Alpha – Beta – Gamma – Delta – Epsilon – Zeta – Eta – Theta… (and so on)

Paul and I were on this site this weekend, quizzing ourselves on Greek road signs. Paul does pretty well – he credits math and statistics for his knowledge of the Greek alphabet. I, on the other hand, have much to learn.

Why this sudden interest in Greek, you ask?

Well dear friends, we’d like to have SOME knowledge of the language before we visit the country.

Yup you heard me. Visit Greece. Us. Sometime next year. *does a happy dance inside* I have wanted to go to Greece forever. Well, mostly since the 2004 Olympics were in Athens. But I credit my Mary Stewart books and Kids Discover magazine for fostering an interest in Greece, the land and the history. Paul, of course, loves to travel, period, so it wasn’t too hard to convince him. This weekend, we were talking about it, and we decided to just go ahead and do it. Save up the money, plan a trip, and go.

We ask ourselves if we are crazy. We have loans, and we want to save up money for a house! Why spend so much money traveling? We decided that this is the best time to go – before children, before our lives get hectic, when we’re still young and qualify for discounts, while we’re both still working so we HAVE the money. This is something we both really want to do. And now we’re so excited!!

We were browsing around in Barnes & Noble this weekend and came across this book. It had a lot of really great information, and we hope to actually buy it to help us plan our trip. (We also want to get this book because it was a cool look at Greek sights.) According to the book, we are thinking it will cost about $4,000 to make a 2 week trip to Greece (including airfare). I still want to keep researching costs to have a more specific number, but currently that is our goal. While this would be the most expensive vacation we have ever taken, it’s doable and we figure we’ll have a year to save up before going!

Immediately I set about researching where in Greece we want to go. Here is a preliminary list of places we want to visit. Of course, we probably won’t get to do it all, and we might end up doing things that aren’t on this list. But here it is for now:

The Acropolis & the Parthenon (Athens)
The National Archaeological Museum (Athens)
The Ancient Theater of Epidaurus (Peloponnese Peninsula)
Mycenae (Peloponnese Peninsula)
Corinth (Peloponnese Peninsula)
Ancient Olympia (Peloponnese Peninsula)
The Island of Santorini
The Island of Crete
The Minoan Palace of Knossos (Crete)
Thessaloniki
Delos

So yeah. This might be just the beginning. Or maybe certain things will cause our trip to be postponed indefinitely. Only God knows. :-) I’m excited now though!

By the way, if you’re interested in coming with us, let me know. It would be fun to share the experience! :-)