Off to Rhodes

I woke up last night after going to bed at 9:30pm at 11:30pm for no apparent reason.  I lay in bed for a long time trying to relax and go back to sleep and not look at the time, then finally gave up at 12:45am and turned on my phone. I checked email, online checked in Jay for his flight home from his cousins wedding in Thunder Bay and texted him his boarding pass, replied to emails and tried to sleep again. Gave up again after about 30 minutes and read my book until I finished it close to 3am.  While I was awake I thought about where Mom could have hidden her money belt, realized we hadn't chosen rooms yet so it could be in my room, checked under my pillows - not there. I said to her yesterday she had to have come out of the bathroom, not wanted Costas to see the money belt and tucked it in somewhere - at the time I thought into the fold of a shirt or shorts having forgotten at that point our luggage was still in the hall. 

Yesterday we walked 7.7km and 11,142 steps. The day before we walked 8.6km and 12,305 steps - up up up. That's something else I wondered in the night so checked the Health app on my phone this morning. 

After finally getting to sleep I woke up this morning at 9:15am, Mom and Maria were already up and had had a cup of coffee. We have to check out by 11am but we can leave our bags, packed and by the door, until we are picked up by our taxi at 2pm. This will give us a chance to also check for the money belt when everything else is already packed up. 

As we sat at the table I looked up apartments for sale in the area we are staying in and they are 150,000€+. So I'm not sure where Elena lives but I can't imagine a 10,000€ apartment and what it would look like. 

Finally we are packed up at 11, ready to go and Mom decides she will call the bank to cancel her cards, up until this point I've been sure we will find it. She is looking up the number and has her phone dialing as I walk into her room and take a final look around. I see a small bit of fabric, or maybe the clip I can't remember, peaking out from inside a folded sheet on her bed and shout "I found the money belt!!"  The whole room is an f'in disaster except for that one folded sheet. I said to her "didn't you check in that sheet?" She said "it's not my sheet, why would I check in there". Oh my god. Well we found it, that's what matters. And none of us in our dozen checks unfolded that sheet - I don't even know where it was the whole time because we checked everywhere!

"Reenactment"

We left at 11am so the cleaners can come and left our luggage in the apartment. They were accommodating enough to let us leave it there until Michalis comes to take us to the airport at 2pm. We walked back to Syntagma square so Maria can get a SIM for her iPad and a stick for her laptop. She couldn't get the SIM yesterday because she didn't have her passport with her and they recommended she bring her laptop so they can check the settings while she's here (if they can find one, which they weren't sure they would be able to as they didn't have one in the store). When we got there they didn't have a stick for the laptop but Maria got two 8G SIM cards, one for her and one for Mom, from Vodafone for the iPads for 15€. There is a WIND mobile down the street so Maria tried there too and bought a stick, while she was waiting for it to be activated Mom and I went back to the square to McDonalds to use the bathroom. It's one of the only places I feel comfortable going in to use the bathroom without buying something. But we got down and the door was locked and a sign said "to unlock the door enter the code from the bottom of your receipt". WTF McDonalds. So we just waited until someone came down and opened the door. It was an old guy and he punched the super secret customer code from memory (with a newspaper under his arm, not his first rodeo). 

We decided to go back near the apartment to have lunch so that when we're done we're close to the apartment for our ride at 2pm. As we are walking to the restaurant I found on TripAdvisor we're stopped at a small street in front of a coffee bar because a band is playing (for tips, they stand and move from cafe to cafe). Maria gave a little snort, which we've come to understand she's overheard something in Greek someone has said - she said that a guy saw the band and said "those Assholes". Lol. I said "Maybe he's from a rival band". 

We ultimately couldn't find the restaurant I was looking for, even though I had maps on so we went back to the restaurant on the corner that smelled good as we passed. 

We got lots of water, have I mentioned how hot it is here?! We also each ordered a Coca Light - but we got Sprite instead. So Maria told the server, in Greek, about the mistake and he said it's obviously too early in the morning for him (it's 1pm). The food, as always, was delicious. We shared baked eggplant, fries, Greek salad and zucchini fritters. 

After lunch we walked back to the apartment, it's 1:40pm. Taxi is picking us up at 2pm to go to the airport for our flight to Rhodes, so we were great for timing. 

On our way down the elevator Maria was concerned we wouldn't all fit with our luggage so Mom and her went down first (she was very clear she would not go down on her own) and I followed. I took a photo to show how small the elevator was. 

Michalis picked us up right on time and we got some more interesting facts on the drive to the airport. 

People 60 yrs ago came from the mainland and that's where the new construction has all come from, before it would have been typical Greek homes, not the apartment buildings. I asked him "What do you consider the the Mainland?" Uh, the rest of Greece. Lol. Almost half the population of Greece is in Athens and a lot of the small towns have died and are abandoned completely in the countryside. 

I asked about the Greek alphabet and if there are 26 characters, as we have learned that p in Greek is an r sound and y is a u sound. There are 24, but they all don't match up, for instance there are 3 characters for e and none for w, one for th and one for ps. Maria said she's been trying to read the signs to refamiliarize herself with reading and sometimes she feels like a kid, sounding it out in her head. I turned to Mom in the back seat with me and said Ther-mo-Meter. A brain fart  we still laugh over as we were once at Canadian Tire and I said "what's an indoor outdoor ther-mo-meter?"  Uh, thermometer?  Right. 

The VAT tax is up to 24%, which makes it hard for an economic recovery. Mom asked what that tax gets you and I asked if health care is free. Michalis said health care is free but not good quality. You have to wait a long time for treatment and if you have money to grease the wheels you might have surgery before you're dead. 

Boys at 18 have to do a mandatory year in the military, if they go to college they can do it after. 

Our trip was super quick, 30 mins to airport, another 30 mins at the gate and we have 90 mins to take off. 

Georgia met us at the airport with roses!  Very sweet. We met the car rental rep and picked up the car and drove to her apartment. I got a jeep because, yeah it's a Jeep. It's open at the back and there is no cover because it doesn't rain here. So. Much. Fun. Also because originally we were hoping Julia could make the trip work and there would be 5 of us so I wanted something comfortable. 

Georgia was a little concerned I wouldn't get in her parking spot but it was no problem and I figure if I can get it I can get out. 

We got to the apartment and Georgia, who refers to herself as Gina, brought out some champagne to celebrate our arrival and we started telling her about our adventures in Athens. 

Maria was explaining all the food we had on the tour and she said "I'm really happy with your Greek" - I told her "she's been speaking a lot of Greek, and we don't know what she's saying but we're very impressed."

We mentioned to Georgia that we would be treating her to some meals while we stayed, for free, in her beautiful apartment. Maria said "They wanted to buy you a gift and I said no -  and now I can tell you the truth (to us)..what I meant was "she's so picky"...lmao. Mother daughter love. 

We had a beautiful dinner and a lot of laughs over some wine and Georgia brought out a birthday cake for me. My birthday is tomorrow, but we will likely be out. 

Now it's 10:35pm (Maria had to say to her Mom earlier - oh, Ma, I forgot to mention they go to bed early). I'll put the photos on the blog, post it and go to bed.