August 2011 -Trip to Greece

We managed to snag two award tickets with Continental miles at 50k each for a round trip to Greece. Only Dad and Sophia went along this time. Mommy stayed behind for work and to keep an eye on Kostas who had an amazing time again at Camp AlGonQuian (sp?).

We left on August 30th from the "Other" terminal in Detroit. It was very weird NOT flying Delta or KLM this time. Instead it was Lufthansa to Frankfurt, Germany.

Flight was uneventful, meals were served, service was typical German style and we arrived in Frankfurt to get on these buses to the terminal.

Our Airbus plane:

Dad used his Priority Pass lounge membership to enter one of the lounges.

Short train ride over to the next terminal to get on the flight to Athens:

Short plane ride to Athens. Lufthansa means it gets there on time, everything works and then you....just forget all about what happened, the definition of German style...no fuzzy feelings whatsoever, it just works!

Arrived in Athens:

Since we arrived later in the evening, dad had decided to spend some Priority Club points on one night int the Holiday Inn hotel at the airport. We took a very short dip in the swimming pool and then we slept for many hours straight...I think 13 hours!!!

Then, courtesy of the mafiozi Greek taxi drivers who decided to go on strike, we had to use the bus to get to our next hotel in central Athens. Not fun hauling our bags in the burning sun!

And of course we blew some more points to stay one night again at one of my favorite hotels, the Athens Hilton.

A highlight of it is always access to the Executive Lounge due to Dad's Gold Elite status with Hilton:

Got a cellphone, did some walking around and met former college roomie friend and then had to take care of some business phone calls and meetings.
Greek guards going to replace the others in Syntagma Square:

In front of the Grand Bretagne hotel (an expensive Starwood hotel) facing the Greek Parliament building in Syntagma Square. You remember all the violent riots on TV? THIS was the place it all took place. There will be more coming soon to the screen near you!

Breakfast in the lounge with view of the Acropolis, never gets old.

Mafiosi Greek taxi drivers were still on strike so the next day we had to haul our stuff to the subway to make it to the train station to catch the train to Larisa, our final destination! Poor tourists who had to endure the taxi driver shenanigans!

Snacking at the Athens-Larisa train station:

On board of the train:

In Larisa now. Enjoying our chocolate-nut crepes, so delicious!

Larisa downtown: Amazingly, the taxi drivers are still on strike, here they lined up the taxis for a protest caravan ride.

As soon as we got to Larisa, the US stock markets started going nuts with extreme volatility. It was opportunity to make some additional purchases for clients and an opportunity to reiterate our long term focus and belief in our strategy of sticking to our asset allocation plan. In other words, initial plans to make it to the beach much more often did not materialize! Thankfully, wifi availability is widespread now so several cafes became Dad's office. This one is Sophia's favorite, Fredeto that made the best chocolata drink for her! As daddy worked, Sophia worked on her youtube skills...she did some reading too!

Larisa Central Square, in front of the court house:

Eating the real gyros sandwich:

Back to Fredeto:

Did a lot of walking every day. Here is "the web" store where son spent some hours last time we visited. Kostas, you remember this??

Enjoying a late night snack in the square in our neighborhood:

Having some fun in the play land of the main shopping mall in town:

Grandma Sophia and granddaughter Sophia...together...I just can not compete!!

Finally, managed to get to the beach one day and stopped by at my favorite restaurant:

The area is Agiokabos and Velika in Central Greece. Not many foreign tourists, just locals from Larisa, it is an hour drive to here. Been coming here as a kid, it is a special place. But it is also so frustrating to see such a beautiful place that could be very developed and....years later...not much has changed, just more people come here for the day and then drive back to town.

Have seen many waters, nothing compares to the clean water in this place. Hawaii? Don't think so? Tahiti perhaps...mostly because u can see the fish. You don't get to see much fish here but it is as clean!!

Dad was getting some work done every morning in town helping Mother's issues and loosening up some inheritance issues (yes, two years later, greek bureaucracy is....amazing!!!). Dad returned home for lunch and we all had lunch. Then it was off to some cafe to get some US based work done and then leaving some time for fun at night. This is in the old part of town:

Rented this tiny Fiat car for 10 days to get around. Best part about it was how easy it was to park and amazing gas mileage.

Some pics around Larisa:

There is a whole town lying underneath downtown and they managed to at least restore the ancient theater. It is a magnificent site that should draw thousands and thousands....Instead, not even the locals know about or care about it...Sad indeed.

One of Dad's absolute favorite summer activities in Greece is to watch a movie in an outdoor theater. There used to be many of them but almost all closed except one, Milos. Before the movie starts this old guy who runs it gives his unofficial review of the movie and then he usually goes off in different directions...He is loved by everyone and a movie buff, he is an institution here! I hope the place stays open after he goes. We managed to catch two movies this summer here:

Open air, watching the moon, the breeze, the sunflower seeds, the coca-cola...

Managed to get away to the beach a second time, woohoo!

Above there is a map of the ancient theater and below are some ruins, these are of houses...there is a whole city underneath!!

The obligatory visit to the village my parents are from, 15 minutes outside of Larisa. We stopped by here at my cousin's house, a retired airline pilot who returned to his roots. He now keeps busy making honey from bees, a pure labor of love. Here is Sophia tasting some of the homemade honey:

Sophia wanted figs, my cousin got her figs!

Another cafe that was visited frequently by us was the Mikel cafe. It is a chain and I am pretty impressed by the quality of the coffee, great service and very strong wifi!

They will even deliver coffee to you!

Days passed very fast and it was time to leave. This time we did not fly back out of Athens but out of Thessaloniki, the 2nd largest Greek city, 2 hours north of Larisa. We took the bus this time.

On the way, near Platamonas, managed to take the pic of the magnificent castle:

We took the local bus to the airport from the bus station:

The famous site of Thessaloniki:

At the airport, we called the Hyatt to send the shuttle over to pick us up as we had decided to burn some Hyatt points for a night before our flight the next day. We waited for a while only, to our shock, to have a Mercedes from the Hyatt come and pick us up. Wow, very nice touch!

Lovely hotel and Sophia went at it!

This was the Mercedes that took us to the hotel and the next day, amazingly, they took us to the airport. We did not get to experience the hotel shuttle and I think that's okay:-)

Off the next morning for short flight to Munich and then Frankfurt:

This one below was not our plane....but we would love to fly it one time:-)

We flew Aegean to Munich, first time on Aegean, very nice!

very greek breakfast, it was actually very good!

Munich:

Frankfurt:

It was great to see mother who is doing very well. Great to see old friends again & take care of some issues. Not too great to not do as much exercise! The homemade cooking was fantastic as always. The economy is in a death spiral and I am afraid there is a lot more pain to come. I should just stop there.

Kostas did not make the Huron High School JV soccer team after Ann Arbor Public Schools voted to eliminate all Freshman sports teams. So he rejoined his old United U14 team and we played in a tournament in Brighton. Great first game with a 2-1 win:

Another great game the next day but fell 2-1 to a strong team with a phantom PK.

3rd game did not play well at all, deserved the 3-0 spanking. Coach knows what he needs to work on.

The Honda Odyssey Van died and we decided to step up to the plate and get a new car. Welcome to our 2011 Ford Edge SEL, bought on Aug 31 & delivered on Sep 1st.

Stay tuned for more pics of a special Labor Day weekend!