Our Greek experiment has begun! We left Rockland Tuesday morning and had a fun ride to the airport with our pal Minda. We ate a filling lunch with her in Portland so we wouldn't need to eat for the next 17 hours of travel. How were the flights? On time, which is great, but beyond that, not particularly fun. Wearing an N95 mask for about 17 hours straight is tough on big noses like mine. But after those 17 hours, we arrived in Athens!
We're staying at the apartment next to our friends Kleopatra and Yiorgos. They're expectant grandparents, so Kleopatra has been on baby watch. The baby was due in August but decided that she's in no hurry to come out.
We're starting to get over jetlag--napping two days in a row which is not something either of us ever do--and also enjoying Athens. We've had a couple meals out and they were delicious. When we were dating, Sam told me about eating out in Greece when she came here before we had met; she said the food was shockingly more flavorful than back at home, like technicolor. And that continues to be the case! Even simple fruits and vegetables like green grapes, watermelon, and tomatoes all seem like they're more intensely flavored here than in the States (unless you grow these things yourself). What's the magic? We assume it's shorter travel distances?
Since this isn't a typical American cram-it-in-two-weeks vacation, we have taken it easy. We took our first COVID self tests last night and happily got the results we were hoping for. We took in a nice view over the city and the Acropolis from Strefi Hill, went to the phone store and got a Greek phone number (note: our US phones still work so feel free to call or text to those numbers!), and have wandered around a good bit. Athens felt like a ghost town when we were here in June of 2020 before heading to Maine. It feels much more lively now. At the same time, people are wearing masks out and about and it seems like people here are taking appropriate precautions. It's so nice to be able to eat outside with distance between tables and uniformly masked waiters.
We leave on Sunday morning for Alonissos and will take a different route than we've done before. This time we'll go to a port called Mantoudi and then take a fast ferry to Alonissos. Sam could maybe squeeze in an early evening swim Sunday if things all line up. We're excited to be back!
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| View of Athens from Strefi Hill, Acropolis to the right |
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| Last moments of mask-free time before entering the Portland airport. We had to sit out by the bus fumes so it's not exactly fresh air we were breathing. |
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| Minda picks us up along with all the possessions we brought to Greece |
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| Apropos of nothing, a rare blue lobster was at our seafood market on our last trip in Rockland (it got returned to the sea after a bit of tank time). |