After our snorkeling adventure yesterday, today was another rest and relax day. This is such a beautiful resort so we want to enjoy it as much as possible. One thing on our schedule today was to attend a talk by the founder and president of Olivia. We went to another of her sessions earlier in the week. The big draw for attending her talks is that she gives away 2-for-1 certificates for Olivia trips, meaning two people go for the price of one. It’s a sweet deal for sure because these Olivia trips are not cheap so half off is a deal. We didn’t win any of the trips, but we did sign up for another trip going a year from now. It departs from Athens and has stops in Cyprus, the Greek Isles and Israel. After disembarking back in Athens we’ll hopefully fly back to Israel to visit Christine’s college roommate, Carol, who has lived on a kibbutz in Israel since 1968. We had already signed up for a riverboat cruise from Amsterdam to Switzerland scheduled for April, 2022. We’ll tack on to that trip a visit to Rome, the Amalfi coast and a stay in Malta. Finally, retirement is allowing us to do the traveling we’ve always wanted to do.
So not much else activity-wise to report on so I’ll just adds some more photos from around the resort.
Main walkway to pool and beach 
Guest rooms 
More guest rooms 
Resort buildings
This guy lives in a hole right near the entrance to our building. We’ve seen him every morning. The iguanas are all over the place and often are in the bushes bordering the walkways. It gets your attention when one jumps out of the bushes!
One fun thing we always try to do on these Olivia trips is play ping pong. It’s easier to play at a resort than on a cruise ship, although the sea breeze today was quite strong so the ball flew all over. At least we didn’t having a ship listing to and fro to contend with.
A little ping pong anyone? 
Ready for ping pong
Here’s what goes on at the noisy pool all day long.
Olivians at play 
Swim-up bar doing brisk business 
Everyone’s having fun
This is what we prefer.
Palms swaying in the breeze 
Resort beach
The most important thing we did today was get our COVID test, which we’ll need to get back into the U.S. We were originally scheduled to test Friday morning, but I got worried that our test results wouldn’t be back before we leave very early Saturday morning, so we crashed the line at the testing place this afternoon. We got swabbed and our results will be ready 7:00 a.m. Friday morning. I am a little nervous about the test result for me because I have a very sore throat, a plugged up ear and blocked sinus on the left. I think it’s just a cold starting, but I’m concerned that whatever is going on might cause the COVID test to not be negative. I’m not really worried about having COVID, just that whatever I have will muck up the test. I’ll know in the morning.
After dinner we strolled around the vacated pool and noticed lightening in the distance. We sat on some loungers to watch the incredible light show occurring all around the resort to the west. The storm wasn’t very close but the lightening was intense. We didn’t hear the thunder but I’m sure it was pretty violent wherever the storm was. It never rained in our area until sometime in the night.
Lounging by the pool at night 
Incredible lightening 
Lightening lights up the sky 
From our balcony
So another day in paradise comes to an end. Can’t believe that the week is nearly over. Time flies when you’re having fun!