So, this trip to Greece was the product of an afternoon drinking in the pool this summer. Maria mentioned she would like to make time to go to Greece this fall to see her Mom, asked if we (Mom, Julia and I) would like to come along and a vacation was born!
Mom and I are flying today and Maria will meet us tomorrow morning in Athens. (Julia will make it next time!)
We had a long flight with Air Transat, we were in Club Class for the overnight from Toronto which made it more comfortable for us 12 in the front than the 300 in the back for sure.
I watched King Arthur and The Mummy on the flight with a few hour nap sandwiched between.
We landed in Greece, were super fast through customs (the officer didn't ask me anything at all, like nothing) and were met at the arrivals by our driver, Michalis, who brought us right to the apartment in about a 35 min drive.
The are Olympic Rings just outside the airport, part of the construction for the Olympics.
We asked all the stuff we usually ask a driver when we arrive:
Athens is home to 5M people. It's shaped like a bowl, surrounded by mountains except the Port where it opens to the sea.
Mom asked if a lot of goods come in via the port. And he said that Crete is the largest island and furthest south part of Greece, that it has lots of agricultural protection, a lot of goods from there would come through the port but other goods would come from the Mainland (via cargo truck I guess).
Winter can get as cold as 1-2 degrees Celsius. They had snow last year inside Athens city, which is an extraordinary event and made the kids very excited - it only happens every 6-7 years.
Rainy season is late Oct-Nov. Now is dry season, not so dry it's considered desert though as there is still a lot of greenery.
Gas is 1.47€ per L. Michalis owns his license plate and car. He has since 1998 which is good for him even though the value of the plate has gone down since the "financial crisis". He said that taxis are also now a luxury most locals don't use, even though it's inexpensive to ride, so a lot of taxis are empty during the day where it used to be difficult to find one before.
Greece has free education up to University. Also it has a free public university, which is highly competitive, only those with the best grades can apply and be accepted.
He said the unemployment rate is not as high as it was right after the financial crisis, its only at about 25% now (?!). A problem is that the highly educated are leaving Greece since there are no jobs. Greece used to export workers, now they are losing the educated workers which isn't good.
The Parthenon was built for the Goddess Athena, protector of the city and where the city got the name Athens.
Michalis recommended we visit the new Acropolis Museum below the site, but I don't think we'll have time since we are just here 2 nights before travelling to Rhodes to meet Georgia, Maria's Mom.
We were met at the house by Costas from Boutique Athens, where I rented the apartment from. Mom took off her money belt to pay him the remaining balance of 144€ (1 night stay for a two bedroom apartment, it's so cheap here!) and now can't find it. We both looked everywhere. She has about 200€ left in it too. And she woke up in the middle of the night realizing it has some credit cards inside too. We still can't find it.
Costas recommended a local restaurant that is close by for lunch, Nikita's, so we walked over there (about 6 mins) at about 2pm (we are 7 hours ahead so this is about 8am home time). We shared spicy feta cheese dip (feta whipped with olive oil and hot peppers), bread, Greek salad and an eggplant stuffed with ground beef. It was delicious. As we were walking to Nikita's a server stopped us to show us his menu, but we declined. Turned out Nikita's was right next door and Mom said the guy gave us a bit of a dirty look when he saw us sitting there. Oh well.
After lunch we walked to the Acropolis and walked up up up. It is HOT here, 30 degrees, and hottest around 3pm which is what time it was. About 2/3 of the way up I stopped at a kiosk for a bottle of water. Good thing I did too because I was starting to get the hot headache, then I would have gotten angry. It's at that point as well we noticed the hop on hop off buses, so we decided on the way back down we would get a ticket and ride the bus around for the afternoon (by the time we came down it was actually about 5:00pm).
On the bus we go!
A site uncovered when digging for the subway.
We got off the bus at the closest stop to our apartment, which is at the base of the Acropolis pedestrian walking trail, and walked back. We've been looking today for a place to buy adapters because the ones we brought don't work to charge, they're not the right shape even though the have the right female ends.
We came up to the apartment so Mom could pee and then went out in search of a market where we could pick up some stuff for dinner (we brought home the spicy feta and our server gave us a fresh loaf of bread too when we left), wine and adapters (though by now we had let Maria know and she said she would bring 3).
We walked back past Nikita's, which is on a very nice little street lined with cafes, beyond that we found a small cellular store that sold adapters for 5€ each, he directed us to a market, which we didn't find, but we did find a fruit stand in a square where we bought some bananas and nectarines and he directed is to a mini market where we bought beer and cider (because the wine wasn't cold) and wine to put in the freezer when we got home.
When we got back I had a quick shower and it felt so good to get the airplane and then compounded city filth off me and then we had dinner on the balcony, which is HUGE.
We sat outside until dark when the Acropolis lit up, the photos for some reason look much further away than it actually is. And texted Maria so we can figure out tomorrow and meeting her here.
(Maria text string)
Now it's 8:14pm here (about 1pm at home) and I'm going to bed! I hope to sleep through to tomorrow and be on Greece time. I only slept about 3 hours on the plane and it wasn't uninterrupted so I'm hoping it goes as planned.
No comments:
Post a Comment