October 28 though November 2, 2022
"With age, comes wisdom. With travel, comes understanding." - Sandra Lake
Our remaining time in Greece was spent in and around Athens and at Maggie and Tony Diamantidis's amazing hilltop house (views for miles) 😍. They hosted a Greek Halloween/toga party for about 25 of their family and friends. They even helped with costume ideas/materials which was great since we certainly didn't bring any along in our suitcases 👻. Despite my anxiety about socializing and getting in costume among strangers, it turned out better than expected. Art and I fit right in with our costumes which were largely made of tablecloths 😆. The guests were all super friendly, even if many spent the evening glued to the soccer game on TV. The highlight of the party, by far, was Art doing his Mathemagics presentation. They were all blown away, as expected.
The last few days in Greece were spent with Maggie and Tony showing us their favorite spots and restaurants. We were supposed to visit a famous monastery on top of a mountain about 4 hours away (Meteora) but then Art had major issues with a kidney stone (which had been an issue all week) and we had to cancel that plan 😔. Instead we spent one day seeing the Temple of Poseiden and another day taking a ferry to the island of Aegina (which took twice as long as it should have since one of us - not me - was running late and made us miss the ferry boat 😞). Wound up with much fuller days than expected, but I can't complain because honestly Maggie and Tony were awesome hosts and probably now life-long friends. They said we'll just have to come back again to see Meteora (and anything else we missed). 👍
Pros/cons of our visit: so glad we finally got to see some major islands (had been on my bucket list forever); wish we'd had more time to see the lesser-known and maybe prettier islands; actually learned a tiny bit of Greek (please, thank you, you're welcome, good morning) while there; not being able to drink the tap water or flush toilet paper in the toilet was weird and annoying 😑; having to work around kidney stone issues was challenging and a bit embarrassing (and I had to remind Art that no one really wanted to see or hold the stone when it finally came out 😐); eating so much meat and heavy meals took its toll on me; but also the lamb chops and the sausage we had were the best ever 😀; being in someone's home is lovely but also has a built-in socializing expectation; but also being able to do all our laundry at their house (credit to Art) was wonderful!
I am happy to finally be heading to our next destination (Malta) but also love the fact that we now have friends in Europe that we can come back and visit anytime!
Deena and Art
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