The past week or so has been pretty busy... I was in San Diego for a couple of days (14 Mar - 16 Mar). I left San Diego Friday morning and bounced to Chicago, then to London, then to Athens, and finally to Chania, Greece. I arrived on Saturday (18 Mar). I managed to get from the airport to the hotel, but was without any luggage... British Airways decided that I wasn't going to make my flight from London to Athens so didn't put my bag on the plane. It ended up sitting in London for a while and then was sent on to Athens and finally to Chania, Crete. Unfortunately the airport closed at 11:00p and I wasn't able to get there in time. Luck would have it that I packed some spare clothes in my backpack before I left San Diego. Since this is the first time I've done that and the first time my bag didn't make it, maybe I have ESP or I jinxed it. Either way, I got my bag the next morning, so I was okay.
Upon arriving in Greece, I met up with my coworkers who had all come from Naples. We had a nice dinner and made plans for the next morning. Four of us got together and drove around the island. We drove from Chania through the town of Souda and then into Rythmno, which is east of Chania. Along the drive to Rythmno, we saw the views of the coastline and the the large church in the picture below. Rythmno is famous for the small harbor there... we walked around it and then had some lunch. The resturant claimed to be the oldest in Rythmno... it also had the worst food I'd ever tasted... a local special called shrimp saganaki. The shrimp were not fresh and were cooked until they did not resemble anything edible. They were then put into a stew of tomatoes and cooked with feta cheese. In theory, that could have been really tasty. In reality, it was terrible.
Afterwards, we drove South through some amazing valley's and mountains to Prevali, Spili, and Plakas. The small church in the picture below was outside of Prevali... it had orange trees growing all around it. Our goal was this beautiful monistary outside of Prevali. The monks that live there fought the Germans in World War II and helped protect allied troops as they retreated. Pretty amazing! The door pictured below looked like it had been there for a VERY long time. There were tons of cats running around everywhere. The one in the picture below decided to pose for me. I edited the color using Picasa. The monistary was extremely well taken care of. There were flowers everywhere. The buildings where a very neat shade of amber... which didn't turn out so well in the pictures. There was also a very distinct set of old and new buildings.
From Prevali, we drove to the southern coast where we stopped in the town of Plakas. Unfortunately, it was still cloudy, so the sea wasn't as pretty as it could have been. We all grabbed a snack and then headed towards home. That evening we had dinner at a Chinese resturant in Chania. The service was slow, but the food was pretty good... not the best ever, but good. Well, that sums up the first weekend... As I sit in my hotel, I have a lot to write about to cover the week and the second weekend. More to come!!!
 The coast of Crete |  Church on the Crete coast |
 Boats in Rythmno harbor |  Small Church outside Prevali |
 Moni Preveli (Prevali Monistary) |  Cat at Moni Preveli |
 Flowers in Prevali |  Southern Coast of Crete (Plakas) |
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