Sunset on Santorini

The crew in front of the hotel entry.

Santorini

After rising insanely early we successfully lugged all our bags to the
port. We relaxed for the eight hour ferry ride and found ourselves in
Santorini.

We had a really hard time determining which port our ferry would dock
at. The famous port is Fira which has a crazy steep cliff you have to
maneuver to get to the town. The only way to get to the top is to ride
on a mule or walk the steps and dodge the mule "leftovers". (see
picture below) when the ferry door opened we found ourselves at
Athinios port with a line of buses waiting. For less than €2 each we
were taken up the switch backed roads to Thira.

We found Hotel Keti with ease and enjoyed an amazing meal at Stani
Taverna. We tried Greek Retsina which is wine that gets its flavor
from pine resin. It was different but tasty.

Tomorrow is the holiday of May Day so we're not sure what our options
are but with the breathtaking view from our hotel we aren't worried on
the least.

We'll get more pictures of the view tomorrow.

Below is the Caldera at sunset. The path you see is the one we avoided
the mule ride up.

Evening view in Athens

After the museum we took naps and then went shopping in the Plaka.
Maximums talked us into eating dinner at Taverna Plaka, he lured us in
with the promise of free wine & dessert as well as 10% off. The lamb
and veal was tasty but we hope Greece has some better cuisine in store
for us.

Back at the hotel we caught the amazing view of the Acropolis seen
below. You can't see the scale because its dark and its impossible to
explain how large this really is...

Together At Last!

The three of us scored first class to Athens and had a very enjoyable
flight. In the morning we figured out the metro and had a happy
reunion with Mini Mama & John.

We saw the very slow, painful, methodical, meticulous & cerimonious
( words from us all) changing of the guard at the parliment. Then Mini
Mama negotiated a taxi ride for us all to the National Museum where we
saw lots of ancient stuff.

Below you can see us in front of the church in the courtyard just
outside our hotel.

And We're Off!

We're off, but not to the start we had planned. We discovered last night that weather had drastically changed the flight loads and now all 5 of us were going to have to be extremely flexible. We worked late into the night and finally came up with plans A, B, C & D for all of us before getting a short and fitful night of sleep.

I'll spare you the gorey details and just give you the highlights.

Mini Mama & John wound up barely getting to Raleigh, NC and even though we didn't think the would they were cleared on the flight to NYC (JFK). They got on the 4pm flight to Athens with ease and were in the first row! First class baby! They are hopefully fully reclined sipping their complimentary martini's and enjoying their free movies on demand as I type.

The rest of us however (Chris, the MU & I) weren't so lucky. Our best shot this morning was to go to Washington D.C. (DCA), then hop a flight to NYC (Laguardia) and then take a cab to JFK to get the flight to Athens (I know, I'm tired just typing it!). We got to DC and there were more than 100 people on standby - this is CRAZY! We hung around DC for 6+ hours negotiating with gate agents to switch flights and try different options. We finally made a flight around 5pm.

So no Athens for us today. We are now at a hotel next to JFK and it looks like we'll be in first class on the 4pm flight to Athens tomorrow. Mini Mama & John will wait for us in Athens and we'll we'll met up with them when we arrive Tuesday morning. Then we will all head to Santorini on Wednesday together. I think we're just going to try and slide the whole trip back by one day.

At this point I think we're all tired, but in good spirits. It's so much easier to handle the stress of pass riding when you know that your ulimate destination is somewhere as exotic as Greece!

Hopefully (fingers crossed) our next post will include a photo of Athens!

Yasas! (goodbye)

(Below - Chris & the MU unwinding at our hotel in NYC)

T minus 12 hours!

Chris and I got all packed up today - I am quite proud of myself for fitting it all in! Take a look.

Chris's Mom (the MU) flew into Cinci tonight and bought a new backpack to hold all of her travel goods. It's huge but comfie - see?

We're on a 9am flight to NYC tomorrow and then at 3:50pm it's off to Athens! We'll be in touch from Europe soon!

Preparations

We're all fluttering around preparing for the big trip. Both the mom's have called for advice on what to pack and are pre-packing to make sure they can fit everything into one bag.

Chris and I bought a new hiking style backpack for the occasion and we're quite excited about it.

We're planning on renting a car on Naxos and possibly on the mainland too. Dad, being the ever faithful researcher learned that an International Driving Permit is recommended. Chris and I went to AAA yesterday and obtained one. We learned that it is rarely required but it's highly recommended. The reason being that if you get pulled over the authorities will ask to see your license and if you give them your US license they could keep it and then you wouldn't be able to get back into the US. The benefit of the IDP is that you can give that to the authorities instead and then if they're slimy and steal it you can still get home later.

We aren't AAA members so we hadn't visited their offices before. While waiting for them to prepare the IDP I was looking around and found a Visa Traveler's card. You load it up with up to $10K in cash and then can use in anywhere in the world as a Visa. I want to look into it further before our next trip to see how the exchange fees work and if you can use it as a debit etc. It might be a convenient option for our next trip.

I have been drilling Chris on Greek using the flashcards I made. He's done really well. He's close to mastering the basics and I've got about 3/4 of the entire deck down. By the time we arrive we should be able to blend right in! ^_-

So we have only four days left before we all meet in New York and then it's off to Greece!

It's Greek to me!

In preparation for the trip we're all trying to learn the basics in Greek. Mini Mama and I are trying to learn as much as possible. Here is the list of words that I'm trying to learn.

Mini Mama found some great sites where you can here the words spoken:

Site One

Site Two

I have several great language books but because Greek uses the Greek letters it's difficult to know how to pronounce things. Each book uses different letter combinations for different sounds. For instance one book show 'dhen xero' while another shows 'THen ksero' to represent 'I don't know'. So having sites like those above is really helpful.

Chris and I also invested in a 'Teach Yourself...' set for the Greek language which comes with a book and a CD that has dialogs you can listen to so that has been very helpful.

I created some flashcards that we can all use on the 12 hour flight from JFK to Athens. I even color coded them so that Mary, Chris and Dad can focus on the blue necessities and then learn the green nice-to-knows if they want. :)

It's only two weeks away and I'm getting excited!