Monuments at night

My roommate Mary's family is in town, so last night we all went to see some of the monuments. Can you believe I've lived in DC for almost 7 years and I've never really walked around the Mall at night? It's an amazing experience, and last night was the perfect night for it.

We started out at the World War II Memorial.

Mary loves acting silly.

We then walked down to the Lincoln Memorial.

Sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial is one of my favorite things in DC.

My Big Fat Greek Adventure (Part 3)

Sorry for the delay everyone; I've had a busy week. Now to pick up where I left off....

We left Crete on the morning of the 6th and took a boat to Santorini. We were met at the port by someone from our hotel and were driven up the steep cliff to our hotel - The Vedema Resort and Spa. This place was so nice, y'all. We had a welcoming party greet us with champagne upon our arrival. The sprawling resort was built over a 400-year old winery in the middle of the town of Megalachori.

The Vedema Resort and the sea in the distance. All the black stuff you see is volcanic rock.

The hotel cafe.

The entrance to the old winery, which is now the hotel's restaurant.

Our room had these wonderful French doors that opened onto a little terrace.

The "town square" was right across from our hotel. You can see some kids playing soccer on the right; I literally almost got hit in the head with their soccer ball. It was scary.

More pictures from the town of Megalachori....

This dog followed us around quite a bit. (Stray dogs are rampant everywhere in Greece.)

The next day we went to Fira, which is the most touristy city in Santorini.

There are always cruise ships anchored in the bay.

We did a volcano tour, which we were really excited about. A bit of history for a moment - Santorini is a volcanic island. It's actually made up of several islands in a sort of circular formation, but they all used to be part of one island. There was a volcanic eruption around 1450 BC that caused parts of the island to sink, stemming a theory that the sunken island is the Lost City of Atlantis. The island that's currently in the middle of the formation is the peak of the volcano, which apparently is still active.

We took a boat out to the volcano...

Kara at the volcano.

Turns out the volcano is nothing but a bunch of rocks. Not too exciting.

But at least there was a nice view of Fira.

We also stopped at the hot springs.

The next day we went to the famous black sand beach of Kamari. And our hotel had its own private beach (with table service).

Me and Kara enjoying our beverages.

The beautiful blue Aegean Sea.

That evening we went to the city of Oia (pronounced EE-ah). It's rumored to have the most beautiful sunset in the world. But of course, my camera is horrible and couldn't quite capture the beauty....

Everyone is gathered to watch the sunset.

As soon as the sun went down, everyone started clapping. It was a really neat experience.

Here are some more pictures from Oia, which is where we also spent the following day.

Goodbye little friend!

And that's the end of our adventure! We flew back to Athens, then flew through Paris on our way home. (Side note: I saw the Eiffel Tower from the air!!)

You can see the rest of my pictures here....well, not the rest. I took about 500 pictures so I had to pick and choose which ones to post.