We packed up our stuff and set off to meet up with Sasha’s family. After a reunion in a hotel lobby, we set out on beautiful drive through the Greek country side. After many narrow roads and steep cliffs with leaves changing color, we made it to the small town of Olympia. We visited the museum, saw the ruins of the Olympic grounds and many huge ruined temples. We even got to race on the original Olympic stadium. Most importantly, we were reunited with Ricky baby! (Rick Steves) Who told us all the long history of the place
Greece was completely deserted this time of year and we couldn’t figure out why. The weather was just right and it only rained once while we were there. Everyone was happy to see tourists and we got the whole place to ourselves. 18% of Greece’s economy is tourism based. In Malawi, they will offer a huge book of a menu. You will pick a first, second, and third choice, and they will have none of it. You will end up having beans and rice. Some Greek resturants had a similar set up, although no nsima. One completely deserted place even took us back into the kitchen to show us in person what was available! They did give us a pile of free and delicious oranges too.
Next stop was a little town on the water called Stupa. We stayed at a fantastic place with a view of the water and a hot tub on the second floor. We had a great time eating traditional Greek food including Moussaka and exploring old Greek castle ruins. On one small roadside town, we came to the one open restaurant. The waiter explained the kitchen was closed, but he would whip something up for us. He came back with a selection of fish, tomatoes, cheeses, and meats to put on our bread. We are learning to ignore menus, as the surprises always seem better.
Another perilous drive later we arrived at the ancient fortress of Monemvasia. It was basically a huge rock that someone carved a small town into, with a fortress ontop. Only a small jetty connected it to the mainland. In all its history, no one had been able to take it by force. There were also literal swarms of cats wherever we went. We counted 32 at one restaurant. Ryan found a little church tucked into the cliffside about half way up that involved a little bit of faith in a benevolent god to get to.
Having gotten our fill of the little towns we went back into the big city of Nafplion It was known for a similarly impenetrable mountain fort with 998 steps to the top. Ryan, Sasha and mom raced up, only to have Kara and Dad drive up and beat them. We also stopped at the nearby Mycenae, which according to Kara is the picture they use in all of the Greek history textbooks. This castle had a deep well with steps to the bottom. The stairs had a rope across them, but no sign so Ryan and Kara figured that meant they were open for business. The tunnel down was very steep and made with large boulders overhead. There were also several turns so by step 40 or so it was absolute darkness. The tunnel had held, for thousands of years, but the stairs started getting slippery and they decided to head back up.
Finally it was time to see Athens! Isabel finally was able to fly in as well. After a delay and some disappointing tea, we got into our AirBnb and visited the Parthenon and the Greek forum. We had just come from London were the stone art was kept, and so it was fascinating to see the original homes and pieces of the puzzle. The heart of the city was much like any other European city. Huge beautiful buildings and churches located right next to a McDonalds and H&M store. But the people were all very friendly (except for the pushy waiters in the more touristy areas) and it felt like a very safe city despite all of the deadbolts on the doors. Ryan did get a chance to go see a dentist for a chipped tooth that had happened in Malawi. He sent out a blast of emails to various dentists in the area. Especially ones that had English letters in their name. one person got back right away and said that she could arrange for her associate to put a temporary filler in tomorrow and do the real filling when she got back from holiday. Ryan asked for her address and set up a time to come in for 1 pm. The next day we went to the address and arrived about 10 minutes early. We rang the bell and received no answer. It was in a shared building so eventually someone let us in. The office was on the 4th floor so we started climbing. After the 2nd and 3rd floors, there were no lights which made for an odd experience of climbing up a random flight of stairs in a strange city in total darkness to go see a dentist that probably wasn’t there. We finally got to the office and it was a dimly lit door that had (as far as we could tell) the same Greek letters as the one we were looking for on google maps. We arrived ontime, so prepared to use our new waiting skills in this dimly lit staircase for about an hour figuring that maybe with the holiday season it would be more like a Malawi time kind of appointment. After an hour we figured something was probably wrong. Neither of our phones had service so Sasha went to go wander the city in search of free Wi-Fi. She wandered into city hall who kindly lent their phone, and called the number that Ryan had given her only to find that it was the number to a different dentist Ryan had also been looking at going to. After some confusion she came back to get the real number. Meanwhile Ryan had managed to get a 20 min free trial of Wi-Fi. With a little sleuthing on the internet he found that the associate he had been sent to see actually worked at a different dentist office down the road a little ways. We headed there and upon getting to the building encountered a very similar set of stairs. 2 hours late at this point we arrived at a very closed looking dark door. We knocked anyway and another patient opened the door to let us in to a very nice and brightly lit office. There was no receptionist, so Ryan peeked his head around the corner. A hygienist saw him and told him to sit down before I could explain who I was. We sat in the waiting room for about a half hour before Ryan tried to get the dentists attention again. Halfway through his explanation the dentist said: “Yes I know why you are here. Go sit down” another 20 min passed before Ryan was called in. The procedure took about 5 min. We tried explaining that we had been given the wrong address, but he seemed annoyed at how late I was all the same. Once it was over he said: “Okay you can leave now” Ryan asked him who we should pay on the way out. He just said no and to leave. So we walked out and arrived home from our 5 min procedure 6 hours later, for a temporary filling that fell out in 3 days. The actual procedure was far smoother and more permanent. And it only cost 70 euros and that’s the cost without using insurance! Yet another crazy cheap medical experience outside the US!
Then it was on to Santorini for Christmas, an island in the Mediterranean that was a ring of islands forming the rim of a now underwater but still active volcano. We went on a few hikes and visited some of the other towns on the island, but mostly we just kicked back and enjoyed the incredible views from the cliffside. The only theater on the island played Mamma Mia and My Big Fat Greek Wedding on alternating days. We had dinner Christmas Eve at an extremely Greek restaurant, with a somewhat drunk owner learning none of us ordered drinks and so gave us plenty of wine for the table. We were all a little giggly by the time he started calling “Ope!” and smashing plates on the ground. Christmas dinner was an organized and delicious affair, in a restaurant surrounded in plants. Just like the Rainforest Café but with real plants, and less dinosaurs.
Our last stop with Sasha’s parents was in Artemida. Ryan and Sasha did not fit in the 4 person cab so we decided to find another way to the town of Artemida. We settled on a nice walk on the side of a busy freeway (the taxi was a whopping 30 euros) to an area marked with lots of do not enter signs, a quick hop through a hole in the chain link fence and a long ride on the bus. We needed to have bought bus tickets, but the bus driver did not speak English so just waved us back. It was a lovely beach town that was clearly popular with partygoers in the summer, but deserted this time of year. We did a much needed load of laundry, had a steak and potatoes dinner and said our goodbyes the next morning. And then, it was off to Portugal!
We only had a day in Lisbon, but we managed to do a lot of walking all over the city, including the Rick steves walk, eat lots of food, see the views from the castle on the hill, and visit one off the coolest churches we had seen so far. It caught fire in the 60s and was repaired to be a usable church, but much of the damage was left, including the exposed brick where the plaster was damaged. It was very interesting to see such a massive beautiful church that was a bit more real.
Our last stop on our whirlwind tour of Europe was Spain. It was nice to be somewhere that we could speak the language at least a little bit. We met up with a very friendly British woman who was associated with the Anglican church of Madrid to pick up the books that had been donated. It took a few hours to sort through all the books and find the ones worth carrying. We swapped stories with the woman who was organizing the donation as she had spent a good amount of time in the bush all over the world, and so was familiar with our plight.
On new years eve we went out with some of the people we had met at the hostel and tried to make it to the famous del Sol square, but many others had the same idea and we only got within a few blocks. We did however eat 12 grapes at midnight one for each month of the year. Apparently seedless grapes have not made it to Europe yet, which made the whole prospect more difficult. There was also a huge opportunity missed by the people making the 20 20 glasses. It seems like common sense to line up the zeros with your eyes. This thought apparently had not occurred to the people designing these glasses. As the eyes lined up with the 2’s. All the same we bought some light up ones for 3 euros.
New years day was a frenzy of shopping at the “Chinese shops” for everything and anything we might need back in Malawi. We still don’t know if it called a Chinese shop because of the people working there or because it is all Chinese made stuff, but it seemed to be a common descriptor across Europe.
We woke up bright and early packed all of our many bags and took an uber to the Train station. We arrived in Cuenca despite the best efforts of two very poorly signed train stations right after the sun had risen. Luckily, when we did find security, they were understanding of our plight and got us were we needed to be. Unfortunately, we very quickly discovered that it was very cold at the higher elevation and we had also just missed the only bus of this very small town. The cold proved not to be too bad as lugging all of our bags a mile uphill warmed us up very quickly. We hope someone on their way to work got some enjoyment out of what must have been quite the spectacle. Ryan carried one of the bags on his head like a Malawian and Sasha dragged the broken roller bag we found for 3 euros behind her with a tied on jacket.
After a bit of a recovery we ditched the bags and saw the sights of Cuenca. We saw the clock tower, met a guy who loved America because we could own lots of guns, walked across a somewhat underwhelming famous bridge and got off the beaten path for a hike up a hill to a giant statue of Jesus. We went on our last hike among oddly shaped rocks, and saw the last frost.
On our final day we went to the Science museum and were surprised to find one of the best ones we had ever been to. It was far more modern and interesting than our own Science Museum. We just wished we could bring our students to any room inside. There were so many cool science experiments we could show them. There was even a self forming tornado that you could touch and blow on. We went back to the hostel for lunch and treated our self to a big bread cheese and fruit meal followed up with a bunch of pastries of all kinds for dessert. We took photos and tried to savor the tastes, as it would be a long time before we got such a feed again. After lunch we went to the Dinosaur museum. It wasn’t as cool as the science museum, but we got some great pictures of the giant dinosaurs towering over the ancient city at sundown.
The next morning we made our way back to the train station only to find out that our train was to be delayed by 3 hours. This didn’t exactly jive with our flight time so we frantically searched for another option. With 200+ pounds of stuff in tow we found a bus to another train station on the other side of town, purchased new tickets and ran to catch the train with seconds to spare. From Madrid we went on an extremely fruitless shopping trip before boarding the subway to the airport and making our way back to mother Africa!
Ticket to Anywhere 