something about Socrates and Sophocles (sp?) and all their contemporaries walking these same roads in some year in B.C.... the history and significance was all lost on me but I'm glad one of the two of us grasped it.

Allison loving the Agora...

Allison reading to me about something, and me just wanting to be done.

... on our way back to the hotel we treated ourselves to Starbucks!!!!! I don't think I've ever been so happy.

Soaking our feet in ice cold water after being on them in the heat all day.

On our way back from dinner that night, the riots started again. It was awesome - the SWAT team came, police flooded the scene, the rioters were screaming, and some random guys on the street told us to go inside because it wasn't safe. So we went up to our room and enjoyed the rest of the drama from our balcony. We took a video but I think it's too long to upload.... sad.

The next day we took a ferry to our last destination - Santorini (aka paradise). Views upon arriving...

These are the steps down to the villa where we stayed... are you kidding me?

This was our little deck area where we ate breakfast each morning and had after dinner snacks/desserts each night!

First order of business - the pool! By this point I had finished The Help and was equally as engrossed in Unbroken. It's so so good. The view's not too shabby either.

Walking to dinner our first night... shocked at how picturesque everything is! There's not a bad view anywhere on the entire island.

The view at dinner - and the view for each meal, for that matter. Just gorgeous!!

This is what those white buildings look like lit up at night! The camera doesn't quite capture how pretty it was with all the lights...

The next day we took a day trip to the volcano. This was our ride - straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean!

At the volcano - look at the water! Blue then red from the sulfur!

Views from the top of the volcano... you can fully smell the sulfur and it's still smoking in certain places. Kind of freaky!

We snagged some seats at the helm - my favorite part of the whole day was the boat ride. So therapeutic (although Allison felt like she was still on the boat for 2 days after)!

The boat dropped us off and we got to swim in the hot springs...

More picture taking with the quintessential Santorini background!

Allison and "the best meal of her life" - lamb.

That night we bought some watermelon and brought it back to our place for dessert...

Perfect weather, perfect snack, perfect view, perfect company.... perfect night.

The view from inside our villa - I'm kind of proud of this artsy-ish shot!

This picture perfectly encapsulates our time in Greece. The perfect combo of ocean, sun, books, views, and relaxation.

Our last night we went to the west side of the island and watched the sunset...

... from a VERY precarious perch!

Wow. The picture doesn't capture how beautiful it was though.

Last night's snack on the terrace... french fries and yogurt with honey.

The books I read on the trip :) I just loved them.

Excited about our isolated and almost private ferry seats on the way back to Athens... the whole ferry experience was hard to explain. But let's just say I felt like cattle on Noah's ark.

Public transportation (thank you again, taxi strike) in Athens - pretty sad to be back in the armpit of the world :( But more sad that our trip was almost over :( :(

One last dinner at Strofi! I miss the food sooooo much!!

On the plane realizing that it's all over :(

I made a rule for myself when I moved to London that I wouldn't go back to places I've already been with the hopes of being able to see more of the world. Too bad that rule will be broken... can't wait to go back to Santorini again soon!