After almost two weeks – most of it in quarantine – on Santorini, Sondra Morgan and I devoured Athens like starving kittens. We ate everything, bought everything, drank everything and then bought some more. We were ridiculously happy to be there, skipping up and down the streets like lunatics. Okay, not quite, but close.
On Sunday, to repay Sondra for me having mostly ruined our vacation with my stupid COVID, I treated us to two hours of treatments at Al Hammam, a traditional Turkish bath. I chose for us an hour with a steam room, an “invigorating” body scrub (I think Sondra cried – LOL) and an olive oil bubble massage (bizarre and amazing). Then we had an hour of anatripsis massage – the ancient Greek massage therapy first mentioned in the Iliad by Homer and then perfected by Hippocrates (400 BC). I’m not equipped to discuss the science or exact techniques of this massage, but I can tell you that it hurt like a MF and was one of the best massages I’ve ever had.
A traditional bath like this can practically reinvent you by steaming, scrubbing, massaging, more massaging with bubbles and oils, and then massaging your scalp while they wash your hair. It’s a very luxurious feeling. Then they dump freezing cold water over you just to bring you back to reality. LOL. True story: I *thought* my masseur said she was going to get me some cold water and I was like to myself, “Oh good, I’m thirsty.” Then she turned around with a bucket of freezing water and dumped it over my head, and for a minute I thought I was going to have to fight her. Then another bucket, then another. Holy hell. Have to admit that I did feel pretty great at the end, though.
We craved some nightlife and so walked and walked trying to find a bar we visited two weeks earlier when we’d first arrived called All Day Bar. For whatever reason, Google wouldn’t turn it up so we were left to wander. And wander. Eventually, we were in parts of downtown we’d never seen and we walked past a place with a funky entrance and a rooftop patio from which festive music blared, so we canceled our search and went inside. Sometimes your best discoveries happen by accident, and this was definitely one of them. The Buena Vista Social Club was meant to be found by us – its fun décor and lively vibe were exactly what we needed. We kind of wanted a table but the host seated us at the bar and we were like eh, okay. Then we met George Priftakis, the most handsome and charming barman ever, except for maybe the gay bartender I was in love with in Mykonos (haha). He took exquisite care of us and even offered to give us a bar crawl the next night (!!). So amazing.
Oh yeah, and the next morning, we randomly found that bar we’d been looking for – haha – it was right near our apartment. We stopped for a bloody and a sandwich on a matter of principle.
Unfortunately, that night Sondra felt really ill and we were certain she’d finally come down with COVID 😭😭 She slept the evening away and we didn’t get our bar crawl after all. Next time. (And Sondra does NOT have COVID. She is superhuman.)
And there will be a next time. Interestingly, we originally only wanted to spend a couple of days in Athens because we thought it would be a big, dirty city. Well, it kind of is, like any large metro would be, but it’s also fascinating and historic and entirely delightful. It is definitely one of the coolest ancient cities I’ve ever been to and I’d love to explore it more.
But alas, it was finally time to go home (!!!) after 19 days – the majority of which were spent in captivity.
Here are a few realities I learned about Greece during that time:
It is the friendliest country I’ve ever visited, hands down. Remember Amalia? She even offered to buy us groceries and to help us find a place to stay for free if we were out of money and we couldn’t find a quarantine house that we could afford. Incredible.
Greeks love their shots and nearly everywhere we went, they would be handed to us for free – just a small thank you for being there. They were small shots but still…🥴 Also, Sondra doesn’t drink shots so she became masterful at pretending to drink it and then sliding it off to me, dumping it in her water, on the floor, whatever. LOL. This is why she had to navigate us home most nights.
Everyone smokes in Greece. Babies, cats – everyone. Okay, that’s not quite true, but some days it seemed like it.
Greek men are, for the most part, very handsome. Swarthy. Mmm. I’d go back just for the eye candy.
We each made it back to the USA in one piece – parting ways in Munich without even a goodbye because Lufthansa is such a horrible airline that it schedules its routes so tightly that you literally have to run to catch your next flight. Have I mentioned how much I hate that airline?
And in closing, I will confess that I came back and went directly to the emergency room in Rochester because my head was hurting so much from the cabin pressure of the flight. Turns out I have a non-displaced fracture in my nose (WTF!!), a mild concussion, and inflammation that they think are probably irritated polyps on one side of my face (from 100 COVID tests, maybe?), and it’s completely blocking the sinuses so they are filled with fluid. So yeah, dumbass, of course your head hurt. Sondra apologized for breaking my nose but I told her it was all me. That’s a friend conversation you don’t have every day. LOL.
Ahhhhh the adventures. Not going to lie, friends. This was a rough one. You KNOW it’s an insane trip when I never even write about how my purse got taken and my camera broke – which should be the *worst* things that happen when you’re traveling. LOL.
I hope you enjoyed the stories – I enjoyed telling them, but it’s probably going to be my last travelogue for a while. I need to catch up on work, amass more money and have surgery on my nose before I’ll be in the air again. 😵🤯😭
Very glad to be home 😊
