Leaving Mikrokastro for more beach time at Glyfada

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Steve thought he set the alarm for 7am but apparently not! Thankfully Rachel woke up and realized it was late. She called in to us “did you guys mean to still be sleeping at 9:30?” Damn, that would be a big no! We leapt out of bed (well sort of) and gathered up the last few things. We packed up the car and locked up the house. Rachel and I went around Mikrokastro and took photos; the morning was a little misty and atmospheric after the previous night's rain and made for some good photos. While Rachel and I were driving around taking photos we saw some sheep and their shepherd and some big herding dogs.

Meanwhile Steve went to his Thea Dina’s and together they went to Stergios grave where Steve left the candle from Pefkohori that we bought for Stergios’ memory. Rachel & I met up with Steve at his Thea Dina’s. Theo Thanasi had 10 pairs of slippers he wanted us to take back to the US with us so we sorted through and chose a good selection of sizes and colors. Thea Dina loaned Steve some photos of Stergios so Steve can scan them and make a DVD with music for her. Steve also took some photos from Taki and Lena’s village house to copy.

We next went by Papadia & Papa’s house to say goodbye to them and to Naouma and Vasou too. On the way out of the village we stopped by the monastery in Mikrokastro and Steve went inside and took some photos. I had to go back to the car and get my sweatshirt as I had bare shoulders, when I went in I couldn’t find Steve so I just went back to the car to wait with Rachel.

We decided we should go to Athens via Kozani instead of through Grevena as the GPS wanted and it ended up adding about an hour onto the trip. We did however stop in Kozani for some tost, spanakopita and tiropita for breakfast so that ate up some time too. We drove pretty much straight through to Glyfada stopping for a bathroom break where Steve and I switched off driving and then again for gas because we almost ran out.

There was beautiful scenery most of the way so there was lots to look at. There were also lots of tolls; Steve figures we spent about 15 € on tolls. The address on the booking.com receipt for the Hotel London was exactly what I punched into the GPS and I even had Steve check it but it brought us to a rundown residential area that was not near the sea. Oops. Luckily the receipt also had the GPS coordinates and those worked perfectly! So I learned how to enter GPS coordinates into my GPS!

The hotel had very limited parking but we lucked out and got a spot, unloaded the car and got checked in. We had to bring all the damn bags in again so we could repack them and weigh them before we went to the airport on Monday. Steve wanted to check out the beach near our hotel so I went with him but didn’t go in the water. Rachel stayed in the room and rested a bit. Steve said the shore/waterline was rocky and the beach was definitely pebbly and very hard packed almost more clay than sand. I was not terribly impressed with this beach although it was convenient. The tram ran right by the beach which was kind of cool.

We went back to our room (#310) which was basically a double with a cot added and it was pretty crowded. We lined the luggage up against the wall in between the tables and that just left a tiny walkway to get from one side of the room to other. The bathroom was okay but the shower door was missing and the water went everywhere. It did have a hook for the shower head which was hand held just like every place we stayed on this trip. There was also a small balcony that pretty much just overlooked the parking lot. I had booked a triple room so when we went downstairs I asked if this was how the triple rooms were supposed to be or if they did this because the hotel was packed with soccer teams. The desk clerk assured me that the triple rooms are always just a cot added to a double. Hmmmm not sure I totally believe this…

We had dinner at the hotel and it was actually pretty good and it was only 29€ for all of us. We had a village salad. Steve had pasta carbonara and Rachel and I had Greek burgers which were mystery meat with feta cheese on them. Plus they were really, really tiny patties. But hey only 29€!

We had plans to meet Anna, Niko, Stergios (Anna’s brother) and Olga for drinks so we went and got ready. Anna and Niko picked us up at 11:30 in front of the hotel and drove us a couple kilometers down the same street our hotel was on to a club called Vive Mar. This place was very cool; right on the ocean and the décor was giant planters and lights. Literally giant lights like the ones you would have on a side table in the living room but as tall as me. Other lights even looked like giant lit up Q-tips!

The bar was packed and we couldn’t find anywhere to sit outside. The host showed us to one place but Anna didn’t like it. We were going to leave but Stergios and Olga hadn’t arrived yet. Finally the hostess showed us another area to sit which was technically inside but felt open because it had huge sliding windows. As we were walking toward the table some guy raced past us and got to the table we were heading to but Anna asked them if they could take a smaller table since there were only 2 of them and there were 7 of us.

We sat down and ordered drinks and then Stergios and Olga arrived. The server brought our drinks and dashed away before Stergios and Olga could order! We tried for at least the next half hour to get her attention but she pretty much ignored us. Finally she took their order but ignored the rest of us. Steve and Rachel got frustrated and went to the bar to get beer. This is where it got strange; the bartender gave them the beers but said they had to pay a server. They tried but were again ignored, so free beer for them I guess! So pretty much after talking until about 2am and being unable to get another drink everyone decided to go home.

Anna and Nikos were leaving for vacation in the morning and wanted to get some sleep. We said our goodbyes to them when they dropped us off at the hotel. We had some good conversation though at the club. I talked to Anna & Niko about cars. Anna loves Sciroccos and Niko loves GTI’s and A3/S3’s. Niko kept called A3’s Alpha Tria – A3, I don’t know why but it cracked me up! They said that GTI’s are around $25,000€ which is about US $36,250 - Holy expensive VW! We also talked about average salaries in Greece which Anna said was about 10,000€ for a college graduate entering the workforce, ouch! Back at the hotel I did some Facebooking and went to sleep about 3:30am

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Photos

Sheep dog 3
Mikrokastro

Sheep dog 1
Mikrokastro

Sheep dog 2
Mikrokastro