It's all Greek to me

Laura, the girls, Laura's friend Julie, her two girls and I all made our way to Crete for ten days of relaxing, sunshine and reading. The first few days we enjoyed the three saltwater pools, buffets, and nightly shows put on by the awesome Animation staff. After dinner, we went to the "mini disco" so all 4 girls could shake their tail feathers. Although, skeptical at first they all knew every dance by the last night, I think we had just as much fun watching as they did dancing. I ended doing some dancing of my own to remixes of all sorts including the Macarena, the dance that crosses all kinds of language barriers.

Sack lunches in hand, we headed to Knossos, ruins of an ancient palace dating back before 1380 BC. Several areas of the ruins had been partially reconstructed to show how it may have been. The murals and paintings had all been replaced with duplicates, however we ventured to the museum afterwards to see the originals plus some. Its amazing to see how civilizations over 3000 years had various technologies including running water and their ability to make beautiful jewelry.

In honor of Shark Week's 25th birthday, I went diving in the Mediterranean Sea (home to 47 species of shark, 15 of which are potentially fatal to humans.) Although our dive was shark-less, the dive master I went with spotted an octopus den on the sea floor. After carefully removing the rocks and debris from the entrance he pulled the dark purple octopus out in an inky fit. The little guy soon realized we weren't there to hurt him but, just in case, he changed into a more fleshy color as we held him and he swam from diver to diver. The wrapping of his little suction-cupped tentacles around my finger was an absolute awesome and unprecedented sensation, one I will not soon, if ever, forget. We returned him to his humble abode and replaced the rocks before drifting to the reef. The next morning, the 7 of us went to the Kretaquarium. It was interesting to be able to put a name to all the creatures I had seen. 

Laura, Julie and I went down into Hersonissos for some shopping and stumbled upon a fish spa. We soon had our feet in individual tanks filled with little garra rufa fish. I laughed the entire 20 minutes as they sucked the grime and dead skin off our feet. It was more of a tickle-fest but our feet evolved into the sexiest in the city, just as the man had promised!