Day nine

5-19-2010

8:35pm Istanbul, Turkey

Yesterday we had planned to go to everything except for Topkapi Palace. We started out with the Blue Mosque, which was free. It was awesome! So beautiful, just breathe taking. I’m not an architect, but I think anyone who is, or who is studying to be, would be greatly benefited by a visit to the Blue Mosque. For those who don’t k now, it’s called the “Blue” Mosque, because of the tile work on the inside. So much blue, and exquisite tile work!

We had to take our shoes off, which was not a big deal at all…I had really been wanting to walk all over that cool marble floor barefoot anyway, but when we went inside, it was carpet! Doh! That’s ok though. We had both planned ahead, and researched, on what the appropriate attire would be, which was basically long pants for Eli (no shorts) and either pants, or a long skirt for me, and a scarf to cover my hair. They did have scarves and skirts for women at the door if you didn’t have your own, but sadly a lot of people were just not wearing them once inside. We wanted to be respectful, considering that the Blue Mosque is still a functioning Mosque. I was somewhat bothered by some of the people who had no problems blatantly ignoring the idea of politeness.

We were going to head across the street to Hagia Sophia after the Blue Mosque, but there were so many people, we decided to head up to the Basilica Cistern instead, and save Haiga Sophia for today.

The Basilica Cistern was really cool… literally. Man, that would be the place to go check out, if you were visiting Istanbul in the summer time. It was probably 10 degrees cooler than street side. The Cistern was build by Emperor Justinian during Byzantine times, incase the city of Constantinople (Istanbul) was ever under siege, so that the City would have a water supply. It had the capacity to hold 27 million gallons of water! It’s pretty massive. It’s called the “Basilica” Cistern, because it was built on ruins of a church.

Since we had decided to do the rest of the ‘sight seeing’ today, we just came back to the hotel and crashed for a couple hours. We must have both really needed it, because we laid down for a nap and slept for like 3 hours! Then we got up and decided to go for a walk. We ended up walking nearly the entire way around the European side of Istanbul, on the coast! Which Eli has termed “the walk of doom”, because I was fighting him the whole way (about 2 hours) around, saying we were not going where he was saying we were going… I don’t know what my deal was, I was ultra turned around I suppose, and broke-brained to boot…haha!

Today, we went to Hagia Sophia and the National Archeological Museum. We decided to skip the Topkapi Palace; they raised the price of the ticket. Hagia Sophia was amazing! The story behind it is kind of funny, and tragic at the same time. Basically, the first church was burned down, and then rebuilt. The second church was burned down because of a riot from crazy chariot racer fans (just like soccer fans) and then rebuilt a second time (third, and current church) by Justinian. He actually had a mathematician build it, not an Architect. The marble work is incredible. There are several different colors of marble used, which is just amazing to me…I like marble.

Eli said to me, “could you imagine, if you were a farmer who lived out in the country and the biggest building you had ever seen was the town lodge, and you came here to this church for the first time? I live in a major city, with skyscrapers, and I’m completely overwhelmed! I can’t even imagine what those guys must have thought.”

Well put.

The museum in Topkapi palace was ok, but once you’ve been to one museum, you pretty much know what they’re like. I enjoyed it, but I was ready to be done by the end.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a little café and had an Apple tea, and Turkish coffee, and shared another Nargile. What a nice little break in the day. It was a great rest, and that Apple tea was awesome! We both were wishing for some friends to share the experience with, but happy to just have each other as well.

Tonight, we went up the street (literally) to the hotel at the top of the hill from us, to have dinner on their rooftop terrace. They had a sign out front; with a fixed menu that had caught our attention several times that we had walked by it this week.

Oh man, it was awesome! The view was great too! I had a cheese pastry starter, and Eli had mezze plate. We shared with each other, and then the main courses came. I had sea bass, and he had mackerel. Eli was a little miffed they took his mezze plate away before he was ready, but decided it was ok when he saw the fish!

To top it all off, for desert we each had two small cakes, soaked in honey and covered with coconut. So good! The desert was too sweet to finish. It really was a great way to end our time in Istanbul.

We are going to Grand Bazaar tomorrow, and then going to bed early because we are leaving VERY early on Friday morning.

So, I suppose that’s all for now.

day seven

5-17-2010

11:09pm Istanbul, Turkey

We just got in from dinner in the hotel garden. What a day this has been! So the was our first official full day. We both woke up to the 5am call to prayer, even though I had earplugs…. oh well. I don’t actually mind it, and find it to be kind of beautiful sounding. We’ve both been having a hard time sleeping in very late, so we’re kind of up with the sunrise almost, which was about 7:30 or so.

We went down to the garden for the Turkish continental breakfast, which was the best either of us have ever had. Hard boiled eggs, fresh cucumber and tomato, feta cheese and another kind of cheese that tasted kind of like Swiss, salami, lots of bread, coffee and tea, lots of different kinds of jam including some kind of Turkish nutella, good yogurt, and two different kinds of cereal. Oh man it was good! Which was perfect because I usually have a hard time eating breakfast, but knew I really needed to.

We had planned a little loosely what we would be doing today, so we had to come back up to our room to do a little research, and decided on visiting the Grand Spice Bazaar today. It’s kind of on the other side of Old town from us, so we decided to take the train there, and walk back. Also the Galata bridge is there, and part of the whole reason for coming to Istanbul was to walk across the Galata bridge, and see the modern European part of Istanbul on one side, and the still very Muslim (kind of modern too, there are just a ton of mosques) Old town on the other. It was pretty amazing! I got two pics of Eli, each one with the back ground of old or new town behind him.

You can walk along the underside of the bridge and there are a ton of cafes and small bars, where you can sit and eat, or just have a Turkish coffee or tea (which are both incredible!) and enjoy the sea. We did just that. Also, there are people up on top fishing for little fish and you can see all their catch if you are at the café’s. What a beautiful start to the day! We decided right away, we needed to get a grilled Mackerel sandwich and eat it before we attempted the spice bazaar. Good thinking! Man that was tasty!

Then we were ready to cross under the major road, and head to the Spice market. But first we walked through the courtyard of the New Mosque (that’s what it’s called), which was beautiful. The Spice Market is directly behind the New Mosque. I carried our daypack on my front, so if we bought anything, Eli could haggle them down with out worrying about pick pockets and such.

The Spice market was great, a bit over whelming, but great! We walked all the way through before trying to buy anything, just so we could get our bearings. I didn’t realize there were so many kinds of Turkish delight…. I sampled at least 6 different kinds and there were SO many more. It was all pretty fresh too. All the spices, and Tea! A sort of whirlwind of sights and smells. We made it through unscathed, and came back around to buy some goodies. We definitely won that round! We decided the Spice market was our warm up for the Grand Bazaar, which I think we’re doing on Thursday…maybe Wednesday, we’ll see.

We came back to the hotel and had a much needed rest before venturing out again. The spice market was kind of the only major thing we had planned for the day, so we didn’t really know what else to do. In the evening, we decided to splurge a little and go to a Hammam. What a great idea! We got a recommendation from our hotel clerk, and one of the staff walked us down the street to it.

A Hammam, is a Turkish bath. It dates back to the 1400’s. It’s like a sauna/spa for the Turks, and just sort of a social gathering/bathing event I guess you could say. I was a little unsure of how I would feel about it. We went to a segregated one, because I refused to get a rub down in my skivvies, by an Old Turkish man.

When we came in, they directed me, with some hand waiving and leading (because I don’t have any Turkish language skills, and neither does Eli) through a few hallways, and down into the women side of the Hammam. Then the lady gestured for me to pick a changing room and get undressed, with the towel around me. I opted to leave my underwear on, and purposely wore bathing suit bottom for the occasion. Then she led me down into an area that was covered in grey marble stone, with several water basins, that each had two spouts. In the center of the room, there was a large rectangle slab that was about knee height.

You go to a basin, and sit down next to it, then are given a little bowl to dowse yourself with hot water from head to toe. All of the Marble is warm and the slab in the middle is very warm. Once you’ve sufficiently dowsed your, you get onto the slab and lay on your belly. The attendant comes in with a very course mitt that she scrubs your whole back and back of your legs and arms, then you turn over and she scrubs the whole front. It gets all the dead skin off of you. Then you go back to your basin and rinse really well.

You come back and get on the slab again, and the attendant comes back and had a softer cloth bag, that she puts this special soap in and rubs together so it suds up. Then she soaps you all up, and gives a deep massage.

I hadn’t let my hair down yet at this point. After the soap up, you go back to your basin once again and rinse off. I just thought I would stand up, rinse off and be done. But the attendant, who also spoke no English, wanted me to sit down and dowse myself again, while she was soaping up the next lady. “Ok” I said, and sat down and waited for my next instructions.

When she was finished that lady, she went in the other room and came back with a bottle of shampoo and gestured to me with it. “Ok” I said again and took my bun down. When my hair was all the way let down, she goes “ooooohhh” very quietly. Just to clarify, I often shock people with how much hair I have because I usually wear it in a bun. But it’s down to my waist, and pretty thick.

Then she proceeded to dowse my head with water, and wash my hair. It was awesome! I was thinking during the whole process, “I haven’t had someone wash my hair like this since I was a little child!” She gave me a head massage too, which was really nice. She let me rinse my hair out to my liking, and then I was free to go.

Eli had all the money with him, so I had to go back over to the men side and wait for him after I got changed. He came out looking like I was feeling, a puddle of goo! Then they put us both in his changing room and gave us a cup of Turkish tea.

All in all, the entire experience was incredible. I’m so glad we did it. We walked back up the hill to the hotel and talked to the hotel clerk for a little bit. He sent us up to our room, after we told him yesterday was our anniversary, and a few minutes later, sent up a tray of two waters, and two red wines.

I’m not much of a wine drinker at all, but I had a few sips. Eli ended up drinking my glass too, since I decided I didn’t want to. Then we went down to the garden of the hotel and decided to have some dinner. We didn’t feel like going out anywhere. The owner of the hotel had been there all afternoon, and playing backgammon with some friends of his. It was interesting to watch them.

The owner also had what we call in the states a Hookah pipe. In Turkey it’s called a Nargile. It’s like a bong basically. But you put a special blend into it. No tobacco or anything else illegal. It’s a mix of dried fruit actually, and produces a very pleasant smell, and smooth smoke. You don’t inhale it.

We had already decided we wanted to try one, so we sat with the owner after we ate dinner, and they brought us our own to share. It was really interesting. You don’t experience any kind of buzz or mind alteration. It’s just the smoke. As an ex-smoker, who is in the land of Turkish tobacco, it’s been a little difficult to not buy a pack of smokes for vacation sake. But the Nargile was really cool. It helped curb that desire, with out negative effects. We sat down in the garden, and watched the Turkish version of 24 with the owner of the hotel, and smoked a Nargile. Eli asked me if I ever thought I’d be doing this?

I laughed, thinking about when I first moved to OR two and half years ago, that I never would have imagined I’d be sitting in a hotel garden in Istanbul, smoking a Nargile with my husband, the day after our anniversary!

Ok, that’s all I have to say for now. Good night.

Day six

5-16-2010

8:29 pm Istanbul, Turkey

Today is our one year anniversary!

Well, we made it to Istanbul this morning with out any major upsets. Our flight was great, really short. It was just long enough to get up in the air, bring breakfast, collect trash, and then land! Now that’s the kind of flights I like!

It took a little more figuring to come through the airport than it did in Greece when we first arrived. We had to go buy 90 day visas for $20 each, and then go and get our “in” stamp…My passport now has a Greece in and out, and a Turkish visa and in stamp! That’s so exciting!

Thankfully Eli had done a little research yesterday about riding the metro and/or light rail to get us from the airport to our hotel in Sultanhemmet, or we would have been in bad shape. We got some Turkish Lira from the ATM, (you get a better deal than Euro) and a nice lady who worked for the metro helped us get our tokens for the light rail line, and explained how we needed to go to one stop, and then transfer to a different line to get to where we wanted to go.

Eli said I looked like a deer in the headlights the entire train ride over…which I’m sure is true. We had planned to mail a bunch of stuff home from Greece, but we missed the post office yesterday (it closed at 2pm) and we had to check a bag of goodies on the plane…. I was all nervous it would get stolen or stuff would break, but so far it looks like everything is in tact…. I suppose I should actually open it up and look though; I only just glanced when we got the bag back.

Eli had to carry two bags, and the strap broke on mine so I had to carry it like a brief case, not over my shoulder…oh well, it happens. Once again, of all the potential problems we could be having on this trip, any that we have had, have been very very minor.

We had remembered to grab a map at the airport from the tourist information desk this time, so we stopped in the park next to our train stop in Sultanhemmet and took a gander at the map. After that, we found our hotel pretty easily and it was close so we didn’t have to lug our bags all that far. Our hotel reception clerk, named Ramazan was very nice and friendly. He sat us down in the little reception foyer, which had really nice Turkish style furniture, brought us some tea and explained some tourist things to us kind of formally. It was pretty dang cool!

Then he brought us up to our room. Actually he had another guy bring us up to our room on the lift (elevator). He called the other guy “John Travolta” because that’s who he looked like, straight out of Saturday Night Fever, we had a little chuckle about that. When we got into our room, and it was just the two of us, we kind of had a little freak out session because our room is sooo cool! We have a view of the sea of Mamar, just a few blocks away. The weather is beautiful, about 68 to 70, but with a nice sea breeze. Directly across the street from us is an old Mosque, which we’ve already heard the call to prayer from twice, which makes me really glad I packed a few pairs of earplugs! It’s beautiful though.

We went for a walk to get acclimated to the area a bit, down to the water and down the pier to the fish restaurants. It’s pretty impressive…there are SO many young people! So many young kids, but almost everyone we’ve seen so far, I’m sure has been under 35. Which really strikes me as odd in a city of 15 million people. It’s dirtier looking than Athens, but also there are just more people plane and simple. The people definitely look more alike than people in Athens did. At the same time, there is this vast diversity in the Turkish people too. Some women wear head scarves, some don’t. Some wear skirts, some wear pants…. they are all beautiful! The men all seem to wear nice pants or jeans, and nice button up shirts…just like the stereotype I suppose, which was kind of funny to me, but still interesting.

We came back to the hotel and took a nap in the afternoon. It’s so nice with the window open, and the sea breeze wafting in. It’s cool to see all the ships out in the water from our room.

After naps, we went down to the reception and got a recommendation for a fish dinner restaurant. We walked down to is, instead of taking advantage of their free pick up and bring back taxi service (it was only about a ten minute walk down the hill.)

Way way over priced. We didn’t really get the fish dinner we wanted, and decided that’s the last time we’ll be doing that. Right across the corner from the restaurant was a little “quick food” shop that was super cheap and Eli kept watching people come out with mouth watering looking food.

We left dinner and went for another walk through a neighborhood. At one point, we were walking down the street (which are all cobble stone, with brick sidewalks) and there was not really anyone around. Up ahead of us, three young guys were on the other side of the street, coming towards us. Two of them were beating up on one of them and yelling at him, and he was wailing. Eli didn’t really notice, or realize what was going on, and I said “baby baby, let’s go this way!” and pulled him towards an intersecting street. He looked up and realized what was going on, and quickly came with me down the hill, speeding up saying quietly “lets go fast”, and so we did. We realized they were not coming behind us and relaxed a bit.

It appeared to me, they had been three friends, and the one getting a beating had done or said something really stupid and was getting smacked around by his buddies for it. Perhaps that just what I want to believe, I don’t know.

It was really kind of strange.

We wound our way around to the Blue Mosque, and stopped for a few pictures in the gardens in front of it. Then down another street that was like a little bazaar, and back to the hotel. What a great way to start out this part of the trip in Turkey! Right now, Eli is watching the Turkish version of survivor, and has a running commentary going, since he can’t understand them. Also, he just went a little bit ago and bought himself a bottle of Raki, which is like Turkish ouzo. I tried a little bit of it, and it’s way too potent for me. He seems to be enjoying it though!

That’s all for now.

Day four

5-16-2010

3:42pm Istanbul, Turkey

We had a pretty full and exciting last couple days, that’s why I haven’t logged. On Thursday the 13^th, we took a boat ride down to the Island of Hydra, just below the Peloponnesian peninsula. We had to take the metro out to the port of Piraeus, which took about 35 min or so. We were pretty early so we decided to wander around Piraeus a bit. What a cool place! Right down by the harbor. There was a guy that sort of came out of nowhere when we first entered the pier and started asking us about our tickets (for the ship). We were both pretty startled and didn’t realize he was not official until he started leading us to our ship, which was very easy to find. He wanted 1 euro, we declined.

While we were wandering around the town, after we’d gone to find out where our ship was departing from, we found a cool city market again, where people were calling out their stuff and how much it costs. It was a little overwhelming, but really awesome!

As we were leaving the market, we ran into the same guy who had tried to ‘help’ us find our ship. He still wanted 1 euro, we still declined. We went and found where to wait for our ship and again ran into the same guy, who was upset we didn’t give him 1 euro for leading us to where we were. Again, we declined and he finally left us alone. We watched him walk back across the pier, and find some other unsuspecting tourists to harass.

Our ship was called the Flyingcat1, a catamaran with two hulls. It looked like an airplane on the inside. While we were waiting in line to board, and they had turned on the engines, we had to stand in the diesel exhaust cloud, which made me feel a little sick. To top that off, I was having a bit of a panic attack but didn’t quite realize it. By the time we got boarded and took off, I was feeling pretty seasick. It was an hour and forty-five minute ride down to Hydra, with one stop at another port called Poros.

Now the problem was feeling a little sea sick, mixed with a little anxiety, mixed with low blood sugar, and mixed with the overwhelming beauty of the place. Bad combination. We wondered around for a few minutes, but I was feeling sicker and sicker. So we finally decided on a place to eat and I should have gotten bread, but thought for whatever reason, that I could handle a gyro. Side note, the entire time we were in Greece, we never saw lamb gyros. They were always chicken or pork.

I couldn’t eat it. I really tried, even to just pick it apart, not taking bites. I just couldn’t do it. I sat at the table and cried because that’s what I do when I’m nauseated, and Eli yelled at me for crying, which didn’t help. I know he was trying to ‘motivate’ me, and he wasn’t actually yelling, but I was feeling very sensitive, haha! He ate his food right up.

I finally gave up on the idea, and we left the café to do some island exploring. I was feeling so terrible though, that it was hard to focus on anything else. We found a little spot for me to just sit down by the water for a bit, while Eli went around to get his bearings.

That was kind of nice. I just sat and looked out over the beautiful harbor and tried not to think about how bad I was feeling, in this wonderful place. We had wanted to go to the beach, but didn’t know quite where it was. I had seen several people walk by in bathing suits, with towels while I was waiting for Eli to return. When he came back, we went in the direction as all the people and found the beach to be around the corner of the harbor and up the road/hill a ways. There were a few beaches in small coves, where you had to walk from way up on the road, down a winding stairway, to a cement platform that was “the beach”. It was wonderful! The water was so clear, and felt so good although a little cooler than I expected. It helped quite a bit (for a while) to get in the water and cool off; it was about 80 degrees (F).

After taking turns swimming, (because we were afraid of loosing our passports and money) we climbed back up the stairs and continued on down the road. It was made of marble slabs, which were all uneven, like marble cobblestone. Up on a cliff, absolutely breath taking. After a few minutes walk, we came to another town that I don’t remember the name of, but it looked like it was straight out of a postcard. Tucked away, on quiet side of the island, with a beautiful natural harbor, full of small fishing boats. Very quiet and lazy feeling. It was the middle of the day, there was nothing going on…. I felt like I could live there happily for the rest of my life…. my own little Mediterranean paradise, even though I was feeling bad again. That little view coming around the corner of the bluff, with the sea to the right and a Cliffside to the left, stilled my stomach for just a moment.

We wondered up through the town, not taking any particular path just taking in the beauty and peacefulness of the little white washed buildings, which seemed to be all connected to each other. There were so many brightly colored flowers everywhere we looked, and with the white washed background of the houses, they seemed even brighter. We found a little store, where I could use the bathroom (water closet is what ALL of the bathrooms have been labeled as) and get a little snack since I hadn’t been able to eat my gyro. I had an ice-cream cone and a banana. We continued our wander through the town streets, and up and down the winding paths, and found our way back around to the town of Hydra, where we had initially landed. The town and the Island are both called Hydra, even though there are different towns on the island as well.

We found a nice little wall to sit on, while Eli consulted our guidebook to find a place for dinner. We found this great little place, with a rooftop terrace. It was only us, and two other couples. I wasn’t feeling great, but was able to eat some bread and part of my Greek salad. Then we walked back down the hill, and ran into the only transportation on the whole island, some burrows. There were no motorized vehicles on the entire island! It was so great.

There were a lot of cats everywhere. Dogs too, but more cats. They were strays, but well taken care of, and friendly. While we were waiting for our return ship (a hydrofoil this time instead of a catamaran) we noticed the cats all had caught these little fish. It was pretty funny looking to see them running down the lane, with this little sardine looking fish sticking out of their mouth. The first one we saw, I didn’t realized it was a fish; I thought the cat had picked up a piece of candy wrapper or something, that was flapping in the wind. Then Eli says “that cat has a fish in its mouth!” Those little kitties were pretty smart. The fish would jump out of the water trying to catch bugs, and miss the water upon return, and land on the side of the dock. The cats were all out and ready to snatch them right up if they were able.

Our ship came and we took off, both falling asleep for a while. I was feeling ok, but not that great…at least I was able to sleep most of the way back to Piraeus. We made it back to our hotel without major problems and crashed.

I felt bad for ruining Eli’s trip to Hydra, even though he said I did not. What a wonderful husband he is! Even with feeling sick all day, it was still a great trip.

Day two

5-12-2010

10:04pm Athens, Greece

We made it to Athens safely! We were delayed at JFK for 9 hours, and they re-routed our flight to fly way north over the Atlantic and come back down, so as to avoid the ash cloud that was over southern Italy. Normally that flight (from NYC to ATH) would have flown out south over the Atlantic, across Spain and under Italy, and hit Athens from the southern side. The flight was 10 and half hours.

We had both been hoping to get some sleep on it, but no such luck. Well maybe a little bit, but nothing substantial enough. There were a lot of free movies to watch though, so we both did that! We made it to Athens around 5 in the evening or so, and figured out how to ride the Metro, and how to get to our hotel. We were both pretty beat though. Add to that just the culture shock of being on the other side of the world for the first time (well for me, not Eli but he was a bit culture shocked as well) and I’m pretty impressed with our good navigation.

We didn’t want to just go straight to bed when we got here (even though we REALLY felt like) so we walked around the neighborhood to get acclimated. It was pretty cool. I’m already a pro at getting us around (on foot) and getting back to our hotel. Our hotel, called “The Marble house hotel” is a really cheap budget hotel in the Kakarou neighborhood, to the south east of the Acropolis. I was really shocked (for what ever reason, I’m not sure what) to find Athens to be such an urban city…Our hotel is in a regular neighborhood, almost kind of seedy looking (but perfectly safe) and lots of apartments all around. When we’re walking around the neighborhood, the buildings are all really close together and tall so you don’t get a lot of sun light. It’s strange, in a kind of dirty, but still beautiful way. I like it.

The climate reminds me a lot of San Diego, and there are a LOT of similar plant life all around….There are orange trees all over the place (portokali=orange) like just lining the streets. It’s kind of weird..but cool! And the smell good! Though I don’t know that I would eat any of those portokali…. :D

Today we did the Rick Steves Athens City walk. Which starts at Syntagma Square, across from the Parliament building, and then winds all through the Plaka district, then takes you up to the base of the Acropolis and down through the neighborhood of Anafitikos, which was absolutely beautiful…very nice indeed. All the sidewalks are made out of marble. Which is really cool, but slightly treacherous if it’s slippery at all…which it often is. We had to come up with a couple silly rules for both of us for our own safety when walking. When we started out in front of Parliament this morning, there were no protests or anything like that. We didn’t go across the big street to see the guard change, but that’s ok. In the afternoon when we came back up there to get on the metro and go back to our hotel, there was a protest going on right in front of the building (across the big street from us at Syntagma Square) and it wasn’t that bad. At dinner however, our server was very friendly, and warned us not to go up to the square tonight, because there was another protest going on there…and if we did choose to go up there, to be very careful. We tipped him a little extra for the info.

Rule number 1. Always always look before entering the street…The streets are very narrow and although there are not a lot of huge vehicles to run you over, there are a LOT of small cars and motor bikes everywhere and they are all going FAST…also, coming from Portland, where it’s pretty ok to just walk out in the street because people stop, even when you’re not in the crosswalk, it’s been a little shell-shocking to remember that Athenian drivers are not like Portland drivers….Rule number 2. No looking around and trying to walk at the same time. This should actually be a rule at home too, but it’s a lot safer at home. The side walks are really uneven, and narrow, and slippery if you’re not careful. So trying to look around while you’re still moving, has proven to be asking for a sprained or broken ankle, or getting hit by a car, or just running into oncoming pedestrian traffic (who also don’t get out of the way).

We left pretty early this morning because we went to bed last night at 9 on the dot practically, and slept like a couple of rocks. I brought my trusty earplugs and had them in so deep; I literally could not hear a thing, except my own body. I don’t think I’ve slept that hard in months! We have a little balcony on our room, which looks into an apartment building’s balcony, I don’t mind that at all…but we left the door open last night so it would stay cool in the room, which it did, but also let some of the neighborhood sounds in…earplugs are a wonderful invention!

This morning we were both wide awake at 6am and decided to just get up and get moving. Last night when we had gone walking around, we found a bank, but couldn’t get any cash out of it, which worried us. Actually we tried three different banks. We had a few Euros on us, which our friends had given to us so were could get metro tickets and get dinner, but were a little worried that we couldn’t get any more money than that out. So we left the hotel around 7:30 am, found a little breakfast and some coffee (potent!) and found out what time the banks opened, which was 8. When we got down to the bank, we decided to try a lower denomination of cash than we had the night before and it worked, what a relief!

Also, our American phone card was a bust…We had told our parents we would call the night we got it, but couldn’t with our silly phone card. We had gone down the street corner and gotten a Greek phone card, that you insert into the phone, or payphone, but it wasn’t working last night either. After we got cash this morning, and stopped at a little market, we found a pay phone, and decided to try the phone card again, since it was still a decent time of day PST to call home. It worked! Another relief….It was good to talk to our moms and let them both know we were safe and figuring things out.

What a great adventure this has been so far, and it’s still just the beginning! Oh, also this morning, when we were downstairs talking to the hotel clerk/host Kristos, we found out we had free wifi from the hotel. We also told him we were on our honeymoon/1year anniversary trip, and he gave us a pair of tickets to the Acropolis that some other guests had purchased, but never used and had given to him. He said “we live here, we’ve been to the Acropolis, you take as our honeymoon gift to you, eh?” How cool is that? The Acropolis ticket covers 5 other sights as well, that we now have for free.

Tonight we wandered around a bit more, after going to the Acropolis Museum, and then found some dinner. Then wondered around some more, and stopped to sit out and have (another) beer for Eli, and a cappuccino for me. That’s why I’ve typed so much, ha! The super potent cappuccino has kicked in…That’s ok, we wanted to stay up past 9 tonight…mission accomplished…well for me anyway, Eli’s trying to sleep.

So I suppose that’s it for today. Tomorrow, the plan is the Acropolis, and Ancient Agora in the morning, and then off to the beach in the afternoon.

Day one

5-10-2010

7:20 (EST)

So we’re stuck in NYC at JFK airport. Our flight was supposed to leave at 4:05pm….we arrived at 2:30pm…our plane isn’t here, and we are not scheduled to leave until 10 pm. Other than that, things are going ok. I was feeling kind of sick on the flight from Portland, which never happens. For whatever reason, my stomach was just upset. We both slept really well at Phylis’s house and Betsy took us to the airport this morning. We didn’t check our bags, and went through security very easily.

When we were getting ready to board, some Delta employees announced that there would not be enough room on the plane for everyone’s carry-on, and people were advised to check theirs, or the last 15-20 people would have to. We were supposed to be near the front of the plane, so we were in line accordingly. When I went to have my ticket scanned first, it sent me to the counter (out of line) to verify my passport…which meant Eli’s would do the same thing so I just grabbed him aside and he was annoyed with me. We had our passports verified, and then had to go the end of the line….afraid we would have to check our bags. Thankfully, we barely found some space over head it was fine.

So here we are waiting now. I’m still not feeling great, but we just had some pretty good pizza a little bit ago…we’ll see if it settles soon. There’s a pigeon flying around in our gate. I took a picture of it for proof….pretty funny.

Ok, that’s all for now.

So here we go!

05-09-2010

9:09 pm

I’m sitting on the futon bed, down in the basement of Aunt Phylis’s house right now waiting for Eli to get out of the shower, so I can get in. We’re leaving really early tomorrow morning, and (cousin) Betsy has offered to drive us to the airport, after the big ‘snaffoo’ with Lil. I’ll come back to that.

We spent the night last night at the Loehrke’s house, and all day today. Mother’s day. It was the most beautiful day of the year so far I think….perhaps I got a bit much sun even, Eli too. Now we’re here and ready for bed. The excitement hasn’t quite setteled for me yet, but I think it will in the morning, when we’re on the flight. It actually feels quite surreal right now.

Ok, that’s all for tonight.