YOB: International Adventure 2010 (Part 1)

By Lara

ParthenonSeveral people expressed interest in my recent vacation. I have decided to encourage that interest by writing about the experience. It will probably take me several articles to fully describe my adventures, but people keep telling me that suspense is good for the heart. Ok. Part one. Buckle your seat belts, stow your tray tables, and put your seats in their upright positions.

I will not bore you with the details of GETTING to Greece. Suffice to say that Mandi and I rode on planes and waited in airports for many many hours. I slept a little bit. Then we got to Athens.

The Athenian airport was a blur of luggage carousels and currency exchange booths and customs agents stamping my passport. Once we cleared customs, there was a sketchy looking man in jorts with a "Cosmos" sign. I approached him and asked if he was here for us. He showed me my name in his iPhone to prove that he was legit. The background on his iPhone was a very young woman in a very small swimsuit. Nice to see taxi drivers across the globe keeping it classy.

The drive to the hotel was longer than I had expected, but we eventually got there. It was a pleasant little hotel. The elevator was an adventure. Mandi and I could barely get the safety door closed around our luggage.

Once we were settled and rested a bit, Mandi gave her friend Bruce a call. He agreed to meet us at the hotel and show us around a little bit. He showed us to an ATM. He showed us how the tram worked. He got Mandi set up with a cell phone. And then he took us to his apartment. Bruce has a quality view from his balcony.

At this point in our story, I required sustenance. Bruce walked us to one of his favorite restaurants where I had some decent spaghetti and the most succulent olives that I've ever tasted. Thus was born my olive snobbery. I will never love another olive like I loved the olives in Greece.

When I was finished my olive induced rapture, Bruce took us back to his apartment. Bruce has an absolutely magnificent view from his roof. Photos were taken. Refreshing beverages were consumed. Electrical adapters were borrowed.

Bruce offered to escort us back to our hotel via the metro. I may or may not have irritated a public worker by paying for a 1 Euro bus pass with a 50. Hey. It was all I had! Give me a break. The guy in front of me had done the same thing. That probably didn't help my cause.

Once back at the Acropolis Select, we met our tour guide. She kind of reminds me of Diana from "Waiting for God." Only younger, and louder, and with bright blue mascara. Karen is definitely a character. However, she did give us the run-down of the tour and introduced us to the other two members of our group who were already there. We met Rebecca from Australia and Shelly from Wisconsin.

The four of us went to dinner where I had my first Grecian spanikopita. Mmm. I also had a lemon Fanta. We chatted a little bit about our travels and our homes over dinner.

I vaguely remember walking back to the hotel. I think that Shelly and I were talking about snow. It is a little bit fuzzy from there. I know that I successfully changed into pajamas and got into bed because I didn't wake up on the floor, but I can only guess how I managed. One would think that, being so tired, I would have slept well. Unfortunately, we had a bunch of guys outside our window trying to drunken serenade... somebody... at 4:30 in the morning. I have never wanted so badly to own a slingshot as I did at 4:30... Oh, well. Still. We were in Greece.

On the first day of our tour, I was pleased to see that olives were provided as part of the breakfast buffet. So were cucumbers. It was delicious. We met the rest of our tour group on the bus. Including the tour director and the bus driver, there were 18 of us. Mandi and myself from Maryland. Rebecca and Shelly from the day before. Jane and her three daughters Grace, Gillian, and Gabe from California. Anne and her daughter Aine from Ireland. Alistair and Cheryl from Australia. Michael and Norma from Scotland. John and Mary from Arizona. It was a small group, but we had a lot of fun.

We were the first tour bus to get to the Acropolis in Athens that morning. We saw our first olive tree, and I looked wearily up the mountain we were about to climb. Our local tour guide did a wonderful job of making us feel like we weren't climbing a mountain. She would stop occasionally to point out items of interest: the Acropolis dogs, the soldiers in traditional uniform trying not to slide down the mountain, the rock from which Paul preached his sermon about the unknown God. Then, all of a sudden, we climbed some stairs, and we were there. On the Acropolis of Athens. The Parthenon. The Temple of Athena. The Temple of Nike surrounded with scaffolding. It was stunning. I was having a hard time believing that I was actually there. I touched a couple of really old carved stones to try to ground myself in the moment. Then I posed for some photographs. Then I heard about how the Venetians blew up the Parthenon while fighting the Turks a couple hundred years ago. Sigh.

I managed to climb back down the mountain without killing myself. Success. We got back on the bus and drove past several items of interest in Athens. We got out for a closer look at the modern Olympic stadium. We drove past the remaining pillars of the Temple of Zeus from several angles. Then we stopped at the Theater of Dionysus for some photo opportunities. It was fabulous and surreal.

We said goodbye to the local tour guide, and settled in for the long drive to Meteora. At some point we stopped for lunch. I tried the moussaka. It wasn't bad, but I didn't love it. I was under the impression that it was "Greek lasagna." It was more like "Greek shepherd's pie."

We stopped at another point along the way to take pictures of a stork nest on top of a church. Apparently, the storks have been nesting there for so long that the villagers put up a statue next to the church. It depicts a stork's nest on a church... Right.

Meteora is an amazing natural phenomenon. Some ancient disaster created large pillars of pebbles that jut into the air. In the early middle ages, monks decided that these pillars would be ideal locations for monasteries. They felt that it was as close to heaven as they could get on earth. We visited one of the monasteries on the first day in Meteora. It is called St. Stephen's and is an active nunnery. Needless to say, it was stunning.

In order to enter St. Stephen's one has to wear a wrap over one's pants. I am still a little bit fuzzy on how that makes one more or less holy, but I acquiesced. I am glad that I was allowed to go inside. They had some beautiful gardens.

Karen decided that she wanted us all to go on an evening stroll. So, we got out of the bus and WALKED DOWN. I'm sure that the walk was lovely. Seriously. I don't remember much about it besides being afraid that I would stumble and slide all the way down the mountain and land in a big ball of hair and glasses and broken limbs at the bottom. I managed. I survived.

That's approximately when it started to rain. Spiros drove us back to Kalambaka where our hotel was located. I did a little bit of shopping before dinner. I wanted to get some worry beads. Then I went to sleep. It was, after all, a very busy day.