To my family & friends, and whoever else is interested in my adventure, I hope this blog is somewhat entertaining and keeps us seemingly closer then we really are.

So we finally got Internet!  To start things off our trip to Greece was long but pretty uneventful.  Thanks to Kate we had a place to stay in NYC for our 16hr layover and then on to our 9+hr flight to Athens.  Luckily we had our own row so we sprawled out and watched the little plane-ticker fly across the globe.  Brian's coach, Dimitris picked us up from the airport.  We were fooled by the abnormally strong wind at the airport to just how hot it actually was until we got on the road.  Thanks to the sputtering air-conditioning in the car we survived the 3hr drive (also thanks to a McDonalds stop to get a cheeseburger & frappe [more on those later]).  Just as we were pulling into the pool in Patra my motion sickness was kicking in so I was more then happy to jump out and meet some of the players and get a tour of their outdoor pool.  The heat really hit us then and we gladly accepted some Loux juice (Patra made, they are very proud).  The pool is really cool.  It is pretty big and sits right on the Ionian Sea (I keep getting corrected that here it is not an ocean, it is a SEA!).  Brian's team is called NOP and they are young but have some good players (according to Brian).  I think they are looking up to Brian a lot to be a leader and admire where he has come from, especially after the USA boys won a Silver Medal!!!  They will play only a few games at this outdoor pool until it gets too cold (and too expensive) to heat.  After that they move to a very large indoor pool (seats about 4,000!!!).  We have heard their fans are CRAZY and I cannot wait to see what is in store.  Their first game isn't until Oct. 25th so we have a while to wait.

These pictures above are from the bedroom window of our apt.  As you can see, we have a beautiful view of the sunset.  We look down into the backyard of a church.  It is nice not being surrounded by apt. buildings, which are everywhere here.  For the most part it is a great place.  Good size, and as quiet as an apt. in a city can be.  Besides the church bells at the wee hours of the morning and the bizarre street sweeper at 11pm all we hear are the typical buses, motorcycles and car horns that are common within any cities limits.  If you look closely from either of our two porches you can even see a sliver of the ocean, which is very comforting to this beach town girl.  We are slowly by slowly making this apt. feel more like home.  When we showed up, to our surprise, there was no furniture, only a small (twin or full sized is debatable) bed, a table in the kitchen with ONE chair.  This was obviously not acceptable so the next day Dimitris, Mary (Fotis the team manager's gf [more on them later]), and I went to a store that is the equivalent of IKEA called Protiker (they even have the blue/yellow signs).  Mary especially helped me stock up on all the kitchen supplies we needed and we got a couch and coffee table and some chairs.  It is still a very meek decorating job, but I am encouraging Brian to invest in more homely items like rugs and pictures for the walls!  Haha, this will be a challenge but I am sure by April we will have this place spruced up :-)!  Well I think this is enough for now.  I will write more tomorrow and post more pictures!  I miss & love you all!