The wifey has been working her tail off from last year to finish her NP so we were fortunate enough to take a small honeymoon right after the wedding. Some camping would do the trick I said, so off we went to where the buffalo roam. A storm happen to blow through the day before we arrived and the temps took a nose dive. Our 30deg rated sleeping bags and three season tent didn’t stand a chance. We found ourselves at the Pony Express Motel – kinda joke of a name but believe it or not wasn’t actually decent for a last minute find. 

A year later, D is pretty much finished with school with the exception of “the exam” – the equivalent of what the bar might be for lawyers that she will still find time to study while we are vacation but we now having another reason to celebrate.  Baby Vitale will get a taste of Greece, minus the Ouzo of course, for 18 days.  After spending the last two weekends moving, my Mom downstate and then us finally moving (if throwing boxes into our living is what you call it) into our new place within days of us leaving. This time it feels a bit too rushed and as of writing this the one thing that I thought I wouldn’t have time to go and get, our international drivers license, I found time and then needed up leaving it in the airport car park lock in the car (Begin the count – Trip Fail no.1)

Our connection was through Montreal so on the way there I was able to finagle our way into the lounge thanks to the Priority Pass card that I also forgot (Trip Fail no.2). Thankfully they let me in with just the number – although she didn’t seem happy about it.  We didn’t have seat assignments for our 9.5hr flight so beforehand I went to ask an attendant to see if we could get setup before we go.  The only two seats together – 49H/K, all the way in the back, last row. Yeah those seats that have limited reclining. Guess I’m spoiled with Delta but when tickets are about 1/2 the cost when flying out of Toronto, I’ll make the compromise.

Athens

We decided to make Athens our staging city since there was no way in hell we wanted to jump right back on an airplane to fly to another island.  I realized as we were landing that I had told our AirBnb host the wrong arrival time (Trip Fail No.3 – Haven’t even arrived yet and not doing so hot) so we had to find some lockers to drop off baggage until 4pm. I had no idea how we were going to muster up the energy to walk around in 95deg heat until 3pm – but no choice. We scheduled 2.5days in Athens, I think just enough to see most of the archeological sites before we headed to Crete. Any of the sites offer the combined ticket for 30Euro which is well worth the price since Acropolis is 30Euro alone. Even more so, you will stand in line forever waiting to get in because you need to purchase a ticket. So this time, do the touristy thing and get the combo ticket. 

The ticket gives access to Acropolis, Ancient Agora, Roman Agora, Hadrian’s Library, Olympieon, Kerameikos Cemetary and Aristotles Lykeion. I think its pretty easy to see all of this in the time we had, and we even walked to each site, but we met others that were planning on spending 5 days checking out all the sites. If I had to rank, I think something like this: Acropolis > Kerameikos Cemetary > Aristotles Lykeion > Hadrian’s Library > Ancent Agora > Olympieon > Roman Agora. Hands down the Acropolis offers everything – views, the Parthenon, there’s a muesum to cool down while wandering around in the heat. But from a historical point of view Aristotles Lykeion is also pretty amazing. Although the surrounding grounds near the muesum have been updated and there are cheesy speakers places in vicarious places to think you are wandering the grounds and having a conversation with the man itself, it was essentially the birthplace of modern physics and astrological science. For me it was kind of amazing – Diana sat in the shade and tried to understand my excitement. 

Food

We took many breaks, which means many places (and opportunities) to eat.  There are a lot of places to eat in and around Monastiraki station but we head just a bit north after going to Kerameikos Cemetary to an area called Psyri. There are still quite a few restaurants here but it moved us away from the crowd a bit. We found probably the best place we have eaten so far on our trip. 

We took a family trip awhile back, I think around a decade ago out west to Arizona for a university visit my brother was thinking of attending. University of Advancing Technology which is just a fancy name for video game school. It was good though, we spent time north of Phoenix in Flagstaff, Sedona, and then drove to the Grand Canyon. Pretty amazing trip for a one-week trip. Yesterday we drove from LA to Phoenix, about 6hrs with various stops. Much of the landscape reminded of this family trip and mostly of my dad as that is all I kept thinking about. He loved it out here, and I think at one point he really considered trying to find a summer home around Flagstaff. Eventually yielding for a place in Houghton Lake.

Prior to jet setting I checked to see if there were any meetup groups in Madrid. I ended up finding a couple worth exploring. One was a Madrid expat meet on Sunday and the other two ; a local organizing a pub crawl for the last Saturday in 2013 and Madrid wine lovers. Perfect! I was all set to go with the wine lovers but then saw there was a 20€ fee and it didn’t really say what it included…so bar crawl it was…I wanted to chit chat with some locals anyway.  We were set to meet at 10pm at the Vodafone store on plaza de sol. Blinded by all the stimuli walking around I realized I had not eaten dinner yet. I quickly came back home to drop off my gear, clean up and head back out. I left early enough to stop somewhere on the way.  VIPS, was in route and I had walked past several times earlier while exploring. I didn’t even sit down though as I went to the adjacent take away area and grabbed (in no particular order) a smoked salmon sandwich ; perfect before I meet some peeps, some organic yogurt, a cup of strawberries and finally at Kirin ichiban can of beer. Strangely enough I felt right at home, thinking about the many times stopping at the combini in Japan.  Package sandwiches, another thing someone else does better than the states. I don’t trust those things at gas stations, turnover is terrible – they probably sit there for weeks. I was contemplating having another. I finished my beer quickly ; maybe punching a hole in the side and shot-gunning it would have been slightly faster. I headed to plaza in a hurry.
Long story short…the meet-up was a bust. I arrived early, waiting with only one other person for more than 45minutes past 10pm we decided to give up. I mean I know there is “Spanish time”.  Emma, the other women that was waiting was originally from Madrid but has been living in Wales since ’97. Deciding not to make a complete wash of the evening I tagged along to check out a local salsa joint. No intention of even trying to salsa but rather watch. Its like karaoke in the states apparently where everyone are pretty much professionals.  I have yet to see anyone get up on stage in the states a people immediately cover their ears.  Same applies here…women wait patiently to get asked to salsa, most of them have just finished class and they are good. If your potential partner agrees…you will always be asked again. I didn’t notice anyone struggling on the main floor.  I was cool just sipping my gin and tonic. Didn’t take me too long to use up my tickets and I headed back.  At least on the way I had a pretty good conversation of why Madrid was better than Barcelona ; something I would have to decide later.