RoamingGators

After a quick 2 hour flight from Athens and being met at the airport with a sign bearing our name (first time ever!), we were dropped off at our apartment in Rome. It wasn't too comforting that the driver was having trouble finding the place even with GPS, but it was late and we were too tired to care. We put an exhausted D to bed and Pat ran out and grabbed the equivalent of Roman fast food for dinner (pasta, but definitely nothing to write home about). The next morning we regrouped, largely thanks to our forethought of bringing Greek coffee with us (FYI- if you fill a jelly jar with coffee grinds and put it in your carry-on bag be prepared to be stopped A LOT). I had to master another form of coffee ... read more

Warning: The following is a blatant advertisement for the island of Poros! After doing some research about Greek islands that were close enough for a 1 year old to survive the boat trip, yet far enough away to provide a 'real' island vacation, we decided to take a 3 day trip to Poros. Since many things are closed on Mondays in Athens, we decided to leave Monday and planned to return Wednesday. Right before we left we found out there was a 48 strike planned for Tuesday and Wednesday so we figured it was a great time to leave Athens as the strikes tend to involve teargas these days. We double checked and the ferry unions were not planning to participate. Monday morning we made our way to the port and boarded the high speed catamaran ... read more

So where were we? The next stop on our tour of old stuff in Athens was Hadrian's library, which is actually a collection of multiple buildings (a bath, church, homes, and a library). We decided to go after 2nd nap which put us at about 1:30 in the afternoon. This is not an ideal time to be outside in Athens in June. For the first time in our lives we busted out the umbrellas on a crystal clear day in an vain attempt to avoid heat stroke. Proof positive we live in North Dakota. The site had remnants of a fresco from a church that made use of some of the ruins as well as a tile mosaic floor with a hearts motif (perhaps made by ancient teenage girls?). The library was just a pile of ... read more

Apparently the theme for this year's trip to Europe has been 'Protests'. We've run across one in every locale save Menorca. On our walk to find was is reportedly the 'best' Greek coffee we ran across a gigantic protest as well as many, many closed streets. They were all headed in the direction of Syntagma square and the Parliament building so we gathered we should stay away from there. We didn't manage to find the mythical coffee as it was on the square in which the protesters were gathering, so we grabbed a coffee elsewhere and then wandered back to the central market. We were on a mission to buy some lamb for dinner. We asked for lamb chops and were shown a rack instead. Unfortunately, I didn't listen to my gut instinct that said 'hmmm, ... read more

On Tuesday we finally set out to see a few museums. Since we have a 1 year old in tow, we figured fine art museums might not be the best bet. Instead, we opted for shorter, more entertaining museums. We started with the Chocolate Museum, where D had her first taste of chocolate (do not wear white while giving 1 year old chocolate chips). She, of course, loved it. The museum was interesting. They started by letting you taste the flowing chocolate from the fountain before watching a demonstration on making chocolate candies and sculptures. We found it quite interesting that many of the sculptures (like Snow White's dwarfs in the pictures) were made by pouring chocolate into Halloween masks. After the demonstration, we walked through the actual museum which traced the role of cocoa in ... read more