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I am back from vacation…phyisically anyway. Thomas is still in Europe and will be for a few more weeks while he finishes up some stuff for work.
I left Copenhagen Monday, September 11 and flew into the Charles de Gaul Airport in Paris to catch my connecting flight back to Chicago. I literally was checked by security seven different times before boarding my connecting flight as was each and every other person. They even had three armed guards at the gate ready to some serious damage if need be. So by the time we boarded, I wasn’t the slightest bit nervous flying back on the anniversay of the 2001 attacks…I figured if a terrorist could fool seven different security check points then there is no stopping them.
The trip was unbelievable. Greece was breathtaking! And I loved Copenhagen, it was very quaint and green! I will go into more detail in future posts and upload photos too, but for now I am still getting acclimated to everyday life and catching up on much needed sleep!
Stay tuned…
Our Vacation!
We had an absolutely incredible time on our vacation this summer. All the waiting and anticipation leading up to it was well worth it. We must have been pretty excited to have started the countdown two months before we were suppose to leave :-)
I have decided to break the trip down into three separate parts: Santorini, Athens, and finally Copenhagen.
Part 1: Santorini...
We arrived at the Athens airport after an eight hour flight from New York on Wednesday morning, August 30. The flight had been good, and fast considering it was suppose to last another two hours, so things were off to a good start. Then…the first minor hiccup occurred. Well, I say minor now, but at the time to me it was MAJOR. My luggage had been lost. Yep, the whole suitcase was MIA. Thomas had packed separately being that he would have to stay longer for work, so I packed ALL of my stuff into one suitcase. As you are all aware, since the recent terrorist threats, no liquids are allowed in carry-on’s, therefore I had packed my bathroom stuff, make-up, hair products, etc. in my suitcase. So in my possession, I had nothing but a few books, my computer, and the sweat suit I was wearing…yes, I cried, more like bawled, I was devastated. The baggage claim representative told us worst case I wouldn’t ever see my luggage again, best case scenario would be for the luggage to arrive in Athens on the first flight the following day. The problem was we were leaving for Santorini in a few hours, so it wouldn’t do us any good to have my suitcase in Athens anyway. So the lady said after it arrived in Athens, they could put it on a plane and fly it to Santorini where we could pick it up there. We gave her our hotel information in Santorini and she said she would call when the suitcase turned up, but if we didn’t hear from her, we could call her. What is with that line? When someone says they’ll call you then adds the clause…but…if you don’t hear from me, give me a call. What is up with that? If you say you are going to call then you should call. Basically when someone says that to me it automatically translates into you will need to call us, because we will inevitability forget to call you!
After the realization that my emotional meltdown wasn’t going to solve anything, we went and sat down and waited for our connecting flight. Thomas being the good sport that he is kept trying to cheer me up, and suggested we go buy some things that I felt I needed before our next flight left. This perked me up and we walked around the stores outside the terminal area. Ended up stopping at the Duty-Free Shop to get a few things that you realize after the fact that you really didn’t need, but at the time weren’t sure how you could manage to live with out them…
So we were off to Santorini, minus one suitcase. When we landed the hotel shuttle service was waiting and took us to our hotel. It was located on the side of a cliff on the caldera, which is a large crater formed by a volcanic explosion. The rooms were scattered along the cliff side, each one had a spectacular view of the volcano. Our room was similar to a studio apartment. It had a little kitchenette, a small bathroom, without a doubt the most uncomfortable bed in the world, and a private balcony with a view that was so breathtaking, it more than made up for the contraption they called a bed.
When researching the hotel we found out that because of it’s location there were a lot of steps to get from point A to point B. Many people commented about it on a popular travel website called TripAdvisor.com. At the time, that was just a small detail we were willing to overlook. Although while packing for the trip Thomas suggested we just take our backpacks, that we used when we went backpacking in France during college, so that the issue of the steps wouldn’t be such an obstacle. He stressed only pack what you can carry. Now I know what your thinking…a few measly steps, what’s the deal…well a few is more like 300 steps from the bottom pool/restaurant to the top which has the reception/lobby and main road access to the town. But did I take Thomas’s advice? Uh, no. While he packed his stuff in his back pack, I proceeded to get the largest suitcase we own and started filling it up to the brim with various things, obviously clothes, but I also threw in a case of bottled water, some snacks, and whatnot else. When I asked Thomas for his help in getting the suitcase closed, he about died. He couldn’t believe all the stuff I had crammed in there. After some heated deliberation I began to remove some things. Finally I got the suitcase to close on my own.
That night we had dinner at the hotel restaurant. It was very good. We headed back early because we were exhausted. The next day jet-leg was in full effect! We hung out in the hotel room for the better part of the day. It was a miracle that my luggage had arrived, so we were able to go pick it up and all was well. I could change clothes which was so wonderful being it was in the mid 80’s-90’s and my sweat suit just wasn’t cutting it. The next day we went and explored the town of Fira, which was cute. There were a lot of narrow streets, some only big enough for one car at a time. We saw some of the locals on donkeys, but most of the tourists traveled by moped, four wheeler, or walked. There were tons of touristy shops and little restaurants…of course we had a lot of Greek food and some especially tasty Gyros. The ambiance of Santorini is very conducive to relaxing, so we did plenty of that! We spent a lot of time on the balcony, enjoying the amazing sunsets. We agreed that it might have been the most beautiful place we have ever been.
Soon it was time to leave. Now, our room wasn’t located at the complete bottom of the hotel area, so that cut out about 1/4 of the steps on the way to the top…I was kind of wondering how the whole check out thing was going to work out, because I knew there was no way I could make it up to the top carrying my luggage or at least make it up there before dark set in. So good old Thomas, my dear sweet husband, strapped on his back pack, his lap top bag, and carried my two -ton suitcase up all the stairs. I nick named him “Pac†because he said he felt like one of the pack mules we saw in town the day before. I think by the time we got everything to the top, he felt like pushing me off the cliff!
Here are a few pictures.
Part 2: Athens
Our good friend, Pavlos, whom we met while living in Tucson, now lives in Athens. So he invited us to stay with him while we were there. He came and picked us up from the airport Saturday evening and took us to this authentic Greek restaurant where he ordered for us. It was a little bit of a surprise whenever we would go out to eat and he would order for us, because he did so in Greek without looking at the menus. Needless to say we were able to try some very traditional Greek dishes that were very good. Although during this point of the trip I was beginning to miss the good ol’ American food. It’s crazy how much you can miss certain kinds of food. I guess you just get accustomed to certain things. I knew I was in trouble when we passed a “Pizza Hut†delivery driver and I instantly started craving it, even though I haven’t ordered from Pizza Hut since college. But it didn’t matter, Thomas was not about to order from there. He thought I was crazy to even consider ordering a Pizza Hut pizza while we were in Greece. I started thinking about before we left the states, when I needed to remove some things from my suitcase in order to get it closed…I was regretting taking out some of the snacks and water from my suitcase…I could have used that, but hey I had at least five different white shirts…guess at the time I felt that was more important than having food and water. Wow! As I write these posts, I realize I am beginning to sound a little like a prima donna!
On Sunday we all took a little road trip to the village of Delphi. We went to see the “Oracle of Delphi†which for those of you who don’t know is where Socrates saw his future and some pretty cool other stuff happened there as well. We did a lot of walking and were amazed by the ancient structures and statues. The museum had a model of what the whole thing looked like back in the day, it was unbelievable. We all pondered at how people were able to build stuff like that without the tools we have today. It’ s pretty amazing. Afterwards, we drove down to a village along the Mediterranean Sea and had dinner which was a beautiful area. Thomas was brave and tried Octopus and Sardines. It was an awesome day trip.
The next day our friend had to go to work so Thomas and I went and saw the Acropolis and the Parthenon. It was very interesting. On our way back we decided to take a taxi. Little did we know that the taxi driver would turn out to be a scam artist. We got in and proceeded to tell the driver where we wanted to go. He told us that the taxis are very expensive after 3:00 pm. We asked how expensive and he said 17 Euros for every kilometer. Then he showed us a document in Greek that supposedly reiterated that. So we said, never mind we’ll walk, we were about to get out when he started to drive and said he would just take us to the train station which was a few blocks away. He said it would be cheaper for us to take the train. So we were like ok. We maybe drove a mile when he whips a U-turn in the middle of the intersection and shouts the train station is right there and he points down the road. He said the fare would be 20 Euros. Holy crap! But what could we do, so Thomas gets a 20 out of his wallet and hands it to him and just then Thomas’s cell phone rang so he answered it and said he would call his friend back. Meanwhile the taxi driver had taken the 20 and turned around real fast and then started to shout, “I said 20 not 5, 20!†And he hands Thomas a 5 back, supposedly the 5 Thomas had just given him. Thomas said I thought I gave you a 20? The taxi driver is growing impatient, we are blocking traffic and he wants us to pay so he can get out of the way. Thomas was confused so he was like ok, and hands him another 20 but as he did he felt like something was up, but we just got out. As soon as we did, Thomas was so mad, he realized we just got played. So the one mile ride cost 40 Euros, which is $50.00 American dollars. What a crock! We were pissed. We ended up taking the train back for less than a dollar! When we told our friend, Pavlos, about what happened, he was outraged. He felt so bad for us. Guess we learned our lesson the hard way. Never take a taxi in Greece! Ok that might be a little harsh…just don’t be stupid Americans!
That evening Pavlos took us by where the Olympics were held, and to this really neat little downtown area with lots of shops and restaurants and he even took us by the first Olympic Stadium ever built. It was great that he was able to show us around and take us to some really cool places that we probably wouldn’t have went to had we been there by ourselves. We had fun seeing him and spending time in Athens.
Here are some pictures
Part 3: Copenhagen
When we arrived in Copenhagen there was a definite climate change. We didn’t really look ahead to see that what the temperature would be, but it was quite a bit cooler than it had been in Greece. We didn’t really pack a lot of warm fall clothes, so we were in for a surprise. It was a bit refreshing, the cooler temps, after it being pretty hot in both Santorini and Athens.
I just loved Copenhagen. It was such a clean city, which cute shops, great restaurants, and friendly people. Everyone could speak English which was awesome. There are canals that run through the city. Our hotel was right next to one. They had just built a new opera house earlier that year and we had heard it was unbelievable so we were bummed to find out that it was sold out until November! Next time we will definitely have to plan ahead and check that out. We stayed close to where the Queen lives. So we walked there to see what that was all about. They have it guarded 24 hours a day. The guards are dressed up like little toy soldiers, they are so cute. When they are on guard they won’t engage in conversation similar to the guards in D.C. Everyday they do a changing of the guards, so we watched that, which was pretty cool. There hats are made from Canadian black bears, it takes three-four bears to make one hat!
There is a famous statue of a Little Mermaid. So we checked that out, I think it is suppose to bring you good luck, but not quite sure on the story behind it. I guess the last time Thomas’s boss was in Copenhagen the statue was stolen, but now it is back in place.
There is incredible shopping in town. An area called the Stroget, is lined with every store you can imagine. Although, it is extremely expensive. Copenhagen is considered one of the most expensive cities to live in.
We had a great time going to the street Nyhaven which was packed with restaurants. They had both indoor and outdoor seating. Each restaurant had umbrellas with heat lamps for the evenings and signature blankets on the chairs, in case you got cold and wanted to snuggle up. It was very quaint and the food was good too.
Thomas’s boss and his wife and three kids were also in Copenhagen so we went out to dinner with them and to an amusement park/carnival place called Tivoli. It was pretty cute. We went in the evening and they had everything lit up. A concert was going on the night we went but we didn’t really engage in that. The kids enjoyed going on a few park rides and Thomas and his boss played a few carnival games. We had a good time.
The last few days in Copenhagen we laid low and soaked up our last few days together. Thomas will come back home in a few weeks. I can’t wait!
Here are some pictures
It was a trip of a lifetime. We feel so fortunate to have been able to experience a vacation like this. It will be hard one to top!