The three little musketeers grow to 4 in Athens!

We left Delphi via Athens and arrived at our little Athens Studio apartment in a great part of the city pretty well next to the Acropolis. BIG and BUSY place!
A very exciting day for Steph who got to meet up with hubby Mark who would join us for the rest of our Greek adventure. After devouring jujubes from home, some Kraft peanut butter (ordered by Cheslea), and hearing about the poor weather, missed concerts and other tidbits from home, the rest of the evening was spent updating the blog, and teasing Steph and Mark about having to sleep in bunk beds in a room with all of us 4 after being away from one another for almost 3 weeks as newlyweds. Haha, no romance until Santorini I guess ;-)
Friday was spent doing the touristy part of Athens. We took many pictures of “white, ancient” history made of limestone or marble. The Acropolis is stunning with all of its structures; the most famous and most photographed obviously being the Parthenon. The amount of tourists is pretty crazy and each photo likely has a few dozen or few hundred people in the background. It is an ongoing fight for the most photographic spot, with people walking into pictures without much consideration and cameras clicking everywhere. Very touristy, to say the least. At the same time, the sheer size of the temples, pillars and monuments is overwhelming. We walked through all the spots including the Acropolis and all its structures, the temple of Zeus, the Athens flea market, Syntagma Square in front of the parliament building where we saw the guards to their impressive routine, the National gardens, and the Acropolis museum. The museum just opened in June of 2009 and entrance fees are set at one Euro dollar to attract the crowd. Throughout parts of it, you can see excavations below what appears to be plexiglass or glass florrs. A very modern and well laid out spot which surely adds to one’s understanding of the site and its history. The museum was basically next to our apartment and gave some great background on the Acropolis and what it looked like prior to being damaged/destroyed over the years, plundered and aged to the remains visible today (acid rain etc.).
Athens is certainly a very metropolitan and modern city. Fast traffic, mopeds weaving in and out of traffic, yellow Mercedes cabs everywhere, tons of tavernas, touristy souvenir shops, car rental places and cobble stone types of streets. The Olympics in 2004 has done wonders for the city and after the influx of much related funding, “Athena” has continued to benefit by being nicely laid out for tourists with an ability to walk everywhere. You may just hear more English being spoken then Greek, backpackers and suitcases are seen on most streets and cameras are as common as cell phones, it seems. Being fluent in German has certainly been handy the entire trip for Susanne (me), as it appears that half the crowd here is from Germany or Austria.
We had $1.50 beers on the top of a Backpackers roof top patio with a beautiful view of an Athens sunset and subsequent lighting of the Acropolis at night, and a 10 p.m. dinner consisting of the usual: souvlaki, tzaziki, Greek salad and wine. Wine is not as cheap as it was in Macedonia, but still very affordable at 5 Euros or so a bottle ($9 or so). The temperatures are still hot but we seem to have adjusted a bit.
We are glad to have easygoing Mark with us who seems to have adjusted well with jet lag and all. We are heading on to the nearby Island Aegina tomorrow for a visit, swim and maybe some mopeds and are then onto Santorini and Mykonos for a few days.

Delphi and arriving in Athens

Wednesday was spent traveling to Delphi which was much more complicated than anticipated. I won't bore you with our frustrations with the bus system which you have to figure out as you go along versus being able to plan ahead via an Internet site or set schedule. We got there eventually and figured out that the three of us, even in 40 degree heat and with nerves ebbing, can handle things ok and can "shake things off". Character building for sure ;-)

We got into Delphi Wednesday evening on the party bus and could not believe that a bus would take on the small, windy little streets of Delphi. It is a small little town with a population of about 3000 and the "downtown" is restricted to a few streets of well kept inn's and hotels as well as tavernas. Prefect combination, we tried one out again and Susanne met her match in liking spicy food when trying the tzaziki there. Soooo hot and spicy, wow. Good, though!
The town is touristy, but kind of cute and young, lots of travelers.

We spent a night in Hotel Varanos which was great, started with a WONDERFUL breakfast (we tend to skip meals a lot and when we DO get to eat, we try to eat "ahead" a meal if possible).
The ancient site of Delphi was amazing the next morning. It was within a kilometer of our hotel and easy to follow along with our touristy Lonely Planet Greece book which is getting bent, worn and well read as we travel within Greece. We saw the Temple of Apollo including the Sacred Way which was lined with treasuries and statues given by grateful states and cities "back in the day". Further on you could see theatres, stadiums as well as the Sanctuary of Athena, including possibly the most famous structure with 20 columns and a nearby race track and spring.

A stunning place set on the mountain-side of Mt. Parnassos. The views are stunning with zig zag streets getting you to the tops of the mountains, large skinny cypress trees randomly decorating the scenery and the sound of crickets and "heat" accompanying the trip by foot.
We are so glad we took the detour to come up here. It is a pretty amazing feeling to walk paths which were among the most important in 4th century B.C.

Onto Athens to continue our journey and "pick up" Steph's hubby Mark.

Kalamos-our private beach

Photos from Meteora & Kalamos Beach

Meteora & Kalamos

Sunday, July 26th. We leave Thessaloniki and are done with the Greek train system; we are onto the bus system to see if we can avoid cankles and sweat.
Success. The 3 hour ride via Trikala to Meteora was comfy with assigned seating, A/C and even music. We arrive to stunning sights in Kalambaka, a town at the foothills of Meteora, the rock formation where a number of monasteries were built in the 14th century to ensure safety for monks and nuns.
Our Hotel Monsteri is absolutely stunning. It is like a Villa. Made of large stones, with a huge entrance with large pillars and large rooms with patios with stunning views of the large cliffs. Wow. The owner, Sirus, gives us a great idea of what to see when and suggests after looking at us that we are “young and in good shape” to climb to 2 monasteries today in 45 minutes and then to travel to the others by taxi the next day.
They looked high and far away, but hey: we need to prove the “young and in good shape” and start the climb with bags full of water and cameras. The sunscreen is on and we are good to go.
Holy Cow. The climb seems to be at a 45 degree angle for most of the climb, but we make it in an hour with many drink stops along the way. We are rewarded with what likely will be hard to describe in words. The view all around is amazing, the buildings are stunning. All seem to have a church and a museum where pics are not allowed as well as gardens and general grounds/buildings where it is OK to take pics. We had to cover with a sarong and t-shirts as bare shoulders or visible knees are not permitted in the monasteries.
We saw parchment from the 6th century, some of Aristotle’s works from 1498 and carved wood work and frescoes inside churches hard to describe. The detail in everything is amazing.
Supper at a Greek tavern with drinks, Souvlaki, and “Kalamares” (yes, Susanne’s thing).
The next day was a taxi trip up the hill to Moni Meteoro which is the largest monastery as well as a walking tour to the 3 others in that area of the cliffs. We hope our pictures will do this place justice. It is a place of old mixed with new: Old buildings but phones nearby. Nuns in traditional garbs, but they drive vans up the hill. Monks with long beards in special praying in the monasteries, but also in town drinking beer and smoking cigarettes at the bar we had a drink waiting for a bus…but it is a beautiful place and very much worth the visit….we have been promised to be able to stay half price at our Hotel Monasteri if ever returning. Might just do that…
We left Kalambaka via bus in the afternoon and made our way toward Volos and a bit further, to the small town of Kalamos where we would be staying for 2 nights. We arrived at around 9 pm in the middle of a stunning sunset and got settled in our little apartment Marginou. We were welcomed by the family who runs this inn, doing what we are used to now: speaking two different languages but somehow figuring out what everyone means via tidbits of language and hand signals (i.e. explaining boiler, A/C, keys, clothesline) as well as our British patio neighbors Bob and Susanna who welcomed us with a bottle of organic white wine. Tues day was spent at what we like to call our private beach after sleeping in and admiring the view from our patio. Apparently this place, which we lucked into searching the Internet, is a well kept secret which some celebrities have found recently such as Pink Floyd and others who have built villas in this area lately. 5 hours in the sun at the beach in warm, clear, beautiful water resulted in a few sun burnt spots and a nap. We are feeling our roots as we resemble the Nova Scotia lobster. Now we are sitting here drinking wine in a little tavern nearby with internet connection to be able to share the last few days with you. It is beautiful here, you will see from the pics. Tomorrow we are off to Delphi in search of Apollo.

Chelsea, Steph and Susanne head to Greece! Skopje to Thessaloniki

Saturday July 25th, down to 3 of us and the day we will always affectionately remember as the day of “sweat and cankles”.
-train was supposed to leave at 7 a.m., but arrived at 9:20 or so
-during the 2 hour wait, Steph and Chels decide that they would try to find a public bathroom in the train station only to come back with horrid expressions on their face and utter disgust. There was a good chance to see the 20 denar espresso we bought from a machine laid out on the platform somewhere. The place was apparently no more than a hole in the ground with filth on every wall, leaving a desire to Purell from head to toe
-ok, the ladies are going to hold it
it is around 30 degrees already…small little detail but will help describe the rest of this day of “crankiness”
-train is 2 hours late, but we are excited to enter the train only to discover that instead of sitting in a covered area on the platform, we have to sit in the non-air-conditioned, metal, hot, smelly, old train because of what the Macedonian women in our little hot cabin describe as “machine defekto”. Ok, got that one figured out, we are sweating for longer than we thought….one more hour sitting without moving in this sauna. We get going around 10:30 or so, before even having moved a meter (metric system, folks).
-we sweat just sitting there. And we are talking SWEAT! The kind that collects and runs down the back of your knees, your chest and that sits on your forehead. There is no shame now and we are past glistening, it is a downpour kind of experience. No one worries about being sticky, as long as there is no B.O. involved; we are all good to suffer together.
-the train starts and Susanne realizes that she has to bite the bullet and use the bathroom. May she have courage and the ability to hold her breath for more than a minute. Yes, the breath holding and trying to not take much detail in, as well as having the ability to squat comes in handy….after the detailed description, Steph and Chels again decide to hold it….
-more sweat. We are now using towels and figure out after a couple of hours on the train that the window in our little cabin DOES open. Hmmm, does not help when the temperatures outside feel like an oven. Now we seem to collect dead bugs which somehow fly through the window to land on Chelsea’s chest once in a while. She LOVED that experience for sure! ;-)
-“Cankles”. We start talking about them. Those lovely combinations of ankles and calves which we have heard and read about. Well, looking at our feet, we realize they look ‘ginormous’ and are missing any kind of definition, any veins that were ever visible or any bones. Just a mass of hot foot. We are feeling very sexy with our massive appendages sitting and sweating. Cankles it is…hopefully they will “decline” in size and our ankles will appear at some point.
-we travel through Macedonia along the various stops including one where people reviewed our passports on the Macedonian side of the border (not too bad) as well as the Greek side (why are the train employees wearing masks?). We give up our passport and are told to leave our train, and that they are given out in 10 minutes by the officials.
-ok, how are the bathrooms here, we wonder? Not too bad, we have a hole in the ground but an acceptable one. We are pros now and carry our toilet paper and Purell with us.
-Passports are placed in a pile and Susanne grabs 3 that looked like our Canadian ones. Hmmm, how easy it would be to take a few extra ones. Do people ever do that? I’m glad ours were still there. Not the safest way to keep important documents. We are now in the land of Euros, Chelsea grabs an ice cream and we are on our way again to Thessaloniki.
-After getting into the train station, we sweat more lugging our bags a few blocks up to our Hotel Atlantis and up three flights of steps.
-now we are onto the more pleasant part of the day: a walk alongside the waterfront, a $4 Euro Frappucino from Second Cup, as well as a nice meal including octopus, beer and other yummy items on a boardwalk.
-Rough, hot, sweaty, cankle day!!!

More photos from Macedonia

Farewell to Macedonia

Today was our last day at the worksite.
It was a bit of a solemn day. Sheri was playing slower stuff on her IPod at the rebar rectangle station and overall where was not quite as much energy as other days, it seemed.
We worked through the morning, only stopping for the ceremony to bless the house which is a great Macedonian tradition. When all the dangerous and the hardest work is done (walls, floors, roof trusses), one of the construction workers gets on top of the roof and sings to others below. Presents are being presented and are fastened to a cross which remains on top of the roof for all to see until the structure is finished. We gave a shirt and Molson Canadian hat which has been a popular item on our worksite since Shelly distributed them early during our build. It is a really nice gesture and gives real meaning to the various stages of the build. Presents continue to be presented by friends and neighbors and everything is attached to the cross which sits high on top of the roof.
A Habitat tradition which we tried to follow as the first Canadian team in this build is that a Habitat team tries to “leave a memory” somewhere on/in the structure. Whether it is something signed, or something scratched into materials somewhere. We marked all of our names as well as put a Canada pin and toonie on a truss near the cross. Gotta love Sharpies. Maybe someone will find it 100 years from now and will get a smile out of it.
After an emotional good-bye’ at the worksite with the construction workers we have worked alongside with for two weeks now, it was back to Negotino to shower and change only to come back to Veles for our farewell dinner with Habitat staff and the family which we have grown close to over the last two weeks. We met them at Hotel Romantique on a lake and it put a smile on our face to see both Vlatko and his wife Elena, their 6 year old son Nikola as well as the grandparents Nikola and Stanka there…all dressed up and full of smiles. We had a great dinner with tons of pics. The family will move into one of the buildings we worked on when it is done in the next few months. They were only supposed to come work on the site with us for a couple of days, but enjoyed the team so much that they came pretty well every day for the two weeks. They were many teary eyes getting into the bus…this family does not have much but they have been so gracious and appreciative. This is what it is all about. Stanka gave all of us hand stitched little mats/doilies which she made as a little girl. Wow….
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Friday was our last R&R day in Skopje and we went back to Hotel Kapistec where we stayed when first got into Skopje. It seemed like a lifetime ago when we were last here, first getting to know team members and arriving in lower temperatures. We went from low 20’s in the first day or two to high 30’s and even low 40’s.
We spent part of the day at Lake Matka, beautiful little treasure 30 minutes drive outside of Skopje. The river has a dam and a bit of a lake which is fed by cold water from underwater caves and springs. Locals treat it as a refreshing opportunity to take a dip and cool off. 12 degree water, not for everyone…after lunch and some cold drinks at a restaurant overlooking the water, we hired a boat to take us to some caves filled of stalagmites and stalactites, accompanies by a ton of bats flying in and out of the cave. It was a great way to see another part of Skopje. We went back into town to do a bit of shopping and visit the Bazaar full of little shops. The night closed down with a final dinner with team members as well as Milan and Andrej at a nearby restaurant as well as drinks outside the hotel in our little park. Habitat Macedonia was kind enough to give us some gifts including a CD with pics taken during the build which we watched outside on one of Geoff’s laptops.
Again, goodbye’s followed as three of us (Steph, Chels and Susanne) were getting up early to leave for Greece.
Great Habitat build, excellent team, wonderful country to visit. Will miss it!