Since December, I was working hard to plan for an amazing family trip to Greece. Traveling internationally with 4 kids had to be meticulous so we could enjoy ourselves. The hard part about traveling somewhere you've never been is you don't know what to expect.
Little did I know though, this would be the greatest vacation EVER!!!
We started with a real problem. The day before we were to leave for San Francisco, I didn't have our online tickets yet. Even though I had a confirmation number, they said we had to rebook and pay a LARGE sum to do so. We were all prepared, so what was I supposed to do? We paid, but I had to spend 4 hours getting our new tickets, or the tickets they never gave us. TALK ABOUT STRESSFUL.
In hindsight, due to COVID restrictions being lifted, everyone wanted to travel and the airlines weren't prepared. More woes to come later.
We road tripped to San Francisco, where we stopped for ice cream at our favorite, Ghiradelli's. Not the tourist one at Fisherman's Wharf, but Downtown. Eli's lemonade stand was very profitable, to the tune of $350 dollars. He was extra friendly with the cashier who gave him a free chocolate and in return he gave her a $5 tip. Grateful that he a generous soul.
We also hadn't realized that you have to order euros ahead of time. We found a bank in the city, but the exchange rate wasn't great. We knew we needed Euros though, so we plugged through. We headed to the airport early for our only on time flight of the whole trip. Everyone did great, but boy.... it sure was NOT comfortable. We were all zombies in a sort of haze of sleep, electronics, and non sleep.
We had a transfer in Munich, Germany. The airport food was absolutely delicious. We realized quickly that this was going to be amazing food wise. Everything was fresh, flavorful, and easy to eat!! Germany was very clean and organized. Jody hated the language immediately. I admit, it is grating and somewhat violent. Eli seemed to like it and would say thank you in German for the entire trip and well as 6 other languages he knows. With the time change it was a little stressful getting to our gate, thinking we didn't have enough time. But we made it!! Our flight from Germany to Athens was quick. When we got there our ride was 30 minutes late. I was flustered because of course, we're in a city we know nothing about and it's midnight. The party bus ARRIVED THOUGH!!!! In full force. I had the expectation of some cheap, small, non-airconditioned van.... Nope. It was a Mercedes-Benz with party lights strobing on the inside. We had plenty of room and the music was bumping.
OUR PARTY IN ATHENS STARTS!!!!!
But first a little detour to a small dirt parking lot with no lights to transfer to a smaller van. Still enough space, just wondering if we're going to get killed.
