Friday, August 24, 2007
Bob and I, Gary and Joan Browning, Joanie and Larry Lee, and Paul and Connie Cook (all service couples here), left today on a cruise to 3 Greek Islands, taking off from the port of Haifa @ 1:00 PM. The ship had 800+ people on board, not counting the staff – every cabin was full. Most people were from Haifa and spoke Hebrew or Russian – we may have been the only 8 English speakers on board! We sailed the rest of the day, all night, and arrived in Rhodes about 1:00 PM the next day. We couldn’t believe how dark blue the ocean water was – it was beautiful. We all ate at the same table - 3 meals a day. There were always lots of salads to choose from, many fish, meat and vegetable dishes, and always big bowls full of fresh fruit. We learned the Israelis like to eat tomato and cucumber salad for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Saturday, August 25
This morning (Shabbat) all 4 couples met together in one of our rooms and shared a favorite scripture and why we liked it. It was a very nice meeting. Gary Browning has spent a lot of time in Russia and told us how the church began there. Connie Cook shared her travels in China and her church experience. Gary is currently a church Patriarch to Russia, traveling there for 2 weeks at a time, giving blessings in Russian. He was also a mission president to Finland/Russia at the time when Gorbachev was President and began relaxing the strict religious laws, allowing missionaries to enter Russia.
Rhodes is the principal city of the Greek island of Rhodes, , in southeastern Aegean Sea, with a population of approximately 80,000. Rhodes has been famous since antiquity as the site of Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonder of the World. The citadel of Rhodes, is one of the best preserved medieval towns in Europe which in 1988 was designated as a Unesco World Heritage Site. The City of Rhodes is a popular international tourist destination.
There were mazes of narrow streets, lined with shops on both sides (jewelry, clothes, art) – some stores were very expensive. Included here is a picture of one of the shops - selling glass plates in brilliant colors. We were back on board by 7:00 PM so we could sail to Santorini. That night we all met outside on the 8th deck to play cards while traveling on the sea. It was a fun memory.
We rented a mini-bus with a driver and a guide (whose name was Mercedes) for 2 hours so we could see the most important scenic sights. I had looked online and seen pictures showing blue domes atop white buildings (churches) and asked Mercedes to take us there. The blue against the white is striking. She explained the reason the domes were all blue is because the people felt the dome to be the closest thing to Heaven (blue). Several times we were struck with the beauty of the deep pink bougainvilla flowers against the white buildings, with the deep blue Mediterranean sea behind. They grow a lot of grapes there, but compared to our beautiful California vineyards, these were sad-looking.
Today we reached Crete, and docked at Agios Nickolaus. It’s a very windy town, but had green grass and trees. Bob and I walked around town all morning – doing a little exploring and shopping. We came across one of the 24 beaches but didn’t have our suits with us so we found a flat cement walkway to sit on and dangle our feet into the ocean to cool off. We went back to the ship (which was docked very near by) for lunch, then put on our suits and returned to the beach. Bob actually went swimming, I sat in the water, and we had a nice, relaxing afternoon.
Bob and I, Gary and Joan Browning, Joanie and Larry Lee, and Paul and Connie Cook (all service couples here), left today on a cruise to 3 Greek Islands, taking off from the port of Haifa @ 1:00 PM. The ship had 800+ people on board, not counting the staff – every cabin was full. Most people were from Haifa and spoke Hebrew or Russian – we may have been the only 8 English speakers on board! We sailed the rest of the day, all night, and arrived in Rhodes about 1:00 PM the next day. We couldn’t believe how dark blue the ocean water was – it was beautiful. We all ate at the same table - 3 meals a day. There were always lots of salads to choose from, many fish, meat and vegetable dishes, and always big bowls full of fresh fruit. We learned the Israelis like to eat tomato and cucumber salad for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Saturday, August 25
This morning (Shabbat) all 4 couples met together in one of our rooms and shared a favorite scripture and why we liked it. It was a very nice meeting. Gary Browning has spent a lot of time in Russia and told us how the church began there. Connie Cook shared her travels in China and her church experience. Gary is currently a church Patriarch to Russia, traveling there for 2 weeks at a time, giving blessings in Russian. He was also a mission president to Finland/Russia at the time when Gorbachev was President and began relaxing the strict religious laws, allowing missionaries to enter Russia.
Rhodes is the principal city of the Greek island of Rhodes, , in southeastern Aegean Sea, with a population of approximately 80,000. Rhodes has been famous since antiquity as the site of Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonder of the World. The citadel of Rhodes, is one of the best preserved medieval towns in Europe which in 1988 was designated as a Unesco World Heritage Site. The City of Rhodes is a popular international tourist destination.
At 1:00 PM we docked at Rhodes – a Greek city with its “Old City” surrounded by a fortress-type wall. (picture) Since the ship excursions were all in Hebrew or Russian, we chose to walk around on our own. We noticed how much cleaner this city was compared to Jerusalem.
There were mazes of narrow streets, lined with shops on both sides (jewelry, clothes, art) – some stores were very expensive. Included here is a picture of one of the shops - selling glass plates in brilliant colors. We were back on board by 7:00 PM so we could sail to Santorini. That night we all met outside on the 8th deck to play cards while traveling on the sea. It was a fun memory.Sunday, August 26
Santorini is a small, circular archipelago of volcanic islands located in the southern Aegean Sea, south-east from Greece's mainland, with an estimated 2001 population of 13,600. The name Santorini was given by the Latin empire in the thirteenth century, and is a reference to Saint Irene. The island is the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions which occurred some 3,500 years ago at the height of the Minoan civilization. The eruption left a large caldera surrounded by volcanic ash hundreds of feet deep. Santorini is essentially what remains of this enormous volcanic explosion, destroying the earliest settlements thereon and leading to the creation of the current geological caldera. A giant central lagoon, more or less rectangular, and measuring about 8 miles by 4 miles is surrounded by 984 foot-high steep cliffs on three sides. The island slopes downward from the cliffs to the surrounding Aegean Sea. The water in the centre of the lagoon is nearly 1,300 feet deep, thus making it a safe harbour for all kinds of shipping. The island's harbours are all in the lagoon. Fira, its capital, clings to the top of the cliff looking down on the lagoon (picture). The only way to reach the top is by tram, donkey or hiking the 600+ steps. We took the tram and, needless to say, the views of the ocean while going up were awesome.
We rented a mini-bus with a driver and a guide (whose name was Mercedes) for 2 hours so we could see the most important scenic sights. I had looked online and seen pictures showing blue domes atop white buildings (churches) and asked Mercedes to take us there. The blue against the white is striking. She explained the reason the domes were all blue is because the people felt the dome to be the closest thing to Heaven (blue). Several times we were struck with the beauty of the deep pink bougainvilla flowers against the white buildings, with the deep blue Mediterranean sea behind. They grow a lot of grapes there, but compared to our beautiful California vineyards, these were sad-looking.
The last view she took us to was a point looking way down to where our ship was docked – it was stunning and breathtaking!! (see picture) I bought 2 necklaces in Santorini before returning to the ship.
Monday, August 27
Today we reached Crete, and docked at Agios Nickolaus. It’s a very windy town, but had green grass and trees. Bob and I walked around town all morning – doing a little exploring and shopping. We came across one of the 24 beaches but didn’t have our suits with us so we found a flat cement walkway to sit on and dangle our feet into the ocean to cool off. We went back to the ship (which was docked very near by) for lunch, then put on our suits and returned to the beach. Bob actually went swimming, I sat in the water, and we had a nice, relaxing afternoon. 
The view from the beach was gorgeous – we looked out over the deep blue, shimmering water to 3 tall purple-blue mountains way off into the distance. I snapped a mental picture of this because it was one of my favorite memories. We began to sail that night for home, sailed the full next day, arriving back at Haifa the following day on August 29th around 9:00 AM.
Tuesday, August 29
Once we got off the ship and found our car, we drove to the Bahai’i Temple for a tour. We had a very gracious tour guide and his wife who spent 2 hours showing us around the grounds. They are absolutely stunning!! Since we didn’t really want to drive home the minute we got off the ship, this was the perfect ending.
Once we got off the ship and found our car, we drove to the Bahai’i Temple for a tour. We had a very gracious tour guide and his wife who spent 2 hours showing us around the grounds. They are absolutely stunning!! Since we didn’t really want to drive home the minute we got off the ship, this was the perfect ending.
