Easter in the Islands

Easter in the Islands!!
The final trip of our semester here in Greece was a quick 3-day cruise to the Greek Islands & Turkey. We left at 7:00 am Friday morning from the Pireaus (Athens) port. We sailed on the Ocean Majesty, which is a small cruise ship that holds up to 600 passengers. It was a beautiful, mostly sunny day - in the 60's. After a relaxing cup of coffee, we started sailing toward our first stop, the island of Mykonos. We docked outside of town & took a shuttle bus in & spent the next 3 hours walking through the quaint, narrow streets of town. This is such an unusual place as the streets are about 8-10' wide at the most - (barely enough for a small car to pass). Many streets are pedestrian only & alleyways are a narrow 3-4' lane. Most of the buildings are white & there are many shops which are similar to those on other islands. We enjoyed a gorgeous sunset before heading back to our boat for a buffet dinner.
Just a little bit about Easter in Greece - Easter is a busy time around Greece! It is the most celebrated holiday that they have - even more than Christmas. The Greek orthodox church states that they celebrate the resurrection of Jesus every week, but also celebrate it for 100 days around Easter. On this Friday (good Friday) evening, most of the residents are going to church to worship or pay respects. At 10:00 pm. all the residents meet at the churches & carry a large chest with crosses & flowers through the streets. Others follow with candles lit. They parade through the streets in celebration. On Saturday, the residents will again visit their churches through the day & then have a service leading up to a midnight celebration. At midnight, the priests will come out & announce that he has risen. All the people chant - He is Risen - & fireworks sound all through the cities. Then the people walk home with candles lit & eat a dinner with a special soup! Easter day, most families get together & will grill a whole lamb over the spit or go out to eat. It is a big family day. Easter holiday continues through Monday before business is resumed on Tues.
Back to the trip ~We sailed Friday night & woke up in Ephesus, Turkey. This was really an exciting place as we know that Paul spent a good deal of time in Ephesus & the city is surprisingly well preserved. It was a harbor city in Biblical times, but now the ocean is about 7 miles away! The city was built in a narrow valley between 2 hills & parts of the roads & monuments are still present & the famous library has been largely restored. We also visited a ceramics factory with beautiful, colorful Turkish ceramics & a carpet factory where we watched women making the gorgeous wool, cotton, & silk carpets. These women weave them all by hand & many rugs take well over a year to complete. Both places were a little rich for my pocketbook, but very interesting!
Back to the boat for lunch before setting sail. I grabbed a quick nap before we landed at Patmos, the island John the apostle was exiled to when he received his revelation. There we visited a cave or grotto where he was supposed to have been when his revelation was given as well as a monestary. That evening, we were able to stand on the deck of the boat when the church bells rang at midnight & the fireworks started!! Shortly after midnight, we set sail for the island of Santorini where we landed at 7:00 am. Just a couple of days before we left on this trip, a larger cruise boat with 1600 passengers, had run over a reef off the shore of this island & sank. We couldn't see the ship, (it is in 70 meters of water) but saw where it was marked off & a salvage boat was parked over it. All but 2 passengers from that boat are accounted for.
Santorini's harbor was formed when the volcano blew a huge crater in it, leaving a large caldron with very steep sides which serves as the harbor. To get to the top of the island where the city is,. you have to either walk, take a cable car, or ride a donkey!! We, of course, chose the donkeys!! I have to admit I felt a little sorry for them as it is a very steep path!! Being so early on Easter morning, most shops were still closed, but we walked around looking at the view, stopping in a few shops, & sat in a little cafe for some coffee! Mid morning we headed back to the ship for lunch & to set sail for Crete. Arrival in Crete was at 4:30 & since all the usual tour places were closed for Easter, we had arranged to meet with a new group of Christians who have recently been baptized & started meeting together. Most of them were immigrants from Nigeria & the Phillippines & we had an interesting, encouraging service with them. Sunday night on the ship was formal night, so we all dressed up (OK - on this trip, anything not jeans is dressing up for me!) While the weather was sunny & nice most of the time, it was still a little cool to be able to use the pool or even sit up on deck much while the boat was moving. Despite this, the trip was definitely our most relaxing trip of the semester, which was kind of nice. We arrived back in Athens at 7:00 am Monday & bussed back to the Artemis for a day off before resuming classes tomorrow. We're getting down to the last full week of classes before finals!!
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