lizzyfabulous....: More from Chania, Crete

We had to be at breakfast this morning at 7:00. I ate my usual of yogurt with fruit and honey and a boiled egg. The freshly squeezed orange juice is too good to be true here in Crete. We were to told the weather would be cool and rainy, but fortunately the forecast was wrong. It's a beautiful day here in Chania! We rode on another charter bus to a German cemetery about a half hour away. The cemetery is from the WWII Battle of Crete that occurred in May of 1941. Of course it was up on a hill, so off we went climbing again. Our calves are so sore from hiking the Samarian Gorge. The cemetary was very beautiful with these tiny pink flowers instead of grass surrounding the tomb stones. Mary Louise is really clumsy and she accidentally fell on top of one. That was good for an early morning laugh. The bus driver drove us back to Chania and dropped us off in the center of town. We walked to an archaeological museum, and I was relieved to see that it was not very big. Before we started looking at the statues, the teachers informed us that after the museum we would be allowed a break from 1:00 to 3:50. My jaw almost dropped because I didn't think they would ever let us have a break from Greek history. Mary Louise, Austin, and I had a leisurely lunch and then went into some of the cute shops. I didn't buy anything but I guess that's a good thing because the exchange rate isn't very good. We did see some penis-shaped bottle openers outside of a store, and inside the store they had even more penis figurines. I couldn't decide if I wanted to get one for my parents or Jamie, so I opted to just take a picture instead. I just kept imagining the look on my Dad's face if he would have seen it. The hamburgers have so much flavor here. They have some kind of herb in them but I'm not sure what it is just yet. After the shopping we got some gelato from a place that we had seen yesterday. It was pretty irresistible because inside the clear freezers it looked like mountains of colorful ice cream. We ate it on the way back to our hotel so we could rest for about an hour before visiting the synagogue. I'm kind of glad I didn't attend the Jewish service yesterday since we already had planned to go today. Dr. Levine worked it out with the Rabbi so two students could do their site reports in the synagogue. When I walked in, I immediately saw the sacred cat, and the Rabbi started talking to me and Dr. Levine about how he had been searching all day for two kittens. He explained that the male cats try to kill the kittens so that the female cat will quit lactating so that she will be in heat again. He said he wasn't sure if they did this in America. He looked at me straight in the eyes and said, "You know it's a sex thing." So this was my first experience in the Greek synagogue. The Rabbi lectured us for about an hour, really more on Cretan history instead of Judaism. I was very attentive and impressed with his perfect English. He seemed around seventy years old and for some reason I enjoyed him more than the other students. He also smoked a pipe periodically throughout our visit. After the synagogue a bunch of us girls went to the same restaurant that we went to the first night we were here. You would think that was silly but it is very close to our hotel, and unlike American restaurants all of the Greek restaurants serve the same things. This time I ordered fried zucchini for an appetizer. It is much better than fried pickles. Austin showed up at the end of our meal to drink the white whiskey. He decided he didn't want to wake up tomorrow for his everyday 5:30 run to watch the sun come up. That boy has so much positive energy! Tomorrow we are leaving Chania and going to another city in Crete called Heraklion! Miss y'all.

XOXO,
Elizabeth