Nonna (mom) does Naxos

At the crack of dawn, Mom and I arise on Friday morning to be picked up by Christos our taxi driver to take us to the port of Rafina. How easy it is to get to this port rather than going to Piraeus by bus and two metro trains. Our 3 hour boat ride to the island of Naxos was pretty uneventful. We took the Flying Cat 3 a high speed boat. Arrived

safely at the port of Naxos at 10:30 am, was picked up by the hotel in the van and driven to our hotel in Agia Prokopios. The hotel (recommended from Matt Barrett’s site) was a 2 minute walk to the beach. It had about 30 rooms, a pool, restaurant – great hospitality, location and prices.
Mom and I were on the beach by 12; 30! We both agreed that it was better to take the public bus into town (15 mins) than it was to stay in town and take a bus to the beach. Saturday we walked around town in the morning – went to the Portara – a temple of Apollo – it’s a massive doorway which leads to nowhere. It faces exactly to Delos, the birthplace of Apollo. Built in 530 BC but never finished. Then spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach.

The beaches on Naxos are nice and clean. The sand on this beach is actually little pebbles not grains of sand. The water, although, a little chillier than other parts I’ve swam in this spring, was so clear with sandy bottoms. Saturday night we stayed in Agia Prokopios and went to dinner at Sunset Restaurant and watched the sun set!

Sunday we rented a car to drive around the island. I think we only got lost about 6 times!!!! Naxos is quite a green island for the Cyclades Islands and quite mountainous. We had a bright

green Fiat – automatic. We visited the Temple of Dimitrades and then continued to small villages. We were told to go to Apeiranthos as the natives still wore traditional clothing – the village was small and we had a nice lunch there but no traditional clothing! In the afternoon, we drove to this beautiful beach called Kastraki. It was this huge sandy beach with maybe 10 people on it and the water was warm and crystal clear. You definitely needed a car to get there and there were no restaurants or stores but was fantastic!

Sunday evening we took the bus back into town to eat at this wonderful restaurant called Labyrinth which we read about in Fodor’s Greek Islands book – lovely courtyard, great wine list and delicious “non Greek” food. I highly recommend it!
Monday we spent 2 hours on the beach, showered, changed and headed to the port to catch our ferry back to Rafina.

Highlights of the trip: spending good quality time with Mom – we realized that we have never gone on a mother-daughter trip before; playing Scrabble with mom, having mom to discuss issues and talk out logistic issues (I have a lot!), having mom clean and reorganize my house – note – I didn’t ask her to she just loves to do it.

Mom’s highlights: seeing my apartment, meeting my friends, having the nice dinner on the roof top of a restaurant we don’t know the name of looking at the Acropolis, seeing the difference between island life and city life.

THANKS FOR COMING MOM!!!!

Last Dinner All Together

Our family our 11 is splitting which is very sad. We all joined this band-wagon together in late August and really hoped we would be together for at least 2 years. Unfortunately my two good friends John and Flynn were not asked back to ACS - even though they had signed a two year contract and even though they didn't want to leave. There are many issues which have had a negative affect on all of us and will be a tough year ahead.

John, Kate, Dwain, Miah (and baby), Flynn, me, Colin, Sue, Erik, Lindsey, Phaedra

However we all got together for our last dinner together. It was (and always has been) great company, great anecdotes, sharing, laughing, picking on each other, reminiscing, eating a lot of good and of course, drinking a lot of wine! Mom enjoyed herself, as she can now put a face to a name! Mom was our photographer at the end of the evening.

I will especially miss hanging out with both John and Flynn. Fortunately, Flynn will be here for most of the summer. So I say good-bye to you John and I wish you safe travels back to Idaho or Iowa (sorry can't remember) and hope you can relax this summer and breathe in the fresh forest air, see the peaceful animals, and explore the lush green outdoors. Keep in touch!

Mom has arrived part 1

Mom safely and uneventfully arrived yesterday morning. I met her at the airport and we took my form of transportation home - the metro bus! We hiked up the hill in the heat and landed in my apartment about 11:45 am. Then I left and walked to work for the afternoon.

Even though Mom had been travelling overnight, she didn't sleep when I went to work, she did what she "loves" to do - she cleaned my apartment. Even though I had cleaned it before she came!

Tuesday evening we stayed in. Wednesday morning we both walked to work and then Mom ventured back by herself, tackling errands on her way. By the time I got home at 3 - the laundry had dried and was folded neatly, the curtains were cleaned and rehung on the tracks, weeds were pulled out from my flower beds and new flowers appeared, some cooking was done and my freezer was defrosted!

This evening the whole gang went out for dinner one last time. Unfortunately neither Terry or Bill joined us - but the regular gang plus Mom and plus Miah and Dwain's baby. We ate on the roof of a restaurant looking up towards the Acropolis. see next post for more details

Last Day of School,,,,beginning of Summer

Well the last day of school for the kids was yesterday - June 19 - wow, I have been so lucky not to work that long! Unfortunately, I have to go back to work Mon-Wed for professional days.

My class generously gave me a gift certificate to a spa and the best hotel in Athens - the Grande Bretgne. So I am thinking if I do make it to Tanzania, I will need the spa afterwards!

Mom arrives on Tuesday - fortunately I made a deal with my principal to grade the writing assessments we are using for accrediation over the weekend instead of Tuesday morning so I could go and pick up my mom from the airport.

I am looking forward to Mom's short stay with me. We will be going to the island of Naxos this coming weekend.

Baby Arrived

My friend's baby arrived on Tuesday. She unfortunately had to be induced and then have a C-Section but their daughter arrived - happy and healthy. I went to visit them in the hospital and wow - it's really different there than in the states. Since they had to pay for their stay at the hospital they chose to share a room - so there were 4 mothers in this room with no curtain dividors or anything! And then they only got to have their baby in their room at certain times. All the babies were wheeled in at the same time - very different! But she came home yesterday - 2 sisters are here plus her mother.

African Safari Dream Trip

Well it has been a long time since I posted - sorry - life has been busy! Let's see...

The travel agency in England which is sponsoring the Tanzanian Safari trip announced the trip is finally a "go" because at least 6 people have signed up. I have been waiting and waiting for this so I can book my flight, get my immunizations, etc. But now I feel it is a race against time. I am having great difficulty finding flights to Arusha, Tanzania. The England travel agency suggested I fly to Nairobi and take a bus from Nairobi to Arusha which is about 3 hours. However, yesterday I spoke to a friend's friend who is from South Africa and she advised me not to fly to Nairobi because it isn't safe. I am trying my friend's friend travel agency here in Greece to see what she can find. She is also going to help me get my immunizations - thank God! Now the VISA for Tanzania is going to be more difficult than I thought because I am used to living in Washington where all embassies are and I now realize Greece doesn't have a Tanzanian Embassy. Yikes!

My next issue - should I buy a SLR digital camera for the trip? Obviously it is a trip of a lifetime. I have a good compact digital camera Panasonic Lumix with 10x zoom. But I have never used an SLR camera before. Please pass on your advice on my comments or via email. thanks

Budapest, Hungary

What a fantastic weekend I had (we had (Kate and I)). About 2 weeks ago, our school announced we wouldn't have school on Friday, June 5 because of elections - we had already booked our flight for the crack of dawn on Saturday morning (5:35 am to be exact) so we took this opportunity to go to the beach with Miah, Dwain and Miah's sister Johanna. It was great as hardly anyone was there!

Saturday morning Kate and I got up at 3 am and were out the door by 3:30 and on the bus by 3:45 am! The flight to Budapest (pronounced Budapesh) was 2 hours but they are an hour behind Athens, so we arrived 6:30 am their time! We hopped on the shuttle which dropped us off at our hotel called Hotel Museum Central - which is in a fantastic location. Right across from the National Museum and about a 5 minute walk to Grand Market Hall and the Danube River. So that is what we did after we dropped off our luggage. Grand Market Hall was packed full of fruit and vegetable "farmers garden" products, plus strudel shops, salami, paprika, cheeses, chicken and other goodies. On the second floor was a tourists haven of Budapest souvenirs - we did a little damage here!!!!

I have found that the best way to see a city is on one of those hop on and off tour buses - so we found one! But we only hopped on and didn't get off - we took the entire 2.5 hour tour around Buda and Pest. Our "bus" had no roof which made it quite hot when the sun was shining and quite wet when it rained on us - twice! Luckily we had our umbrellas and they provided ponchos! You wear a headset and listen to all the historical facts and figures of the buildings as we pasted them.

After we finished that it was only 2pm! We happened upon a Hungarian Festival - got some food, listened and watched Hungarian dancers and then headed back to the hotel for a well-deserved nap!

After the nap, showered and dressed we headed for the river for our free boat tour which was included in our bus tour. So we rode the boat up and down the Danube River seeing the sites at night! By 10pm we got off the boat and walked to a popular "Hungarian" restaurant called Fatal where the portions are large and served on wooden platters. Let's just say the roast beef that I got for myself was so large that the people next to us had to take a picture of it because they also had ordered it yet split it between 4 people! It was yummy though I hardly put a dent into it.

Sunday, we tested out the metro - which was old but not too bad. Took it two stops to St. Stephen's Basilica - grand old Catholic church. It was extremely hot, bright blue sky so we thought we should grab a coffee before crossing the river and going up the hill to the Buda Palace. As we got walking though, it became cloudier and cloudier and of course I didn't bring my umbrella this day because the sky was blue when I left the hotel! Needless to say, I had to buy a poncho because it actually didn't stop raining until about 9pm!

Trending forward we took the tram up the hill and walked along the outside of this huge palace. Then walked around "old town" - saw the outside of Matthias Church and walked through Fisherman Bastion then back down the hill, across the river to our hotel. Since we had "worked" so hard we decided it was time for the thermal baths! We grabbed our bathing suits walked across the Danube River again and went to Gillert's Bath House. We relaxed in the 38 degrees Celcius bath water in the "women's" bath house and then went to the co-ed swimming pool with cathedral ceilings. This was relaxing! Went to Italian restaurant for dinner Sunday night.

Monday morning we were very productive! We awoke, walked across the Danube River again back to Gillert's for some spa treatment. Kate had a pedicure and I splurged with a mud treatment and a body massage. The mud treatment consisted of this large Hungarian man scooping and slabbing this dark gray warm mud on my major joints. He began with putting the mud down my spine, then I laid down and he put it on my shoulders, under and over my knees and elbows and on my stomach. Then wrapped me in a sheet and left me there for 20 minutes - I was wondering if he was going to come back! Then he spread the mud over more parts of my body, then I showered and headed into the next room for a full body massage. Life is good!

Then I stopped by the Grand Market Hall for a few more souvenirs and spend my Forint (currency) and grabbed another strudel!

What a great weekend!