The Fourth Of July, European Style

How did you spend your Fourth of July? I know the 4th has been long past and a post about fireworks and hotdogs and sparklers seems a little late, but you see, we didn't get any of those things on our Fourth of July. Let me go back to explain.

My typical Fourth of July was a big neighborhood bar-b-que out on the grass of a friends yard. It was kids running around in swimsuits with sticky Popsicle dripping off their chins. It was groups of friends finding ladders to put fireworks on so they seemed bigger. It was groups of friends melting the plastic top of ladders with the heat from the fireworks. It was the local cop showing how big a bang you could make through out the whole neighborhood if you threw a firework down in the storm sewer (he was such a good example). It was neighbors who would duct tape a firework to an old remote control car and drive the firework down the street while it spewed sparks and flame. Yeah, we knew how to have a good time. 

If you live in the United States, your holiday was pretty close to this, maybe minus the neighbor who was intent on burning everyone's ankles with the small car that was on fire. Our holiday wasn't close to this at all. We spent our holiday in Russia, and then finished it up on an Italian cruise ship. It was kind of strange.

When we came back from our long, and exhausting day in Russia, (read about that HERE, HERE, and HERE) we found invitations to an exclusive and private event on board. An event only for Americans  I started to get excited. I hadn't seen any other Americans on board other than our partners in travel (and crime) in Europe, The Point Family. There had to be some more if the Costa cruise line was going to throw us all a private party, right? 

This is what our private party turned out to be. A lounge singer with an electric keyboard and hors d'oeuvres with punch and champagne. What could be more patriotic than that?

And don't let me forget the marzipan cake they had in the shape of the American flag. (Don't Europeans know that Americans don't like marzipan? Nothing could be less American than a marzipan cake. You want to make an American cake? Call up a store bakery and get the recipe for their Crisco-based, fluffy white frosting. That my friends says American cake.)

They had a recorded instrumental version of the national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner. Of course we had no flag to look at while we listened to the song. 

The marzipan cake concoction would have to do.

After the national anthem things started picking up. We had a total of 11 Americans show up for this little shindig. And don't forget Holly, our English-speaking-not-American-but-British host for the party was mingling around. And I finally, FINALLY felt like there was a place in Europe where I could be as loud and funny and annoying as my little American heart desired. Solidarity my American compadres! 

This little group did start to emit some laughing and noise (maybe that was just us and Mr. and Mrs. Point) and other cruisers were walking by our party wondering what was going on in there. But they couldn't come in. Why? Because it was private. Americans (and British Holly) only please!

We left the Fourth of July celebration without watching one firework and without eating one hamburger. But we were still buoyed by the glasses of free punch and the marzipan cake which turned out to be quite good if you scraped off the lacquer-like marzipan outside. As we walked out, the European guests who had gathered outside the door parted to let us through. Yeah, we kind of felt like rock stars. For the rest of the trip, we walked a little taller. And every time someone got in our way we thought, 'Excuse me, but don't you know who I am?'

The German Language Curse

Guess what? I have some interesting news. Wanna know? I've actually been working on my German. Like really studying and quizzing myself. I made number flash cards and practice randomly pulling them out and saying them so I can converse (somewhat) with cashiers in stores. Friends, let me tell you it will be a magical day in Germany when I can tell how much my total is in a store without having to sneak a peek at the cash register total display. It hasn't been easy for me. Read about how I was Learning German And Sucking At It earlier.

You might be saying, "Wow. She must really be tired of not understanding people or not being understood." 

You would be wrong.

I have become quite comfortable in my bubble here in Germany. I drive along on streets and my kids ask "Hey Mom, what does that street sign say?"

"I don't know."

"Mom, what does that warning message say on that flashing billboard?"

"I don't know." And I'll let you in on a little secret. I kinda don't care.

You get to a point when you live in a foreign country where if you see something and it's not in English, or you don't recognize the foreign words, you start to think it must really not be that important, because the whole world knows that important stuff is always in English. Right? RIGHT?

So why I am I bothering to learn this crazy and difficult language? Because my family is visiting at the end of this summer and I want to look oh so cool and sophisticated and European when they come. That's right. I am learning German to impress my friends and family. Not to make my life easier. My husband already is fluent and I always have him at my disposal. I am learning just for appearances. If my life gets easier then that is just icing on the cake. But where to start?

I started in my German In 10 Minutes A Day book. Pretty close to the front they had a whole restaurant section that deals with place settings and food. The book comes complete with stickers to stick on things around the house. Der Löffel, die Gabel, das Messer. Spoon, fork, knife. Check, check, and check.

We went to a restaurant last week and I was so happy that I understood the waiter when he asked if he could take our plates. Actually, I didn't fully understand him. I got the 'your' and 'plate' but I didn't really know what he wanted to do with them. Since we had a full table of empty plates I could only assume it was to take them so I answered "Ja." Success!

I started branching out into foods and appliances. My German was growing at an exponential rate! (Insert sarcastic voice.)

I hit a stumbling block when I reached the conjugating of verbs. Conjugating wasn't the hard part. It was pronouncing the conjugating. Especially the word möchte as in "Ich möchte..." or "I would like." Here is a sampling of my husband trying to teach me how to say this.

Me - "Itch mocha."
Him - "No. Ichhhh (emphasis on throat clearing) möchte."
Me as I feel like I am hocking spit on the floor - "Ichhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh mocha."
Him - "Better Ich, but your möchte sucks."

Normally in this kind of exchange I would sulk or something. But I really wanted to be able to order at restaurants by myself (in front of my family of course) so I kept trying.

Me - "Ichhhhhhhh morchta."
Him - "No. Make your O more of an ew sound."
Me - "Ich mewta."
Him - "No. More of the sound ewr make together. Think ew-rah. Ew-rah. But say them fast. Ewrah."
Me - "Okay. Ewrah. Ich mewrahta."
Him - "Still no."
Me - "Ah... forget this crap."

I went back to my stickers. I can say das Badezimmer (the bathroom) perfectly. How you like me now?

I also worked on weather. Maybe someday I will be able to make small talk with some random German person. And what do you chat about in small talk? The weather, of course. Right now all I've got is if a German just happened to walk up to me and ask "Wie es das wetter heute?" or "How is the weather today?" I would be able to give a one word answer. Sonnig oder windig oder kalt. The possibilities for small talk are endless! (Insert sarcasm.)

All kidding aside, I really am studying. I try to go into stores and shops and speak only German. I call Matt up right before I go in and rehearse my pronunciation. I've even taken notes and kept them in my wallet for quick reference if I panic. I do pretty good 50% of the time. What about that other 50%? That other 50% is where I have done so good on my pronunciation that the person I am speaking with thinks I can fluently speak German (I can't) and starts rattling things off left and right. This leaves me with three scenarios I usually follow.

Scenario nummer eins - 
The German person says or asks me something and I get scared to death because I have no freaking idea what they just said so I stand there, eyes wide and round, mouth slightly opening and closing. I stand there for longer than would be considered a comfortable silence until they figure out I have no idea what I'm doing and they switch into English. I leave the store thinking that I will never speak German again. Or at least until tomorrow.

Scenario nummer zwei - 
The German person says or asks me something and to save us both the uncomfortable silence described above, I just answer "Ich spreche kein Deutsch,"  or, "I don't speak any German," right after I spoke German to them. Much easier.

Scenario nummer drei - 
The German person says or asks me something that I don't understand so I just answer "Ja." No matter what it is. They could be asking me would I like them to shave my head and dress me in a clown suit and I would answer "Ja." Thinking 'Hey, that sounds great!'

So that's my curse. The curse of knowing SOME German. My life was actually easier when I knew NO German. Knowing only SOME German made me feel more capable than knowing NO German, but it has actually made things more difficult. So either I need to go all the way with this German thing, or forget the whole stinkin' mess.

Here is a quick example. I ventured to a craft store to buy glue sticks for my kids. Found the ones I wanted and went to the cashier. Vaguely understood the total she gave me (checked the screen just in case) and paid her. Then she asked me in German if I had a bag. Germany is one of those places where most people bring their own shopping bags. I thought she asked me if I wanted a bag so I answered "Ja." And I just stood there, waiting for her to hand me a bag. She thought I told her I had one so she stood there waiting for me to give her one to place my glue sticks in. This happened three more times before I almost started crying and saying, "I don't know what you're saying. I just want my glue sticks. Please..." 

Sometimes I just save myself all the drama and when I go somewhere instead of the German "Hallo," that you greet people with, I say "He-e-ello." Emphasis on that soft e. I raise my English speaking flag right from the beginning.

Tschüss,

Kelly

Have you learned a foreign language? What helped you? What tricks and tips do you have? Do you have a funny story to share? Let me know!

The Best Of Berlin

Back from Berlin! We are back home in Heidelberg after three amazing, and very, very wet days in Berlin, Germany. It was great to see a place where my husband had called home so many years ago. Matt lived there in 1992, not long after the wall came down and Germany reunified.

Hotels and short term rental apartments are expensive in Berlin, like many other larger European cities. So we opted for a hostel. I won't lie. I was a little nervous. I had visions of communal bathrooms and bed bug infested rooms with edgy urban youth roaming the halls. Once we arrived, my mind was set at ease. No communal bathrooms and all the edgy urban youth were confined to the streets of Berlin, not our hostel.

We stayed at the Smart Hostel in Berlin and found it to be clean and well supplied. They spoke English and were very polite. A thumbs up from me! Our friends who also traveled to Berlin the same weekend stayed at the Main Station Hostel and were pleased with it too. Both hostels offered a breakfast for €7,00 extra that we never got. There was a Bäckerei right down the street with several more in close proximity. Nothing like a sugary, fresh baked breakfast of rolls.

Matt has been telling me for years about the disparity in Germany between the former east and west sides. As we drove through the rolling hills, the only thing that would let you know that you had crossed over into former East Germany was the sign on the side of the freeway. Houses were painted bright yellows and creams and had new red tile roofs, much like the rest of Germany that we had seen. No difference yet.

Our first stop was to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche, or the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. It was built in 1890.

It suffered heavy bombing damage in a raid in 1943. They left the decimated church up as a reminder and memorial to the destruction of Berlin in WWII. When we were in Berlin, the whole structure was covered with scaffolding so they could reinforce it, and also so we couldn't see it. See what it looks like without the scaffolding here.

As we walked along this street, Matt kept saying things like "I used to eat at that McDonald's. I used to shop at that Kardstadt. I used to get on the bus here." I thought we were going to get a insightful tour of Berlin. Instead we got a tour of stuff Matt did in Berlin 21 years ago. Still interesting though.

We went to visit Potsdamer Platz, an area where the Berlin Wall went straight through and was a barren field when Matt lived here.

Here it is now. Big improvement on a barren field. Matt had half-way joked that he was going to bring all his old maps so we didn't have to buy a new one. I half-way didn't joke that he was a little crazy if he thought his 21 year old maps of Berlin would be any help. We stood here and he said "Yeah, things have changed a little bit." Hmm... ya think?

Here is the famous Brandenburg Gate, or Brandenburger Tor. The original gate was built in 1788, replacing simple guard houses to the city proper of Berlin. When Napoleon defeated Prussia in 1806, he paraded through this gate as a symbol of taking down Berlin. Leave it to a short man to need a big gate to walk through. When the Nazis ascended to power, they used the gate as a symbol also. After WWII, the badly damaged gate was one of the only structures left standing. See what the plaza looked like here after the war. 

Here is a view looking left after going through the Brandenburg Gate. A little back story to Berlin here. Settlements in the marshy, wooded area are dated to 1192. All the areas of Berlin that we now know as "Berlin", merged in 1307. The Thirty Years War between 1618 AD and 1648 AD destroyed Berlin. Berlin lost a third of its homes and buildings and half its population. Seems Berlin has been knocked down more than once.

Berlin would seem to be the epitome of a German city. But in reality, it's a Prussian city. That's Prussia with a P. It was the capital of Prussia from 1701-1871, when it became the capital of the newly founded German Empire. The new German Empire was a joint collaboration of all the loosely tied "German" princes in the area who decided to consolidate their efforts and power into one country. Members of the Hohenzollern family (a Prussian family) ruled from Berlin from 1435 until 1918.

Sorry about the umbrella in the corner of the picture. It was raining German cats and dogs sideways the whole first day in Berlin. We were soaked.

We continued to walk around with Matt pointed out things he remembered and things that have changed when he let out a whoop of excitement.

He saw a line of Trabis, or Trabants, waiting for people to rent them to drive around Berlin. Trabant was a car produced in East Germany for 30 years and was the most common car in East Germany. Matt claimed that it was made of wood (I don't know about that) and that it only had a two-cycle engine (that's true).

Here is an exact copy (except for the words Trabi Safari on the side) of the Trabi Matt owned while he lived in Berlin. Same color and everything. He stared at this sad, little blue car and almost wept at the fact he had to leave his behind after his time in Berlin. I looked at him like he was just a tad nuts. Who would want to drive around in a wooden car?

Here is the Rotes Rathaus (NOT a red rat house), the Red City Hall. Very creative naming if you ask me.

Here is the Berlin Cathedral, or Berliner Dom, built in 1750. 

The Neptunbrunnen, or Neptune Fountain in Berlin. I found it absolutely amazing that there was a statue dedicated to Neptune, god of freshwater and the sea in Berlin because it was raining so much, I felt like I was going to have to swim back to the hostel.

This is part of the Gendarmenmarkt which is a square in Berlin that houses a theater and a church.

"We love Berlin!" 

Or what they are really saying is "We love any place that has a overhang where we can get out of the rain!"

We walked around the Gendarmenmarkt, which is situated in former East Berlin, Matt kept remarking how good the buildings looked. He said that while he was there, they were grey and dirty looking. Apparently communism and socialism leave a filmy, grey residue.

The Berlin Konzerthaus sans grey-filmy-communisty residue (yes, communisty is a real word).

After exploring former West Berlin verses East Berlin, here is what I have decided. East Berlin kicks West Berlin's butt. There really is nothing in West Berlin except the zoo which is only talked about because poor West Berlin has nothing but 70 years of being unrepressed to brag about. When the Four Powers (Great Britain, America, France, and the Soviet Union) divided up Berlin, the Soviets really took the lions share with all the historical monuments and buildings. And then after getting them, they let them fall into disrepair. Here is a look at what the Brandenburg Gate looked like at the time the wall came down. You didn't really take care of stuff you commy jerks. Now that the wall is down, there has been a real effort to revitalize former East Berlin. They've revitalized it so much, it has left former West Berlin back in the dumps. 

A typical street in former East Berlin. The old buildings have been restored and the new buildings are built to blend in, yet still look fresh and hip. The west doesn't really have any freshness or hipness to it. Freedom = Boring.

Berlin has a throbbing pulse to it, that you can sense is right under the day-to-day life here. I have never seen so many people with lip piercings, or nose piercings, or shaggy colorful haircuts in one place in my life. Hip hop music blared from car windows at red lights. It felt like a rave would happen any second on a street corner, that the citizens of Berlin could barely hold themselves back from breaking into a full fledged dance party.

It's such a party place that bar/bikes roam the city looking for drinking cutomers. This is an actual bike that the people sitting at the bar had to peddle. It went right in the street with the cars and when they would pass you they would cheer and lift their beers. Or bark like dogs. "WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!"

They were actually setting up for the one of the biggest parties of the year.

They were broadcasting the Bayern Munich vs. Borussia Dortmund soccer game, which was taking place in England, live over huge projector screens lined up down the Unter den Linden, which is a boulevard that goes right through the middle of Berlin.

Yep. It's gonna be a par-tay. Such a par-tay that they were frisking everyone who came in. Got myself a little German pat down.

I did not attend the viewing of the game. It was raining after all, and I don't do rain unless I absolutely have to. Matt, however, took the three oldest children and a friend who was also in Berlin for the weekend. They stayed out until after midnight. Bayern Munich won 2-1. Go Bayern Munich! (I actually could care less who won, but Matt was happy so I will be happy for him.)

As I stood on the Unter den Linden I noticed that I could see the Berlin Victory Column out in the distance. A monument built to commemorate Prussia's (Prussia with a P) victory in the Danish-Prussian War (1864) and the victory in the Austro-Prussian War (1866). They must have been feeling pretty good about themselves because then they also went on to win in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). Go Prussia!

Do you want to read about the next part of our trip where we visited the wall? Click on The Berlin Wall.


Tchüss,

Kelly S.

Have you ever traveled to Berlin? Is it somewhere you would like to go? Let me know!

Have questions about traveling to Berlin, with or without kids? Feel free to contact me either in the comments below or by email at maybetooblonde@gmail.com. Travel on!

17 Years At Schwetzingen Castle - Germany

My husband and I recently celebrated our 17th anniversary. Yes, I will take applause now. At times it feels like it has gone by so fast. At other times, it feels like instead of 17 years it has been 17 lifetimes. To celebrate our anniversary we went to the Schwetzingen Schloss, or the Schwetzingen Castle.

If you are thinking, "Oh, how romantic and exciting!" Don't. It really required no work from us at all. I consider Heidelberg to be my front yard and Schwetzingen to be my back yard as I live right between the two of them. I fight traffic in front of the castle often as it's the fastest way to my son's soccer field. So basically we went somewhere that we see weekly in errands. Let the romance run wild.

If you are wondering how to pronounce Schwetzingen, it's like this - Sh-vets-ing-gun.

These are the Schwetzingen Gardens. They were started in the mid 1700's. This is the front half. They are the formal gardens and are planted in a French garden design. 

The spring planting with the Zirkelbau or orangery/reception rooms of the castle in the back ground. An orangery is a place in a fashionable residence where citrus trees in tubs would be wintered. Needless to say, my current apartment lacks an orangery and therefore, cannot be thought of as fashionable.

On the south side of the garden, there is this little bricked off section where flowering trees grow. From the street you can only see the tops of these pink trees. But when you pass through the iron gate, you get rewarded with all the daffodils.

I love how the ground looked like pink confetti had been thrown all over.

This is the pathway to the English section of the garden. English design, not English speaking. The English portion was planted to look more natural and to have more harmony with the landscape than the meticulously maintained flowerbeds in the French section.

I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but these blossoms are as big as my fist. 

Here I am practicing my bridge-vamp pose a'la Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing. If you don't know what I am talking about, see it here. I know I'm not even close, but in my defense she was wearing Ked's with no socks (a look I absolutely adore) and I am in a trench coat. I guess it's just my excuse to strike a pose with no one looking.

More of the natural English garden.

Here is a view of the back of the castle. The Schwetzingen Gardens are one of the few examples where you can see the classic look of a formal French garden blend into the newer, natural example of an English garden. 

After our meandering around the castle, we went to find a Biergarten that our friend had told us about. The only problem was this is Germany and there are like 37 different Biergartens around the castle. So we picked one that provided a good photo op. Like this one. (There was a little confusion with my kids as to what a Biergarten actually is. They had visions of a garden with fountains spewing beer out of them. Unfortunately for some, this is not the case. A Biergarten is nothing more than a restaurant with an outdoor dining space. No beer spewing fountains here.)

The view from the Biergarten.

The sun was setting and it was time to meander back through the gardens to the car, still holding hands after 17 years.

Tschüß,

Kelly

Crazy For Corfu - Greece

Our last stop in Greece on the cruise was the island of Corfu, or Kerkyra in Greek. Corfu is the northern most island in a group of islands called the Ionian islands which lay of course, in the Ionian Sea. It is so far north that it is off the mainland of Albania, not Greece. As we sailed past Albania, you could see snow capped mountains off in the distance. For the day trip into Corfu, we teamed up with our American friends, the Point family. Our boys were tired of walking for miles every day in the Greek heat, so we let them stay on the ship and eat and be lazy to their heart's content.

Since we were smaller numbers, four adults and three children, we decided to rent a car. As soon as we disembarked off of the cruise ship, we were met by a hoard of Greek taxi drivers telling us that they would drive us around Corfu for €100,00. Two taxi drivers competed for our business by telling us they would take us to see the sights. Between demanding us to employee their services for the day, they would get into shouting matches between each other that we were their fare and for the other one to leave. We kept pointing at the six-seater Mercedes taxi saying we wouldn't fit, and they would say, "It's no problem." To which we would reply, "Um, it is a problem. No one wants to ride in the trunk." And then we heard back, "No problem." I think this was the extent of their grasp of the English language.

We spotted a car rental shop around the corner with a few Fiat vans parked outside. Matt ran over to see if we could rent one for the day. While he was running over, the taxi drivers still hadn't given up hope. "One hundred Euro. I take you. You come. Now." Mr. Point answered that no, we weren't going to get a taxi, that we were going to rent a van. "NO! No van!" The taxi man yelled at us. We were a little taken aback. Did he mean there were no vans, or we couldn't rent a van? While I sat there thinking about that Mr. Point said, "What do you mean there are no vans? I can see one right there!" Taxi man came back with, "No van! I take you!" He was getting a little intense, to say the least. I started thinking in my head that he was going to kidnap us and hide us somewhere on the island or something when Matt yelled that he got us a Fiat Van for only €60,00. Sold. Good-bye Greek kidnapper/taxi driver. We got us a van.

We booked out of the port, for obvious reasons, as quickly as we could and drove here, to Palaiokastritsa. This is a little town/beach on the north-east side of the island. Look at that water. I had never seen water so clear, or turquoise-aqua colored. 

I kept saying to myself, "This is real. I am really here. In Greece. On this beach." Greece has always been a fantasy to me. Years ago, Matt asked me what my three top ultimate vacations were and I answered 1- Greece, 2- India, and 3- anywhere in Africa. I answered these places because the chances of me visiting them seemed so remote that it probably would never happen. Well my friends, check number one off the list.

I need to bring paint swatches back here and match this color and paint my room that exact shade of greenish-blue. Corfu is said to be the island of Scheria, home of the Phaeacians, where Odysseus is ship-wrecked when his raft is blown here in a storm. He meets the goddess Athena, disguised as a local girl. He then goes to a palace where he tells of his adventures since the Trojan war, and they take pity on him and have a ship take him home to Ithaca. I might have just stuck around Corfu for awhile, but I do have to remember Odysseus had been lost for ten long years. That's one long trip.

 Palaiokastritsa is almost an island itself. It is only connected to the rest of the island by a little strip of sand and road. You can stand facing one beach and have a beach at your back. 

The water looked warm and inviting, but it wasn't. Locals told us that the spring current was still bringing cool water from up north and to wait a month before it was warm enough for swimming.

As much as I wanted to rent a shack on the beach and go native here for a week doing nothing but stare off into the distant horizon and sip coconut milk or something, Corfu had so much more to offer than just these beautiful beaches.

Places like this, the Neo Frourio, or the new fortress. Until quite recently, it had a working naval garrison stationed here.

And places like this. A wonderful baklava bakery where we picked up Every. Single. Kind. of wonderful Greek pastry under the sun. It was dripping with honey and flavored with different fruits and nuts. There were orange ones, and cashew ones, and lemon, and the list went on and on. Mrs. Point and I wrote our names and dates on the wall there. So if you happen to be in Corfu, you will see Kelly S. and Family Was Here! And I should have added and got really fat off of all the baklava we bought. 

The great thing, or maybe its not so great now that I am looking at my waist line, is that because baklava is made with honey, it doesn't go bad. We brought our box on the cruise ship, and then in the car, and then home. Constantly snacking out of it. I didn't realize what a problem it was until my jeans wouldn't zip up anymore. Mmm... baklava.

Here is my super-mature husband laughing. Hysterically. He's laughing so hard he can't even breathe. Why? Here's why.

Yep. Those are a bunch of tiny fish eating the dead skin off of my husband's feet. He was laughing so hard because he is so incredibly ticklish. The girls who ran the spa kept telling him to just calm down. "Its okay, sir. Just relax." From which just followed more incomprehensible gibberish from Matt because he was laughing so hard. He is so ticklish that I think its a security hazard for our country. If he ever was kidnapped and forced to tell secrets, he could take torture and pain. Not tickling. He would be giving everything up after 10 seconds. "I give! I give! I will tell you everything, just don't tickle my feet! Please!" 

After eating ourselves into a baklava stupor and hearing Matt say, "My feet really are softer!" The day was winding down. We took the long way back through the old town, taking pictures. Listening to Greeks argue, watching Greeks hug and kiss. Often it was the same Greeks.

The old city of Corfu. A fun fact about the town of Corfu is that the streets in the old section are paved with white marble. They had so much of the stuff they laid it down to walk on it. Seems like it would be slippery in the rain.

Beautiful Corfu. Off to the right of this picture are our new good friends, The Point Family. Our partners in crime in Greece. Nothing bonds you like having a taxi-nazi tell you you can't have a van. Reminded me of the soup-nazi on Seinfeld. If you don't know what I am talking about, read about it here or watch it here.

As I walked back to the cruise ship, I thought, 'I could live here.' Corfu was that great. Beautiful, relaxing. And green! After the stark volcanic island of Santorini and the heat of Athens, Corfu was the perfect mix of beaches, baklava, old town, flowers, architecture, and trees. Mrs. Point echoed my sentiment. Maybe when raising four kids gets to each of us, we'll run away here together.

The Palaio Frourio, or old citadel. Built by the Venetians to ward off attackers.

 With Corfu's northern position in the Ionian sea, it is the greenest and most lush of all the Greek islands.

I loved seeing how everybody lived and worked so close together.

It was bittersweet leaving Corfu. We were glowing with relaxation (and baklava) and kept talking about what a great day it was. But leaving it was hard. It was our last stop in Greece and we knew that it would be awhile before we got back. We can easily make it to France or Switzerland in an hour or two. But Greece requires a little more effort. It's a good thing that effort is so worth it. Until next time Greece! 

αvτío,

Kelly*

*Is still currently working on her waistline from eating all those Greek pastries. This day could also be known as "The Great Baklava Gorging Of 2013."

Up Next - Croatia!