Thursday, October 29, 2009

Cruisin'

Our best cruisin' buddies! Jeremy (Mike's brother) and his lovely wife (and my vacation Saver!) Robyn.
Istanbul, Turkey, in front of Hagia Sophia. Whoo hoo!
What a great pic......can't see anything. In the cistern. Read on for our other destinations!

Ephesus

A sidewalk mosaic. Throughout the whole trip I would ask myself, "How looooong did that take them?" Our tour guide told us that some of the full bodied sculptures were the only carving a sculptor would do in his whole career. Um.....no thank you, I'll take care of my crazy brood instead.
Potty break? Ancient bathrooms. There was a running stream underneath. I can only imagine the SMELL!
Jer and Mike in front of the library facade. Amazing!
Aweosme staium.....I don't know what else to say! They still hold events there.

And last, but surely not least, Mike paying a whopping $2 to sit on a camel they wouldn't let stand up......HILARIOUS.

Greece

That's right! Donkey's! We were certainly haulin' some ass! How could we pass up the chance to ride up the cliff on these beauties? That mean man was not very nice to those animals! This is Jeremy (Mike's bro) negotiating the turn.
Uh....yeah, I guess that's pretty.
I led the way with my ever faithful steed.
Goodbye Greece! You were exactly what I wanted you to be!

Pompei

Pompeii!! I studied about this place in College. It was amazing. So here is a little bit about our time there (and some history too, sorry!) This is a cast of a body preserved by the ash lava spewed (great word) by Mt. Visuvius. These are slaves. We know this because they all have belts, which categorized them as property. It is fascinating! They are shielding their faces from the oncoming waves of ash!

Fountain in a bath house with propaganda about the upcoming elections of the day. They had cold or warm water! Genius!
Another cast. You can see the teeth!
This is the original pier. The water is now about 3 miles away.

Grand entrance gates into Pompeii.


An ancient two-way road for chariots! They still had the wheel marks! This was a crosswalk for pedestrians. The streets were not only for travel, but also for sewage drains....yuk!
Some mosaics. I restrained from taking pictures in the brothel, where the mosaics above each "room" illustrated what exactly you should or could do in the room. Honestly people, will we ever be free from our hormones? These are some harmless ones.
A bakery! Those are some huge grain mills! Also an oven in the back. I have tons of pics of "pubs", houses, fountains and lead pipes running throughout the city. They were well advanced for their time. The lead pipes might have something to do with the low-age deaths!

I loved Pomeii! Thank you, you crazy, egotistical, power-craving ancient Romans!

Friday, October 16, 2009

I'm back

Here I am in Greece, one of the stops on our Meditteranean cruise, more to come on another post!




Family pics. A terrible headache afterward but worth every rub of the temples.
Beautiful Utah. Here are just some pics for you entertainment. What I really want to say is that macaroni and cheese from the box and TV babysitting are not beneath me, and........
IM BACK IN THE BLOGGING GAME!