Adventures of David and Paul: Greek Independence Day, Beaches and Sunsets

Wednesday was Greek Independence Day so there were no classes. I woke up a little later to cloudy skies, wind and some light rain...so I lingered in bed for a while. Eventually, I heard the sound of loud machines on the street below and saw them setting up for the parade. I was warned by Mary and my AirBnB host that this wasn't the "fun" type of parade with dancers, floats, and Santa Claus - but instead a military parade. Not being keen on military-anything I delayed going out until the weather improved. Eventually, I got curious and walked down to the street and towards Syntagma to see what all the fuss was about. After a few minutes of soldiers marching and rockets being displayed on truck beds in an attempt to one-up the Turks, I decided to roam around Plaka and the city center instead.

Cute kids (and an adult) getting ready to watch the parade.

Meh - kinda boring.

The city center was very lively and there were many people wandering around enjoying their vacation or the national holiday. Later in the day, I had a cooking class planned so I only spent a couple hours wandering around before heading back to my AirBnB to clean up and make my way to Omonoia to meet the instructor and other students. I popped into the Holy Metropolitan Church of the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary (try saying that three times real fast) to check out the interior (and to avoid the noise of the very low flying patriotic jets circling the city). Oh! I almost forgot! Have a cocktail with me in celebration of Greek independence while listening to the song Κοκτέιλ (Cocktail) by Nalyssa Green. It's my Greek song for this blog post. Υάμας Ελλάδα! (Cheers Greece)

From there I ran across the oldest house in Athens - the Benizelos Mansion - and wandered around and read more about Turkish occupation of the city. From there I wandered around Plaka with its cute, winding, narrow streets and looped back through Monastiraki where I found some Bubble Tea on the pedestrian street Aiolou (where the first hostel I ever stayed at in Athens with Paul and Christina was located). There were some buskers singing American rock which I listened to for a few minutes before making my way back towards my AirBnB along the shopping street Adriano. I popped into some shops and settled on some souvenir packaged olives, soaps and snacks as gifts for people back in America. I grabbed a small pizza from a store across the street from my AirBnB for a snack - I would end up working on finishing this very average pizza for the next three days.

Holy Metropolitan Church of the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary.

The Benizelos Mansion - the oldest remaining house in Athens. Dating to the Ottoman period around the early 1700s.

Bright and sunny Plaka street.

Looking over the Roman Forum towards the acropolis.

Some rocking buskers.

Roma Pizza is apparently the Greek Dominos - but at $6 I'm fine with that.

After chilling in the AirBnB for a bit with my bargain pizza and homework assignments, I took the metro and met up with the instructors and 6 other students for a Greek cooking class. I'm fairly familiar with Greek food - but I thought this would be a fun excuse to chat with new people and maybe learn a thing or two. The company running the class was called "Eat with Your Greek Cousin" and it was a family run affair. The instructor was named Dionysia Katafygi and her assistant was her brother-in-law and 10 year old niece. The other six students were from America - with one younger woman studying abroad in Athens and the rest mostly off a cruise ship for a day or two. So much for meeting "new" people. That said, everyone was very nice and the class was tremendously fun and delicious - check them out if you're ever in the mood to take a cooking class in Athens. Opening this class was a dream of Dionysia's while she was working a corporate job, which included international travel every month in a management position - earning only €1,000 per month. Now she and her family all work together in this cooking business - give them some support.

It didn't take Dionysia long to figure out I was part Greek - with family from the Peloponnesus - so she liked to jab at me as her family was from near Constantinople (Istanbul) and her perception of people from my family's region was that we were very particular about our food, which is generally not the case for me. While talking about olive oil, she explained to me that the Peloponnesus generally has the best and that the worst, by far, is from the island of Corfu. Apparently, the Greeks there were forced to grow the olives by the British to use as lamp oil, so they never cared for the trees and never bothered to harvest the olives still on the tree - instead letting them fall to the ground and then collecting them. These habits never changed and here we are. This story would matter more later in the trip, stay tuned!

In the class, we prepared pork and chicken souvlaki, homemade pita bread, tzatziki, tirokafteri (spicy feta dip) and a little self-serve quick freeze cheesecake. I was most impressed with how straightforward it is to make very delicious pita - something I will work on at home in the future.

Souvlaki was easier to make than I expected - but I'm lacking a home gyro spit!

The gyro spread - onions, fries and tomatoes.

My homemade dips. I made the tirokafteri a little too spicy.

Yum! Look at that yummy pita bread!

I walked back from Omonoia to my AirBnB - which took around 40 minutes - partly because it was so nice outside and partly because some of the other Americans were walking that way and we were trash-talking American politics. When I got back to the AirBnB it was already dark and I wrapped up homework and called it a day.

On Thursday classes resumed, as did my new habit of waking up early, finding some matcha and a snack and getting ready for class - which lasted until 12:30. Today was very nice and sunny, so I decided after class I'd take the tram down to the beach near Flisvos. There were lots of little shops and cafes tucked down the side streets and a nice promenade along the water front that led through some parks and up to a posh marina. I strolled for a bit and then sat at a restaurant along the marina to have an aperol spritz, some salmon (meh) and some really great feta-cheese stuffed pepper.

The beach at Flisvos - there were people swimming in mid-March! Scandinavians?

I lost count of the number of Aperol Spritzs I had this trip...which in my opinion is a good indicator of a fun trip.

Delicious feta stuffed peppers.

From there I walked to the Stavros Niarchos Park (a large new park in Kallithea that houses the opera) and strolled a bit before grabbing a bus and heading back towards the city center to visit the Museum of Cycladic Art. This museum housed a great collection of art from the main central set of Greek islands (the Cyclades). Bronze age civilizations sprouted up here first among Greece, dating to around 4000 BCE. From the museum I wandered up into the nice Kolonaki neighborhood, on the foot of the Lycabettus Hill to look at some fancy food shops before wandering up the hill itself for sunset - something I have done on almost every trip to Greece dating back to 2009. From there it was back to the AirBnB to complete homework and chill for the evening.