Aegina Island (April 1)

The only thing on our itinerary for April 1st was to get to Aegina Island without going crazy. Jaehee was planning on waking up early in the morning and going back to Monastariki to do some last-minute site seeing before we left Athens, but when I woke up at 9:00 AM she was still in bed. Instead we all just got ready to go to the island together.

We rode the metro to the end of the line (Piraeus) and found the ferry station easily. It was fairly obvious, what with all the ferries and things. Finding the passenger station was a little harder, but not by much.

Rachel was thrilled to ride on a boat.

She was the only one in a decent mood. Jaehee and I were both stressed to the max and rather grumpy. Everyone who gave us directions to the passenger dock told us that there was going to be a transportation strike the next day. There would be no ferries, no buses, no metro, no tram. No public transportation. The whole day long.

We decided to go to the island anyway because we had booked a hotel for the night and we wanted to at least ask them about getting our money back since we wouldn’t be able to stay. We just had to be sure to catch the last ferry back (6:00 PM), which didn’t give us a whole lot of time on the island at all.

Eventually Jaehee and I consigned ourselves to roll with the punches and tried to be happy for the rest of the boat ride. I don’t do well with movement when I’m pregnant, I’ve decided, and I keep feeling sick in vehicles, be it airplane, boat, bus, or metro.

I’ve been wondering why this pregnancy has been so much “nicer” than when I was pregnant with Rachel and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s because I’m not waking up at 7:00 AM and riding in the car to work everyday. Instead I wake up when Rachel wakes up (or later) and then sit on the couch. That makes the queasiness much more tame, I think.

Even still, I felt rather healthy the entire trip, unless we were on a boat or bus. Andrew gave me a blessing before we left that my symptoms would be mild while I was away from home, and they really were! I did fine with less sleep and rarely got up in the night to use the bathroom and never felt queasy in the morning. It was quite an amazing contrast when I got home and that blessing was revoked.

I woke up to go pee like 5 times the first night we were back and my bladder has been pretty consistently active since then. Sigh.

Anyway, I tried to be cheerful despite the uncomfortable nature of my pregnant state.

It got pretty cold and windy after we started moving and so we soon moved inside the smoke-filled cabin. Greeks enjoy smoking. They smoke all the time. I thought Egyptians smoked all the time, but was shocked with how much smoking was going on in Greece.

The smoke didn’t help with seasickness, but at least it was warmish.

We pulled into Aegina Port and realized almost immediately that we were at the wrong port. We were supposed to be at Agia Marina Port and our hotel was supposed to be 300 m from the port.

Instead we had to take a bus across the island to find our hotel. It was a long, uncomfortable ride for me, through canyon roads. Jaehee was very excited about the view but I could hardly look out the window. There was a cute little schoolgirl on the bus who spoke a little English. She was very nice and shared some popcorn with Rachel and helped us get our stroller off the bus. I was very glad when our driver announced unceremoniously that we were “there.”

We stumbled off the bus and were left in complete solitude. Agia Marina was completely deserted.

We wandered around and found the beach and, luckily, a man who was able to give us some directions to our hotel. He pointed right in front of us.

“You see that red sign that says ‘hotel?’ That’s your hotel.”

He also gave us a tip on pushing the stroller through the sand. Jaehee was carrying it because the wheels wouldn’t turn. He saw us struggling and told us to go up to the water’s edge where the sand was wet and compacted. It was much easier to push there and we made it to our hotel in no time.

We loved our hotel. It’s called Hotel Rachel and is run by a brother and sister whose mother’s name was Rachel. They called the port and verified that there would be one ferry back to Athens at 7:25 AM and arranged to have a taxi pick us up so that we would be sure to make it on time.

They were very hospitable and friendly and our room was a lot more inviting than our room at Hotel Amaryllis. The beds were even more comfortable, though not by much.

They also called their nephew, Theasis, over to play with Rachel. He was completely decked out in winter gear even though it was above 20°C. Still, I felt like a bit of a negligent mother for letting Rachel venture out in only her bathing suit…but the hotel was right on the beachfront and that’s where we were headed so what else was she supposed to wear?

I think it was refreshing for her to have some child-to-child interaction for a while. Theasis and his mother even joined us down at the beach and he and Rachel threw rocks into the water together.

The water was a little chilly so we didn’t actually end up swimming, just wading. The water was beautiful and we had the whole beach to ourselves. Apparently Agia Marina is a very busy place in the summertime and is boasted as being Aegina’s best beach… It was a nice beach, but it definitely wasn’t busy.

We didn’t stay at the beach too long because we were hungry and wanted to find a place to eat. That was a chore. We walked up and down the vacant main drag several times. Practically everything was closed up with paper in the windows. It was a complete ghost town.

We wandered into a few restaurants with open doors but found out the doors were open only for ventilation purposes. A lot of the stores are prepping for tourist season, I guess, and that involves painting. And we did find one gyro stand, but he said his meat wouldn’t be ready for another half hour to an hour so we pressed on.

We saw the nice little girl from the bus sitting with some folks outside of a convenience store and they pointed us to what seemed to be the only open restaurant in town. We were its only customers.

We both ordered a Greek salad and I was quite surprised when it came out. I knew that it would have cheese on it but I didn’t realize quite how much cheese there would be. There was basically a whole block of cheese sitting on my salad.

It was good, although Rachel wasn’t fond of the fetta, and we all enjoyed our serene meal by the seaside.

We went for a little walk after dinner, running into nobody, and seeing nothing much. I think it would be the perfect honeymoon destination—if you were to go in the off-season—because we felt completely alone. It was such a nice change of pace from the business of Athens and Cairo.

Rachel had fun watching some ducks swimming at the port. We were amazed with how small Agia Marina port is! Boats come only on the weekends during the winter months, so it’s no wonder we were dropped off at the other port.

When we were finished with our walk we went back to our hotel to Skype with Daddy. Rachel was excited to see him and gave the computer a hug. I think it’s hilarious when she does that. He reassured us that the strike probably wouldn’t be as bad as we were imagining because it was a European strike; although they threaten to close all public transportation for 24 hours, they probably won’t.

He also said family prayer with us, which was very nice. We had been missing our Daddy a lot.

And then we went to bed because there was absolutely nothing else left to do on Aegina and because we had to get up early in the morning to catch our taxi. It was so beautiful, though, I would have liked to stay longer.

Stories

On Saturday we went swimming at the Maadi House. Andrew entertained (ie: threw around) Emma and Megan while I corralled Rachel and Sam. Jessi and Jake stayed at home to do homework and play some electronic device respectively.

It was kind of nice to have two kids to watch because it meant that Rachel didn't want to stay at the wall the whole time because Sam didn't. Sam wanted to hold onto me, which meant that Rachel did, too. That meant that we could play some fun games like "Ring around the rosie...we all blow bubbles" and "Motorboat, motorboat."

I was so happy when, after taking Rachel away from the wall one time, she sang out sweetly, "Moty-but, moty-but!" I'm not sure why that made me so happy. Maybe it is the swim teacher in me. I can't wait until she's big enough to play "Fishie in the basket." Kids love that game!

**********************

Rachel has started saying Sam's name, which is hilarious. She says it completely backwards. It's possible we've done too much Arabic with her, although Arabic isn't spoken backwards, it's just written backwards. Anyway, at any given point in the day she'll run up to me crying.

"What's wrong?" I'll ask.

"maS!" she'll sob and then will say whatever it was she thinks he did to her (yell, hit, push, etc).

Usually it's nothing. She just likes to tattle.

**********************

This morning we played "Ring around the rosie," which seems to be a favorite game of both Sam and Rachel. Unfortunately for them, the somewhat-queasy pregnant lady (ie: me) doesn't find the game all that entertaining, or even doable, after 5 or 6 times of ringing around.

So I sat on the floor playing the part of the "rosie" and Sam and Rachel ran circles around me while I sang for them over and over and over again.

**********************

Rachel's been having a bit of a hard time here. To her credit we haven't really been home very much since we left for Greece at the end of March. She was throwing fits last night, so when it was time to take Jacob to scouts, I told Andrew I'd walk him over and take Rachel with me. Andrew was busy helping Jessica with her math homework (oh, that's where he was during the beginning of conference) so he thought that was a good plan.

We dropped Jacob off at the CAC and I told Rachel that we then had to go home. From CAC, our home is in one direction and the Lewis home is in the other. Rachel took off running in the direction of our home.

"Stop, Rachel! We're going this way." I pointed in the opposite direction.

"No! Home! Go! Mama! Home!" she cried.

I think it's cute that she knows where home is. And she's really having a good time here. Even if she wants to go home.

**********************

This morning Andrew got up to help get the kids ready for school and usher them out the door and let me sleep in, which was nice. We've been doing a lot more praying, I guess, since he had family prayer with the school-aged kids this morning and then before he left for school we had our own family prayer.

Sam and Rachel had already started eating breakfast when I announced it was time for the stay-at-home family prayer. Sam wanted to say it. So we let him.

He blessed the food and thanked Heavenly Father, and that was that.

"Amen!" Rachel said happily and started bringing a piece of honeycomb cereal to her mouth.

"We are going to say another prayer, Rachel," I told her, "Daddy's going to say it this time."

She sighed and slowly put her honeycomb back down, but got ready for prayer anyway. So much praying before breakfast is hard on a little girl, I guess!

General Conference with 8 kids

We had 8 kiddos around this afternoon. We're babysitting the Lewis children and also had some Penrods over since their parents are packing up the house to move and needed their kids out of the way.

Parts of that were okay. Parts of that were not okay. I think having 8 kids is something you're supposed to ease into, so I'm glad that we have only one for now and that we have several months to get used to the idea of having another one.

For the most part they played nicely among themselves. When I threatened that the next person to make Sam scream would have to do the dishes for Jessica, though, things really started running smoothly. No one did anything to bother that boy. Except Rachel, and she was exempt from the dish-threat anyway.

Trying to watch conference was an interesting experience. The room was absolutely buzzing with energy and although the children were trying to sit still and listen it wasn't really working. Megan lost a tooth and everyone got rather excited about that. Mairyn was twirling gum on her fingers...and then took to pouting when I forced her to spit it out. Rachel and Sam were squawking at each other varying forms of my, mine, don't, no, and ow. Eliza and Emma were giggling in a corner. Jacob was reiterating everything I said to everyone else, often with exaggerated corporal punishments tacked on. Jessica was attempting to soothe and entertain Rachel and Sam alternatively, depending on which one needed the most attention. The telephone rang a few times, we had to make an emergency phone call to the Lewises to announce the loss of Megan's tooth, Jacob had to get off to and be picked up from scouts, the Penrods came to pick up their girls, and I made "Conference Muffins" because no one seemed to eat very much at dinner and I had a hunch they'd all be whining for food, which, for the most part, they did.

In short, it was a busy, noisy session of General Conference. But I have hope that the children got something out of it because every time anyone closed a talk the hubub would cease momentarily and eight little voices would chorus a loud "Amen!" before bending their heads back over their coloring or tooth-wiggling or note-taking or child-tending.

It was kind of fun to have so many little bodies around, but I sure am glad they'll be coming into our home one at a time. I can't imagine taking that many children on fulltime forever all at once.

Also, I will definitely have to re-listen to Conference.

Acropolis (March 31)

The beds in Greece seem to be even more uncomfortable than the beds in Egypt. Our beds at Amaryllis Hotel were hard and lumpy. I almost have the feeling we were sleeping on a box spring instead of an actual mattress because every time we rolled over we would hear sproingy metallic sounds.

To make matters worse, Rachel’s mattress consisted of a folded-up blanket on a piece of plywood and she was so uncomfortable that she refused to sleep in her crib at all. So the little wriggle-worm slept with me. In a twin-size bed.

Sleep was evasive.

We dragged ourselves out of bed at around 9:00 AM, making sure we had time to catch breakfast, but didn’t make it out of the hotel until almost 11:00 AM. We walked from our hotel (at Omonia Square) to Monastiraki Square, which is only one metro stop but still quite a bit of a walk.

Rachel, who hardly slept at all through the night, promptly fell asleep in her stroller. I took a picture of her with a bunch of sleeping dogs. Public sleeping seems to be encouraged here.

There are dogs wandering around everywhere. Big dogs, too. I’m petrified of dogs but the dogs in Athens were so well-behaved that they hardly made me nervous! Quite unlike the feral dogs we have here in Cairo, running around in packs, barking and chasing people on bikes, the dogs in Athens don’t care a fig if a person walks by. They all have collars on, too, which I thought was strange because there didn’t seem to be any owners around anywhere. But since they left me completely alone, I didn’t mind them, either.

The walk to the Acropolis was another long trek up a steep hill, but it was well-worth it when we got to the top. We bought discounted tickets to the Acropolis for only 6 eur (because we’re young like that), which also let us into several other sites for free.

The Acropolis is really quite amazingly huge. We thought we had reached the Parthenon when we made it to the Propylaea and were rather confused. It looked nothing like how we remembered it from textbooks!

But that’s because it wasn’t the Parthenon at all. It was the entrance to the Parthenon. The Parthenon is much bigger, and looks a whole lot more like the Parthenon, than the Propylaea.

I haven’t studied Greece since grade 6 so my mythology and Ancient Greece knowledge is pretty insignificant, but I do remember writing a paper about the Parthenon. I had learned about Athena from David when he studied Ancient Greece two years earlier and absolutely loved her for some odd reason, so of course I would choose to write a paper about the Parthenon when it was my turn to study Ancient Greece.

I don’t remember much about what I researched and I’m sure that at 11 years old I didn’t research very in depth, but I was quite sad to read more about the history of the Parthenon. What were the Ottomans thinking when they stored their gun-powder in the Parthenon?! Can you imagine what it would look like today if it hadn’t exploded in 1687? Sheesh!

Embarrassingly enough, I actually wanted to name one of my daughters Athena when I was 9. I also really liked the name Persephone. Luckily those desires have faded through time and Athena isn’t on my list of names at all, let alone Persephone. I have also since stopped reading my older brother’s textbooks. Mostly because we don’t live in the same house anymore. Now I have to thrill myself with reading Andrew’s textbooks.

Rachel learned several new words while we were in Greece, Greece being one of them. Jaehee told her to say, “Hi, Greece!” on the bus from the airport, so she did. She also learned how to say “Picture!” and started climbing up on things and running in front of obvious monuments, demanding that her picture be taken. The three following pictures were composed by Rachel.

Pooh Bear went most places with Rachel and got every bit as dirty as Rachel, who was very much into collecting rocks and then wiping her hands on the front of her jacket.

The two of them were like best of friends and helped each other avoid temper tantrums. Mostly Pooh helped Rachel behave because he likes it when Rachel is a nice girl and it makes him sad when she gets upset. She likes to keep Pooh happy. It’s a good system.

We were amazed again at the top of the Athenian Acropolis, how absolutely huge Athens is. It just keeps going and going and going.

Rachel didn’t care very much for the history, the view, or the architecture. She mostly just cared about rocks and snack time (which is technically illegal on the Acropolis, only we didn’t see the ill-placed sign until after we’d come back down). So, while Jaehee and I were admiring the sheer colossal size of the Parthenon, Rachel asked repetitively for a snack until I finally gave in.

We also spent some time exploring the other sites of the Acropolis, such as the Erechtheum, which seems to be mostly fake by this point in history. Most of what we saw were replicas of things that are now housed in the British and Acropolis Museums.

  We also saw the bird’s-eye view of the other sites we would visit later on. It’s quite amazing how many things there are to see in such close proximity to each other. I learned that Ancient Agora was uncovered by removing around 400 modern buildings in the early 1930s. I wonder what else this sprawling city is covering up!

We thought for sure that we would get to see some more things after the Acropolis, but as luck would have it, everything closed between 2:30 and 3:00 PM, instead of the 5:00 PM that we were planning on.

It was a little disappointing, but at least we saw from the Acropolis what we would have seen had we gotten up a little earlier in the day. We spent a while winding our way down the steep hill, stopping to look at some souvenirs.

Rachel loves clothes and found a stack of shirts in a store. She immediately started rifling through them, unfolding them, and holding them up to herself. When she saw one with some marathon runners on it, she claimed one of the runners was “dada” and wouldn’t put it down. So we got her and daddy matching Athens Marathon t-shirts. She was so proud to carry the bag out of the store, and I was happy to have a change of clothes for her because we had split and orange and it squirted down her shirt she had on earlier, staining it a lovely bright orange and making her look like a ragamuffin.

We spent a good part of the afternoon sitting behind the fence of the Ancient Agora complex, letting Rachel play with rocks and enjoying a quiet, lazy afternoon. As much as I found Athens to be a dirty, grungy city, I have to admit that it was still a welcome change from the desert of Cairo. Flowers were bursting in full color everywhere and I kept getting excited over the most normal bugs in the world: butterflies and ladybugs. Those things are hard to find in Cairo!

That last picture is an attempt at Rachel saying, “Peace!” Jaehee tried the whole trip to get her to make the peace sign, but in the end, Jaehee started mimicking Rachel instead!

Lykavittos Hill (March 30)

Getting to a hill shouldn’t be a very difficult thing to do. They are kind of obvious, after all. But when there is hill after hill after hill covered in a sprawling city of buildings that mostly are identical, things get a little tricky.

Athens is very hilly. One might even call it mountainous, but truth be told, most of the peaks I’ve seen look like they could be climbed in a few short hours, if that. I know, because I climbed Lykavittos Hill (272.2 m) today, after only 2.5 hours of sleep.

Athens is also surprisingly dirty. I was expecting a glamorous European city but the impression I have is that it’s a rather trashy city. That said, we haven’t really hit up the touristy areas yet, so we’ll see if Greece can keep up the good ol’ European facade of absolute cleanliness as well as the rest of the EU.

We did see most of Athens today, though. Between our bus ride into downtown and our hike up Lykavittos Hill, I think we have the city covered.

Rachel was driving me crazy on the walk to the hill. She kept screaming and thrashing around in the stroller. I began to think that perhaps I wasn’t actually as fond of travelling as I originally thought. I was tired and all I wanted was a bed and a place to let my whiney child run loose. Things didn’t seem to be as bad when we went to Morocco and Spain. I began to think that Rachel just listens to Andrew better than she listens to me.

And then I snapped a picture of her throwing a fit and remembered the dozens of pictures we have of her throwing fits during our Spain/Morocco trip and I instantly felt better.

No matter how miserable I was right then, snapping her picture, I would eventually only have good memories of the trip. That’s why we do these things, right?

Apart from being dirty, and on happier notes, Athens is a very traditional city. I assume that most of Greece is, then. We’ve seen very few foreign stores—I haven’t even seen a McDonald’s here! McDonald’s is everywhere. But not in Athens, at least not that we could see anywhere. Local food, however, can be found just about on every street corner, which has been nice. We’ve been subsisting on fresh fruit and pastries.

Our hotel is in a pretty central but seedy part of town. This is helpful because we can walk everywhere we want to go, which saves on metro money. It is not so helpful because the neighbourhood is a little bit scary. But just a little bit. I think we’re more shocked than we ordinarily would be because we’ve been living in Cairo and aren’t used to seeing so much graffiti and hearing so many sirens.

We decided to walk to Lykavittos Hill even though we were both extremely disoriented and had no idea where it was. Walking the streets of Athens while pushing a stroller made me rather sympathetic for ancient marathon runners. Athens is a little hilly and pushing Rachel was making me rather exhausted.

When we got to the part where the sidewalk ended and turned into stairs, I was about ready to give up, especially since Rachel wasn’t in the best mood.

We rested at the bottom of the stairs for a while. Jaehee went into a little church and I sat outside with Rachel, who was snacking and screaming. I was about ready to start screaming myself, but Jaehee suggested that I go inside to see the church, which I did. It felt so good to sit in absolute solitude for a few minutes, away from my screaming baby. All I could hear was the occasional snapping of a lit candle.

I came back out feeling a bit better about climbing all those stairs. We still had no idea where we were going, however, and I wasn’t so sure about the whole “hill” concept. I could see a very tall hill rising above the apartment buildings and was quite positive I didn’t want to be climbing that hill.

“It isn’t that great, big, tall hill, is it?” I asked Jaehee.

“I don’t think so,” she answered.

It was that great, big, tall hill, though, and we made it all the way to the top. All the way to the top with a purse, a diaper bag, a stroller, a baby, a camera, and a blanket. Had I known we were going to be hiking I wouldn’t have brought so much stuff!

The first half of the hill was a welcome change from the Cairene landscape we call home. It was lush, green, and humid, but a cool, fresh breeze was blowing so it wasn’t the oppressive humidity you might expect. Butterflies and bumble bees were dancing around the wildflowers and turtles were crawling in the (empty) canal. More and more of the city opened up to us with each step we climbed. It was wonderful to be in a “forest” and amazing how absolutely huge Athens is.

We had a wonderful view of the Acropolis from the penultimate peak of Lykavittos (as far as the cars can drive—we wish we had known about the paved driveway before we hiked up carrying the stroller).

Rachel even got to get some of her dare-devil antics out before we made her start hiking again.

We found the paved walkway up to the top of Lykavittos and took that. Rachel wanted to walk most of the way and we found several benches in seemingly random locations, like in a field of cacti. The benches were very helpful when dealing with Rachel’s many temper tantrums so that we could get off the beaten path for a bit and scream in quasi-private.

Eventually we all made it to the very top. The view was quite wonderful, although it was rather overcast, and we even saw the sea! There are restaurants at the top, which were well over our budget, and a church, and some vendors. Who would have thought that the top of a hill would be such a happening place?

After we walked back down (we took the paved path this time and I pushed Rachel in the stroller), Jaehee and I parted our ways. She was going on to visit Plaka and I was headed back to the hotel. Rachel and I have a lot less endurance than Jaehee! We’re pretty lazy travelers right now, Rachel and I.

I stopped at a fruit stand and a pasteria on the way back, and I didn’t get lost once, a fact of which I am very proud since my sense of direction is non-existent. Rachel slept most of the way and I had quite the time waking her up in order to feed her dinner.

After that she was ready to play for a while, so we brought out her toys and her coloring book and tried to do the “normal” stuff that we do at home before we go to bed. It’s what Rachel wanted to do all day. “PLAY!” she moan from her stroller, “Play, play, play!”

She finds playing a necessity, and I guess, for a 20 month old, it is.

Getting to Greece (March 30)

Our taxi driver was a good 15 minutes late and our drive to the airport was, of necessity, a little hectic and crazy. Our driver seemed to enjoy playing chicken a little more than I and would continuously creep up behind huge trucks, so close I swear we were completely in the truck’s blind spot, and then would honk his horn relentlessly until the truck moved over enough for us to pass.

When we got to the airport, remarkably unscathed, our taxi driver demanded his fare. We had decided to go with a metered cab so that he wouldn’t rip us off. But when we brought out our money, he brought out his money and his hands were as quick as lightening. In a flurry he grabbed some money from my hands, grabbed some from Jaehee, mixed it in with his own, and threw some change at us.

Our ride officially cost us 66.50 LE but it ended up costing us well over 100 LE after our driver took care of providing us “change.”

Checking in was relatively hassle-free, though I wish that the Cairo International Airport would catch onto priority boarding. We ended up pushing our way onto the plane along with everybody else, which was relatively stressful, especially since my purse had been flagged somehow while going through the x-ray machine and after going through every item in my purse (namely: toys, crayons, books, snacks, etc.) we were allowed to board. Lucky for me, the guy who went through the purse thought that Rachel needed to have more toys to hold, so he took some out of my bag and gave them to her which meant that I had to worry about my bag, my purse, the stroller, Rachel, and all the toys she was carrying while trying to hurry through security.

Why do they make security as awkward as possible and then harp at you the whole time to go faster? Take off your belt, take off your shoes, take off your coat, take everything out of your pockets, take all liquids and electronics out of your bag, force your baby to send Winnie the Pooh through the x-ray machine, fold the stroller! Faster, faster, faster!

I sure was glad when we made it onto the plane, except for the fact that I hate everything about flying. I hate taxiing, I hate taking off, I hate turbulence, I hate the bathrooms, I hate the noise of the jets and the noise of the air, I hate the smell of the fake air, I hate the smell of dozens of bodies (most of them smokers) crammed into close proximity for hours on end, I hate the food, I hate landing.

It’s a wonder I ever fly at all. But I survived this flight, with a baby, alone. At least, without Andrew. I had Jaehee there to help, which was wonderful. And also Sara’s video iPod. Lifesaver. Seriously.

Although Rachel stayed awake the entire flight, I was able to at least close my eyes and lean back against my chair, ignoring her and focusing on not losing my dinner, while Rachel watched Winnie the Pooh on the iPod. It was wonderful to not have to continuously draw her attention into coloring or barn animals or anything. I don’t mind doing that at 2 PM, but at 2 AM? I am pretty much ready to resign as mother by 2 AM.

We must have looked pretty haggard when we arrived in Athens. A security guard escorted us from the everlastingly long “all other passports” line to the pathetically short “EU passports only” line. We totally got expedited through customs. Someone asked the guard about it and he explained that having a young child is a handicap of sorts, so just as the gentleman in the wheelchair ahead of us got to cut in line, our excuse was equally valid.

At least, I think that’s what he said. It was all Greek to me. Literally.

He did a lot of pointing at Rachel and the man in the wheelchair, so it was pretty obvious he thought Rachel was a handicap of sorts. We were desperately tired, so it was a very nice thing for him to do.

When we cleared customs, we found out that the metro line connecting the airport to the rest of the system was down for maintenance. That threw a spanner into the works.

We ended up taking the bus to the Syntagma Square station and then taking the last two metro stops to Omonia Square station. And then we walked around forever and ever and ever trying to find our hotel.

We’re staying at Hotel Amaryllis. Apparently it’s 2 minutes away from Omonia station, but we walked around for a good 15 minutes before we finally gave up and asked directions. We ended up at Amaryllis Inn, which wasn’t Hotel Amaryllis, but was close enough. They’re owned by the same chain so the clerk was very helpful and gave us a map with the route to Hotel Amaryllis marked down.

It was so nice to get our room. Finally. We waited in the lobby for a good 20 minutes before I finally went up to the clerk to ask about our room for a second time. Rachel was going berserk. She needed to sleep. We all needed sleep.

“I can check you in now,” said the clerk, “The maids were just finishing getting your room ready.”

Why he didn’t tell us that’s why we were waiting so long before, I don’t know. We weren’t waiting very patiently. It’s hard to wait patiently when you’ve been up for over 24 hours.

Once we were settled in our room, we had a decent 2.5 hour nap and then got up to explore the town a bit. Most of our early exploration was met with much temper-tantruming on Rachel’s part, which meant that I turned the stroller around and beetled back to the hotel as fast as I could.

Apparently she needed more time to unwind and her temper-tantrums were more than I could bear, so I also needed a breather.

After she played with her toys for about a half hour, she felt much better and we were able to have a somewhat successful afternoon, which I will describe hereafter since this post is already longer than long.

It's true

I will also attest that this isn't an April Fool's joke. We will be having a baby in October, inshallah. Our official due date is October 27th.

And I made a pretty big error in the crossword puzzle, so it's a good thing only Emily did it! Number 5 down should be "stork" but I put the answer as "crane" accidentally, which totally throws off the whole puzzle because stork obviously doesn't fit in the word ice cream. Oh, well.

My excuse is that I am suffering from pregnancy brain.

My reason is that we made the crossword puzzle up right after putting Rachel down for the night. Her bedtime story was The Heron and the Crane so I had birds on the brain. Crane. Stork. What's the difference?

We're about 10.5 weeks along and everything is going well so far. I haven't been very sick, just insanely tired. We've already started seeing Dr. Tarek, an OB/GYN recommended by my friend Melissa, who had her baby over here, just because we were nervous about the prospect of having a baby out here and wanted to make sure that we liked our doctor and everything.

7 week ultrasound

So far Dr. Tarek seems very nice. He was educated in America and did his residency there so we're pretty confident about his skills. We're just not so sure about the hospital.

Melissa said the hospital was fine, but this was her first baby. Rachel, a woman who lived in the branch here a few years ago (and who we actually saw when we were visiting from Jordan), also had a baby here and was planning to have it at the same hospital, but ended up having her in the bathtub. Soooo...we'll see how I feel about it when the time comes. I'm not sure I'm brave enough to go and have a baby in a bathtub by myself...

Happy April Fool’s Day

Just a little something Andrew and I cooked up for April Fool’s Day. Click here to download. Enjoy!