Hello all,

With our trip now finished, this will be our last broadcast message to 
everyone.

On Thursday, we woke early and walked towards the Acropolis to beat the 
rush.  Upon arrival, our naivete was promptly dispelled - it was
unbelievably crowded.  This only put a slight damper on the experience 
though, as it is an amazing site.  We explored it, then headed downhill 
for more sites such as the Temple of Zeus.  Needing a break, we headed 
into the National Gardens.  Inside, we found the Zappeoin housing an 
exhibit of Greek tourism posters.  That may sound dry, but the artwork  in
the 30, 40s and 50s was really cool.  After that, it was time to head 
back to the hotel and avoid the afternoon heat until dinner.  We learned 
that the Benaki Museum was open until midnight (and free!) so we trekked 
there after supper.  The exhibits cover all ages of Greek history, which 
was unique for us as we've seen so much from ancient times and Byzantine 
times, but very little from the 15th century onwards.

We spent our last full day in Athens at the beach.  It was a heavenly  way
to beat the heat.  We were there for almost six hours and the stay  kept
us cool for the rest of the day.  After the beach, we had a lovely  meal
of octopus, stuffed peppers, dolmades and fried feta cheese with  some
delicious wine.  Of course, this was followed with fresh baklava.  A fine
parting meal.

When we got back to our hotel, we packed, went to bed and woke up early 
Saturday morning to head to the airport.  Once there, we checked our 
bags, grabbed a book and paper, bought some ouzo and waited for our
flight.

The flight was a bit of a bummer.  We boarded an hour late, left a 
half-hour late, had a previously-unannounced stopover in England and 
finally got off the plane 12+ hours after boarding.  We arrived in 
Toronto at 5:15 p.m. rather than the scheduled 3:00 p.m. arrival, but 
this seems to be par for the course for us coming home.  Customs was  busy
but we were in Pauline's car by 6:00 p.m. (thanks, Mom!) and  arrived
safely in Kingston at about 9:30 p.m.  Pauline had even prepared a
delicious stew and homemade desserts for us.  It was quite a welcome.  It
had been almost 24  hours straight for us, but we're back and are feeling
better today.

We've already had a chance to sort and upload our pictures.

We took over 500 pictures, but we've singled out our favourites into a 
smaller gallery of 60 pictures at:

http://www.linuxgruven.ca/gallery/highlights

The full gallery of all photos, sorted by location, can be found here:

http://www.linuxgruven.ca/gallery/ecc_greece_turkey_0707


That's it for now.  Thanks to everyone for listening and for the great 
feedback along the way.  (A special award goes out to Glen and Gail who, 
hands down, had the most advice for us.  In particular, the parts about 
your heatwave were instrumental in our decision to move to a better  hotel
in Thessaloniki.  ;-) 

Our love,

Ben and Sarah