Sheep Guarding Llama

Monday. GT2 Day 2.

No sleep for us. Our day began in the air, but started with us landing in London at Gatwich where we are spending the night. In the morning we will fly on to Athens. We arrived on time, just after midnight local time which wasn’t too bad for us, although at this point we were all starting to get just a little bit tired.

We had to pick up the luggage here as our morning flight was not connected to our overnight one from New York. So we had to go through customs and all of that stuff. So technically Emily got to be in England for several hours.

We used our time at Gatwick to move from the South Terminal where we had arrived with Norwegian, to the North Terminal where we are flying out with EasyJet. And there we located the pub that I had looked up ahead of time and thought that we should use, the Nicholas Culpepper. We found a table in the corner and ordered sandwiches and drinks. They are a twenty four hour spot, thank goodness.

The girls both got chicken pesto toasties. Dominica got a fried egg sandwich. I got a tuna melt, which was excellent. I grabbed the only cask ale that they had on pull, which was the Greene King IPA. Not bad. Emily ordered a glass of wine, her first time ever ordering wine (or anything) in public. And they thought nothing of it. She didn’t even get carded. Although the drinking age in London is sixteen, so being nearly eighteen she looks plenty old to be getting a wine with dinner. Carding people isn’t nearly as common in Europe as in the US where you expect it at every turn.

We stayed at the pub for a couple of hours. We could not go through security again until EasyJet opened up their bag drops, and that was closed due to how late at night we were there. So we were trapped in the pre-security area. By the end of that time, we were extremely tired. And Emily was pretty tipsy from her wine, which was not helping her with the exhaustion.

After a few hours wait, we were able to check Dominica’s bag and go through security. Then we had a couple of hours to wait inside of security. Here there was loads of shopping options including the Harry Potter Store.

Everyone was too tired to shop.. Madeline and I hunted down some coffee at Pret a Manger. That was about it. Flat whites, real European coffee.

We got on our plane and were off. We had to board from the tarmac, a first for Emily. We were in the next to last row. The girls and I sat together. Dominica sat across the aisle. There was no entertainment on this flight, I attempted to rest, but that was hard. The three of them managed to get some sleep. I got nothing. This is going to be a very long day.

It was around eleven in the morning when we landed in Athens. Ah, back in Greece!

It took a long time to get out of the airport and we had been planning on taking the subway to our apartment. But we were all so tired and the ride was so long and we were not totally sure of the location so we opted for a taxi. The price controlled taxis from the airport are thirty eight Euros. So expensive but not terrible.

The taxi ride was long and hot and Madeline was pretty sure that Dominica and Emily were going to get sick while we did it. Our driver found our AirBnB, though, without a problem and our host was waiting for us on the street. It was all nice and easy.

We got in and shown around the apartment. It is really nice. Two decent bedrooms, a really nice living room area, a giant wrap around balcony, even a roof top terrace. Dominica and I went downstairs for some coffee. Madeline and Emily went right to bed to get in some sleep.

Dominica and I went to bed after we finished our coffee and explored the awesome bakery that is right across the street. We picked up some croissants for later.

We all slept until the early evening. Then we dressed and set out. I did a few thousand steps, according to my watch, trying to find what was around us. There is a grocery store across the street, a barber shop next door, and a pizza place beside that. Plus the bakery across the intersection.

So since there really wasn’t any food except for the pizza plus, which our hostess had told us was the place to go, we just went there. We got two pizzas. Dominica and I got a standard margharita. Emily and Madeline got a four cheese. Then we hit the grocery store for snacks and supplies, and Emily’s first chance to see a grocery store in Europe. Kind of Madeline’s first, too, but she has been to the UK and Ireland and that is pretty similar. Then the girls all returned to the apartment, and I went and got our pizza.

We ate on the balcony. Emily discovered that four cheese often includes at least one blue cheese and that she does not like blue cheese. So that was not a big win for her. But the pizza was generally pretty good.

After dinner we decided to just go walking and see the Acropolis tonight, it is pretty cool lit up at night.

It turned into a pretty hefty walk. Very steep climb up the hill. Once we got high up, though, we found that we were close to the bar district and that there was a ton of stuff to do. We walked it a bit and found a hotel with a roof top terrace that looked interesting and so that’s what we did.

It was a great decision, we had a really nice time. Madeline and Emily both had their first ever cocktails. Madeline got a mud slide. Emily got a passion fruit martini. I got a fig sour which was awesome. Dominica and the girls got banana chocolate crepes, too. This was Emily’s first crepe, too. She is having a lot of “firsts” on this trip. I have started keeping a list, in fact.

The view from the terrace was amazing. A clear view of the Acropolis and many other sites. Unfortunately it was so dark that it was nearly impossible to film anything. But it was super cool.

We hung out there until we were tired and ready for bed. We came back and everyone went right to bed except for me. I stayed up working on uploading media and other tasks until about one thirty in the morning.

End of day exercise, about 11K steps.

Sunday. GT2 Day 1. London.

My alarm went off at three thirty this morning. Ugh. This is going to be such a long day. We did pretty well getting ready and out the door. It was just minutes after four when we got the rental Nissan Versa on the road and underway.

The drive down to New York City went super smoothly. No traffic, no issues, good weather. We did so well that we were well ahead of schedule when we arrived, getting all of the way down to JFK before eight in the morning! Because we were driving so far, we had allowed ourselves more like five hours to get to the airport, just in case anything went wrong like leaving late or hitting traffic. But it all went perfectly smoothly leaving us at the airport nearly five hours before our flight!

We dropped off the car at Enterprise, which we know really well at this point, and took their shuttle bus to Federal Circle, and the bus (because as always, the train is down for maintenance) to the airport.

Our first issue of travel came up when we went to check in for our Norwegian flight to London. We had misunderstood the wording of the weight allowances and we had to shed about a dozen kilos of total weight and check that. So we had to rebalance our bags and check one for an additional hundred dollars. Hardly tragic, but a rough start and Dominica was pretty grumpy. But it means that she didn’t have to carry a backpack all day like the other three of us did. So not all bad.

We got right through security and were at the terminal awaiting our flight. We had hours and hours to kill. Emily and I did some filming while we were there because there was nothing else to do. Filming in airports is awful, but it is also a good use of the time. We got some food there. I had avoided eating all morning because of all of the traveling that we were going to be doing, but the falafel wrap from Eat & Go just looked too good (and it was delicious.) This Eat & Go is new at JFK since the last time that we were there, but it has a sister location in Istanbul that I have eaten at in the past.

It was a long wait, but everyone had energy as we are off on our adventure. Thankfully our flight was on time and we were off to London!

On the flight we were two and two. Dominica and I sat together, Madeline and Emily sat across the aisle from us. We had an Airbus A320-300 which was basically an antique, but it was clean and very high end and loaded with amenities, which was nice. We had in flight entertainment. I managed to watch the new Tomb Raider movie which I liked, and I watched the new Blade Runner 2049 film which was very good. I knew that there wasn’t enough time to finish a third movie so I watched most of We’re the Millers which I have seen previously and enjoyed. With the movies, the flight seemed to take no time at all. It was only a seven hour flight, after all, and it felt like we were almost immediately in London.

We landed at London Gatwick just after midnight. We will be here for the next several hours. Time to find a pub and get a little London experience before heading on to Greece.

Saturday. This is it, our last day before heading out to Europe for a month for Emily’s Grand Tour of Europe (aka GT2.) We are in Frankfort, New York today at Dominica’s parents’ house.

We had to be up a little early today because we are starting the day at Dave’s Diner for breakfast. I had an egg and cheese on a bagel.

From breakfast, Dominica and I went to Syracuse airport to pick up our Nissan Versa rental car from Enterprise. We are using that in the morning to get to JFK in New York City.

Then back to the house where we had some time to relax. We spent a bit of time hanging out in the yard. The dogs enjoyed being outside for much of the day.

Lunch was Big Willie’s pizza. I had planned on skipping lunch today, but I can’t resist good New York pizza.

The rest of the day was all logistics. Packing and getting the car loaded up. We tried to get to bed as early as possible, we have to be up at three thirty to be on the road at four, to get to the airport by nine, to fly out a little after noon and then tomorrow night we will be in London!

Said our goodbyes to the kids tonight. It is going to be a long month without my babies.

Friday. We are at my dad’s place today. We have just tomorrow which we are spending in Frankfort getting ready for our trip, and then we are off to Europe with Emily & Madeline on Sunday! So much to do. What a crazy week.

We hung out at dad’s this morning. We have Mia so going out to a restaurant, like we tend to do, would be really hard. She has separation anxiety and cannot be left alone at all. And it is warm out, so she can’t stay in a car or anything. So to go to a restaurant means that we would have to sit outside somewhere where she could be with us under the table and we could not come up with anything like that around dad’s. So eggs, toast, and fried mashed potatoes for us today.

There has been talk for a couple of days that Mia might become our dog. She needs humans around full time and other dogs do not cut it for her. She seems so calm and happy when with us, even just riding in the car. And is so excited to see us when we return. Once Emily goes off to Texas A&M she won’t be at home to be around Mia all day and Mia will need to be crated which isn’t a very good life at all, and with her separation anxiety would be awful for her. But we are home all of the time, so that might be what happens.

We hung out at dad’s for the morning. Then we drove the Nissan Quest out to Frankfort, to Dominica’s parents’ place. Tonight we are going to the Franklin Hotel in Rome for dinner. Emily is attempting to eat all of her favourite New York and American food quickly before leaving for Europe and not having access to it for a month.

Liesl went crazy and got the seafood feast at the Franklin Hotel, friend shrimp (which she devoured), fried haddock (which was amazing, I need to get that next time that I come), and friend scallops. She had never had scallops before (that we can remember) and she thought that they were okay, but nothing special. She isn’t really that into them. Dominica got the pesto sauce gnocchi. I got the stuffed rigatoni that Dominica’s mom recommended. It was excellent.

After dinner most everyone went out for ice cream. I didn’t feel like food, and Emily doesn’t really do ice cream. So we just drove back early. We took Mia out for a long walk to the marina before it got too dark.

We all made an early night of it. Busy day tomorrow, then we have our super early morning and we cannot risk getting behind on sleep in any way.

We got up this morning at the Super 8 in Greenville, Illinois. Around eight or so. Had to walk Mia, pack up the room, and get the kids into the car. Before we could leave the hotel I discovered a loose whippet wandering the parking lot without a collar! I rescued the sweet dog and found the owner and let the hotel know what was going on; I had also discovered an open van full of dogs in crates in the parking lot! Hopefully someone does something, thankfully it was not hot at all, and the van was wide open so the dogs were basically lounging in the shade, so not stressed or anything. But clearly not being taken care of properly.

We got on the road and had a good day of driving. We made very good time and had good weather all day.

We split from Francesca, Madeline, and Emily at Batavia where we got off to go to my dad’s house where we are spending the night. Francesca is driving on to her and Dominica’s parents’ house where she, Liesl, and Luciana are going to be spending the month.

We got to dad’s rather late, but early enough to hang out for a little while. It was getting dark in Batavia, but was dark by the time that we got to dad’s. Mia had a great time, even in the dark, running around in dad’s giant yard. She has probably never been able to just run like that. She is so fast, it’s incredible. She is an Australian Cattle Dog (aka ACD) or Blue Healer and moves like a bullet.

We visited with dad for a few hours, then off to bed. We are going to hang around here for a while tomorrow, then need to drive out to Frankfort and get ready for the trip to Europe!