Another lazy day...

the pattern appears to be: wake up, stroll around the bend along the water’s edge to choose a bakery for our morning spanakopita. (Today’s was especially good). Then we head to the beach for our dip in the sea. Today was sort of windy and sandy, so we packed up after a bit and headed for the little pool. Lots of cribbage today…current score is Lo 13, Erin 8. (I’m trying hard to keep my hopes up for an eventual overall win, but at one point when I was down 11 to 4 it was real hard.)

dad, perhaps only you will appreciate how good her hand is here...

After our afternoon nap, we headed back downtown today for a light snack. You see, we’ve been trying to get on the Greek eating schedule, which seems to consist of the following: coffee and cigarette around 10, some sort of lunch at some point, and then dinner around 9 or 10. The problem is, we’re hungry when we wake up, and then hungry again at around noon or 1, and then my goodness, how can we wait for dinner until 10? So we intended to have a snack of Greek salad at around 7 and get real dinner later…but then we ordered fried zucchini too…and then we had a big burger treat for dessert…

so it was basically dinner. Now it’s 9:30 and we’re in for the night. So much for being Greek. J

Here's our hotel in Andros:

Some sights and sounds of the trip so far:

*Kids being held in the front of their parents on mopeds, going crazy with the horn. (Kids also seem to be held in the front seat of cars, whether or not there is a car seat in the back)

*Chain smokers everywhere here…at one point our bus driver was both smoking and talking on his cell phone while he drove.

*Every day here on Andros there is a big truck full of huge pots and plants that drives by saying some stuff on a loudspeaker…seems like an interesting way to do business.

*The local destroyer out in the harbor here keeps changing its position every few minutes or so..we cannot figure out its purpose but hope that all is well.

*Old men walk by in the evening and say “Kalispera”(Good Evening) in a low, growly, but friendly tone.

*Lots of tiny bathing suits, on men and women, old and young alike.

*There is a bird family by our pool: mom, dad, complete with a nest of many teeny little ones. We watched them go crazy when a local cat prowled by.

*Fishermen working on their nets in the afternoon…on little boats with a dog on each one keeping watch.

*We watched over the last three days a group of guys on some very sketchy-looking scaffolding put a stone facing on a building. We couldn’t believe that A) they were hammering away at stones in 100+ degree heat, and B) how beautiful the wall looked when it was done.

*We have a favorite shop keeper here: when be bought a beach umbrella from her that had a problem with one of the parts, I brought it back and she ran and got a working part from her own umbrella to give to us. Super nice.

* (Lo here) Here was our inn keeper and the Hotel Chrissti Akti...

..Erin said that he was "handsome in a Sean Connery sort of way." He's the one on the left, in case you couldn't recognize the "Sean" in him.

Tomorrow we head out on another ferry to another island, not quite sure which one yet! More from wherever we end up!

spy cam

the spy-cam was such a hit and what with everyone clamoring for more, I've put my own safety aside for you, the faithful readers

here's a priest spreading some peace (note fingers), perhaps it's peace to the Lord or (gasp!), did he see spy cam?

shady character w/ gold chains and a beater, i pretty sure he's trying to sell his old cellphone to this unsuspecting bus worker.

the oft-seen but henceforth not captured nun on cellphone...can you name the city?
here's one of many horrendous fountains, fearing that anyone would think I actually wanted a pic I put spy cam on the job.
going along with the "is that actually for real?" this dress...and shoes is the real thing, fo shizzle.
CAUGHT! In the act, clearly posted was sign that was in Greek, but it almost surely said don't put yourself in the fountain, yet a tourist was sighted and snapped, thanks spy cam.

In the islands at last....

andros at its best

this is actually "our beach," the rig and warship aren't the prettiest, but the water feels great and is crystal clear

Hello friends...greetings from Andros, a lovely Greek island in the Aegean Sea. It is still over 100 degrees, but right now we are cool and sitting in the one internet cafe on the island. We had to take a bus to get here from our hotel, wait outside for an hour and a half, but finally here we are again on the blog. :)

First, a few words about how we got here:

We traveled to Thessaloniki after Meteora. Now, I don't like to say bad things about places that I travel to...after all, I'm a tourist in and out in a few days; how could I really judge a place? But let's just say that our activities in Thessaloniki included buying a DVD of My Big Fat Greek Wedding and watching it our hotel room...sleeping...struggling through the incredibly stifling city on a self-guided walking tour...and then sleeping some more until we could get the train out. Here are a few pictures:

there I am, locked out of a 3rd century church that we had just watched a man get admitted to...and here is the Roman agora, under excavation since 1973...we especially liked the lovely apartment buildings surrounding the whole thing.

This church, modeled after Hagia Sofia in Istanbul, had some real, real, old frescoes and mosaics. These are from the 8th century:

So...we left Thessaloniki in the morning, and traveled twelve hours yesterday to get here...via our feet, the train, taxi, bus, ferry, another bus...and finally found ourselves at a lovely beachside hotel at a little harbor town. We grabbed our usual dinner and dessert (gyros and ice cream, PLUS a beer this time, all for 12 euro total), and headed for bed. Today was a lazy day at the beach, and then the pool...and we plan the same for tomorrow. :)


Hey, see below for new pics added from the monastery hike!

God bless the Dutch!

Greetings from Meteora!

We are in a little town at the base of these incredible rock cliffs, and perched atop them are various (very old) monasteries. But more about that in a bit...first a quick summary of our travel day yesterday.

It involved:
-3 buses
-3 games of cribbage while waiting in a hot, smoky bus station, all of which Lo won handily. Luckily my perfect blend of competitive yet gracious spirit made the games fun still. :)
-hours of staring at not very nice scenery through the bus windows...
-and all in temperatures hovering around 100 degrees. (Thank goodness the AC on the buses mostly worked well.)

When we finally tumbled off the bus around 4 pm here in Kalambaka, we were very focused on finding a swimming pool. And we did...after getting slightly sketchy directions from our hotel proprietor, and walking a few km. As we approached, we heard loud music, and thought someone was listening to it in their house. Nope! The pool was actually a club, with bumping music that could be heard far and wide. And, it was full of Greeks smoking, drinking, swimming, and thoroughly enjoying the atmoshpere. Not another American in sight. But, we hopped in, swam a bit, read our Homer, and enjoyed being cool for the first time that day. (Picture to come as soon as we can find a place that will let us upload them...)


As for today...hiking to these monasteries was something we both had been anticipating as a highlight of this trip. We were not to be put off by the weather, although I must admit that as I looked up at the sheer rock faces I was inwardly a bit dismayed. Loretta forged ahead, we decided to hike through the mountain trails instead of on the asphalt road...which was mostly great. Butterflies floated by, we saw two tortoises trucking along, and the scenery was really beautiful. But oh...so...hot.

the first tortoise, the second one i actually heard rustling in the brush to our right and got a little nervous, i put my arm back and stepped back and said "what's that?" i learned that loud leaves rustling and no apparent movement from that direction probably doesn't mean threat, but tortoise

Erin on the hike...we weren't there yet
Lo on the hike (re-enactment actually), but this was after and I was still pretty enthusiastic, except for passing this very SKETCHY looking cat, I thought it might be feral, Erin graciously offered to go first.

My memories of this hike will always include looking ahead at Lo, looking up at the clifftop monasteries, and wondering how on earth we were going to get there...but we finally did.

this lovely depiction of a young priest taking the stairs and an older guy taking the ramp, this sign was where the two paths split at St. Nicholas' Monestery the orginal, I know you're all wondering where it could be is actually inside St. Nick's.
This icon may look familiar to those who read sharon's blog, it's st. nick.
this is about 2 km into our hike (actually more like 4 b/c someone (me...loretta) led us out of town the wrong way...oops, well it's only 44 out. I'm pointing to St. Nick's Monastery.

We even made it to two of them, peeked inside at all of the amazing icons from centuries past, rested, and then decided to try for public transporation back to town. No such luck, though...buses were done for the day (at 3:00!), and we were too cheap to call a taxi. I was marshalling my last reserves for the hour+ hike back down when a couple nearby who had overheard our transport discussion said, "You going down? We'll take you."

Friends, words cannot express our delight at this ride...neither of us could stop smiling or thanking them...they were a lovely Dutch couple, driving around Europe in their camper van, and they were funny and kind...the woman even offered us a lemon drop once we got in the car. They drove past their campsite and brought us straight to our hotel. As we waved good bye I may even have called them angels. And, by the way, the thermometer in their van said 44 celsius. That's 111. Phew!

The view from the road into the valley.
One of the monasteries.

Tomorrow, off to Thessaloniki on the 7:42 train!

Sleeper in Every Group

so the long awaited (3 days--geez you guys are impatient!) post by lo. so of course it will contrast a little to erin's, i'm a ranter at heart and so i think i might be a ranter blogger...here we go.

i have come to discover, or i guess rediscover i do not like these guided tours (most esp. when people are wearing matching red hats that say "license to travel" on the back - no pic sorry, but true story).

today erin and i were eating our clif bars in the shade with a couple other tourists, they left. It was quiet just the cicadas clicking (or whatever that noise they make is called). then rolls up a woman with a huge leather purse, floppy white hat, white flowing shirt leading a string of tourista's. then the lecture began, they set up camp right in our pic-nic area and actually i had to move my bag to accommodate one of them. my problem is not so much the guided tour format it's that a large group of people looking at something old tend to become completely insular, they have no thought for the lone tourist who may want to stop in shade except can't because they (the group) is taking up the whole area, or may not want to stop right here to listen to a guide in a language they don't understand, they clog up the whole walkway so they can all listen to their guide, this is annoying to EVERYONE else, but they don't even know it b/c they're so self absorbed (the corporate self). As you can see by the pics we saw some more real old stuff today in old delphi,

apollo’s temple,


an arena and
the best preserved stadium including the locker room (i think it was mostly just a bench to leave a pile of clothes since they were nudie racers) erin and i did a little re-enactment, but left our clothes on ... sun burn you know.

Plus there was a real tough as nails woman with a whistle, who we learned knew enough english to yell "get off of there" "do not touch" (not at us we followed the rules of course we're ones), but could not inform your two friends where we might find the oracle of delphi. in fact the look the greek woman gave me when i asked looked a lot like "i have no idea if this person is even speaking real words, perhaps they are playing a trick on me".

Having summitted and claimed the picture of the view ...

we descended. I had seen some of the pic-nic spoiler group, they had a certain look to them hard to say what, but the guide definitely was speaking some sort of russian or slavic type language. at any rate we hadn't come across the guide, there were three levels to this site, and the stadium was a haul. hence the wet down

we took, down below the arena (not so far up) here was the long lost guide, looking quite hot and speaking animatedly with another older woman.

then it all became clear. the guide sat them all down and told them the whole story then as they approached the arena level her sleeper (in red ellipse) in the group says...ooohhhh i'm so hot could you please escort me down, and so the faithful guide cannot complete the tour with her compatriots but must escort their compadre down, so she does...

and then basks in the shade awaiting her crew, note this spy-pic...i had to hide the lens behind my water bottle, i didn't want her to become suspicious that i had discovered her ploy.

however the day of roasting in the heat was worth it as we sat back and enjoyed “a very nice slushy” as described by the greek patron selling them, anyone who walked by "everyone, people a very nice slushy," at the slushy concession as we headed back to new Delphi and our hotel.

off to dinner friends,

here's the view erin and i will be enjoying tonight as we soldier on w/ the high stakes cribbage tourney...current score erin: 3 lo: 3, it's really heating up look for us on espn next.

Lotsa Old Stuff

The Parthenon, in all its mid-reconstruction grandeur

Our second day in Athens has concluded. We had a rather inauspicious beginning...overslept by over an hour and ended up rushing to the Acropolis at 9 am to avoid the crowds. No such luck. Yes, the Acropolis is an amazing place, but experiencing it while jostling in the midst of a sticky, sweaty crowd full of Spanish tour groups was not so fun sometimes. In the end, though, the view of Athens from up there, the grandeur of the crumbling Parthenon and other structures was obviously worth the hassle. Our day also included fumbling about town trying to get a sim card to get Lo's phone working, which was pretty frustrating, and then a trip to the Archaeological Museum....see photos below!

props to the young man who took this lovely picture for us

some very famous ladies...

Loretta: "This just looks like kids' tin-foil art" (It's ancient gold Mycenaen treasure)

Okay this is for my mom and Sharon: don't these look like knitting needles and cable stitch holders???

Erin peeking around a real big vase...

Lo peeking through Zeus :)

The must-see food photo of the day: This was the BEST meal yet...delicious pork souvlaki with creamy yogurt sauce, tomatoes, and red onion (Erin), same thing minus the pork plus french fries (Loretta). What made it ESPECIALLY good was the price: 1.70 euro, and even less for Lo's. We paid more for our after dinner ice cream than that!

Sights and sounds around town:

*walking along the narrow sidewalks, hearing the buzz of motorbikes and taxis coming up from behind and scrambling to get out of the way. (today we actually saw a taxi squeeze down a narrow pedestrian street and hit a girl on the arm)

*dogs…they’re everywhere, laying in the shade and panting…I’ve never seen a major city with so many random dogs about.

*shops selling icons right alongside magazines of questionable repute…

*Greek Orthodox priests on their cell phones going about their business…they must be so hot in their all black robes.

A sampling of the many souvenirs we are somehow resisting buying....

Tomorrow, we leave early (7:30 am bus) for Delphi. Please send in any oracle-consulting requests....

Ah, Athens

We’re here! Athens is hot, noisy, but not nearly as dirty and crowded as some folks had warned us about…we think that the post-2004 Olympics Athens must be quite a different story than before. But first, to back up a bit…

Our plane landed at 12:45 a.m. this morning, and yes, by the time we got our luggage, the metro was long since closed. There was however, a handy bus (props to bus #95) that took us directly to the center of the city. Then, thanks to Google maps (which we’d used at Heathrow), and our Lonely Planet guidebook, we were able to walk to our hotel in just a few minutes. The streets were nearly deserted, but as we truged along at 2:30 a.m. we both noticed that it felt relatively safe. Can’t tell you how good it was to shower and go to bed once we were finally in our room…and then this morning, once we were up and walking about, we realized that the directions from the lady had been right on the money, if a little vague.

Today we did a walking tour that I found on Rick Steves website (nice to have him around, if only for a little bit). It was hot like…well, it felt less like walking sometimes and more like wading through the thick air. Certainly we’ll acclamate at least a little sometime soon….here are a few photos from the day.

This 12th century Byzanatine church is right in the heart of the shopping district. Niketown, McDonalds, etc. on the outside; full of icons on the inside. Also, we laugh when we see it because it seems like whenever we're a little lost, we turn a corner and voila, there's the little church again...

Lunch. Greek salad and spankopita. The feta was so delicious...

A very unlikely sign that proved to be 100% true!

This little path really did lead up to the acropolis, through a little village of whitewashed homes, made to look like the island homes of the original inhabitants...all right in the heart of Athens

Lo's dinner (mine was unremarkable): fried cheese and fried zucchini balls! v. tasty!

Tonight, we topped everything off with a few games of cribbage on the rooftop terrace of our hotel. The view of the well-lit Acropolis is amazing from up there, and the breeze finally picked up a bit. Sadly for me, the current cribbage score is Lo 3, E 2.

view from the roof, and location of the cribbage tournament this evening

Tomorrow we make our way early in the morning to the Acropolis to try to beat the heat and the crowds…today we walked all around it but didn’t actually go all the way up the hill. And, finalmente, a picture of some new finery we are sporting…