Started the year with an allergy attack 30 minutes before midnight and cheered in the new year with a stuffy nose and watery eyes.. my friends made up for this small inconvenience!
It was lights out after coming home.
The only cure I have for most illenesses these days in hot yoga! So it was good to start the year with Yoga and this has become a routine.
This is before class..
and after class..
You always leave the room wiped out, but happy.. "feeling like a million bucks!".. or after 13 years, adjusted for inflation "feeling like 2.3 million bucks!"
Before walking into class we all get to pick an Angel card for the year. The idea is to internalize that and see if you can change your behavior.. this years card was "Light" (my wife got Love).. so we are now love and light!.. Hopefully we don't go light on love! See, even an angel card teaches you to put your wife first!
2023 was not great, but it done. My goal for Yoga attendance is to do at least 200 classes a year which is about 4 times a week given all my travel schedules. 2023 was 218 classes.
Going to stay more positive in 2024! Blogging defiintely helps me be more positive!
Wishing you all a healthy 2024!
The 60 day Winter challenge in on at BYSJ! So if you want to challenge yourself this year, please go ahead! Will cheer for you all the way!
On our second day in Santorini, we had booked an all day tour of the island. If you have only one day in Santorini, just do this tour. Apparently this is not news. There are cruise ships that dock in Santorini. The tourists get off the ship and go straight to this bus tour.. almost a 1000+ people. Puts a huge surge in the population at breakfast time as some of them try to grab food before getting on the bus.. (same thing happens when you get dropped off!).
So to beat that, we went for an early breakfast and waited for the bus to pick us up. They were on time and off we went. Viator really rocked this tour! Recommend you book this well in advance like we(San) did! She got 110/100 for booking this!!
My own Blue Angels.. they all looked so pretty and happy that I was glad to be at their bidding for anything they asked for..
We started with a ride along the rim to see the caldera to the ancient city of Akrotiri.
This is one of my best clicks of San on this entire trip.. so including it in the blog as it will get printed as part of the blog book.
There were two options given the time we stopped there:
a. walk half a mile to the red sand beach and walk back (part of the path to the beach had caved in and was dangerous)
b. walk right out of the bus stop and see the excacation site of what was probably Atlantis before the volcano covered it.
We decided to go to the beach with half the group. The other half of the bus went to the site. There is also a nice cafeteria outside the site and good restrooms.
It was already hot and bright. So me and Jr. bought blue sunglasses to match everything else..
we learned that all buildings had to be blue and white in Santorini or they are fined!
Spent 15 minutes in the beach which was really nice.
I went from "not getting the memo" to the Bluest guy from head to toe over the two days!
this is the caved in section of the walk.. you have to cross this to go to the beach. if you are not able bodied, don't risk it and block the rest of the folks trying to make it into the beach below and back!
Even the locals were proud of my blue at this point!
A pretty girl I saw on the beach..
Then we walked back. We still had 30 minutes. So I decided to make a run for it and also see the excavation site while the rest of them walked back.
The run wearing wet Bata chappals paid off. Rushed to get tickets and walked through the entire site while clicking pictures of the boards and the site and made it back to the bus with 1 minute to spare. The rest of the folks were giving me the look, but once I explained that I saw both.. they were impressed!
The excavation site deserves a post in itself, but given that my blog backlog is growing.. have added a slide show of this massive complex. This is mind blowing. 2 storied buildings which date back 8000 years ago. Someone is doing something wrong in our history books.
Look at the pictures and you will start wondering why our timelines are messed up!
A video clip of this segment of the trip..
After this we were off to our next stop.. this was a 10 hour thing which ended up being much longer including the pickup and drop off. .
As the day went by it just got better and better..
We used Agean airlines to go from Athens to Santorini first flight out. Given that Syntagma square was a good 40 minutes away even without traffic, we woke up real early to get a pre booked Uber in Athens and made it to the airport on time.
Santorini has a small airport that flies to Athens and other islands on small planes. It is an interesting island in a lot of ways. At one point it was considered as a possible candidate for the last city of Atlantis !
We had booked an Airbnb in Fira which was literally 10 minute drive from the airport. Our landlady had arranged a car for us and she greeted us at the place. It was small, incredibly cute and a walk down the slope across the McDonalds on the one main road in Fira.
We put our travel bags down and wandered around the street a bit. There is a nice bakery right next to the McDonalds which had amazing pastries and juices, not to mention hot cocoa. We ate a brunch at one of the shops on the main street right next to the donkey statue in the main square.
Then we had to make our way down the hill to the Caldera walk and boat ride tour.. again prebooked through Viator! There were three options to go down. Climb down ~700 steps , go on a donkey ride down or take a cable car. We took the cable car option. Walking or donkey would have meant smelling donkey poop all the way down. So we got two way tickets for the cable car.
Also the family had told me to bring something blue and white to wear. However my idea of blue was not Santorini or Greece blue! It was navy blue. When I came out ready to go, everyone was giving me the "what is wrong with this guy?" look! So to stop looking like a guy who didn't understand basic colors, we shopped for a linen shirt right outside the cable car entrance. This is the costliest shirt I have purchased to date in my life's shirt purchasing history. At 30 USD, this shirt actually ended up being a great wardrobe addition. It is light and seems to breathe well.. and also dries fast! I did not know all this at the time and was only experiencing sticker shock. For a guy who shops exclusively in Sri Kumaran in Mylapore or wears Bikram Yoga 60 day challenge T-shirts which were all earned the hard way.. this was an interesting experience!
Did I mention the 30 dollar shorts that was also bought to match greek colors?
Moving on... now that we were all Santorini ready, we went down and had to wait a good hour before our boat showed up. There is not much to do once you go down the cable car. Most of the eating places are closed. There are gelato shops. So we had some and took pictures.
Once the boat showed up, we were off to see the Caldera. Hiked that mile and a half to the top wearing bata chappals! Tip for you.. wear hiking shoes for the hike but take your sandals for the boat ride! The hike was nice and pleasant. The guide told us all about the Caldera called George that erupted and blew a big hole in the middle of Santorini. We got to stick our hands into a few vents which were still very hot and fuming!
That is the tallest point.. a small pillar from which you get a 360 degree view!
Then came the kicker. We were told at pre booking that novice swimmers would still be able to go swim in the volcanic waters as part of this tour and everyone will be given floating noodles. When it was time to do that though, the guide said we had to jump off the boat and also the water was 50 feet deep and we had to be decent swimmers to go the distance. The boat was not allowed to get too close to the sulfur brown waters per some regulation! So San and me stayed on the boat and watched the experts (our kids included) go to the volcanic water for the swim like monkeys that have just tasted ginger (something got lost in that translation from Tamil to English on that one). You can see it all in the video!
The water outisde was 14 C and the sulfur water was only 20 C.. warm, not exactly hot. It was supposed to be medicinal. When the kids came back they cursed us for sending them there. The smell was bad, it was cold and not easy to breathe in that smell. "What were you thinking?".. we said our plan was for all of us to go.. but we were not expert swimmers! In any case, they forgave us after a few minutes knowing they did something we couldn't and that we actually wanted to do it!
We have to rectify this swimming situation. Time for me and the missus to start taking some joint swimming lessons till we can swim in open water. We are missing out one too many times..
Once the boat got back,we waited again and got back on the cable car and made our way up.
Did laundry and had the pleasure of drying clothes outside...The place is windy and clothes dry in a jiffy.. so washers and no dryers! Hadn't done that in a while!
It was late evening and beleive it or not, there are vegetarian options a plenty in Santorini compared to Athens! The wife and kids got some veggie mediteranean bowls and I went back to the airbnb and made Maggi noodles for dinner.. added some nice pastries to go with that from the bakery!
We were all talking about how beautiful the slopes and buildings were.. inspite of it all being blue and white! It was very different from anything we had seen in recent past..
A video highlight of our first day in Santorini!
Given we had woken up early, we slept. early.
The next day was going to be the highlight of the entire trip. An all day tour of Santorini island from 7AM to 9PM with 7 stops!
That has to be broken into a lot of little blog posts..
After that Viator tour of the Acropolis followed by a late lunch and a nap, the family informed me that we were going to a very nice place for dinner.. it was a 30 minute walk from our Airbnb towards the old city square. They were all nicely dressed too. I had not recevied the memo! My options in that place were going to be limited. So I coaxed San to go with me to Babaji, the Desi place that had been closed earlier at lunch time.. by saying "you will get good Chai there!". Once in the place, I decided to order a Tandoori roti, dal, rice and yogurt.. and gobbled it up as fast as I could.. the rest of the family was not pleased..but a man with allergies has to take care of himself in such situations! Definitely recommend this place.. Everything I ate was just mouth watering!
We walked to the place (Taverna Klimataria), only to find that it was fully booked for a party. There was live music going on inside as well.
The kids were really disappointed. We decided to quickly find an alternate place to eat. Vegetarian food was not easy to find. However as we walked past the old square there were a few middle eastern guys waving us into a restaurant saying "you vegetarian? we have vegetarian!". Guess we were not the first desis with that hangry look walking past the place!
The food options were limited but we made the most of it! Once something is in the tummy, the family spirits were higher. The food was actually good and we walked around, had some Gelato (Buffalo milk ice cream!) with other snacks, visited an old small Church in the middle of the square and finally walked back to the Airbnb.
A very short video clip! The market and restaurants and walkways are lit beautifully and the old buildings give this a very nice vibe!
Then there was the bitter realization for the kids.. (had saved the screen to remind myself of their protest and yelling)
Promises were made that this would be the last time ever that an alarm was being set for such ungodly hours (their words, not ours). At the time of writing this blog, that promise is already known to be broken on our most recent trip as we had to catch yet another first flight out..
We were on the first flight out to Santorini the next morning.. it was goodbye to Athens!
Day 2 morning was spent on a city bus tour (which ended up being a repeat for San and me of what we saw on the hop on hop off bus tour the previous day). We have learned to love these Viator tours of cities. The guides are decent, we can leave stuff in the bus as it is safe, we get to meet other folks for the day and have them take your pictures as you take theirs..and also learn about their experiences in the same city if they had reached a day or two earlier. A lot less stress for me as I don't have to drive!
The exception compared to previous day, was we got down to take pictures at a few spots like the stadium where they had the Olympics.
Then we spent the rest of the morning at the Acropolis museum followed by a walk to the top of the Acropolis itself from the museum.
You end up walking on thick glass floors where you can see two or three layers of excavated sites below. In Athens, anywhere you dig, you will find history! This is one amazing place if you love history!
There is a fantastic view of the theater as we walk up. As a FOB grad student, got introduced to Yanni.. folks used to tell me I look like him when there was the long hair phase. Had all his records and had watched him perform live at the Acropolis! walking past this brought back memories of listening to Yanni in Philadelphia!
Here is a tip if you are visiting Athens even in September. Take an umbrella. There is not much vegetation in this place. Only Olive trees grow here and while they may be few hundred years old, they are 8 feet tall, tops, for the most part! Not much in terms of shade, unless you hide behind the statues and pillars here and there!
It is still pretty hot in Athens in September. Take your water bottles with you!
The walk up to the acropolis was crazy. We estimated at least 5000+ people on the steps and another 5000 at the top! Apparently we went off season and usually the wait to go up is 2 hours! We made it in 35 minutes.
Walking under the majestic gate of the Acropolis was an experience in itself. All those traders that had docked below would have had to walk up the same steps. They must have just been floored by that entrance gate! You have to see it to believe it!
The Acropolis is just magnificent. The scale of it on top of that hill is just amazing. Couldn't help but feel a similarity between the Greeks and Indians when it came to their pride of history, their array of damaged and vandalized monuments by invaders or war, their best stuff all in the British museum!
Given the crowd, taking photos was challenging! We did get a great view of the entire city from the vista point.
Here is photo vs reality.
Greek tour guides take their jobs very seriously. Maybe they are all teachers doing a part time gig was the joke as we walked around. They have pages of notes, then they quiz you after explaining things, and even ask some folks in the group "Now, did you understand that?". Some of the kids in the group were like "if we wanted to be in school, we wouldn't have come on this vacation now, would we?". Enjoyed the history lesson as an adult.
On the way down we stopped at a park looking place with a statue of a famous greek singer. That place was nice and cool and it was a welcome break before our bus ride back to Syntagma square.
A video highlights reel..
Then we had to find lunch. Every place was booked solid with a waiting line to be seated. Stomach acid does not bode well for 50% of the family, so we all scattered and finally found a place to eat! The dry heat had gotten to us all. So after that lunch we decided to take a nap back in the rooom and venture out late evening!
Monday, January 1, 2024 at 12:10PM ;)
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