Greece Bound

 After lots of planning and a lot of excitement it was FINALLY time to head on our trip to Greece!!  Because Patty and I were both worried about a snowstorm delaying flights this time of year, we opted to fly into Minneapolis (where the tour group was flying out from) the day before and just stay at a hotel that night - that way, no worries!

Patty flew from Omaha to Minn. and I flew from Denver to Minns. - she arrived first and since her plane landed in a different terminal than mine, she had to figure out how to get over to my terminal which was where we were meeting!  She did just fine and met me at baggage claim!

We called the shuttle from Embassy Suites and soon were in our hotel suite for the night - happy hour was up next with drinks and appetizers and later on we headed to the restaurant to split an entree for dinner!  It was a nice relaxing evening!

The next morning we wandered down for breakfast and it was delicious!  I've always enjoyed staying at Embassy Suites since we used to stay there every year for our "Suite Retreat" on scrapbooking!

We headed to the airport about 11:30, even though our plane didn't leave till 4:30 but we were supposed to be there 4 hours early for group check-in - so that worked out perfect for us!  And where did I head as soon as we got there?  CARIBOU COFFEE!!  It was delicious!

We found the rest of the tour group - many from the area, a few from Iowa - all very friendly and easy to get along with!  I was a little concerned as 5 of them walked with canes and were elderly  but it all worked out!  Headed through the ticket agent and got rid of those large suitcases and before we knew it, we were on the plane!!  Since we weren't sitting together (groups usually are alphabetized) we went up to the counter beforehand and asked if we could switch - YES!  So we did get to sit together!

The flight over to Frankfurt was fine - EXCEPT for the fact that I couldn't sleep - NOPE - even took part of a tylenol pm and couldn't sleep - oh well!  Watched a movie and read and were fed a couple of meals - even the dimmed lights didn't seem to help me!

We landed in Frankfurt and had a 3 hour layover there - grabbed some breakfast and just hung out - everybody was looking a little weary by this point but soon we got on the next plane and headed to Athens! Customs was a breeze and we grabbed our suitcases and met our tour guide and tour bus outside - Greece is 9 hours ahead of Colorado - I was running on no sleep but did pretty well considering!  We started to head to our hotel - I was amazed at the narrow and tiny streets the bus went on!

We stayed the next 2 nights at a 5 star hotel - very nice!  But we did find all the showers are kind of strange and if there was a bathtub, it was long and VERY narrow!!  We had asked our tour guide if she would take us somewhere to exchange dollars into euros so a lot of us met her in the lobby a little bit later and we headed on our walk!  She took us through the cute shopping center - our heads were turning fast as we walked through all these shops!!  Take a peek at this LARGE sandal outside a shop!

We did get our money exchanged - walked and walked around this area which is called "Blaka" - I loved all the greenery around and all the side streets that had hills and little cafes up them!

By this time we are all fading FAST!!!  But our tour guide continues to take us past items of interest - all fun to see but boy we were tired!

We walked into this beautiful church on a huge square!  WOW!

We finally started walking back to the hotel - we were all dragging by this time and it seemed to take forever to get back as we walked by such interesting things to see!

Back at the hotel we still had a 4 course meal to get through - the dining area is on the 7th floor and the views were outstanding!!  We just couldn't stop looking out!

Dinner was very formal and very good - I don't remember a lot about it except the main course was pork chops, so tender you could cut them with your fork - excellent!!

That bed felt SO GOOD that night but we were getting a 6:00am wake up call ( which was to be the norm for the ENTIRE time there!!) so headed to bed as soon as we could!