If you know me on Instagram, you know that my daughter and I just got back from a fun trip to Greece and Italy. Each day of the trip was packed with activity and adventure and each night, I tried to write down the events of the day and then create a post in IG to document the memories with photos and a few words. To better recall and process the myriad of events and experiences, I will now attempt to do a better job here with fewer photos and more words. If this isn't your bag, I understand. Feel free to tune back in for some information about the upcoming Summer Studio Sale. If you want all the details of our trip, feel free to read along.
Trip Day 1:
Travel day. I got up at 6:30 am and ran on my home trail. It was a beautiful morning and I was filled with anxiety about the trip. This would be my 2nd trip to Europe with the school but it would be my daughter, Violet's first time traveling out of the country and her first time flying. She was excited and I figured she would be fine with all that, but I worried she would be exhausted by all of the planned activity and that she would be very bored with some of numerous art-related activities. I also don't love flying. I'm a control freak. Many of the things on this trip would be unknown to me until they happened. Would we have to share a room with anyone? Would US Customs let the two of us move through the airport barriers together or would we get separated? What if our airline seats were not together? I also still didn't know who exactly was going on this trip.
The months/weeks/days leading up to this morning have been insanely busy for me. The week prior was our family vacation and the day after I returned home from that, I drove 200ish miles to install a solo show and create some murals. I had a day to pack for the trip and the next morning I was running off anxiety on the trail trying to think of anything I was going to need for the next two weeks.
G and Blue drove us to Charlotte where we met the group inside before moving through security. I tried to guide Violet to do all the right things going through security and she waltzed right through without a second glance. I wasn't so lucky and got pulled and patted down while she waited at the end, laughing.
Our seats were not together, but we were mostly in groups so it was easy to switch. Huge thanks to all the nice people who switched seats with us on planes and trains on this trip. Violet seemed a little nervous on the plane but no more nervous than me. I projected calm and she reflected that calm. We both had some wild eyes at takeoff, but the cool view made everything ok.
We flew over our friend Tiffany's house as we flew up the east coast. We waved. Tiffany is big on runners waving at each other and we are with her on that.
We flew to Philadelphia where we did not fall for the gross cheesesteak sandwich in the airport again. I think we got Starbucks as our last American meal before boarding the big, over-sold plane. They almost didn't let Georgia and her mom on and they were offering almost $4,000 to anyone who would give up their seat. It was very tempting but Sandy told us no. Fine.
We were all the way in the back row and the middle section for a 9 hour flight. Ugh. These are our "making the best of it" faces. We leaned across and saw the sun set over the Atlantic through a weirdly blue tinted window.
Then we saw the coast of Greece as we approached the airport. We did not sleep more than a few minutes on the flight and we were exhausted already. I guess this technically began Day 2.
Trip Day 2:
We landed around 11 am. The plans for bus tickets didn't pan out because the guy in the booth was overwhelmed and cranky. It was hot. We expected hot, but this hot was very different for us. It seemed to be a very dry kind of hot. South Carolina is a wet hot. I sweat constantly from April to November. Here, I could feel the sun baking my skin but the sweat wasn't forming. I suppose technically it was forming and immediately evaporating. After a long bus ride into the city of Athens, this is our group regrouping.
We stayed at a cool place just a short walk from the Acropolis. Violet and I got our room very quickly and we grabbed our key and took off. We would not be so lucky in every location. We shuffled up the stairs with our luggage and I grabbed my running clothes and took off while she rested. It was mid afternoon and getting the run done was heavy on my mind. I was mindful of the runstreak and had preplanned when I would need to run based on the itinerary. This was all the planning I did.
It's a good time to talk about planning since it became one of the important parts of our trip. I did buy the "required" travel guide for Greece. I already had one for Venice (that I didn't open last time). When Violet asked some questions prior to the trip, I told her we would look at the travel book on the plane and do our research there. We absolutely did not do that. We stepped off the plane just as clueless as we stepped on. I did, however, know when I was going to run. So I ran and explored the Acropolis area on foot. If you've never been to Athens, it's all hills. The Acropolis is basically a mountain and you're either running up or down steep hills constantly. I was just happy to be running.
In touristy areas, there's a host who is basically a carnival barker at every restaurant. We usually dodge them or just use them for information. We dodged a few but then found one who was older and a little different. He told us we needed authentic Greek food and he promised to show us pictures of it. That was funny. We agreed, he seated us and then he gave us this menu. "Gods' Restaurant", which I first read as "God's Restaurant". Still funny.
Violet was into trying all the new things so we ordered the Greek Sampler that had one of everything on it. The photo shows 2 samplers because we ate with Kennedy and Alayna and they ordered the same thing. We pretty much demolished these platters. We loved the moussaka and the meat served on the pasta that looked like rice. We also liked the meat wrapped in a grape leaf. Oh and the stuffed tomatoes. I don't eat tomatoes but I ate those and liked them. More on the tomato situation later.
Over dinner, we found out that Kennedy and Alayna had also neglected their research. Would you believe they didn't even buy the travel book that I didn't open? The nerve, right? When we realized we won at dinner just by bumbling around, we decided we would join forces and not plan anything during the trip. We would just bumble around and find adventure.
We had an early dinner so we walked around and explored after we ate. We saw this lady in full makeup and a cool dress being filmed somewhat professionally and we followed her to see what was going on. She rode up and down the escalator while two people filmed her.
Then we heard a band so we walked up the hill and found these guys playing songs. Very cool.
We had discovered the cats already. Apparently Greece is thick with cats. They're everywhere. We did not expect to find a tortoise just hanging out near the Acropolis.
We knew to find gelato. We also found fresh baklava.
I would argue that the sun works differently in Europe. It gets light early and stays light late. The truth is, it was only 8:30 pm but we were all wiped out. We ate our gelato, walked back to our hotel and I may have ate some baklava before going to sleep early.
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