First Day at Sea

We got settled into our cabins for our three day cruise. The Celestyal Olympia, is a mid size ship that can hold about 1,500 passengers plus 500 staff. There are 10 levels, a restaurant, buffet area, several bars, a small casino and library. 

The views from the ship were beautiful. Usually, we were within sight of land.

Here is some of the gang.

The bar at the top of the ship.

Mykonos was the first stop of the cruise. I was feeling a little tuckered out, so I stayed behind.

My people!

I got some beautiful photos of the sunset from the boat.

Next up: Ephesus and Patmos!

Setting sail from Piraseus and St. Paul Church

After our day visiting Athens and Corinth, we rode the bus to the port city of Piraeus, where we boarded our ship for a thre- day cruise through the Greek Isles. Before we left, we had Mass at St. Paul Church.

I volunteered to do the readings for the Mass, as it was the day of our friend Mick Kenny's funeral, October 26. Many of the readings for Mass during our trip are from Paul's letter to the Ephesians. This reading seemed to describe Mick.

Ephesians 4:1-6 

Brothers and sisters: I, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace, one Body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

In his homily, Fr. Michael talked about how we often only have a conditional peace, a peace that is dependent on things going the way we desire, on God doing what we tell him to do. Boy, does this describe me. Can we be peaceful when things go wrong in small things and large? This is definitely an area for me to work on. 

Many of the exteriors of the churches in Greece were yellow and white.

After Mass, we made our way to the port in Piraeus, one of the busiest ports in Europe. There is a cattle car like experience moving a large group of people and their luggage from buses and parking lots to a cruise ship. But really it went pretty well. 

Here is our ship: the Olympia from Celestyal.

After we checked out our cute little cabins, we had a safety drill and went to our assigned life boat wearing a life jacket. 

I have never been on a cruise and am looking forward to the experience!

City of Athens

Leaving the Athens airport.

We landed at Athens to begin the pilgrimage. The capital of Greece is a city of five million people.  Athens has an ancient, storied history of which we didn't even scratch the surface. In the past decade, Greece has had some economic problems involving debt.

And while the city seemed to me to be scruffier than other European capitals, it also had a charm and vibrancy about it.

We didn't spend much time in Athens and most of the photos I took were out the window of our bus.

Lots of graffiti that often looked like street art. Apparently, graffiti is popular in Greece.

I liked the Greek people very much. They seemed laid back and accepting of tourists, who of course are good economically for the country.

Very glad not to be driving in the rush hour traffic, although I didn't notice too much honking of car horns. From Athens, we went to Corinth, following in the footsteps of St. Paul.