We are so blessed! We had the
opportunity at the end of this October to travel to Greece's island
of Crete. The only reason we had this opportunity is because of
living abroad in the Middle East. Even though some days are very
tough living here, it is times like this that I make it worth the
stress.
The UAE is a Muslim country, so our
days off from school are Islamic religious holidays. The end of
October is Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice. It celebrates the
willingness of the prophet Abraham to sacrifice his first born son.
For this holiday we received a long weekend, with two days off from
work.
As you know, we are excitedly awaiting
the birth of our first child in January. Due to this, we won't be
able to travel during December break because of being close to my due
date. We may not even travel during the spring break in late
March-early April, because our new baby will be so young. This was
our last opportunity to travel until July, as well as last time
without a child. We decided to go on a “babymoon” and wanted to
make it special.
We looked online at different deals,
and when we found a great groupon for a quiet hotel in Crete, we knew
it was for us. We booked our plane tickets, and before we knew it we
were packing our bags!
We left Al Ain Tuesday morning and
drove to complex of villas in Abu Dhabi where we parked our car.
There we got a taxi to the airport, checked in, and were on our way.
We had a lot of layovers, because we booked a cheaper flight. We flew
from Abu Dhabi to Doha, which was only an hour flight. The nice thing
was that they give you candy before the flight takes off... actually
every flight did this for the entire trip. We then flew from Doha to
Athens, and Athens to Crete. It was a long, all day event, but we
were finally there. We caught a cab to the hotel with a great driver
named George. He told us all about the island and drove us into the
mountains to our quaint hotel. We checked in and headed to our room
for the night. We also had a nice treat... a thunderstorm! We hadn't
sen rain in almost 4 months, so laying in bed listening to the rain
and thunder was a nice beginning to a great vacation.
Simple bedroom... no distractions
Hotel room
Hotel
Hotel
The next morning I was so excited to
get started I woke up early and read until I thought it was time to
wake Shawn. We headed to breakfast at the hotel, and were greeted
with amazing views! We decided we would head to the Palace of
Knossos, the largest archaeological site on the island and where the
legend of King Minos and the Minotaur took place. We decided we would
take the bus to the city and then find our way from there. The hotel
owner told us the bus stop was “at the top of the hill,” so we
got ready and began to walk.
We walked a short way up the hill and
saw a bus stop sign with the city name on it. We were so excited and
so begun our wait. While we were waiting, four kittens from the house
next to the stop found their way to us. They were so cute and
curious. They kept coming up to us, but were skittish and would then
run away. This distracted us for awhile, but soon we realized we had
been waiting a long time. Around this time of realization, a man came
out of the house and asked what we were doing. After telling him we
were waiting for the bus, he told us this bus didn't come until late
afternoon, and we needed to go further up the hill... so up we went.
Up and up we walked. Now remember I am 7 months pregnant, carrying 20
new pounds of baby, extra blood, and all that good stuff. So after
awhile, and getting the the top of the hill before the road started
to go downhill, we decided it was time to turn around and rent a car.
We walked back down, I changed into shorts (I hadn't worn shorts in
public for three months) and we were on our way with our little
manual Hyundai accent... an a map!
Waiting for the bus that never came
Renting the car
Driving in Crete was a fun experience.
See... driving in Al Ain is just down right SCARY! There are round
about everywhere and people who don't follow any traffic rules. They
are rude and honk their horns, cut your off, and speed all over the
place. Shawn won't actually let me drive except a few seconds up to
the store behind out flat for safety.
Crete was chaotic, but an organized
chaos. People pass in the middle of the lane, but no one honks or
seems aggressive. You just move anywhere on the road you can but are
still considerate of others. Even in the city, where it was bumper
to bumper, so one honked and acted rude.
We found our way to the ruins, bought
our tickets, and spent the next few hours exploring. It was amazing
to know we were seeing things thousands of years old. It was a
beautiful day... we really couldn't have asked for better weather.
Palace ruins
After exploring the site, we headed
back towards the car. On the side of the road were little souvenir
shops, so we popped in and out. Then, at the end of the street, was a
little restaurant. The owner was out front and called us in, and then
treated me like a princess. I ordered stuffed tomato and pepper per
his recommendation and it was amazing. Shawn had gyros and olives.
The man gave us his business card before we left and told us to tell
our baby about him. So sweet.
YUM!!!
We looked on the map and saw another
ruin site not far, so decided we would try to find our way there. We
never found it, but had fun driving around. Eventually we made our
way back to the hotel for the night. After some relaxing in the
lobby, we headed to bed so we could continue our adventure the next
morning!
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