147_4717.JPG I am having breakfast outside.  I am eating a very healthy chocolate cereal that you can't find in America.  It was one of those days where it was actually hot outside.  This is our apartment in the city of Heraklion on the island of Crete in the country of Greece in the European Union.  Out of our whole trip, we stayed at this apartment longer than any place else.  

141_4130.JPG This is the view out my Dad's window where he was working in Crete.  The rows of trees are olive trees.  You can see the Mediterranean Sea, where we went swimming (eventually). 

140_4021.JPG My sisters and I are on top of an ancient tomb in some ruins that are more than 5,000 years old in a town called Archanes.  Inside it was very dark and there was a hole in the wall that we couldn't see in.  My dad took a picture with his flash and we found out it was the size of a big box.  And then my sisters and my Dad and I could go in. 

140_4025.JPG I'm next to some old graves in Archanes.  They scrunched up dead people and put them in little boxes in these graves. We saw some of the bones scrunched up this way in the museum in town. 

140_4026.JPG Here are more of the ruins.  I tried to imagine which house I would like to live in if I lived 5,000 years ago. 

140_4031.JPG We went to the beach near Heraklion.  In the background is a new soccer stadium they're building for the 2004 summer Olympics. 

140_4030.AVI (Big movie file.) We are playing don't-touch-the-waves.  You go up really close to the waves and say "naah naah na boo boo" and then when the waves come you run away and try not to let them touch you. 

140_4032.JPG We found a peacock feather in our back yard.

147_4727.AVI We learned to do acrobatic things with it. 

140_4052.JPG We drove out into the mountains and on the way we saw this pretty church. 

140_4055.JPG We are in the middle of a flat area surrounded by mountains.  Next to the yellow truck you can see an ostrich!

140_4054.JPG I don't like the way it's looking at me...

IMG_3702.JPG If you want to know why I am a little too close up, it's because I took a picture of myself!

140_4071.JPG We had lunch in the town of Agios Nikolaos, which means "Saint Nicholas" in Greek. 

140_4069.JPG Even though it's legal for kids to drink wine here, it's NOT a good idea!  I had a teeny-weeny taste and didn't like it at all. 

140_4075.JPG We are in front of the harbor in Agios Nikolaos. 

140_4077.JPG It was so windy that some of the ferry lines were closed.  When we stepped around to the windy side of the town, it was so windy we couldn't stay! 

140_4079.JPG We found a playground that was by the seaside but sheltered from the wind. 

140_4078.AVI (Big movie file). My sisters and I are playing on something else at the park.  My Dad pushed us so fast that I could not see anything - all I could see was big blurs! 

140_4081.JPG This is me and my little sister asleep, using each other for pillows. 

140_4082.AVI (BIG movie file!) My dad took what he thought would be a short-cut home.  But a lot of things got in our way, like these sheep. 

IMG_3714.JPG We found this big cactus on our drive. 

IMG_3715.JPG This is the view down into the valley from the palace at Phaestos, another set of ruins from a city that was almost as big as Knossos. 

140_4086.JPG My sisters and I found that the ruins were a good place for hide-and-seek. 

140_4092.JPG This is the palace at Phaestos with a view of the valley below.  But they haven't rebuilt it here so you only see the floor. 

140_4093.JPG This is George.  He is 2.  We came here with him and his parents. 

IMG_3716.JPG This is a clay pot that's bigger than me!  It was used to carry wine or olive oil.  They carried things this heavy using ropes - that's why there's rope-holes in the handles. 

140_4088.JPG The bowl in the front was for crushing grapes or olives.  The liquid got collected by the rim and poured out one end. 

IMG_3719.JPG Here are more old ruins. 

IMG_3729.JPG This is George.  My Dad worked with his Dad.  They showed us this place and it was very interesting. 

IMG_3730.JPG This is a snail on a plant.  I found it and I wanted to keep a Greek snail for a pet but Dad said "no."

IMG_3728.JPG This is the first flower I saw.  It was very pretty and looked like it just bloomed.  In the background you can see the ruins and the valley. 

140_4096.JPG George's mother told us that there is an old tradition that you take this plant and pinch on any part of the plant.  Then you pull up and little pods go into your hand.  Then you throw them at someone and the number that stick to your shirt is the number of children you're going to have. 

140_4098.JPG We went down a road and we saw an island with a cloud on the top and it looked like the island had a hat!

141_4103.JPG This is George and his parents, Dmitris and Maria.  Soon George is going to have a baby sister!  After Phaestos, we had lunch on the beach at a town named Kalamaki and then played on the beach.  We didn't bring our swimming suits, and I'm glad, because the water was bitter cold. 

141_4105.JPG We made cities at this beach.  They had walls and moats.  Mine managed to stay up the whole time without getting washed away.  That's because the tide in the Mediterranean Sea is really tiny, so it doesn't just drown your sand castles like the Atlantic Ocean does!  The Mediterranean Sea is much smaller so it doesn't slosh nearly as much as the Atlantic Ocean, and that's why it doesn't have the big tides.   

141_4107.JPG This is the palace at Knossos, which is the most famous of the old ruins in Crete.  It was built about 4000 years ago.  It was discovered about a hundred years ago and they rebuilt things that they had pictures of.  So a lot of it is standing now.  A lot of the kings who lived here were named Minos, so it's called King Minos' palace, and the time when it was built is called the Minoan period.  But they also said that queens and women were just as important as kings and men in Minoan society. 

141_4108.JPG A birds-eye view of more of the old ruins. 

141_4111.JPG The back side of the palace. 

141_4112.JPG Our tour guide is explaining something to my Mom and my sisters and me. 

141_4114.JPG This is probably the world's most ancient surviving toilet. 

141_4117.JPG This is the king's throne in the palace.  They modeled the seat of the President of the European Union after it. 

141_4118.JPG My sister and I are touching a rock made by lots of big crystals stuck together. 

141_4119.JPG These are old pipes.  They carried water all the way from the mountains to the palace which was a long way away.  So they had indoor plumbing 4000 years ago! 

141_4120.JPG This funny-looking block of rock looks like a bunch of water slides right next to each other.  It got made this way by erosion and rain. 

141_4122.JPG This is a picture that was carved and painted on the wall of the palace.  It is a bull.  The bull represents the Minoan kingdom.  But also they did acrobatics by jumping on and over bulls in some ceremonies. 

141_4123.JPG This is some ancient writing.  It has not been decoded yet.  It is now a secret ancient language that no one knows how to read. 

141_4124.JPG This is us at a park in the middle of the city of Heraklion.  The see-saw is kind of like a scale and we found out that my sisters and I, combined, weight more than my Mom! 

146_4662.JPG Our friends Daphne and Vassilios and their parents Tim and Eleni were in Crete for a couple weeks and they took us to the beach.  On the way we went through this canyon-like place and it was very deep.  The wind was so windy that once I stepped outside, I almost got blown over!

146_4664.JPG This is us playing in the water.  It was so cold that no one could stay in very long.  But we were finally allowed to swim in the sea! 

146_4668.JPG Here we are on the beach. 

146_4676.JPG Here I am with Daphne.  She is four - Mariele's age. 

146_4678.JPG This is Vassilios.  He is about 2. 

146_4667.AVI (BIG movie file).  This is a movie my Dad took turning around with the camera so you see everything around us at the beach. 

146_4688.JPG I am holding hands with Daphne and Vassilios while we walk through the town of Rethymno looking for dinner.  First we had to go through a lot of stores. 

146_4690.JPG Here we are having lunch with my cousin Allyce in Hersonissos.  This was a windy day but we were protected by a plastic window, which you can see along the left edge of the picture.  This restaurant overlooked the sea and we were in the sun so we were very comfortable. 

146_4691.JPG My cousins Natalya and Alexie and their parents - my Aunt Linda and Uncle Dik - visited Crete for a couple days and we met them at their hotel in Hersonissos the day they got off the plane. 

146_4695.JPG We put Uncle Paul and Allyce on a ferry boat called Daedalus.  They it got them to the island of Santorini at midnight. 

146_4696.JPG My sisters, my cousin Alexie, and I are at the beach.  There were built-in umbrellas made of straw.  It was a little bit cold that day, so after a little while in the outdoor pool we went into an indoor pool that had salt water.  It was warm.  There were two big sprayers that soaked people in the pool whenever they got close.  It was really easy to float in this salt water pool, compared to the fresh water pool outside.  That's because all the salt in it makes it heavier, so it sinks down more and pushes you up more. 

146_4698.AVI (Big movie file.) My little sister is on a merry-go-round.  Dad is pushing, and taking a movie, and getting dizzy all at the same time. 

146_4699.JPG This head that I found looks like my little sister's.  But then I saw my little sister walk by so I knew it wasn't hers.  Or was that my big sister?

147_4703.JPG My sisters and I are in a sand boat that my big sister and my Dad made.  It was right next to the water, and the water came up to it, but it didn't go in.  We finally had a hot, sunny day and the water was warm enough to go in.  So we went in the sea and the outdoor pool and played on the sand all day. 

147_4704.JPG Me and my big, big pagato (that's Greek for "ice cream").  Two nights in a row we found ice cream that was egg-free!

147_4707.AVI (Big movie file).  A lot of places in Crete wanted you to put your used toilet paper in special trash cans instead of flushing them down the toilet, because their septic systems can't handle it.  This restaurant had a special way of reminding you. 

147_4712.JPG This is me proving that I can climb walls.  

147_4716.AVI (Big movie file.) After Mom left for Germany, we went to a park each morning before we went to work with Dad.  We got on this slide and played the fun game "under and out" where we went underneath each other. 

147_4718.JPG We are playing "Pirate Ship" in a big park. 

147_4719.JPG We climbed up to the very top of the walls of the old city of Heraklion and saw this soccer match. 

147_4720.JPG We actually watched the soccer match from the top of the tomb of a guy named Kazantzakis.  He must have been pretty important, because the airport is named after him. 

147_4721.AVI (Big movie file). My Dad gave a lecture at the University of Crete and, since Mom was away, my sisters and I attended with a bunch of scientists.  At the end we imitated Dad. 

147_4725.JPG George came over to say goodbye.  Here I'm teaching him how to play the piano.  It was hard to say goodbye, but I'm really looking forward to seeing the people I miss back home!

147_4728.JPG Here we are flying home, paying careful attention to the safety instructions on the overhead screen...

147_4732.JPG WE'RE HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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