Athens Trip

The Greek Parliament Building, located across from Syntagma Square and McDonald's

 We took a quick trip down to Athens for our "Holiday" trip.  A train ride from Kalabaka to Athens takes 5 hours and for us this year it only cost 110euros and that was first class tickets.  I think it was a great deal.  Just driving a car cost almost 50 euros in tolls alone, not including gas and paying for a parking space.

Train ride up, these are the photos the kids will do, funny faces or hiding.

We left early Monday morning the train was supposed to arrive at 5:40, but did not appear till 6:10 am, thank goodness it was not that cold, but we were still not very happy about the wait.  We had our own little compartment which was very convenient considering Nik threw up like an Alien exploding out of a body, chunks of his breakfast (pistachios and cookies) went everywhere.  Arthur got the majority of the spray since he was sitting across from him, but both Katerina and I also got sprayage on our pants.  Which meant I got to go pant shopping in Athens since I only brought the one pair :)

On the metro

After arriving in Athens and taking a  short metro ride to our Hotel right off of Syntagma square, we ate lunch at McDonalds.  Then the kids and I walked around Ermou street, while Arthur did a little business.  We rested for a bit at our hotel and then met up with Katerina's Nouna (godmother) Ero who is working in a Hotel in Athens, just down the street from the one we were staying at.  We ate at Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner, are you seeing a trend here?  Yup this trip is all about eating and NOT eating Greek food, yippee!
Ero and Katerina and I went on a little shopping trip to find a new pair of pants for myself while Arthur and Nik went back to the hotel, so much easier to shop with out the boys.

Th LONGEST WALK EVER! The white lines above are the Olympic Stadium, close to the Golden Mall.

For about 2 months Arthur has been telling me how he has been planning this trip and has everything figured out, he showed me where we would be going on google maps street view.  I was just along for the ride, hehe.  Well I should have known that I'm the only one that can plan good trips.  Our next outing was to go to the "Chocolate Factory" and then to the Athens Mall to watch a movie in the Cinema.  Instead of taking the bus that is just outside of our hotel directly to the chocolate factory Arthur made the mistake of having us take the metro, we got on the wrong one, which then meant we needed to get on the train and then back on another metro and that dropped us off at the Mall and not the chocolate factory, so we took a bus, partly there and then had to walk, OMG!!!!  Have you ever done so many steps, the kids were complaining the whole way, you know "Are we there yet?"  "How much farther?" " My feet hurt"  "I'm hungry" grrr... All I could think about was how much I needed to go pee.  I made Arthur carry Kat, because she is like a bag of cement and it was his fault we were taking so many steps to get to our location. 

Chocolate Donut filled with Chocolate Nutella eating it at the Chocolate Factory

Well, we finally made it to the Chocolate Factory, which by the way I might add, Arthur didn't even recognize it from the street level and almost AGAIN took us the wrong way, but I did recognize it from the google maps that he showed me and insisted on just going around the corner for the entrance for the chocolate factory. Well (I'll be using that word a lot) Katerina did not like the smell at the entrance, haha, it was a very strong chocolate smell, so we just went to the cafeteria and ate the chocolate they had for sale, instead of spending 20euros on tickets and not getting any chocolate we spent 11euros and ate all of the chocolate.  Now it was time to go to the Athens Mall, I would have just hailed a Taxi, but Arthur again insisted on walking, we walked half way there, found an amazing donut shop called California Donuts !!!! Yippee, finally a good ol' American donut, I got a delicious donut with Bavarian Creme inside, I normally get the one topped in chocolate but since we just came from eating a massive amount of chocolate, (I ate all of the kids leftovers, chocolate overkill) I got the powdered sugar bavarian creme donut, plus with a Cappuccino coffee for only 2.50 euro, that is a steal!  I seriously want to move right next to this shop!

Trying to get her to put her shoes on after watching the movie.

Well the walk ended up being a little more than what Arthur bargained for and we were able to flag down a Taxi to finish the rest of the trip to the Mall.  We immediately went to the Cinema and it was perfect timing since the Star Wars movie was going to be showing in 10 minutes, we picked up a bucket of Popcorn, the kids were super excited as was I, this was their first cinema movie and Arthur and I's first cinema movie since watching "I am Legend" that came out December 2007, just before Nik was born.
Nik did okay in the movie, it was a little to much for Katerina, she is still a little young and the whole time kept talking about wanting to watch the " Scooby Doo" movie, cause Arthur told her there was one, when in fact it was a "Snoopy" movie, again, me, grr...

We enjoyed Kentucky Fried Chicken at the mall and some ice-cream, then went in search of the Lego store (which Arthur had promised the kids legos) but they didn't have a lego store at this mall, SOOO.... back to the other mall, this time with an immediate Taxi, I was not going to be walking again.  We got the Lego that Kat so desperately wanted, an Ariel princess one with the prince and a boat.  Since we were back in the vicinity of the chocolate factory we took the bus and it dropped us off right in front of our hotel, easy peasy.  We slept very well that night.

Picking out sweets for the cousin, but taste testing first.

The next day was a national holiday, the Nameday, Fotini, ( Φωτεινη) and everything was closed except sweet shops, florist and restaurants.  We picked up some sweets for Arthur's cousin who happens to be named Fotini.

Found the perfect sweet, cream filled honey soaked filo "cigar"

It was supposed to be a quick little bus ride to see his Uncle and Aunt, I wanted to take a few photos of the changing of the guard outside of the Parliament building since that was happening as we were walking by, Arthur continued to walk up the street toward the bus stop.

Changing of the Guard.

 Well, I went to go find them and they weren't there, I panicked and walked back to the bus ticket counter, to confirm where the bus was supposed to leave from and then found Arthur and the kids at the parliament building waiting for me

 

Waiting for the bus, tired from walking up the big hill.

We catch the bus and of course it is the right bus but going in the wrong direction, we drove ALL over Athens, a 15 minute trip turned into an hour bus ride.  

Running on the bus, cause we have so much energy, and it's a long ride.

It was a nice visit with his Uncle and family, his wife has a very large family and they were all there to celebrate Arthur's cousins name day, so it was kind of like an American Thanksgiving party, loads of food, the only difference, the men eat first and at the coffee table/turned into dining room table and the women stand around the kitchen eating, but of course after the men have been served (Yes,  Greeks are very sexist)  

If your partner wants kids and you don't you can always invite us to your house, my kids are little terrors and they will make anyone rethink having children.  They wrestled the whole time, ran between rooms by going out on the veranda and running around to the next room.  

Ducking to avoid the camera and wrestling behind the couch.

 They took Aunties placemats and used them as light sabers to fight with (and asked to take them home with them, and being the Greek hostess that she was she said Yes, oh my) You can see Nik with his in the picture below.

left to rt., Arthur, Uncle, Auntie, cousin Kristos, cousin Fotini, and Nik behind.

 We left to go hook up with Ero again and this time we ate Chinese for Dinner, YES!! so super exciting, for me, that is, our hotel was located to what one person could term the Asian district of Athens, a whole lot of Asians walking around and 6 Chinese restaurants on one block.  

be prepared to have your purse rifled through if you meet my children.

 It was a fun meal, family style, wish we could have eaten more, but the kids had eaten a gyro just before we arrived but that didn't stop Nik from eating 5 Jumbo Fried Shrimp.  Arthur enjoyed the fried rice and Kat's nouna enjoyed the Spring Rolls which was a wonder since she does not like vegetable at all, hehe. 
 

Ero, Katerina's Nouna (Godmother)

HERE is a link to the map of where our hotel was just off of Syntagma Square, we stayed at Arethusa Hotel, I would recommend it, it was very nice and in a convenient spot.  We ate at Attic Moon, now if you eat Chinese food often then of course you don't want to come all the way to Greece to eat it, but if you don't get to eat it often I can also recommend this place, come hungry and eat family style, yummy! 
 
I really wish I had stopped at this sweet shop one more time before leaving, they had the most amazing sweets, even macaroons.  We don't have to many good sweet shops here in our town, of course that probably is a good thing for my waist line :) 

 Now the return trip Thursday morning was so much fun, for the kids, we again were in first class and this train had a kids padded play room, so awesome, we just let them in there and they wrested for a good 2 hours, came back to our private compartment and slept for another 2, it was a very nice return trip home.

Is your husband as bad with making traveling plans?
Or your kids as wild as mine, trust me, they are wild! 

Our Vacation

And Re-Writing History! Okay our Vacation wasn't history changing, but what we saw will change the way history books are written. I can't believe it has been 3 weeks since we went on our very small trip of 2 nights away to the northern part of Greece.

The Heart is our Home and the Box is where we went.

  What I love about traveling is:

• Seeing Historical Sights
• Seeing Natural Sights
• And Eating!

We had plenty of food to eat, first stopping for lunch at the mall in Thessaloniki for our bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken (we eat this any time we are there).  Then we ate dinner in Asprovalta, calamari and tzatiziki (if you need a tzatziki recipe you can get it here).

 Enjoying Calamari

Yes, I get 2 Ice-Creams!

The shop owners offered the kids ice-cream and they of course said Yes, but it was a Mastika ( μαστίχα) flavored, which is pretty good in ice-cream form, not sure how to describe the taste, but this is something they only make in Greece, specifically Chios Island. The next night we enjoyed Gyros in Nea Peramos

I don't have many pictures of the beaches, since I am always in the water.

This is near Nea Peramos, the beach is called Sand Dunes (but in Greek)

The 2 places we stayed at are starred and the little teardrop is where the find of the century has been discovered.

The signage at Amfipoli

The top sign says Macedonian Tomb, we wanted to see it, but when we crossed the road, there was nothing there, the nicely paved road turned into a dirt road.  We thought the Greeks must have gotten the signage wrong, but what it is is something that they didn't announce till this week.  They have discovered a new tomb to rival that of Vergina.  Here is an article in Greek(pictures are nice) and here is a smaller article in English(my husband and I have been arguing all week about who is buried there). Amfipoli (amphipolis-Αμφίπολη)  is an Ancient City, if you have watched the Movie 300 with the Persian King Xerxes, this is where he was defeated.  And where Alexander the Great's wife and son were executed. (I believe they are the ones in the tomb)  My husband thinks that Alexander the Great is in it.  We can't wait to find out WHO is inside, I also believe that Alexander the Great's mother could possibly be inside.

Ancient Aqueduct.

Rolling Hills and the river meeting the Sea.

The most popular sight of Amfipoli right now is the Lion, it is right off of the old road from Asprovalta to Kavala.

The Lion Monument, was found in 1912 and rebuilt in the 30's.  I am using this as my color palette and the story behind it and the region Amfipoli to Design my Surface Pattern for my class that I took with Bonnie Christine at Creativelive.

I made this on Adobe Illustrator, aren't you proud.

The class was great, you can take it too, I watched it live, from 7pm to 2am for 3 days to see it for free.  But you can pay just $79 to watch it anytime.  I was a little scared when on Friday we didn't have any electricity all afternoon and then boom at exactly 7:05 the electricity was back on, phew. Now I didn't know anything about Adobe Illustrator and it is a definite learning curve, but the I would have been really lost with out Bonnie's lessons.  The other cool thing is that you can use the Illustrator for FREE for 30 days.  Sign me up right, I have always wanted to make my own fabric line. (you will need to sign up for Adobe first and then the Creative Cloud and then you can download Illustrator for free) You can find more info on the Design Surface Challenge from Bonnie's web site, Going Home to Roost. Of course no trip is complete with out some fun!

Where I Live

I live in a beautiful place called Kalampaka (Καλαμπακα) Greece!  In the Greek language when they add an M and a P( Π ) together it gives the word a B sound, (the β in their alphabet sounds like a V, in fact the word alphabet is Greek because alpha and beta are the first 2 letters in the Greek alphabet and sounds like alfa (αλφα-Α first letter) and bet is for βετα sounds like vet-a) so you may also see the place spelled as Kalabaka Greece.  Or better yet the whole area is called Meteora for the the rocks that seem to spring from the ground.

a picture I have used on my other blog

It's smack dab in the middle of Mainland Greece.  We can drive a little less than 2 hours east or west and run into the Sea.

You can view a picture of Greece here.  and you will see it written Kalabaka on Google maps.

 The next picture is of a postcard I like to send when I do swaps, the red travel checker shows where our house is, right up against the rocks.

A small video on a windy day in March, with my husband and our 2 children.  We are out in front of our business KokaRoka, 5 small rooms for rent on the second floor with a Taverna on the first floor.  Behind the white van and up the stairs you can see a small white house that is where we live.  My husbands mother is in charge of the business and she stays there.

This monastery is Varlaam

Great Meteora, and also showing the cable car that ONLY the monks use (and workers)

St. Trinity where they filmed the last parts of "For Your Eyes Only" James Bond Movie.

 Some of these pictures are from my other blog, that I have sadly neglected, perhaps this summer when we travel (if we travel) I will get back up to showing more of Greece.

We are #15 on the list of 25 Places You Have to See Before You Die, although the guy who narrates it is an idiot, he thinks Santorini is in Italy, it is in Greece just in case you didn't know. 

I would love to have visitors especially if you bring me some fabric and my all time favorite American candy, Hot Tamales, I will supply you with Homemade Wine and Ouzo and of course Olives and Almonds from our trees.

30/30 Week 3 Update

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO ME, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO ME!  YIPPEE!
My husband doesn't generally do any type of gift giving it's just not in the Greek nature to give gifts, they don't even celebrate birthdays here, instead your name day is celebrated so if you are named Timothy then all the Timothy's have their day, but a name day celebration is well if you really want me to get into Greek details then say so in the comments and I will be happy to explain the oh so wonderful Greek customs.  
On to my Awesome Wonderful News!  My husband finally broke down and bought a "table" just for a my sewing machine, don't worry we didn't tell his mother, omg, we would never hear the end of that one "jes fer the masine that uh sew en"  hehe like my Greek accent.
We went to IKEA

This is the downstairs part of our house this is the front, the other 3 sides are surrounded by rock and it is very cold there in the winter, but in summer we sleep downstairs, this is going to be my "sewing room".

To get the backing for my Pantone Challenge Quilt Top You Can vote for it here, #18, under "Just Quilt Tops" Category click the little heart in the right hand corner, you can see more photos of it here.  Do you like the IKEA written numbers print, they are awfully large numbers, but I think it will work, I am going to use a purple binding also, I think.  The Quilt top is what I was sewing on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
Tuesday was spent our 30 minutes doing a photo shoot, that resulted in my children playing in the stream, so we had to hurry home.

Wednesday I cut fabric for my Pantone Challenge bag, You can vote for this one under the "minis" category, #50, Thank you so much if you vote, there are a lot of beautiful items to look at.
Thursday I Thankfully received the package of interfacing and did some sewing
Friday I quilted the interior of the bag and put the bag together, you can view more pictures here.

My daughter doesn't realize that when I say I want to see the back side of the bag I don't mean I want to see the back side of her also.

LOL, not only does she crack me up, she cracks herself up too!
We took the bag shopping with us today to IKEA, it is about an hour away in Larisa just south of Mount Olympus where the Greek Gods reside.

You can see their snow peaked tops in the distance.

So today's Saturday 30 minutes time was spent fabric and desk shopping, by the way have you seen the new "board/wood plank" fabric that IKEA has, I saw it on someone else's blog and now I don't know who, but I saw it in person and it is nice but it is a heavier canvas type material and not a quilting cotton material, just FYI.
As soon as I clean the downstairs and do some re-arranging we have a double bed, a sofa and a wall bookcase down there, so I will need to find out where to put my new table!  And then I will share pictures.
Linking up to 30/30 Sewing Challenge Week 3
Oh in case you were wondering yesterday March 21st marks 7 years I have been married to my husband Arthur the Greek.
Next week I am going to start a suitcase out of old jeans, so fun!  What are you going to do?

A Love Story

I was recently asked how I met my husband and it is a Love Story perfect for Valentines Week.
In fact it is more like a Movie or a Romance book.

I went on vacation to Greece for 4 weeks during the month of October 2006, the first week I was by myself and then I met up with several friends and we sailed the Aegean Sea and visited some of the Cycladic Islands.

For my fourth week I traveled by myself again and went inland of Mainland Greece, visiting a place I had seen at the IMAX theatre called Meteora, it has huge rocks springing from the Valley floor and looks truly spectacular, you can see them at the end of the James Bond movie "For Your Eyes Only".

I had made reservations to stay at place but when I arrived he was full, but he called a Rooms to Rent nearby and they had a room available (I have since learned that this is a very common practice for this particular place and it really is a shady business, but that is Greece for you, lots of seedy and untruthful people).  I was greeted by a older women who showed me to my room, she asked for me to sleep on the single bed and not on the double since I was a single traveler, I agreed a little humorously because it was a little funny then I asked her where I could eat since I was starving and it was pretty late at night.  She said "downstairs, I make best lamb" okay, I'm not much of a lamb fan, but she had me interested in the fact that she claimed to have "the best".  And it was delicious along with the Greek Salad and the wine graciously offered by the other guest at the table next to me.  A Greek women and her date were sitting next to me and she wanted to have a conversation with me, but since her English was limited she had the waiter translate for us.  We had a nice chat and drank a bit of wine, she invited me to go out dancing with her later, now in Greece the "party time" is around 2 am when it gets started not when it ends, it was only a little after 10 and so I had a bit of time to kill before going out.  I chatted some more with the waiter, who turned out to be the son of the women who showed me the room and also the owner of the Taverna and Rooms to Rent, KokaRoka.

KokaRoka, under the rocks.

So there I sat hanging out with this guy, waiting for a girl that never showed up (she was pretty drunk when she left so she probably forgot or went to sleep), I was a little bummed having stayed up and being tired myself, so Arthur (the guy) said he could take me to a club, I was like sure, I'm awake and dressed, let's go.
We drank and danced till dawn, having a great time, not really talking to much, since it was pretty loud but it was fun.  The next 3 days we hung  out together and on my final night he proposed.  CRAZY RIGHT!  Well I thought it was crazy, I just thought he wanted to get in my pants, if you know what I mean.  (and yes Greek guys and probably other guys will do this).  I gave him my number, e-mail address and mailing address and told him he should keep in contact.  Thinking to never hear a word from him again.
Boy was I wrong, he e-mailed me daily and called me almost daily, then he asked if he could come visit.  Since Thanksgiving was coming up I told him he should come and celebrate the holiday with me and my family and he AGREED, wow, that blowed me away especially since it was like only 10 days away.  He worked very hard to get to the States in 10 days, he got a Visa by having an interview with the American Embassy in Athens and then he got the plane tickets and he was there visiting me in California, THIS GUY WAS SERIOUS.
He proposed again this time with a ring and a pretty bracelet, so I was like sure why not, a great adventure and a new chapter in my life.  I put in my 2 weeks notice at work, called my landlord and moved out a month after he came to visit me for Thanksgiving.  I arrived in Greece on New Years Eve 2006, ready to spend the new year 2007 getting to know him better.  We married 3 months later on March 21 and decided to start a family (I thought that would take a while since I have a lot of friends who have had a hard time getting pregnant, but not me) yup I was pregnant when my Step-Mom came to visit us at the end of May, she could tell since I was getting car sick after picking her up from the airport.
And that's how I ended up here, a vacation turned to a lifetime with a beautiful family in a beautiful place.

Ignore his pose, he is showing off his new Native American jewelry- Grand Canyon 2013

Both pictures at the Grand Canyon, USA, another fantastic place with big rocks!

Or how about Monument Valley, great rocks.

And Now 10 Years later after meeting here at the Rocks of Meteora, October 2016

One of the Monasteries behind us, Varlaam.

Our house behind us, ignore my hair it was very windy day :)