Woke up to a raging thunderstorm!  It's an interesting feeling hearing the surf breaking against the ship (we have a blacony) while hearing also the rain peltingdown and thunder cracking sharply every few minutes!  The ship didn't seem to rock much - I could hardly feel anything different.

Before I forgot, I wanted to mention a bit about yesterday's Turkish carpets: the carpets are all hand knotted by Muslim women and a 6X9' rug can take 1 1/2 years to make!  When the dealer tried to sell me one, I told him I couldn't afford one, and he brought out smaller and smaller sizes.  The smallest one was about the size of 2 placemats and was still $100!!  While I could afford $100, what would I do with such a tiny rug??  I should have asked him if he had any rugs coaster-size...  LOL

Today, we are headed to Crete (hopefully the rain will stop!!!).  Not real sure what we are seeing today, but if it's anything 1/2 as fun as our previous port days, it should be a blast!

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It's almost suppertime now and Reese and I just got up from our routine after-our-shore-excursion nap.  Our day was no where near as fun as previous excursion days, though it did have its highlights. 

After running through pouring down rain and deep puddles to our bus, our driver (who didn't introduce himself to us) took us deep into the island of Crete.  All of us were pretty disgusted by the heavy rain, and I said a quiet prayer that God would give us beautiful weather for the day.  We drove up, up, up a mountain and by the time we hit our first stop, the sun came out, and the day became absolutely beautiful!  Thanks, God!!  :o)

We even saw a beautiful rainbow, but I didn't get a good enough picture of it to publish here...

Our first stop was at a winery. 

I went ahead and let Reese try the wine cause he was of legal age there, and to let him discover for himself how terrible wine tastes...!  ;o)  He agreed.

We were served a glass of wine made right there, along with a plate of food that was almost entirely inedible - I won't describe it here (no point), but it was so bad almost no one did more than pick at it.  Reese made a design out of his:

After that, we saw the winery and a museum of old Greek stuff.  Then, we visited their store and I loaded up on more spices and olive oil products.  ;o)  Love me some olive oil stuff!!

Corner of the winery.  Sooooo pretty.

After that, we took the bus to an old ruinous monestary on the side of a hill.

Church inside of the monestary.

  It was incredibly cool, but I know nothing of it because our guide didn't tell us anything.  If he did, he only told those of us standing next to him.  :o(  But it was still cool.  There was a little bitty store there with an adorable monk selling icons and other religious goods, and I took the opportunity to buy a couple of Christmas gifts for my niece and SIL (they don't read my blog I'm sure, so it's safe to say it ;o)  ). 

Entering the monestary grounds.  Greek flag flying above.

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Though much of the monestary was in ruins, other parts were intact, like this church.

The countryside was beautiful and so peaceful.

Not sure what this stair area was all about, but it was fun climbing around on it.

Yep!  I had fun climbing on it, too!

Hangin' out at the ruins.  Just another ordinary day.

Taken from the top of the "stairs": Not sure what this long hallway was for, but you can see the roof is gone and you can see the arches that made up the supports for the roof.  It was cooler than it shows in the photo.

This was a courtyard of sorts.  The buildings surrounding it were mostly intact.  Very calm and peaceful here.  A good place for a monestary!

One more: near the edge of the monestary walls.  Once I get the yard equipment photoshopped out of this photo, this will be one of my favorites.

After that, our guide took us to the town of Vamos and pretty much just walked around.  Very boring, though it was very pretty and a charming little Cretan town.

I took this one for my Mom: it's a travel agency!!  "Simpson Travel".  LOL!  Inside was actually really modern, with modern furniture!  No people inside, though.

Along the streets of Vamos.  I guess lots of tourists stay here; the townspeople have no jobs here, so they rent their homes out to tourists.  Ya gotta do what ya gotta do, I guess.

By now, most of the tour guests were tired and bored but we had one more stop - a shopping market.  Ugh.  So, in downtown Chania (KHAN ee yah), we shopped.  I'm sure the market was very interesting, but again, our guide either didn't tell us anything, or you had to be standing right next to him to hear anything, so we wandered around until we could board the bus and head back to the ship.  One interesting thing though: Reese found an Armani belt for 5 Euros (~$7.50) and I found a set of 4 nesting make-up bags by Chanel for 12 Euro (~$18).  We don't know if they are knock-offs or not - I'd like to sell mine on eBay or the like...

After we FINALLY got back to the ship, we visited with some ship-friends over pizza, and took a long nap.  Now it's suppertime!!  :o)