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....