SDCC - Tron Banners

Whew! What a tiring weekend. We just got back from my first trip to the mecca of Comic Conventions (San Diego Comic Con) and Jaci’s first trip to San Diego evar. I have to say, the trip was fun, exciting, hectic, crazy, and I’d do it all over again (although I can’t say the same thing for Jaci).

We were greeted in San Diego where every street sign was lined with a Tron poster and buildings had epic banners of epicness.

There were celebrity sitings galore as the 1st night we were there we saw Charisma Carpenter outside our hotel, followed by eating at the same restauraunt as LL Cool J, Lou Feringo, and Danny Devito. We then walked by the entire cast of V, saw the King of Vampires(Mississippi?) from True Blood, Peter Jackson, among others.

The trip was long an tiring but without further delay here are some of our pictures!

We got up bright and early on Friday to get in line for the convention and on the way Jaci stubbed her toe (not a good start to the day) and remained grouchy for the majority of that morning. Then again, who wouldn’t be grouchy when you had to wait in the line pictures below.

In line at SDCC

Little did we know(since this was our first time) was that Friday is actually a relatively mellow day and it would only continue to get crazier and crazier.

In the convention:

Lifesize Aspen Statue by CS Moore

Iron Man - Hall of Armor

Random celebrity sitings:

Charisma Carpenter at Hard Rock

Me and Seth Green

Chris Evans Signing

New cool art:

Jaci and I refer to this one as the “Taylor Swift as Supergirl” piece. This is probably one of the favorite pieces in my collection now. Also Scott drew this on a giant board, I didn’t full measure it but I think its 18×22 or something.

Scott Clark - Supergirl

Omar hasn’t done a Supegirl before and he was concerned with how it turned out, but I was blown away. This was such an incredibly cute and awesome Supergirl!

Omar Dogan - Supergirl

I have another Supergirl from Philip but once I saw him working with ink wash I knew I needed to have another one! Well here it is:

Philip Tan - Supergirl

I’ve been a huge fan of Stephane’s for a long time but he’s never come up to the Nor Cal shows. Once I found out he was going to be at SDCC I knew I had to grab a piece and I lucked out!

Stephane Roux - Supergirl

The Udon team continues to blow me away with their art style. This is another take on Supergirl by Eric Vedder!

Eric Vedder - Supergirl

I have quite a few more pieces that I haven’t shown here, you can check them all out in my personal collection at http://demianlee.com/photos

Psarou Beach, Mykonos: Clips from our visit to the beach in Mykonos

Psarou Beach – Mykonos (Part 1)

Psarou Beach – Mykonos (Part 2)

Psarou Beach – Mykonos (Part 3)

Selene Cooking Class, Santorini: Clips from our cooking class in Santorini

Cheese Ice Cream – Selene Restaurant Cooking Class – Santorini, Greece

Pureed Fava with Mastic Sap – Selene Restaurant Cooking Class – Santorini, Greece

Roasted Pureed Eggplant – Selene Restaurant Cooking Class – Santorini, Greece

Roasted Lamb Shank – Selene Restaurant Cooking Class – Santorini, Greece

Melitinia – Selene Restaurant Cooking Class – Santorini, Greece

Maia Luxury Resort, Mahe, Seychelles: Clips showing our villa in Seychelles

Maia Villa Video Tour – Outdoors – Mahe, Seychelles

Maia Villa Video Tour – Indoors – Mahe, Seychelles

• EMU Australia Women’s Sheeve Flip Flops: I was looking for a pair of comfortable, yet hardy sandals to wear in Greece and bought these babies a few days before our trip (thank God for overnight shipping).  They were exactly what I was looking for–very soft, suede-like material, no need for breaking in, and provided excellent support walking all day long in the blistering heat on gravel, cobblestone, and pavement.

• Fantasy Travel: We were really happy with our travel agency, which helped us book hotels, ferries, and transfers in Greece, and even went above and beyond to help us research flights to the Seychelles.  Dina, who was our travel agent, was always very responsive and very sweet.  Highly recommended.

• Kindle App for the iPad: During our trip, I read 8 books, 6 of which I had downloaded to my iPad with the Kindle app.  Some were pretty terrible books, but some, like the following, were really terrific: Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster (really interesting book about the history of the luxury industry, recommended by our friend Howard), You’re Either In, Our You’re In the Way (inspiring story written by Bay Area twin brothers about their experience making their first movie . . . and how they got Ed Harris to star in it), and If You Follow Me (another Bay Area author’s book, fiction, about a couple’s year teaching English in Japan).

Thanks for following our blog on this trip!  Hopefully, we’ll keep it up during the year, but if not, there’s always next year’s trip to Japan!  And (sigh) our trip to San Diego Comic-Con this year.

9:30 a.m.            Wake up, go to the gym

11:00 a.m.          Breakfast in our villa

12:00 p.m.          Play on the beach (perfectly clear, 80 degree water, fish swimming around our ankles

2:00 p.m.            Lunch (one day, we felt like fries and strawberry shakes, and that’s exactly what we got)

3:00 p.m.            Massages or mani/pedi (the latter just for me)

4:30 p.m.            Read on the beach, surf the web, or watch episodes of Dexter on Demian’s laptop

7:00 p.m.            Dinner (one night, we opted to have one of the chefs barbecue in our villa—mounds of terrific grilled seafood and chicken with scrumptious sauces, followed by a light lemon tart dessert . . . so awesome).

Basically, we just slept, ate, and relaxed for the entire three days in Mahe—I think I spent most of each day in a swimsuit or a robe.  So luxurious!  Peggita was so good to us, on our last night even drawing us a romantic bubble bath, scattered with tropical flowers.  We were definitely sad to leave this morning, but glad to have gotten the opportunity to stay at Maia.  It was truly a once in a lifetime experience.  The pictures below will probably give you a better idea of the beauty of the island better than me blathering on ever could.  See you all soon!

As it turns out, Santorini is a completely different experience from Mykonos, so I’m glad we decided to explore both islands on our trip. Whereas Mykonos is more of a resort island for the jet-set (Maui was a good comparison), Santorini is more historical, is full of tourists, and boasts sunsets that literally elicit applause from the crowd they draw every night. With that introduction, let’s dive in.

Day 1

Here are the highlights from our first day arriving in Santorini:

• Ferry to Santorini = FAIL. To get to Santorini from Mykonos, we had to survive a ferry ride of utter chaos. After waiting in one of two long lines to get onto the ferry (we were told it didn’t matter which line), once aboard, we were instructed that we needed to somehow fight our way, against the flow of bodies, to the other end of the ferry to store our luggage. Said “storage” area was an unenclosed pile of luggage thrown unsteadily together at the back of the ferry. Throughout the three hour ride, I kept thinking that one sharp turn would send our luggage (near the top of the heap) flying into the Aegean. Once docked in Santorini, we waited amongst the sweating masses to retrieve our luggage, which, by the time we reached it, had been tossed to different ends of the ship. Sigh.
  (Demian’s Note) So some of these things will be so bad that I’m going to have to add in my super hate for what was going on here. There were absolutely no signs saying what we should do, everyone on the outside of the ship had NO idea what was going on, and when you’re inside the ship and asking where to store the luggage they send you to the back of the ship, where once you’re there they ask you why you didn’t store your luggage in the front. Utter ludicrousity I tells you! This same thing happened to at LEAST 5 other groups of people on the ship, and it looked like one lady refused to leave the back of the ship because she wanted to watch her luggage the whole time. WORST EXPERIENCE EVAR.

• Ikastikies Suites = Luxury Flintstones Accommodations. I decided to book a room in a traditional cave hotel in Firostefani, which turned out to be a great choice. Because Santorini has such steep cliffs, many of its buildings are carved right into the mountain, including the Ikastikies Suites, where we stayed. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised to find that although our suite evoked some Flintstones nostalgia with its white, curved walls, it was spacious and quite modern, with two bedrooms, a modern bathroom, a kitchen and living room, and (yes!) wireless internet. The two proprietors, Giorgos and Justin, were sweet and accommodating, warmly welcoming us with cocktails and snacks and imploring us to make ourselves at home.
  (Demian’s Note) This place was indeed epic. Check out the photos below in the gallery, but there should be no hard edges at all in the room as everyone was literally carved out of caves inside the mountain. The view was absolutely amazing too!

• Dinner and Sunset FTW. We decided to grab dinner at Vanilia, only a few steps away from the hotel, at the edge of a cliff with a perfect view of the setting sun. Because we were seated in the garden area, Demian and I kept running out, one at a time, to catch a glimpse of the sunset, which was incredible. Even from the garden restaurant, I could see the sun start to turn everything pale gold, then rich pink, as it set. Even after the sun was gone, the sky was full of color—deep blues, greens, yellows, crimson. Dinner wasn’t half bad either We started with garlicky, juicy steamed mussels, and then moved on to the island’s classic Santorinian salad of cucumber, tomatoes, caper berries, caper leaves, and cheese. We also shared a really tasty tuna spaghetti—perfectly al dente noodles tossed in a flavorful, almost briny tomato sauce. For dessert, I had the yogurt ice-cream (hard to taste the yogurt in it), topped with what I think were preserved figs, which had a nutty texture and flavor. Demian had a bitter chocolate soufflé cake, which he enjoyed very much.

As we walked back to the hotel, we took in the evening view of Oia, sparkling against the dark sky.

Then, at Demian’s request, we watched Ninja Assassin, which has got to be one of the most violent movies I have ever seen. An incongruent, but relaxing, way to end the evening.

Day 2

Ah, advencha! Our first full day in Santorini started leisurely enough, with a huge breakfast served to us in our suite (two different kinds of cereal, Greek yogurt with strawberries, a bowl of fruit, a plate of meats and cheeses, a basket of breakfast breads, and made-to-order omelets. Festively plump, we then made our way, along the island cliff, down to the town of Fira. With its closely packed souvenir shops and bustling eateries, Fira feels much different from Mykonos Town, with its high-end designer shops, garden restaurants, and uniform sugar-cube architecture. After browsing a little, we decided to return to the hotel to lie in the sun and figure out our plan for the rest of the day.

Our plan for the rest of the day ended up being to rent a Smart Car from “Jimmy,” a friend of our hotel proprietor, so that we could get around to our various activities planned for the following day (a cooking class in Pyrgos and massages in Oia). Never in my life did I think I would ever set foot in, much less be driven around in, a Smart Car. Ultimately, it made the most sense because it’s (obviously) tiny and fuel-efficient—a good “car” to get-around the island in. After bargaining Jimmy down to half the price he originally quoted us (*roll eyes*), we decided to take our death-trap . . . I mean, Smart Car . . . for a dry-run to Pyrgos.

(Demian’s Note) So treasure the pictures of me in this car, it might be the only proof you have of me in a Mercedes (they own Smart Car . . . I guess Mercedes Mini attempt =P) ANYWAYS, we initially planned on just taxiing everywhere because Jaci knows how stressed I get just dealing with all the idiots on the road in San Francisco, but the cost of renting a car was just a bit more than a one-way taxi trip to one of the places we wanted to visit. So being fiscally responsible, we ended up renting a Smart Car and of course I wouldn’t let Jaci drive because I feared for my life already driving that dinky little car. Feel free to ignore the below as it is one giant car rant.

- Problem #1: No power steering – So the only cars I’ve driven without power-steering are go-karts and this actually provides a perfect comparison to overall feel of the car. Imagine driving a go-kart from Go-Kart-Racer, adding a few 100 lbs and an extra person. This car has no power, no maneuverability, and pretty much no visibility. DO NOT RENT THIS CAR IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE. Yes it’s easy to fit this car into small places, but rent a smaller regular car like a Yaris or Kia or something and you’ll do much better.

- Problem #2: Lines mean nothing in Greece – Whether it’s parking lines or lines in the road, nobody cares! Cars in parking lots are literally overlapping the lines horizontally and vertically and in every direction. This is where one of SMART car’s advantages doesn’t help at all… because you don’t have to bother fitting in a parking spot, you just park your car wherever! The lack of line following also results in people driving in the middle of the road . . . this I guess should be expected though.

- Problem #3: Too many tourists renting and driving – So the retardedly high cost of taxis means EVERYONE is renting some sort of vehicle to get around. If you think people are bad drivers normally, tourists + locals = Worst combination of drivers ever. Half of the people are tourists who are driving 30 miles under the speed limits in ATVs and Vespas while the other half are locales who are pissed off and driving 50 miles over speed limits because they’re so upset and want to go fast.

- Problem #4: No street signs – I guess this is kind of expected for a small Greek island, but streets and highways don’t really have signs. Directions to places usually consist of (get on main road… go down . . . make a left pass the Mexican restaurant). Unfortunately, people don’t really tell you how to get on the main road or what Mexican restaurant they’re talking about. Luckily, Santorini is a tiny island . . . so on our first drive to Pyrgos we ended up going to the wrong end of the island… but it only took us maybe 10 minutes more to eventually get back to where we wanted to go. UGH.

After the harrowing trip that was our first Smart Car experience, we decided we needed to refuel, so we stopped at a cute café called Mylos for a very traditional Greek snack: strawberry shakes and fries.

Now exhausted from both trauma and food-coma, we headed straight for our suite to rest up before meeting our friends for dinner . . . only to be waylaid by an impromptu party being held by a New York couple staying in the Executive Suite a level above ours. Our hosts were a beautiful trauma center resident from Russia (Grey’s Anatomy anyone?) and her IT consultant boyfriend who looked like James Marsden, along with our party-all-the-time hotel proprietor Justin, who was acting as bartender for the afternoon. Also joining us was a couple from Norway, who kept saying how happy they were not to be in Oslo, where it’s raining and 15 degree Celsius. Of course, we couldn’t turn down the generous invitation to join them and were promptly handed cocktails and regaled with unbelievable (and un-repeatable) tales from the E.R.

We managed to pry ourselves away from our hosts’ hospitality with just enough time to freshen up and dash out the door again to meet our honeymooning pals Jamie and Greg for dinner at Saltsa. We did our very best not to make a spectacle of ourselves taking pictures of the food that evening, so instead of another food slideshow, I’ll just list the yummy dishes we shared:

• A Santorinian salad (Jamie and Greg hadn’t had one yet during their stay on Santorini)
• Fried Santorinian white eggplant in a sesame and spices crust (totally amazing; hot and crisp on the outside, melt-in-your-mouth sweetness on the inside . . . and I don’t even like eggplant!)
• “Spetsofai” traditional smoked village sausage with peppers in tomato sauce (a dish recommended to us by our new Norwegian friends and which Demian loved)
• Seafood risotto with mussels (great mussels, so-so risotto)
• Sea bass fillet with steamed vegetables and crawfish sauce (a fine, but unmemorable dish)
• Mixed kebab on a pita bread with yogurt and tomato sauce (incredibly moist, flavorful meat patties . . . probably the best dish of the evening)

We then decided to gild the lily by ordering dessert. I went for what turned out to be a way-too-sweet “Lokoumi” ice cream with caramelized rose petals, Demian had a pretty standard panna cotta with strawberries, and Jamie and Greg shared a decent chocolate soufflé cake. All-in-all, though, it was a very enjoyable evening catching up with friends halfway around the world.

Day 3

Our last full day in Santorini, I felt a little bit like Kobe beef—stuffed with delicious, luxurious foods and the massaged until tender! Not a bad time!

Cooking Class at Selene

We started the morning with a cooking class at Selene, a well-reputed slow-food restaurant that recently moved from Fira to Pyrgos. The cooking 5-hour cooking class (of which we were the only attendees) began with a lesson on Santorini’s agricultural history, including a tour of a very funky series of museum exhibits depicting everything from traditional hunting (mostly of birds) to gathering and winemaking. Most of these exhibits showed a wife hard at work, with her husband sitting on a donkey or a cushion.

For the next part of our class, we had an opportunity to taste traditional produce and products unique to Santorini, including fava beans (yellow pea-like beans very different from the Italian variety), caper berries and leaves, white eggplant, Santorini tomatoes (a small, irregularly-shaped fruit with highly-concentrated flavor, resulting from the fact that it requires no water to cultivate), round zucchini (also grown without irrigation), hairy cucumber, and beetroot. We also tried some traditional Santorini-style bread (twice-baked to dry it out, so that it can last for up to 6 months); it is so hard that you have to soak it in water to soften it before you can eat it. Softened and crumbly, it kind of tasted like Grape Nuts! We also participated in an extensive tasting of cheeses unique to Greece (which apparently cannot be exported because they aren’t pasteurized—too bad). The cheese fell into two classes: male (harder cheeses requiring aging) and female (lighter, creamier cheeses created from the leftover whey from male cheeses). Even for a cheese novice like me, all of the cheeses were pretty darned delicious. My favorite was the male version of a traditional Santorinian cheese. The cheese we found most interesting (and wished we could take back to share with our friends) was one that had been aged in red wine barrels and, as a result, had an overwhelming taste of hard alcohol.

After the tasting concluded, we moved into the kitchen to watch the head chef and sous chef of Selene prepare the courses we would later eat for a late lunch, including: (1) cold tomato soup (very similar in taste to gazpacho) with cheese ice cream, (2) fava with mastic sap (the bitter, licorice-like sap from a coniferous tree), (3) lamb shoulder with eggplant puree, and (4) melitinia, a dessert traditionally made at Easter consisting of a sweet cheese filling inside a phyllo tart. We totally geeked out and took tons of pictures (and with our Flip camera, lots of video which I may upload to YouTube, if I can figure it out). The chef spoke in Greek, while our guide translated—it was like being in a Food Network kitchen . . . so cool!

Finally, we were able to enjoy a lunch of the items we saw prepared and learned so much about. I absolutely loved the cold tomato soup with cheese ice cream (although I wished there was a little less of the ice cream), but my favorite was the fall-off-the-bone lamb shoulder… so flavorful and hardly gamey at all! So good! The only dish we didn’t get to try was the melitinia (no explanation for its absence); instead, we had a refreshing cold strawberry soup with lime-basil sorbet.

Overall, I thought the class was fascinating and would definitely recommend it to other foodies.

Exploring Oia

After the cooking class, we made our way back up the coast of Santorini to Oia, situated on the highest cliff of the island and reputed to have the best view of the most beautiful sunsets in the world. The town itself is a more relaxed, cleaner version of Fira, and we spent some time poking around and buying up souvenirs before getting massages (why not? It’s vacation!) at Caldera Massage and making our way to Nectar and Ambrosia (another place recommended by my colleague) for dinner. We again managed to restrain from taking pictures of another beautiful, tasty meal, which this time consisted of a Waldorf salad, sautéed mushrooms, and chicken souvlaki (with two terrific sauces—red peppercorn sauce and a dill sauce), followed by an incredibly moist and honey-sweetened semolina coconut cake . . . I’m drooling just thinking about it! Since we again managed to pick a table without a view of the sunset, I excused myself from the table a couple of times to run to the edge of Oia to see the sun. A huge crowd had gathered to take pictures, but, amazingly enough, folks were pretty polite and made room for newcomers. One would think that after awhile, the sunsets on Santorini would start to run together and become unremarkable, but each one is different. Because it was a bit overcast that evening, the sun streaked the sky with iridescent-colored clouds. Totally breathtaking, and a great way to end our time in Santorini.

Day 4

Since we didn’t have to leave for the (really tiny) Santorini airport until 2 p.m., Demian and I decided to go back to Mylos to get brunch. When we’d be there earlier in the week, they had an entire menu devoted exclusively to waffles, so I knew that this was the place for me. (In walking around Fira, we noticed a ton of shops advertising waffles and crepes . . . I wonder if the island gets a lot of Belgian and French tourists . . . .) I ordered what turned out to be a gigantic waffle with honey and cinnamon (I can’t believe I finished the whole thing . . . I’m so gross!) and a fresh peach juice (which was really good!), while Demian ordered a “cheese toast”—i.e., grilled cheese, which came with these delicious chips (I think they must have been cheese flavored or something).

A few hours later, we were on a plane back to Athens for an overnight stay before heading to the Seychelles! As I write this, we’re about fifteen minutes away from heading to the airport, so au revoir until then!

- Beautiful sunsets
- Harrowing adventures in a Smart Car
- An educational and delicious cooking class

So the start of this leg of the trip kind of sucked. We had to wake up at 5:00am, and some of the pictures in the previous post with the sunrise are the ones we took at like 5:30 or 6:00am. We had to get up this early to take a ferry ride to Mykonos (about a 5 hour trip) which was overall kind of sucky. I think we each slept about 2 hours each and was pretty uneventful other than checking in our bags aka dropping them off at an unguarded area in a big pile of other junk, a really annoying Greek soap opera about a whiny grandmother, and an annoying guy who was going around the whole ship yelling things carrying a basket of food. I’m assuming he was selling stuff, but even the people who spoke Greek seemed to be laughing at him so *shrug*

After the trip, we arrived at the lovely Hotel Vencia and checked into our rooms.

We had lunch at the hotel consisting of a local salad and dessert and then just lounged by the pool afterward for a couple of hours for some R&R.

In the evening for dinner, we decided to get to “downtown Mykonos” where there are lots of winding streets. Our directions literally consisted of: Go in between the parking lot and a white house, walk down the road, take the stairs down the Phillips, pass a blue house, pass a white house, pass the LOL graffiti, then make a left and you arrive in downtown. Jaci was in love with all the buildings, she said they reminded her of Mamma Mia…

While walking around downtown we bought some stuff from this pretty epic honey shop. It was all decked out in bee junk and had like 10 different kinds of honeys and in different forms (cream/drops). Jaci got some of their special honey, I don’t really remember what it was though =P

For dinner we ate at Kounelas Fish Tavern. They don’t have a menu for the fish as they serve whatever they caught fresh that day. You pick your table, then you go downstairs and pick out the fish you like, and then eat it! I had a grilled tuna and Jaci ordered some shrimp which was pretty delicious. After dinner, they gave us these pretty epic cinnamon shots — to start the evening. It was literally like taking shots of the big red gum. Wonky.

For dessert, we went to the One and Only Gelato place in Mykonos.

Day 2

So now we’re going to have some pretty chill days ahead of us with not too many photos. Jaci woke up late (around 11:30am) although I was up at like 7:30 because of stupid jet lag. We once again grabbed a quick lunch and then head to downtown again.

Jaci picked up a small sculpture of a fancy olive branch. This is the same sculptor who designed all the bronze olive branches for the last Athens Olympics, which were given to all the heads of state. We don’t have any pictures but we’ll have it when we come back!

We then got massages at the Belvedere Hotel which was pretty schamncy and nice. I think if we were to come back to Mykonos we’d probably stay there next time; it was very hiptastic.

We then then had dinner at Matsuhisa (aka Nobu’s), the only open air restaurant that Nobu-San has. This place was way delicious. We went to Nobu’s in Hong Kong which we thought was okaaay and nothing that special, but this place pretty great. We had the 8 course omakase, Jaci had a lychee mojito, and I had a Japanese bloody mary (wasabi instead of horseradish). We also met a nice old couple who suggested a beach and a couple of places to eat at and another group of people who were obsessed with Jaci’s iPad. I’ll do my best to remember what we had for food below in the pictures:

Dinner fin

Day 3

Soo… tired… of… writing….must… keep… short.

So we woke up again… yay, had lunch in the hotel. We then went to the Psarou beach which was the recommendation of one of the old couples yesterday. We chose this beach because it was supposed to be the beach with the fewest naked people. I didn’t want to bring my camera to get sand stuck in it… and Jaci forgot hers… So all we have are cellphone photos and a couple of random flip videos. It was a pretty nice beach, very relaxing, seems kind of interesting but I think all the beaches are privately owned and you have to pay to sit and relax which was kind of wonky. Either way was a nice place to chill and relax for awhile.

After that, we went to grab dinner and hang out in “downtown” Mykonos again. We ate at Philippi Restaurant which was pretty durned delicious. We had a delicious fruit salad, had these Dolmades which were amazing and covered in a gravy time sauce (mmmmmm), and a “Mountain and Sea” spaghetti (misc seafood and cheese and vegetable type thingies)

After dinner we just walked around town, had some more gelato, and then went back to watch Wall Street (I’m pretty sure Jaci didn’t like it… thought it was very strange =P).

Day 4 – Sort of

Just finished eating our first breakfast (woke up in time for it finally), and are about to pack up and head to Santorini! See you guys there!

*** Due to my epic laziness, I don’t think I’ll go through and put all the images inline. Let’s see how this gallery thing works…***

Welcome to Athens

Since I’m not as funny as Demian, I’m going to play to my lawyerly strengths in my blog posts – that’s right, bullet points.

Athens Highlights

• Went on an Athens Walking Tour led by Aristotle: Much to Demian’s chagrin, we spent most of our first full day in Athens on walking tour of the city, which included highlights like the changing of the guard at Parliament, the National Gardens, the Temple of Zeus, Hadrian’s Arch, the Plaka, and the Acropolis (where we saw the Theater of Dionysus, the temple of Asclepius, and, of course, the tourist-swarmed and larger-than-life Parthenon).

• Tried the infamous Nescafe frappe, as well as various renditions of a Greek salad.

• Got lost among the whitewashed, blue-doored, bougainvillea-covered houses in Athens while looking for Monastiraki, one of the shopping districts.

• Bought custom-made sandals (and convinced Demian NOT to buy a murse) from Melissinos, the poet sandal-maker of Athens who apparently went to Parsons School of Design and has be-sandaled the likes of John Lennon, Barbara Streisand, and Jackie O.

• Ate at the Michelin-starred Varoulko, which had fantastic food and less-than-fantastic service.  For you curious foodies out there, we had a four-course (plus dessert) meal, including: (1) a refreshing, toothsome carpaccio of baby sea-bream fillets, lightly drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice; (2) perfectly fried whitefish (the lightest, crispiest breading), accompanied by an eggplant aioli (best tartar sauce ever!) and a slightly incongruous strawberry reduction; (3) grilled octopus tentacle (giant, smoky, al dente), with an eye-opening, confetti-shaped pasta interspersed with flakes of slightly salty Greek cheese and chewy-sweet (what I think was) dried apricot; (4) an unmemorable and slightly overcooked white-fleshed fish with generic sauteed greens and a shredded potato cake; and (5) a solid, but not particularly imaginative, pear-themed dessert–caramelized diced pear, pear sorbet, and vanilla ice cream between two thin strips of sweet, crisp phyllo.

Although the weather was bipolar at times (alternatively windy and sprinkling, then sunny and hot), we were lucky to have been able to enjoy Athens without any strikes, protests, or otherwise scary incidents.  We were also pretty satisfied with our hotel, The Athens Gate, which was a short distance from the Acropolis and Syntagma Square (where the government buildings, and incidentally, a lot of the recent protests have been held).  While small, our room was modern, clean, and comfortable, with a great shower and a beautiful view of the Temple of Zeus.  (It was a bit of challenge getting to our room at first, though, because the elevators in the hotel are designed to hold, at most, four people . . . with our suitcases, even just two people was a squeeze.)  The rooftop restaurant where we had dinner one night and breakfast the next morning was a great place to admire the Acropolis, especially when lit up at night.  We both thought it was a nice touch to have been greeted at reception with glasses of water and lakoumi (which I believe is the same thing as Turkish delight).

Before getting to the pictures, I’ll leave you all with some random observations about Athens that you may not find out from the guide books:

• When eating out, you will get a series of receipts for every item that is brought to the table. We were royally befuddled by this at first, and it was near impossible to get a cogent explanation from anyone (in fact, our server at Varoulko treated us like idiots when we asked about the series of receipts to make sure that we weren’t being undercharged).  Matt Barrett, who maintains a very helpful and comprehensive travel guide online, explains it pretty well: “At the end of the meal you will get a bill which is supposed to be a printout from a cash register though if you are in a far off village where the tax people rarely come it may just be a scrawled piece of paper.  By law there has to be a receipt for everything on the table and so it should not surprise you if at the end of the night you have a handful of these little receipts.  It won’t take much work to find the updated one.  The reason this is done is not so they can keep track of what you are eating.  They know. It is so the government can keep track of what the restaurant is selling. If a tax person comes into a restaurant and the tables don’t have receipts they can be charged thousands of euros for each infraction.”

• (Crude, but) You can’t flush toilet paper down the toilets.  Instead, you need to dispose of your paper products in the trash cans, which are emptied frequently.  Talk about testing a marriage.

• There are a TON of stray dogs in Athens. Most have collars and appear to have been abandoned by their owners, which is pretty sad.  A couple of these strays followed us from Parliament, all the way to the Acropolis.  Adorable, but again, sad.

• Graffiti is EVERYWHERE, which is unfortunate in such a historic and otherwise beautiful city.

• There are NO Starbucks(es?) anywhere! Not necessarily a bad thing, just a surprise.  There are, however, McDonald’s(es).

• The Greeks we have met so far are not particularly moved by an effort to speak their language (of which, thanks to some Greek-language software Demian got before the trip, we now know a few rudimentary phrases); so we’ve given up.  Good thing pretty much everyone speaks English!

And now, for the pictures!

Hotel and Hotel Views

The Athens Gate - Sign

The Athens Gate - Our Room

View from Our Room

View of Parthenon from Athens Gate Restaurant

View of Temple of Zeus from Our Room

Sunrise - View of Temple of Zeus from Our Room

Me in Front of Temple of Zeus (Room View)

Walking Tour of Athens

Syntagma Metro Station - Clock

Demian Posing with Guard at Parliament

Changing of the Guard at Parliament

National Gardens - Arch

National Gardens - Flowers

National Gardens - Blooming Trees

Stray Dogs that Followed Us

Museum Built by Founder of Modern Olympics

Hadrian's Gate

Together at the Temple of Zeus

Columns at Temple of Zeus

Theater of Dionysus

Temple of Asclepius

Theater at the Acropolis - Yanni Played Here!

The Parthenon (!)

Parthenon - Close-Up

Temple at Top of Acropolis (Unknown Column Ladies)

Food!

Greek Salad v.1

Frappe!

Greek Salad v.2

Smoked Salmon Sandwich

Together at Varoulko

View of Acropolis at Night from Valroulko

Varoulko - Attack of the Giant Octopus!

. . . methinks we need to take fewer pictures.

More from Mykonos soon!

So we used our miles to upgrade to business class for this first leg of the trip (San Francisco –> Frankfurt) and this gave us access to the wonderful Red Carpet Club. We got to the airport about 3 hours early so we had time to kill. This was Jaci’s first time in the Red Carpet Club and she was amazed and how it made the time fly by much quicker! They included free drinks, free access to internet, and some free snacks (cookies and fruit).

Red Carpet Club

They were even kind enough to announce when you would need to start walking over to your gate, so we just chilled there until we were ready. Then of course we got to skip all the lines and enter via the fancy “business class” line which was a breeze. Once onto the plane we were welcomes with this view:

In Flight TV Screens

Each seat had these fancy tv-screens, I didn’t take a picture of it, but below the tv screens are two different foot rests (one on the ground and one higher up). In order to control all these things, the arm rests have these consoles:

In Flight Arm Rest

Try to figure out what everything does! It took us a little while. I’m pretty sure the green button on top made the plane take off and land at our discretion, because this flight was by far the most comfortable one we’ve ever been on.

- The seats were fully reclining -  there was SO much leg room (I could literally swing my legs to a full extension and not worry about kicking the seat in front of me (even though there wasn’t anyone sitting on the opposite end, since they have seats facing each other).
- They had a fairly decent selection of movies, I watched Book of Eli (terrible movie btw) and Jaci watched It’s Complicated (she thought it was good, it looked pretty terrible to me), and she was going to watch shutter island but we ran out of time (You heard that right… ran out of time).
- Every seat had regular electrical outlets for charging items (My Laptop in this case… I had to write up some stuff for work *wohwohwoh*)
- Fancy dinner menu selection (Jaci had the “first class duck” and I had some sort of chicken eggplant thingy)
- Lastly, (probably forgetting a bunch of stuff but oh well) this was probably the first flight where I didn’t get off feeling dehydrated. They literally keep refilling your cup with bottled water so you always have something to drink.

One of the flight attendants seemed a little grumpy, but otherwise this leg of the flight was absolutely fantastic! Unfortunately, we had a 5 hour layover in Frankfurt, with no access to the red carpet club (apparently flying in business isn’t enough, you have to fly out business as well) so we just hung out at a cafe for a few hours (and I continued to do my work work) until we took off for Athens. The flight to Athens from Frankfurt wasn’t half as enjoyable as our San Francisco to Frankfurt flight, but ah well, only so much business class we could get =)

Here are a couple of pictures from the flight!

Frankfurt From The Air

Almost In Athens