Olympia/Katakolon, Greece

Dear Grace,

The next stop on our cruise was to Katakolon, Greece. It is the gateway to Olympia, where the ancient Greeks used to go every four years for more than a thousand years to celebrate the sacred games dedicated to Zeus. Unfortunately, we will have just moved back home to Chicago right before London hosts the next summer Olympics in 2012. Daddy and I enjoy watching the Olympics so it would have been fun walking around the free events. It has been impossible for our friends who will still be here to buy tickets. The last time Daddy and I watched the games, we were at the cottage with Grammie Mo, Grandpa Den, and Uncle Matt. Enjoy! 

Love, Mummy 

According to legend, Olympia was buit by Zeus, the kind of Greek gods. 

The sanctuary at Olympia was a major religious, cultural, and sporting center as well as a bond that linked motherland Greece with the colonies of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. 

Entering what's left of the entrance into the Stadium, designed to hold up to 40,000 spectators. 

We tried taking your 10 month picture in front of the spot where the Olympic torch is lit every 4 years, but you were more interested in trying to eat your sticker and the rocks surrounding you. 

I figured out how to get video clips back on to the blog since I've switched from a PC to a Mac. You can expect more of these to come...

On a side note- We became really good reading the cruise excursions and finding a way of still doing them on our own. It was WAY more inexpensive. We found a couple to split a taxi to Olympia. They were from India and were two of the sweetest people we'd met during our travels. I'm not sure how we started this conversation, but they were telling us how that they don't know how us American Moms do it. When asked what they mean they said we do everything! Take care of the kids, clean, cook ALL meals, etc. This cultural difference intrigued us to keep asking questions. (okay, it's always me.) They explained how common and inexpensive it is to have one person who does all the cleaning, another who watches the kids (multiple people depending on how many kids are in a family), and another person cooks. There are different cooking packages. You can hire someone to cook all your meals or just chop up and prepare all the food so you can just throw it all in. Could you imagine? Come to think of it...the cutting part is the most time consuming and is the worst part about cooking...