an NYC weekend

Kevin came to town last weekend and we were finally able to cross some items off the old NYC to do list. First stop - central park to row a boat...


I feel the need to mention here that I love summer fridays at work. We work a half day on fridays and get out at 1 so we're able to enjoy the city even more.


What a great time it was to go boating in central park. Kevin and I took turns rowing all around the pond - for the record one of us was better at rowing a boat than the other - I'll give you one guess who - hint - not kevin.

Yum - take a look at that water - it's nice and green. I was praying the entire time that we wouldn't flip that boat.


Kevin trying to find his arm muscles - enough said. Let's move on...

Also while touring central park we came across my bench.

I thought it was only fitting to get a picture of me sitting on my bench.

After our central park field trip we stopped of at a pub for a pint and then retired early. Tomorrow (Saturday) we're attempting to tackle the statue of liberty and ellis island.

NYC - Catch up

I've been in NYC for just over a month now - let's see what I've been up to...

1. I live in Queens in the neighborhood of Astoria. It just so happens that Astoria has the largest Greek population outside of Greece. As a result I can still get my fair share of gyros, grilled halloumi cheese and more importantly - Greece's champion beer, Mythos.

2. Korres' U.S. office is located on Broadway in an area of NYC known as Soho. We also have a store a couple of streets over from the office. The people we work with are all really nice - more information about work to come...

Soho Store

3. After the first day of work my roommate Laura and I decided to check out a bar on our way home. After wandering around for 20 minutes or so we came across the Nolita House (North Of Little Italy) on Houston Street.

Friendly bartenders and happy hour specials make this bar a favorite so far. Did I mention it's illegal to have happy hour specials in Boston, therefore it's really nice to be back in a town that offers them! After about 3 hours of hanging out here the bartender gave us our tab - a grand total of $8. He was just asking us to come back...

4. Who likes peanut butter?? Off the recommendation of a Boston friend, Christina and I went to lunch at Peanut butter & Co. Only in NYC could a place like this survive. The menu at this place pays homage to everyone's favorite sandwich filler - peanut butter! You can get the traditional PB&J, a fluffnutter (peanut butter and fluff - for those of you from the midwest who just uttered the word "gross" or the question "what is fluff?", this sandwich is a combination of marshmallow fluff and peanut butter and is VERY popular in new england), the Elvis (a combination of peanut butter, bananas and honey), and many more tasty treats.

5. Love that Dirty Water!

Just because I'm not in Boston doesn't mean I can't catch a sox game. Red Sox bars are scattered through out this town, however Kevin and I have grown quite fond of one - Professor Thoms located on 2nd ave btwn 13th and 14th street in the village. A great beer selection, the best clientele - they're all Boston fans - and the nachos make this bar a must visit for all sox fans when in enemy territory. The nachos are huge and truly a NYC deal as you get 12 inch pizza sheet full of them with all the fixin's for only $9.

and Kevin requested that I include the following photo in the blog just to let you know that it's confirmed by the framed t-shirt that hangs at professor thoms - Jesus does hate the yankees. We suspected it for a while, but now i guess it's a fact.

Much more to come from the city that never sleeps...

The camera has been fixed....

I repeat - the camera has been fixed. While on the cape this past weekend I banged it on the dashboard of Kevin's car and the lens starting working again. Therefore, enjoy the last final photos of Greece...



Theatre of Dionysus


View while on the way up to the Temple of Athena Nike and the Acropolis


Two incredibly good looking tourists at the Acropolis


Full shot of the Acropolis - you can't tell from the photo by it was unbelievably windy the day we climbed the Acropolis. Hats were flying off heads everywhere. Both Christina and Laura said it wasn't windy at all when they visited the site so I guess we lucked out...


Finally - a unique view of Athens through a hole in one of the walls surrounding the Temple of Athena Nike and Acropolis


Thursday of my last week in Greece was actually Christina's last night. Therefore, we made one last run to Omonia and ended up having the best meal yet in that area. We went to a place called Barba Yannis. The restaurant wasn't the easiest to find since the name wasn't posted outside, however with 4 sets of eyes looking for the place (Kevin, Christina, me and my other roommate Laura) we eventually found it.

Unlike all the other restaurants in Greece that we had been to at BY's the waiter brought us to the kitchen to show us what they had prepared for the night. We ordered while standing and went back to our table and waited maybe 45 seconds before all the wonderful dishes started coming out of the kitchen. We ended up with a greek salad, stuffed tomatoes and peppers, roasted pork, a noodle white sauced lasagna and penne with sausage. It was a complete free for all as we shared all the dishes. Everything was delicious and best of all the bill was only $39 euro which is really cheap for all that food and our drinks. This place was a definite find and I was delighted to have had the chance to go here before I left.

Friday - my last day in Greece - I took Kevin to a public beach where we hung out for the day and soaked in every last ray of sun we could before we left for the U.S. After the beach we headed to another great restaurant - anyone who has the nerve to say there is no good food and spirits to be found in Greece is just completely crazy. After dinner we caught one last Mythos at a cafe in Thissio and I said a quick good bye to the city before we headed back to Kathy's.

Saturday morning at 5:15 am we left for the airport - USA here I come!

Finally a true mezes experience...

Days til departure - 3

Work update...

Korres' offices are located in Inofyta Greece - about 40 minutes north of Athens. To get to work we have to take a corporate bus from the center of Greece. Traffic in Athens is horrendous and I mean horrendous. Think of the worse traffic jam you've ever been in and times it by 10 and that's off peak traffic in Athens. As a result of this gridlock the bus leaves super early to avoid the rush so this requires us to get up in the wee hours of the morning - like we're out the door by 6:30 am. I don't think I've been up this early since the early 90's.

The offices are located in the an industrial office park with NOTHING around it but other businesses. To make up for the poor location and lack of food options, the company offers free sandwiches for lunch. Don't get too excited yet! I don't have the actual stats on this but I have a hunch that Greeks consume more mayo per capita than any other country in the entire world. No lie. Therefore these sandwiches come with lots of the gooey white stuff slathered all over it. After about 3 days of eating these sandwiches I called it quits. Christina on the other hand set the record for most mayo sandwiches eaten in one day - 2 1/2. She would not only eat these sandwiches for lunch, but she would also take one home with her and eat as a snack. She never ceases to amaze me...

This stuff is tops in this country

Also the first day of work we had to fill out some paper work which requested our address. Christina gave them the address of 16 Skata Street. Having only live at Kathy's for a couple days I had no idea what our address was so it looked right. About an hour after filling out the paper work they asked us to double check the street name. After further review we discovered our street was actually named Skyra Street and not Skata Street. Apparently, Skata means s-h-i-t in Greek so she knew that information couldn't be correct. Now you all know the first swear word I learned in Greek.

It's Wednesday night and we're trying to keep the excellent dining experience alive so we go back to Omonia and try a restaurant named Taverna Rozalia, where we finally had the true mezes experience that all the travel books talk about! After we were seated we started to browse through the menus, but were quickly interrupted by a man carrying a big tray full of different appetizers. We decided to cast the menus aside and play his game so we selected several dishes off the tray including stuffed tomatoes, potato salad and a traditional Greek dish called kokkinisto - a mixture of lamb, tomatoes, wine and herbs cooked is a small clay pot.

All the food was excellent and I highly recommend this restaurant for those who travel to Athens.

We have a couple more drinks after dinner and then head home. I need to be at the apt at 12:30 am because Kev gets back from Santorini tonight.

Hours til I find out that the camera no longer works - 2

So while Kevin was off enjoying himself in Santorini...

Christina and I decided to check out more of the wine and food scene that we've come to love. First stop - back to the ghetto - Omonia. We work with a boy named Costas who loves to practice his English with us. He won't admit it to us, but we heard from another girl in the office that he wants to be fluent so he can hit on the hot American ladies who will come to Greece this summer to vacation.

Anyhoo - when we told Costas we had been exploring Omonia at night for dinner he about fell out of his seat on the corporate bus. Then he remembered that Americans eat dinner at 7 and not 10:30 at night like the Greeks so he decided that we would be safe there, we're just not allowed to stay there late.

So it's Tuesday and Christina and I decide to hit up another restaurant in the Athens Top 10 book. It's called Yiantes. The majority of veggies used are organic and they have wheat pasta on the menu so this place is definitely out of the norm in Greece. I introduced Christina to tomato balls which she was a huge fan of. About an hour after our dinner i was expecting my body to shut down from a lack of cheese and meat, but surprisingly I did alright. My cholesterol will be sky high by the time i get back to the states.

Nothing late for us tonight - we're hoping to be super productive at work tomorrow so we can finish our business report and not have to come to work on Friday. I don't know what I'm going to do when I actually have to work a full 5 day week...

I hope you have a good imagination...

If you can picture kevin and me in front of both of these ruins (photos courtesy of google images), then there is no need for me to continue banging the camera on the table in the hope that the lens will open and I can upload the pictures.





I have a feeling i need to keep banging it...


Sunday we spent the majority of the day touring the city. We saw all the big sights including the acropolis, the ancient agora (otherwise known as market place), the theater of dionysos and the temple of Olympian Zeus. Photos to come once we can upload them - I promise. Kevin was amazed how hot it was - I'm thinking it was definitely in the upper 90's if not 100 degrees.

I also took Kevin to the order by picture restaurant near our apartment in peristeri so he could meet our Greek friends who work there. He was also a big fan of this game. Lucky for him I now have it down to a science so the number of correct orders have definitely been outweighing the number of suprises. Out of all the food that Kevin has tried he's a big fan of practically everything including gyros, halloumi cheese, lamb and souvlaki.

While we were dining my roommate Christina showed up for dinner so she joined us. She had spent the day on an island called Angistri that is close to mainland athens. She highly recommends it to people who come here. It was one stop after Aegina on the ferry she took and the beaches were 10x better. I wish I would have had a chance to go there but at last my time here is quickly running out.

Early to bed tonight because Kevin has to leave super early to catch his ferry to Santorini tomorrow and I have to go to work. I think this is the first time in the last 4 weeks that I'm actually been jealous of someone else's schedule...

Good news and bad news...

Good News! We've crowned a champion in the King of Greek Beers contest...

vs
It took kevin less than one day and 3 sips to lay down his official ruling. Mythos and its Premium Quality easily beat out Alpha beer or better known as the Bush Light of Greece. For those of you who travel to Greece don't waste your euro - head straight for the mountains of Mythos.

Okay - now the Bad News. I'm not blaming anyone because accidents happen, however my camera is no longer working. Everytime it turns on an error message appears saying "Lens error, restart camera." I'm not sure how this happened. I do know that when Kevin left for Santorini Monday morning the camera was working beautifully. As a matter of fact he even claims he took pictures while he was there. Once again - not that I'm blaming anyone all I know is the camera was fine when I last saw it....

In case you're interested I looked online to see if I could find a way to fix the error and the majority of advice I came across indicated that as I pressed the ON button I should repeatedly hit the camera on a table - hopefully knocking loose whatever partical of dust that is enabling the lens to open. Many and I mean MANY people have had success with this method. Unfortunately we did not.

Therefore, this entry will be light on photos...

After being delayed 9 hours Kevin finally arrived on Saturday. Originally we were hoping to get a little sightseeing in but that was before he arrived so late in the day. Therefore we dropped his backpack off at Kathy's house and headed into downtown Athens. First stop was a cafe in the Thissio area of Athens. Kevin was delighted to discover that with every drink you order they bring out a bowl of complimentary snackings (usually chips or peanuts). We also stopped into the Irish Pub I visited earlier this month and caught a Eurocup match. At 11:30 that night we left the pub and headed over to the Psiri area for dinner. Kevin was amazed at how late we were eating and he was even more amazed at the amount of other people who were also eating as late as we were.

Dinner was so good that kevin managed not to fall asleep in it. After being up for over 24 hours we called it a day. Afterall we have a lot of sightseeing to do tomorrow - that unfortunately I can't show you photos of because they can't be uploaded to the computer. Once again...I'm not blaming anyone and especially not Kevin who last used the camera....

DIamond in the rough...

Friday (the night before kevin flew into town) Christina and I headed to a yet unexplored area of Athens called Omonia. Big tip for travelers - this area is somewhat ghetto and you can easily wander into questionable areas if you don't know where you're going so watch out! So we're in Omonia because according to the Athens top 10 guide there are A LOT of good resturants hiding in the small and winding streets of this area. We're trying to find a small taverna named Athinaikon however we're not having the best of luck considering the street the taverna is located on is NOT on any of our maps. However, after about 20 minutes of wandering we come across it.

(I have to admit here that while we were wandering around trying to find the restaurant we came across a KFC. Starving - we popped in and I got something called the boxmaster which was a wrap with chicken, cheese, lettuce, ranch and I'm not sure, but i think it was hash browns. Excellent find!)

I digress...the place is known for the mezes or appetizers so Christina and I order grilled halloumi (a hard greek cheese made out of goats milk), a bean salad of some sort which was also really good and some potato salad. All the sauces and the wine in this taverna are made especially for Athinaikon's. The wine was excellent and REALLY cheap - only 1.5 euros per glass so less than $3 USD. great deal!

grilled halloumi cheese

After finishing dinner we decided to make our way over the psiri or CD area once again, however we ran into a street concert along the way. The atmosphere was great - young athenians were sitting around listening to the music and drinks beers on the sidewalks. Did I mention that I dig that fact that you can drink in public here??

we stay for a couple of bands and then make our way to psiri where we spend the rest of the night. I didn't want to stay out too late though....because Big Kev comes to town tomorrow!

Too hot to handle!

Wednesday of this week was outrageously hot. I'm estimating that it was 38+ degrees celsius which is over 100 degrees! While the three of us girls are dying of heat exhaustion and contemplating the punishment we'll incur from wearing swim suits to work tomorrow in an effort to beat the heat, all the greeks are in jeans. I honestly don't see how they wear them in this heat. I'm such a polar bear.

To cool down after work, we went to the Thissio area of Athens -known for its cafe scene. We settled into a cafe with a fantastic view of the Acropolis.

and I know this will surprise some of you, BUT because of the heat I wasn't hungry for dinner....that is until i saw the following on the menu...

It hit the spot!

Before I left for Greece my friend Elizabeth said something to me about how i would probably loose weight while i was over here since i would be walking a lot. yeah -not with dinners like this!

We finished our ice cream and walked down the way to the Dora Stratou theatre located in Filopappou Hill area of athens. In this theatre there are nightly performances of traditional greek dances. The show was about 90 minutes long and contained dances from several regions of greece.

Unfortunately pictures do not do justice here (well they do for the funny outfits, but not for the dance moves) - this guy is being twirled around in a circle on his tippy toes about 12 inches from the ground. he has more muscles in his stomach than i must have in my entire body.

The show was great and I definitely recommend seeing it to those who travel to this city.

SORRY FOR THE DELAY IN POSTS!

Kevin came and we were busy touring the town, so here is my attempt to catch up!

The rest of the weekend in Thessaloniki I spent getting to know this new city by doing the following...


visiting museums

Museum of Byzantine Culture



looking at ancient remains....

Arch of Galerius - built around A.D. 305 to celebrate a victory over the Persians a few years earlier. As you can see - it's not all there now.


and

Roman Agora - with a theatre that still hosts shows


Getting lost - at least i found a great view of the city and harbor and the old town wall



And of course drinking beers and eating good food!


cheese croquettes and Mythos beer - according to its label it is premium quality - are there different levels of quality??

But at last my time here is up and so I'm off to airport to battle the pushy greeks to get my seat on the airplane and return to athens.

Miss a flight, but get McDonalds - even trade off

It’s Saturday the 14th and I’m at the airport waiting for my flight to Thessaloniki. It was originally at 9:05 am, however by the time I was finally able to check in that flight was closed so I got put on the 4:45 flight so I have plenty of time to kill.

Tip of the day travelers – when taking a domestic flight in Greece you need to be CHECKED-IN at least 45 minutes before the flight leaves or you don’t get on. In addition, the domestic flight section of this airport is CRAZY with long lines and booking attendants randomly and quietly announcing things in Greek. Despite several attempts to get direction, it is VERY easy to have no idea what’s going on – hence why I am now sitting in the McDonalds café at the Athens airport catching up on my blog. I think it goes without saying that I will be at the airport super early on Monday so I don’t miss my return flight!

One thing I did discover is that the McDonalds at the airport serves lunch at all hours so no need to wait until 11 to get your cheeseburger and fry fix – see there truly is a silver lining to everything.

Since we’ve been working so hard we have Monday off – actually we have it off because it’s a holiday – let me set the record straight, we haven’t been working hard. I decided to escape the city and explore other parts of Greece so I’m headed to the second largest city in the country - Thessaloniki until Monday afternoon.

I finally get into Thessaloniki around 6:30 and grab the bus from the airport into town. Holy smokes can I just tell how nice my hotel is?? The pillow top on the bed feels like it’s 3 feet thick and there is air conditioning! That’s right folks – limited air conditioning at kathy’s house.

I get settled in and leave to explore the city. I'm on a mission to find a taverna that is highly recommended in my frommers book - called Thanasis. This place is tough to find, but I finally find it or so I think. I actually end up a place called Athinas (close enough - right?) and I order up a serving of tomato balls or as the greeks call them tomatokeftedes. I highly recommend ordering these if you come to Greece. Herbs, chunks of tomato in batter fried up to be crispy and golden. They were delicious!

After my first strike out I am even more determined to find thanasis. After about 20 minutes of searching I FINALLY find it tucked away in a small alley. It's around 9:30 and since it is so early I am the only one in the place. It's small, but has a lot of character and there are a ton of pictures on every wall with famous greek celebrities that have eaten here. I order up a plate of cheese croquettes (which were really good) and a mythos.

On my way back to the hotel I take a walk on the harbor and see there is a lightening storm out in sea. So i clicked the following photo...

home away from home...

I’ve also been getting my fair share of harassment from people for not talking about where we’re staying in Athens so this entry goes out to you guys…

We’re staying with a women named Kathy in the neighborhood of Peristeri at the end of metro line #2. If I had to relate this neighborhood to one in boston I would have to choose quincy – not because it’s ghetto like quincy – sorry Dan I had to go there, but because just as quincy is full of die hard locals so is Peristeri. In addition, this neighborhood is away from the downtown area and also the tourists, which is great because you feel like you truly get to live like a greek, however this is NOT so good when you’re trying to order dinner at a restaurant. Essentially every menu at every restaurant in our neighborhood is in greek and no one in the restaurant speaks English. I feel like I’m 2 years old again when we order because we use the order by picture method. We simply skim the menu and find a picture that appetizing and while pointing at it we ask “chicken?” or “pork?”. Surprising, this method has yet to fail us other than they sometimes bring us 2 pizzas when we only asked for one or one pita sandwich when we clearly wanted two.








We get looks everywhere we go in the neighborhood because we’re three young (yes 31 is STILL young) American girls. At the end of our street there is a old boys club – where all the retired old men in the neighborhood hang out and play backgammon. I think they still don’t know what to make of us. On the way home from work today we passed by them and I said hello (Yassas) and I think two said hello back while another fell off his chair in shock because we could talk.


So renting a room in a house is extremely UNcommon in Greece. Kathy is Greek, however she was raised in London where she ran a bed and breakfast. A few years back she sold the bed and breakfast and moved to Greece where she lives with her now husband, who is greek and who we’ve dubbed Papa Peristeri (I’ve never really met him because he works a lot and doesn’t speak a lot of English so I’m not sure what his real name is). To make some extra cash she decided to post a couple rooms on craigslist.gr and see if she got any hits and this is how we found her.


Here is a photo of my bathroom. Pretty tiny, huh? I literally shower over the toilet.



Actually living with Kathy is great because she’s fluent in both English and Greek so if we have any questions concerning a map, menu, etc she can easily help us plus she’s really nice and refers to things like the garbage as rubbish and the bathroom as the loo.

Down the street from us is a scary big black dog who is never allowed to come out and play and never gets walked. Essentially he’s just used as a watch dog and he loves to bark loudly when someone gets to close to his fence. We’ve named him Zeus and I pray I’m not there the day Zeus gets loose. He’s going to terrorize the neighborhood and take down anyone or anything that stands in his way.

And that my friends is the fine metropolis of Peristeri....

Hidden gems and good eats...

Friday was a tough day at work. We got to work at 11am and left at 3pm – what can I say? The greeks know how to live. In our short 4 hours at work we finalized our project with our supervisor and then were let loose. Laura – who you have not met yet – headed up to Thessaloniki to meet up with another GMBA student from Suffolk who is interning in greece. Christina and I hit the café scene and our ears led us to a small café right outside of the Syntagma area where two men were playing greek music. After a couple hours of listening to them we struck a conversation and the men informed us that the songs were from the 1940s and 50s and dealt with love, life and social injustice.



We had absolutely NO IDEA what they were saying, but we thoroughly enjoyed the session. After eating our free ice cream sundae – I told you they love to give things away for free here. We bid our adieu and went on our merry way.

We wandered around looking for another spot to get a drink when we came across an area known as “CD” near Monastiraki – I definitely recommend this area. There are block after block of eclectic cafes, bars and restaurants that are full of greeks – including one named Boston. After catching a drink at a small café we headed a couple streets over to try a restaurant that was listed in the top 10 Athens guide (thanks Lony and Chris – the guide is great!). The restaurant was named Olinea and was the best meal I’ve had in Greece so far. The décor at the restaurant was comprised of old greek advertisements and they had an extensive menu of traditional greek food with a twist. If you’re ever in Greece don’t wait until you stumble across this area to eat at this restaurant – it’s completely worth seeking out.

After a 3 hour dinner (see - I'm becoming more like a greek day by day) we headed home because I had to catch an early flight to Thessaloniki Saturday morning – which is a great story….