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Jeff and I
Taken from the Zeus sight, Acropolis behind us.I just returned from a long week-end in Greece with my husband. Living in Minnesota, it sounds impossible to just pop on over to Athens for a week-end get-away...however, it's not only possible when you're living in Europe, I highly recommend it! Before you get the idea that we're living the high life over here, let me just say that a lot of things really fell in to place to make this trip happen. First, Jeff's Mom and Aunt Joan have been visiting for the last 3 weeks. When booking their tickets, Jan (Jeff's Mom) suggested that Jeff and I plan a little get-away and they would stay a little longer to cover the kids...you just don't say "no" to an offer like that! As it happens, The International Symposium on the Environment was taking place in Athens over that week-end, Jeff submitted a proposal to present some research and the next thing you know, we're hanging out at the Acropolis! O.k., so not quite that smooth....
This is going to sound really bad, but I'm plain old sick of traveling. I was also plain old sick of Jeff before we left too, so I wasn't all that thrilled with
the idea of spending 5 straight days with him. To top it off, people say, "Ooooh, Greece" when you say you're going to Greece and then when you inform them you're staying in Athens, the next thing out of their mouths is, "Athens is dirty". Just what someone with a touch of OCD likes to hear. Both Jeff and I had very low expectations going in to this trip. We decided to let the conference planners take care of everything and, just for one trip, go along with the scheduled activities...we wouldn't have to plan transportation or sight seeing or anything. The thing about having low expectations is that it's easy to exceed them, and Athens did that in a big way.
I typically do a lot of research when we're going to a new place so that we don't spend much time in a state of confusion, as we usually have limited time to see the places we're visiting. However, since I had a bad attitude going in to this trip, I read a few blogs about Athens and that was it. A couple of the blogs mentioned getting handmade leather sandals from "The Poet SandalMaker". It's been
my "policy" that anything we buy this year when we travel has to be made in the country in which we're visiting...so leather sandals in Greece? Bingo! I like cute shoes. So we set out to find Melissinos Art, but we didn't find it. Instead, we stumbled upon a few ruins.
Neither Jeff or I know anything about Greek history, so you won't get any lessons here. However, we had a blast, were fascinated by what we saw, we started to like each again and we have some great pictures to prove it all! Rather than shopping that first day, we ended up visiting Hadrian's Arch, The Temple of Zeus and the Acropolis. We also saw an Italian woman who defied all logic and climbed the Acropolis in PLATFORM STILETTO'S and a tiny pink mini skirt, toting her Chanel bag and talking continuously on her cell phone. You'll see in the photo that the trail was far from smooth and the thing that amazed me the most was that they were never far from us in our "sensible" attire! I have the habit of offering to take photos for other people, there's nothing worse than going on a great
trip and having no pictures with your travel companion/s....I tend to meet people that way. Apparently, you need to go through Minnesota to get to Greece, as I met a young woman who used to live in Minneapolis, a young man who has family in Hinckley and has visited there several times and a woman who's father lived in St. Paul (at the pool that morning I met a woman who was born in Rochester). The view from the Acropolis? Well, just take a look at the pictures and see for yourself.
We followed the hike down with what might have been the best food experience of the trip, an ice cold mug of beer and some super tasty olives. Simple and delicious, just what we needed. We still had some time to kill before we headed to our "Greek Night of Entertainment" with the conference group, so we wandered around the touristy Plaka, I made Jeff really nervous checking out some gold jewelry and we spent some time watching a dead dog. Well, the dog wasn't actually dead, but it was very convincing. We strolled by and saw it belly up, tongue lolling off to the side and
looking bloated, Jeff insisted we go back by it about a half hour later and it was still there....drawing a crowd. We finally got up the nerve to look a little closer and it was breathing very lightly - it was a well trained mutt. That's one of the strange things about Athens, there are stray cats and dogs everywhere, but they have collars on and there are bowls of water and food outside of nearly every shop, they appear well fed and are apparently "community strays". I couldn't help but picture the next Disney movie when there was a pack having a little standoff at the Parthenon! We made our way to the courtyard of a taverna where we enjoyed course after course of great food while listening to the little band playing right beside our table. We even got to see some traditional dancing and I was drug onto the dance floor to dance. I had not had nearly enough wine to think that I could dance, so I stood up there swaying and feeling foolish - but Jeff appeared to enjoy himself seeing me in misery while a courtyard full of people clapped and cheered us on.
What Makes a Woman?
Can you handle this terrain in platform stilettos while talking on your phone? We decided to skip the group activities the next day, did some wandering and managed to find the Artist Sandal Maker, Pantelis Melissinos, that I had read about. It was a fun experience just walking in to a shop where Sophia Loren, Jackie O and John Lennon had all been and had their own fancy feet fitted by the elder Mellissinos. The tiny shop was crowed with yellowed articles and accolades of both Stavros and Pantelis, "art" and sandals in about 30 different styles. You choose your desired style and once you determine what you want, they are deconstructed and fit to your feet. Since I have narrow feet, I have a hard time finding cute sandals that don't stretch, so I was pretty happy about that! I held my breath (he's an artist, after all...eccentric, perhaps? In need of a bath, for sure!) while Pantelis did my final fitting and explained the care of my new sandals. We followed our success with a nice cold beer and watched all of the crazy characters go by. When we wandered back to Syntagma Square to catch the shuttle to the hotel, we were greeted by the riot police! Apparently, some
From the Top
View of the Saronic Gulf from the Acropolis students were protesting something, the police were called in, the streets were shut down and the police had to set off some tear gas. Some other conference-goers had been waiting for the shuttle when it happened and their eyes were still watering from the gas! Since the streets were shut down for awhile, we spent the next hour doing some more people watching and really hit the jackpot. This older woman showed up....well, take a look at the photo and I don't even need to describe it. Just make sure you look closely, as she was wearing a hat with twirly ribbons hanging off of it. She gave new meaning to the term "granny undies" and I was so relieved she wasn't in a thong!
Our final day in Greece, we signed up to go with the group on an island hopping cruise. I want to say the cruise was awful, and it was, but the people we got to spend 12 hours with were exceptionally interesting. First, the awful. I thought this cruise was just for our group, but it turned out to be our group of about 20 plus at least 500 more people! We spent about
3 hours getting to the first island (Hydra) where were were herded off the ship (and that's NO exaggeration), paraded past shop upon shop of tourist crap and told to be back in an hour. Jeff and I did find some great scenery for pictures, but it wasn't quite the quaint experience we were hoping for. Island #2 was Poros, we had an hour with the same routine there....hiked to the clock tower for a good photo op and managed to meet a young woman who used to teach in St. Peter! No kidding, she took the picture for us! Island #3 (Aegina) promised "golden sand, swimming in clean, crystal blue Aegean waters and sun-tanning". We followed the herd to the "beach" which was packed with...well, fools like the rest of us. We did the obligatory dip (it WAS hot and we'd been in the sun all day...it did feel good!) then headed to a little waterside stop for a beer and more people watching.
Now for the good part of the cruise, the people. A cruise ship like this is the ultimate melting pot. I started the journey talking to Steve, who was born in Oklahoma but it
currently living and working in Dubai. We compared notes about living abroad and exchanged taking photos for each other. Before I tell you more about the friends we made, I want to tell you about the combination high point/low point of the trip...depending on your sense of humor. There was a man sitting directly in front of us, who I took an initial liking to...he looked a lot like Captain Kangaroo, and what child of the 70's doesn't find that comforting? Well, take that comfort and chew on it for a bit. After a little while at sea, "The Captain" decided to get some sun and proceeded to take his shirt off. I won't get into the frontal details too much, as I don't want you to to think I'm shallow. Let's just say that he had a bosom that created great envy in me. When he turned around, though, that's when the horror of all horrors revealed itself. O.k., Jeff is a hairy man. Any of you reading this who really know us, know that his hairiness is the source of a great deal of good natured ribbing. It's not like I haven't seen a hairy guy. However, the
sight before us was like nothing I'd ever seen, not a stitch of hair anywhere on his back, save for the 6 inches of pure poof springing out from the center of the back of his shorts. In a moment of pure brilliance, Jeff dubbed it the "a**fro" and we both spent the next 15 minutes trying not to wet ourselves as we laughed until we cried like a couple of teenage boys in all their dorkiness. Sublime.
O.k., grow up Maria. We did...things got way more serious after that. We had fascinating conversation with some of the conference participants. While we came in to this trip a little "traveled out", we were thrilled to catch the enthusiasm of a man named Hussain, who was on his very first trip out of Iraq. He was trilled with each new horizon and I must have taken 30 pictures of him with various backgrounds (and Jeff!). We also spent a long time talking to Omar, who had lived and worked in Baghdad his entire life, until just 3 years ago...he's now living in Abu Dhabi. As he told us his fascinating story, I looked into his amber colored eyes and realized
how much we are alike. O.k., so he's an older man from a completely different culture and a PhD scientist, but when he spoke, I saw the man who only wanted what was best for his family - and that was the bottom line. We rounded out the day with a charming and funny couple from Scotland, Caroline and Keith, and had lunch with a couple from Toronto and a couple who lived in Montreal but are now living in Austria. Really fascinating people. I have not, in 11 months, had as much intellectual stimulation as on that cruise ship...I was exhausted when we finally reached land.
The finale of this trip fills you in on the title part "Oil". In my quest for all things yummy, I have tried to buy practical food items from the countries where I know they are excellent. I had excellent parm cheese and balsamic vinegar from Italy, I have herbs and fluer de sel from France and I was determined that I was going to come home from Greece with some divine olive oil. I spent a long time at the market determining which oil to get - the labels were all
in Greek, of course, but I asked some locals coming through the market. I ended up with a 5 liter box (think wine box) of oil - I went with the box thinking it would be the most practical for shipping...my intention was not even to open it until we arrived home in Minnesota. Well, greed is not good. I was smart enough to wrap the box in a couple of plastic bags, "just in case", but my efforts were in vain. I arrived home with a punctured box and leaky plastic bags dripping in to my suitcase. Most of the things in the suitcase were spared, but my box clearly wasn't going to hold. Jan started working on cleaning up the suitcase while Jeff stuck his proverbial finger in the dike while I scurried for containers. When I finally got the bag emptied into various containers (none of them permanent enough to get the stuff home, sadly) I nearly cried looking at the growing green puddle of olivey-goodness spreading out in front of me. I can't remember if it was Emma of Joan who said we need some good bread to start dipping... We didn't have any good bread
The Not Dead Dog
Look at the little girl's expression! on hand, so I did the next best thing and started oiling things. My new sandals have now had their first treatment, the cutting boards and every wood shelf in the apartment has been "seasoned" and my hands and both Emma and my feet have never been softer. If my biggest tragedy of the year is the loss of 5 liters of incredible olive oil, it will be sad by nothing I can't overcome. Guess what our upcoming guests will be eating?
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Keith and Pete
Postcards from Europe
love your description of the cruise!
-meeting people from other countries helps us see both sides of many issues! For one, we all do want the best for our families. So glad that you and your husband were able to do some travel together. (Wish I had known about the sandal maker!)