Nafplio or Nafplion or something

So, Greek Week 2012 is coming to an end. Sad Face.

I leave you with one last gorgeous Greek city, which has been known by about 15 different names. We stopped in Nafplio on our way back from Stoupa and it was so worth it.

First we ate by the water. Which Yannos accidentally called the ocean and never heard the end of it.

We were all ready to hop back in the car, because the view by the water satisfied us.

  But, I had to eat some gelato. Yes, I said HAD. We turned the corner and found this.

The streets of Nafplio were beautiful. 

So we walked around for a while and saw the sites.

It was a perfect little side trip, and it wasn't until after we left that we found out that you could drive up to that awesome fortress and walk around. 

It's only an hour away from Athens, so I think a return trip is in order.

And that concludes Greek Week.

Beach Bum

Around the corner from Stoupa is Kalogria, which has a gorgeous beach. Not a bad place to have your first beach trip huh?

The view during the walk down to the beach

What is this stuff?! 

I think it's delicious

Some fun feet burying 

I think she liked it there

In the Streets of Greece

There are some odds and ends that I want to share with you guys.

First off. Greece has a no smoking policy. I don't know why they are even pretending to enforce this. Here is a shot from outside Kalamata.

Oh the irony. Like rain on your wedding day (not ironic, Alanis). Or orange trees that you can't eat the fruit off of. Athens is full of these trees.

I mean, every street is lined with them. They don't eat the fruit though. They do however use the fruit as projectiles during demonstrations. They say it is a cross between an orange and a lemon, but I'm confused about why that would be inedible.  Obviously, Zoe is too.

How many times are you walking down the street in America and stumble upon a nursing mother? Oh never? that's because America is weird. It was pretty sweet to sit down in the middle of a city square in Athens and nurse.

Something else you don't stumble across in America is Hitler art. Not that nursing in public and Hitler have anything in common. We were walking around after lunch and spotted this beauty.

It was tempting. I think it would add a lot to our living room.

Hitler apparently loved to wear fuchsia.

P52 Week 16 - Things That Grow

I'm not a fan of olives. The Greeks might disown me. I try them all the time and I never like them. I had an olive I liked for the first time in Greece. I'm pretty sure it helps that they are grown right there.
Olives grow.
As does my fondness for them.

On a Mountain Top High

The coolest thing we did in Greece was eat potato omelets.

Confused? Allow me to explain.

First we drove all the way up a mountain

Into this adorable little village

 

Watched the restaurant owner buy food for our meal from the truck that they get all of their produce from. He also had to go to his house to give us some olives and to get more eggs from his chickens. 

Then we ate the best food in the world

And met the town crazy who said he was Gestapo 

Played in the village square

Rescued a turtle from the treacherous mountain roads

And enjoyed this view on the way back down

See? The best thing we did in Greece was eat potato omelets.

An Ode to Grandparents

Our Greece trip was filled with a lot of amazing things, but one of my favorites was watching Zoe with her Grammie (my mom) and Pappou (Yannos's dad). We missed Yiayia (Yannos's mom) but she is required to come on the next trip. Actually, now I can't imagine going on a vacation without a grandparent around. It just added so much to the trip to watch them enjoy Zoe.

I was lucky enough to catch some great moments

And Myrto captured this silly moment

And some relaxing moments

Zoe and Grammie were enjoying this sweet view from our lunch spot

And it helps that our parents enjoy each other too!

Even though this is Greek Week and Yiayia wasn't in Greece with us. Here's a picture from Greek Easter. So it counts.

My baby kicked jet lag in the face

In the weeks before our trip to Greece, I heard multiple horror stories about how babies react to large time changes. I was prepared for the worst. A baby up for the day at 4am or not sleeping for the night until 1am or both. But Zoe was a champ. Well, first she only took four 45 minute naps on a 10 hour overnight flight and screamed every time we sat down. But then. Then she was a champ.

Here she is 6 hours after we landed. I don't understand how she was A: functioning and B: happy.

We were at a bouzouki place and it was all sorts of awesome. The music was phenomenal and the food was incredible.

The bass player was just as concerned with smoking as he was about the music.

We liked his technique of holding the cigarette.

One thing that made the 7 hour time difference a little more manageable was how late meals are in Greece. We were eating lunch at 4pm on this day. Dinner was often around 10pm. Since Zoe normally has dinner around 6pm, it was kind of like a 3 hour difference instead of 7.

My main goal was to let her sleep whenever she had the opportunity to.

A nap on daddy in the ergo

So even though she normally takes 2 naps at home, some days in Greece she took 4. Overall she was getting about 2/3 of the total sleep that she normally does. Considering that, she did a pretty fantastic job. 

I wasn't so complimentary when she cried from midnight until 5am one night, but that had more to do with the food upsetting her than the time change.

Photo Formula

Here is how you take a picture in Greece...

1. Find flowers

2. Set your aperture so the background is all fuzzy

3. Take picture

4. Repeat one million times

I need help.

I'm Greeker than you are

It's GREEK WEEK!

Now, in college this meant an entire week of activities for the frats and sororities. Wear your letters, collect the most canned food, make a float, win at flip cup.

Here at Life of a Greek Wife, we are celebrating our recent trip to Greece!

This means all week I will be boring entertaining you with details of our awesome trip. That's right. I said ALL WEEK. As in everyday you get to see how our vacation was way more awesome than anything you did.

It is also Greek Easter. Double Dream Hands.

Did you know there is more than one Easter? I sure didn't until I started dating a Greek. It's really Orthodox Easter, but I've never heard a Greek person acknowledge that anyone besides the Greeks are Orthodox Christian.

Yannos and I never actually use the same words to talk about the two days. I say "Greek Easter" and "Regular Easter" he says "Real Easter" and "Fake Easter". Good years are when these days coincide (I'm looking at you 2014).

With the trip to Greece the week before Easter, we're not going all out this year. Here is what happened last year.

On Saturday, make a pit. 

There is a lamb in there

 Do all sorts of gross things to the lamb that I don't want to know about

Do that until it is dark outside

The dining room is the obvious place to store your lamb

Wake up at dawn the next day

Start a fire

Spin the Souvla for years

How many Greeks does it take to carve a lamb?

 

The answer is 4

 

Eat all the gross stuff form the inside

 Pass out from exhaustion

I think they worked on this for a total of 24 hours. This is why there is no lamb on the spit this year.
I did nothing because I was super pregnant.

See

Kalo Pascha!