Day 3

So, last Saturday was quite the day for adventures. Dad's friend of the British embassy invited us (and others) on a trip through the Corinth canal on a British Navy destroyer (the HMS Manchester). The Corinth canal was apparently a project of a long-ago tyrant named Periander (doesn't quite sound tyrannic, does it? Only goes to show...), and was fruitlessly picked up by other more aptly named tyrants of later centuries, but was not finished until the late 1800s (for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinth_Canal). By that time, most boats were too large to fit in it and it wasn't quite the strategic shortcut it was always meant to be. Nonetheless, our brave British destroyer, on its way home to merry England, was just small enough to fit--and one of the few modern ships that can (tugboats and day-cruises aside). It was terribly exciting and the navy, er, people (officers? I don't really know) we met were very friendly and informative and just really nice, actually. They fed us a really delicious lunch of pasta and stewed meat and then a ridiculously amazing cake--too ridiculous to believe it could have been made on a navy ship (but it was!). It was chocolate and then they had actually cream, just straight cream, to pour all over it... anyway! We went through the canal, with the artificial cliff-sides so close we could almost touch them. Our guide told us we had about ten centimeters to spare between the ship and the bottom of the canal. We think he may have been exaggerating... but it was a really tight fit. After the trip through the canal, they let us "muck about" on the deck and even play in a helicopter (a "helo" named Sting according to its pilot). Then, once that adventure was over and they kicked us off with a friendly sort of kick, we went to the city of Corinth (the Roman one, anyway) and saw where Paul preached against the whore-mongers (apparently there was a temple of Aphrodite... I won't go into the details, but let's just say this temple wasn't exactly a holy place). We had a snack there--enjoying fried cheese (saganaki) and pita bread with spicy cheese dip (tirokafteri), then went up to old Corinth (the Greek one) and just took a few pictures, because it was closed. All, in all, a pretty amazing day!