Off Again

Aug 28th, this means we have been in Greece for 12 days, guess that means we are off to another country.  

This little girl is very excited!  

She was used to our international flights and every time a flight attendant walked by said "It's food time!" and "where my movies?".    Sorry baby, the flight isn't even 2 hours, no movies or food.

We landed in Rome and had 24 hours to explore before we got on our cruise ship.

We dropped off our bags at the apartment we rented for the night and whipped out Rick Steves' Mediterranean Cruise Ports book and pulled up his Heart of Rome Walk.  Since the metro station was able to drop us off near the Spanish Steps, we did the walk in reverse.

Unfortunately the Trevi Fountain was under construction but it was still amazing.

We walked through a shopping building, Cross Via del Corso, it was simply breathtaking. 

Up next was the Pantheon.  Everything about it was amazing, the square that it was in was full of people and good music. 

I was very happy that we brought the carrier for our little lady, it was a LOT of walking on this trip.  But she was in a very Mommy mode, and I must have carried that girl over countless miles and in three different countries.  OUCH did my back hurt by the end of the week.  

After the kids had walked through a lot of old Rome we decided that Rick Steves' was right, everyone needs to stop in Giolitti's, Rome's most famous gelateria.  Everyone got a cone of gelato, it was pretty amazing. Sean and I agreed, Charlotte's ability to choose ice cream based on color has somehow made her the ice cream savant, she always ends up with the best one.  This time she had black cherry since it was purple in color, and it was amazing.

After our little gelato break, it was off to the Four Rivers Fountain.  

We stopped for a few minutes to watch street performers in the Piazza Navona before walking to Pizzeria da Baffetto 2 for dinner. After spending a year in DC and the high cost for everything, a lot of laughter happens over the tabs for restaurants and taxis.  Our dinner only ended up being about 30 euro; an appetizer and 3 pizzas later.  We had fun enjoying Roman-style thin crust pizza before getting a taxi back to the apartment. 

We didn't get much sleep that night since we didn't think the A/C was working.   We got a good laugh the next morning when we found the remotes for the A/C in the other room.  Lots of laughs and learning have been happening in the past few weeks.

The morning brought a neighborhood cafe for a snack, and more laughs, the kids DO NOT like the water in Rome, it's served with gas!  LOL, bubbles in water aren't their thing.

Our ride was going to take us to the ship later, so we walked our bags to the office of the lady we rented the apartment from and started our walk to the Colosseum.  It was a lot of walking but at least it wasn't too hot yet.  It was also great to discover that for sites like the Colosseum, you don't have to pay for kids!  

Ryan really liked the pictures that showed how the arena floor worked with the platforms and trap doors.

Hard to get one family photo, so guess we are settling for family pictures in two parts.  :)

These crazy kids liked the benches that were around the second platform of the arena.  

After the Colosseum we walked back up for lunch at a local restaurant.  Two themes of this trip; me carrying Charlotte with her falling sleep, and amazing food!

After lunch we ran to get our bags then catch our ride to the port.  Next stop, All Board the MSC Divina.  This ship is amazing!  It was only built in 2012 and already "refurbished" once.  

The kids loved checking out the balcony of our room!  It was so worth it to have the little bit of extra space.

You know the buffet is big when it was a map to help you find things.

Long day of visiting the Colosseum and then exploring the ship.  Off to bed for my little people.

Tomorrow we arrive in La Spezia!

New Week New Adventure

Our second week started with a trip to the Athens' Zoo.  This zoo was really nice.  I got in with me and the kids for only 16 euro (they had a special for Aug that if you live in Athens you don't pay for kids).  It had a cool story behind the zoo too.  It started as one man's property with a few huge bird cages and a dirt bike track for his kids.  Slowly he kept making it bigger and people started wanting to ride there, and with the animals he kept adding people wanted to see those.  Next thing he knew he had a zoo.  The biking stopped but its a fun place to visit.

This is the cafe for the zoo, love the giant yard for the kids to play.

 Never seen such a dark color on a giraffe before.

How many crazy American kids can you get in an olive tree?

The safari jeep with the lions was a huge hit.

Driving in Greece is pretty interesting.  Learned a few Greek driving rules. 

1. No turn on red EVER. 

2. Magic blinkers (hazard lights) mean you can park anywhere.  Just look at this car parked on the median, its totally normal here.

3.  There are no other rules.

A little spot of America, this is a view of the Embassy and how it looks into downtown Athens.  Isn't it beautiful!

Life Starts Now

We arrived in Athens at 5 pm on Sunday August 16th.  At 8am Monday, Sean went to work.  Eek!  Thankfully the amazing spouses offered to combine forces, one watched my kids and another one took me to the grocery store and drove me around the neighborhood.  

The grocery store was pretty nice, I think cooking with be ok here.  :)  I just loved how at the grocery store there was an aisle, that was at least 1/2 olive oil.

After a little exploring it was time for a little playground time.  Awesome playground only 2 blocks from my house and you can't see my kids in this picture because they are running after and playing with 10 other American Embassy kids.

After one slightly stinky day, our bags arrived!  All of them!  It was even better that the bags arrived after the kids were in bed, so we got most of the things put away while they slept.  That is a great way to end the day.

The next night our neighbors invited us to walk down to the local platia (square) to eat at one of the restaurants there.  Our group ended up being 19 strong, 10 kids and 9 adults.  We had a huge assortment of appetizers, mixed grill platters, dessert and wine.  For 19 people our bill was 118 euros, about $130.  Food was amazing and so cheap!  I'm never leaving!  And to top it off, the Greek people are so family friendly that while the adults ate the kids all went and played in the center of the square.

A few more days of settling in and it was back to the platia, this time for my first Freddo Cappuccino (its an iced Greek coffee with cold milk foam) and a trip to the laiki (farmers market).  This market is crazy big! And the prices are so low.  The produce is so fresh and it happens just blocks from my house every Friday all year round.

Our first weekend here brings us to a trip to Ikea, our local playground and some funny laughs at the Greek to English translations that we run across.  Anyone want some "ok bread"?

Let's Get Going

Back in the spring on 2014 we found out that Sean got an assignment to work at the US Embassy in Athens, Greece.  So June of 2014 we moved to Washington DC for Sean to spend the year learning Greek.  Normally we have 3-4 months from when we find out about an assignment to when we move. This move for us was 16 MONTHS in the making.  So when Aug 15 rolled around, we were pretty excited.  We decided that before we needed one last American breakfast before we left.  Friends and family met us at IHOP before we had to leave for the airpot.

With our breakfast finished it was off to the airport.

17 checked times later (15 bags and 2 car seats) and lots of hugs later we were ready to start!

We got to the airport 3 hours prior to take off since we had so many bags and where traveling overseas.  

We got on our flight, sat for 20 mins then got the announcement that Washington regional tower was out.  Off the plane for us.  We ended up taking off 3 hours late for our first flight. We landed at JFK and our original time of having 3 hours before our connection were gone.  So second flight was missed.  :(  Thankfully we managed to get rebooked, but it was for a later flight from JFK to Paris, then Paris to Athens.

Getting everyone settled on our flight to Paris.  This is now 8pm and kids are starting to get tired and we are JUST getting ready to take off.

They finally started getting sleepy, but not until our flight was almost over!  

This little lady only slept for about an hour!

By the time we landed in Paris everyone was pretty tired.  We landed in Paris around when we were originally supposed to be landing in Athens and we had another hour or two to kill before our flight to Athens.  Eek!  

One last flight, we land in Athens!  But sadly we land with no bags, somehow they lost all 17 checked items.  At this point we just laughed.  We got picked up by the Embassy who took us straight to our new house.  And thankfully they passed the message that our bags were lost and people came together and gave us diapers and PJs/clothes for the kids.  What a huge blessing.

Even though everyone was tired, they were sure excited to check out their new house.  They loved that their rooms had a balcony.

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After the kids were in bed, Sean and I enjoyed exploring our new place too, taking a ride in our elevator then enjoying an adult beverage on our back patio.

Athens, I think we are going to get along great!