Moving on down the road

This morning we left Consuegra, where the landscape reminded us very much of west Texas--flat, dry (except for obviously irrigated farmland), and mostly treeless. It wasn't long before the landscape changed completely, and we found ourselves driving through a beautiful mountainous area, overlaid entirely with olive groves. My mother-in-law stated that it was "olive trees like the stars in the sky," which is no exaggeration. Even in Italy and Greece, we never saw so many olive trees. As we approached our destination on the Spanish Riviera, the landscape changed again, as did the weather. It had been downright cold in Consuegra and drizzly for most of our drive, but when we arrived in Benalmadena Costa, it was sunny and very warm. Mimi and the boys were quick to change into swimsuits, so they could splash around in the Mediterranean and the pool. It really never gets warm enough for me to splash around in anything, but the view from our apartment is like Heaven, so I was quite content to hang out here and get us settled in. It's always challenging to start back to school after a holiday, but I think our the view and the promise of playing on the beach will help everyone make it through the morning tomorrow.

A lovely drive

The view out the front door of our apartment

The view from the bedroom and living room

Day Off

I have previously alluded to the fact that we have set up our homeschool schedule a little differently this year. Instead of having "days" of school, we have "sessions." We always try to start a session* by 8:00 am and finish by 12:00. In this way, we can finish two sessions in a day. The typical weekly schedule we set up, by mutual consent of all parties involved, has us doing two full days of class (four total sessions), followed by a half day, followed by two full days, and then a full day completely off. For us, for now, this seems to be a good balance of work and play. We work on weekends, if that is when the school days fall, unless there is a particular event or activity we want to do that only happens on those days. All that to say, we have been working since we arrived in Wales, and today was our first full day off, so we took the opportunity to explore our surroundings and just have some fun.

First up on the agenda was a horse riding lesson for Ruth at a local stable. Ruth has worked very hard this summer, researching riding facilities in various places and contacting them to find out about the possibility of riding. This is the first one that has worked out, and she was so thrilled to be back in the saddle, even though it was an English saddle, and she had been used to primarily riding Western in the States. She did a fantastic job, and we all had so much fun watching her!

After that, we took the long way home (but, really not that long), so that we could drive along the Welsh coast, which is absolutely beautiful! We are looking forward to more opportunities to visit the coast and beaches throughout our stay here.

Once we had had our lunch, the boys helped me pick apples from the tree in our yard. I then peeled, cored and sliced them, dusted them with sugar and cinnamon, and baked them, with the goal of producing (at the kids' request) something akin to the baked cinnamon apples at Chili's. The jury happily claims that I got pretty close.

When that was done, we decided to head over to the leisure club, access to which is a perk of staying in this house. It is a lovely space and has plenty of fun things for everyone to enjoy. The little boys spent most of their time trying out the bikes and other ride-on toys, while the older two enjoyed the big-enough-for-big-kids swings. There was also a pony paddock, a goat enclosure, and a delightful duck pond, as well as a very nice indoor pool, which we did not take advantage of this time but will definitely do another time. The weather was amazing, so we didn't rush to leave.

In order not to stray too far from our ancient Greek theme, though, Jeff and the kids watched a movie that Jeff loved as a kid called Asterix and the Twelve Tasks, which is an animated twist on the twelve tasks of Hercules (who is the Roman version of the Greek god Heracles).

Our last act of fun for the day was an early surprise birthday party for Weston. His birthday isn't until November, but when Jeff and I found out that some of the Rugby World Cup games were going to be played in Wales while we were here, we knew we had found the perfect gift for our sports lover. The tickets were delivered to the house today, so we spontaneously decided to turn it into a party. While Weston was in the shower, after dinner, we all hid behind the couch. When he came in, we jumped out and surprised him. He thought we were just surprising him with dessert, because he had smelled the brownies baking. He had no idea what else was coming. He was flabbergasted when he found out what was going on, and when he opened the package, his reaction was priceless!

I would say we definitely made the most of our day off and are now refreshed and ready to get back to work tomorrow.

*For those of you curious about what a session looks like, it is this:
Ruth's sessions consist of Literature, Spanish, Algebra II, and English Grammar. Weston and Max have (at their appropriate levels) Math, History, Spelling, Grammar, Reading, and Language. (This last started out as Spanish, but they both recently decided to give Chinese a go. They are both very enthused about this new venture for the moment and are working hard, so they can translate for us when we visit China next year.) And, Clay works on letter sounds and reading, as well as Math "from the green book." He also sits in on whichever classes he wants to sit in on and has learned quite a lot that way. 

So happy to be back in the saddle again

Panorama of the Welsh Coast
(Note the fish-shaped shrubbery in the far left picture)

Abundant Apples

Fun at the Leisure Club

A Big Surprise

Going Greek

This year's summer reading list has been significantly different for me from years past, as I've been preparing for and teaching Ruth's high-school level literature class. Some of the classics we've read have included Oedipus the King, Agamemnon, The Histories by Herodotus, Medea, The Birds, and, currently, The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. It's not been light reading, but Ruth and I have both stretched our brains in wonderful ways and have had some fantastic discussions. As a family, we also listened to The Iliad, as we were driving into Greece earlier this summer. Additionally, Weston has been ravenously reading all the Percy Jackson books, and the boys and I have been studying about ancient Greece in our Story of the World book we use for history class. Tonight, we watched a fantastic version of The Odyssey, to go along with some of our lessons. It's starting to seem like it's all Greek to us! :) If you catch a theta or psi in any of my future writings, you'll know it's probably taken over my whole brain.

Goodbye, Greece. Hello, Italy.

Yesterday afternoon, around 3:00, we checked in for the ferry boat that would take us across the Gulf of Corinth and the Ionian Sea, from Greece to Italy. There wasn't a sign or person stationed anywhere to give us instructions, so we waded our way through the chaos and disorganization the best we could and finally boarded the boat a couple of hours later, right on time. We had never had the experience of an overnight ferry trip before, so we were all very excited. We played cards in the lounge, told stories on the deck, saw the most amazing sunset, and got to enjoy two pretty decent meals. We landed in Brindisi, Italy this morning, and then drove for about four hours to get to our home in Naples, where we will stay for two full weeks, ending our stretch of very brief stays. We will slow the tourism portion of the trip down a little while we are here and try to focus a bit more on school and work. We will definitely still see the sights and eat some pizza, as this is the birthplace of that international culinary delight, but it won't be quite as constant as it has been in the first part of our journey. We kicked off our time here with gelato for dinner, so I'd say we're off to a pretty great start!

One of our two cabins aboard the ferry

Goodbye, Greece.

There were tons of beautiful little islands all along the way.

A sunset for the record books

eager to land in Italy

coming into port at Brindisi

Naples is known for its lemon groves.
This beautiful tree sits across the street from our house.

Our Naples home

Gelato for dinner to celebrate our arrival in Italy

So much personality here!

We've been talking about having gelato in Italy for a year.
We were all glad to move from the talking stage to the eating stage!

Trust me when I tell you this was a mess of royal proportions just waiting to happen!

Numismatic Museum and Gulf of Corinth

 We had promised our coin collecting boys a trip to the Numismatic Museum before we left Athens, so this morning we headed over there as our last hurrah. It was really interesting and everyone enjoyed it.

From there, we headed out of the city to the more rural western part of Greece. We are staying in a charming house that smells like roses, in a tiny little coastal town (with only about six streets) called Valimitika. We spent a lovely afternoon at the mostly unpopulated, mainly unpolluted rocky beach on the Gulf of Corinth, at the end of our street. The water is the clearest water I have ever seen, which gives a sensational view of the marbled and colorful rocks on the bottom. Going to the beach is not the kids' favorite thing because, obviously, I've failed as a parent because they don't enjoy getting sandy, but today we could hardly drag them away. But, when we did, we drove over to the next little town (which is a virtual metropolis compared to where we are), Aigio, where we found a restaurant with tables overlooking the Gulf for our last dinner in Greece. We enjoyed a sampling of delicious Greek food and an absolutely beautiful sunset. 

Tomorrow evening, we will catch the ferry to Italy, but we all agree that Greece is one of our favorite places we have visited so far. 

The ceiling in the Numismatic Museum 

Owls and olive branches, which are both symbols of Athena,
figure prominently in the coinage throughout Greece's history.

These coins from Knossos depict labyrinths, which the kids were excited about
since they just heard the story of Theseus and the Minotaur.

Our Valimitiko home

Roses, in the garden of our rose-scented home

Love these kids and this place!

Beautiful rocks on the sea floor. We could not get over how clear the water was.

Max, getting his float on.

We love Greece!

Weston and his hot dog rocks

The little lighthouse in Aigio

The sign says this plane tree dates back to 200 A.D.

Last dinner in Greece, on the Gulf of Corinth

The food was delicious and the view wasn't too shabby either. 

Temples

Today took us to the south, where we saw the Temple of Artemis and Poseidon's Temple, which are both in more rural areas. And, when we were done with all our sightseeing, we found a great little fish tavern for dinner. It was a truly lovely day!

The kids at the Temple of Artemis

I love how I captured everyone just between the columns at the Temple of Artemis

Poseidon's temple must have been truly grand in its day

The gang's all here

One of many stunning views from Poseidon's Temple

Dinner on the Aegean Sea, with Poseidon's Temple on the hill in the background

crab hunting

Weston caught one, and it wasn't too much fresher than our dinner.

Athens

We joined a free walking tour this morning, which took us all over the city and allowed us to see every major site and was really interesting. When the tour was over, we picnicked in the National Gardens, and then did a little shopping in the market area, before heading home to rest for a while. We also did a sunset hike this evening up Lycabettus Hill, where we experienced breathtaking views of the entire city.

Poseidon's Spring
According to the stories, Poseidon and Athena had a contest
to see who would become the protector of the city.
Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and created this spring.
Athena used her staff to create an olive tree, which could be used for food and
warmth and building. The people liked her offer better and named the city after her.

Hadrian's Library
Hadrian was a Roman emperor who built a huge library in Athens
during his reign, because he wanted Athens to be the cultural center of the empire.
Unfortunately, all the books were in Latin, which the common Greek people couldn't read at all. 

The Acropolis
It means "top city," and it is where The Parthenon (Athena's Temple)
is located. There are also several other lesser temples on top up there,
which is what you can see on the right hand side of the picture. 

The Roman Agora
This was the marketplace of Athens during the time of the Roman Empire.

Temple of Hephaestus
This temple has been the best preserved and sits next to the Ancient Agora.

Lycabettus Hill
According to the myths, Athena picked up a huge rock to bring to The Acropolis
to place at her temple, but while she was on her way, she was interrupted by messengers
with bad news, and she dropped the boulder to form this hill, which then became
a higher point than The Acropolis, where her temple was located. 

Hadrian's Arch
This arch divided the "old city," where The Acropolis is
(and which you can just see peeking through the arch),
from the "new city," where the Temple of Zeus could be found.

Temple of Zeus
In its prime, this temple would have been much larger than
The Parthenon. When the columns were being erected, liquid lead was poured inside
to harden and add stability to the structures. If you look closely, you can see large holes
drilled near the bottom of the columns. When the Ottoman Turks occupied the land,
they figured out there was lead in the columns and harvested some of it to make bullets.  

The Olympic Stadium
Weston, our lover of all sports, was so excited to see the Olympic Stadium,
which was built for the first modern olympics in 1896.

The Parliament Building
This was formerly the royal palace and is now the seat of government. 

The changing of the guard at the parliament building
These are Evzone Soldiers, dressed in the traditional uniform,
which is now purely ceremonial. Supposedly, the black pom-poms
on the shoes hide a blade, which was once used in close range fighting.

National Garden
We had a lovely picnic and some gigantic fun playing on the humongous trees.

Fruit Street Vendor
The kids were so excited to each get to pick out a kilo of fruit
from one of the beautifully arrayed carts on the street.

Sunset hike up Lycabettus Hill
Our tour guide mentioned this was the best place in town to see the sunset,
so we couldn't resist adding this evening hike to our agenda.

The Parthenon
The Parthenon sits on the left hand side of the picture,
while some of the lesser temples are on the right.
You can see the Saronic Gulf in the background.

The Glowing Acropolis
All of the temples are lit up when the sun goes down,
and it is absolutely stunning!