Athens

On Wednesday night we dropped off the girls with Beat and Kathrin, so they could play with Saphira all week and left Jethro with our downstairs neighbors, Sidi and Renate, so he could hang out with Lamin all week.

Then Thurs morning Brett dropped Talmage and Orrin off with Nathalia and Santiago so they could play with Matthias and Leo all week.  When he got home we walked down to the train and rode to Geneva and hopped on a plane to Athens.

We were in Athens for two full days and an evening, which was about a day too long, in my opinion.  But that's okay because the food there was SOOOO GOOD.

We (of course) went to the Acropolis and let a tour guide talk us into paying her for her knowledge as we walked.  The first thing she said was, "My name is Athena.  Yes that is my real name."  :)

Wyatt didn't find her very interesting.

Brett told me to take this picture to show the kids that the Parthenon was really made of legos.  But it is too bad really that I couldn't have somehow time-warped this trip to be closer to the time I took my high school Humanities class with Mr. A- something?? because he was fairly intense and I knew quite a bit about Greek stuff.  (Plus it was a fun class- it was with Kami and Thomas Nordquist and we had a good time.  I remember when our teacher found out that Thomas's dad and mine and Kami's dad were both Canadian and worked at Minot State and he said Canadians were taking over or something like that.)

It's all Greek to me!  (Ha ha, I'm hilarious.)

The 'flea market' reminded me of the souks in Morocco.

This really really nice guy, Thanos, is pretty much the reason I got to take a trip to Greece.  Brett met him in at the conference in Copenhagen.  He's an ENT surgeon and is doing some cool research project that they discussed over dinner, and Brett mentioned that his wife - me- really wanted to go to Greece, and Thanos said something to the effect of- Oh, you should come!  And that, my dear friends, was that.  After that Brett looked at plane ticket prices and started planning his surprise, which very quickly turned into me planning my trip to Greece! :)

As I said, Thanos was an incredibly nice guy and it was really fun to have someone to meet up with and enjoy lunch with, not the least of which because it was some of the best food we had in Greece.

Probably my favorite thing in Athens was the frozen Greek yogurt.  OH MY GOSH.  I wanted to eat it continuously forever and ever until I died.

We went to the Parliament building and watched the changing of the guard.  Brett said they could be in the Ministry of Silly Walks.

Metro.

The only picture I took at the new museum.  They plan on someday making it available to walk among the dig sites, but as of now they have glass floors you can look down into them.  Brett said this picture is for you, Kami.

We poked our head into this amazing church as we were walking past it.

Eating another fantastic dinner.  We had lamb and feta and tomatoes cooked in layers of phyllo.  Divine.  Also, if you don't like feta, don't bother going to Greece.  Or olive oil.  Anyway, Greek food is delicious, although I pretty much could have been supremely happy just having gyros for every meal.  (Along with frozen Greek yogurt, of course.) 

And as I put it on Facebook-- we are brightening EVERYONE'S day in Greece by having Wyatt along.  I can't get over the way absolutely everyone smiles and gushes over him.  The checkout lady in the market who had to hold him, the guy who pumped our gas and tapped on the window and grinned and waved, practically every person riding the metro--he enchants them all.

At this particular restaurant, there were two waiters and a maitre de who were loving him, and one of them must have asked if he was our first or something, because I said he was our sixth and he couldn't believe it.  Then he told the maitre de, and he came over to check the facts.  He asked how old I was and I told him.  He said he didn't believe it.  So we got out Brett's phone and showed him a picture, and then the other two waiters came over to look at it, and they were scrutinizing it carefully and said how Hazel looks like Brett, and noticing how many redheads we have, and one of them pointed out that Brett's beard is red too, and all in all, were very discerning.  It was fun.  Then they gave us free dessert.  Good times.

Who could NOT love this adorable kid??