Hello All.. and goodbye to September..

Well this has been a great 24 hours. We got up very early yesterday in this beautiful hotel in Santorini.... and left that great place. I was only there for less than 48 hours... and I know that I need to go back. Santorini is a great place to just relax and be there.. We had to fly back to Athens to go to Mykonos.... That is not so bad. They are short flights, and the airport has free wifi, and we watched the people go by in the airport which is always fun. Being in Europe is SO NOT being in America... The people are beautiful and great to look at.. I have been called the Queen of Right Sizing... I sit and tell what I think are the stories of their lives of the people we are looking at. Well it does pass the time away..

We had a short flight to Mykonos. At the airport we met the Budget guy (the car), the owners of the villa we are staying at and the warm air, blue skies and the lovely greek people. We got the rav4, drove a short distance .... UP on the hill to this beautiful villa. It is like we are in a little villa development. We have a huge outdoor parking, patio, pool, sunning area. The villa itself has 3 floors, 6 bedrooms... out door sitting areas for anything from eating to lounging..

This is as usual very beautiful as we usually stay in great place when we travel. We look out over the harbor of Mykonos.. I call it that but have no idea if there is a real name for it.. but across the "water" is Mykonos. We are a short distance to this little "town" with markets, cafe's, internet, bakery, fish market etc.

The first day it was just Tom, Joe, Michael G and I. Today Earl and Agosto arrive, Janie, Jill, and Michael tomorrow, and then on Saturday Scott and John (LI pair) and Michael G leaves. So yesterday we just laid around the pool in the afternoon, got unpacked, alotted the bedrooms etc. Tom and I went shopping for food, and to scope out the area for the places we will need and use as we now call this place home for our time here.

We found all what we needed.. I did have to make the sounds of a cow to try to ask where the meat market was and we did find food, drug store, fish market, bakeries and this great restaurant that has a cafe which internet is where we need to go. As I sit typing we are in the Anixi Cafe out on there veranda looking at the water, blue skies, breezy and nice.

We got alot of staples food and food for dinner. Then we just started to unpack, relax. Now... all things aren't perfect here.... :) We have/had 2 issues we had to deal / dealing with.. The first one is cats... Greece (at least the islands) there are cats that live in the wild. They are for the most part friends etc. But we had a little cute yellow kitten visitor.. at the window to the kitchen.. He just meowed... and never stopped. I think he was just hungry.. He was so cute, clean and looked like a house cat. It is kind of sad...when you think of it. Well we tried to chase him off since we figured that if we gave him food or milk, he would never leave. Well that one kitten has turned into 4.. we are thinking a mother and 3 kittens. Not such a big deal but we do leave the doors open to the villa.. so that is an issue. They did find a place to sleep but they are back this am. So Tom hasn't seen them in the last hour.. but they could be upstairs on one of the beds.... :) That issue I can live with..

The other issue was after we turned into bed, we had mosquitos... I killed 3 and finally got some sleep.. However that was not a quick or early off to sleep. So we have decided that we need to close the doors and windows in the late afternoon so then hopefully we won't have the bug issue when we are trying to sleep. The cats.. I think we will have to live with. I don't mind so much but some of us it will be an issue.

So Tom made a great meal of pork chops and beef, potatoes, zuchini and tomatoes.. These pork chops were so thick... We ate outside on the veranda by candlelight in the lanterns... looking over to Mykonos and the night lights of Mykonos. Can I say it was BEAUTIFUL!!!!! enough???? We just sat there eating a wonderful meal, after a long great day enjoying the moment..... AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH..... one of those moments you just won't forget..

Then after clean up Tom, Joe and Michael G went into Mykonos... looked around, shopped, and just scoped it out. T&J have been here before so it wasn't new to them .... but it has been years. I just wanted to be alone, to myself in this big villa... I just relaxed, read, and had a great time...

This am.. we got up around 9 AM... to a picture perfect day... We had breakfast, and then Michael and I headed out to the Anixi Cafe where the interent is. We are enjoying the day, typing, chatting, viewing and just saying aaaahhhhhhhh. We walked down here this am... and I am thinking that I will be doing walking every morning. It wasn't too far but going back up the hill will be some exercise. Michael will walk with me while he is here, and hopefully I can get someone to walk with me next week. If not.. no biggie.. I will explore on my own.

Michael and I have talked about tomorrow (his last full day) and we are going to spend more time in the villa in the morning, and then head in (walk) to Mykonos and spend the day exploring, shopping, and seeing what is there. We will meet the rest for dinner around 9 PM. So that will be a full day.

I will take some pictures today... and then post them on the blog tomorrow...

Before I forget.. while I am in Greece, my blog is thinking I am typing in Greek... so when I do my spell check before I send the entries... EVERYTHING is highlighted to fix.. since the english is not greek. SO.. being said... you will be getting my entries while here unedited. Which I know is very scary.. Sorry

Well what a last few days I have had... Not sure I can sum it all up ... First of all I will more pics but here is a few just of Paris....

We left for Paris on what was Friday night the 24th of September.. had a good flight... got some sleep and was considering the situation... I felt pretty good when we landed in Paris. My neighbors from Philly who live in Paris.. known as Rosemary and Dave :), picked us up at the airport at 6:00 AM. They are great neighbors and friends. We got into their apartment which was literally RIGHT near the Eifel Tower. They live 2 blocks off the Trocodero Metro stop which is right at the Eifel Tower. It was so nice to be there for so many reasons. 1.. if you have ever traveled to Europe you get there in the early am.... and your hotel room is NEVER ready. 2.. It was so good to see Rosemary and Dave. For those that know them you know what I mean. They are the nicest people and so much fun to be around. Rosemary made this great breakfast which was so tasty. Their apartment is BEAUTIFUL!!!!. They just moved into this one from the old one which was located across the street. You would have never known they just moved. It looked lived in.... so cozy and beautiful. We were so in the french moment... at least I was. The weather was so cool and so nice to me as an alternative to Manila and the heat, humidity and monsoon weather. We walked all around the Eifel Tower, and then up and around the Champs Elysay.. I know I am not spelling that one correctly... :)

We got back around 1:30.. and promptly took a nap. I was so exhausted... We slept for a few hours... and then slowly started to get ready for dinner. We all took our time, chatted with Rosemary and Dave.. and just relaxed. It WAS the way to start one nice vacation. We had dinner plans at this really nice restaurant the Rosemay was able to find for us. We had a requirement of 10 people... so that was a little difficult on a Saturday night. The 10 of us consisted of Rosemary and Dave, Tom and Joe, Michael Goetz, our friends Earl and Agoston which is joining us in Mykonos, our friends Joe and Jim which happened to be starting their vacation in Paris on that Saturday and then me. We had 2 tables of 5 which we split up the groups perfectly and we all had a great time. The food, wine, and the company couldn't have been better. I kept hearing Robert Preston singing (from Victor Victoria) all throughout the day and evening.. I think that Paris should have speakers everywhere playing beautiful music.. to enhance the feeling of ... I am in Paris... :)

We got home late and chatted for awhile.. it was one of those feelings that you just knew you didn't want to end... We got a good night sleep.... and then woke the next morning to coffee and french pastries that Dave and Joe went out to buy from the bakery. We had 12:30 flights to Athens so we were packed, said our goodbyes to Dave and Rosemary and Dave drove us to the airport. Again all I can say is a HUGE Thank You to Rosemary and Dave for their friendship and hospitality and not to mention my good fortune of them being my neighbors again soon in Philly. We will also be seeing them at the end of our vacation for 2 nights as well.

We flew from Paris to Athens... short 3 hours... and another beautiful day for flying. Flying into Athens was one of those cities that you need to look out the window when getting close. There are the islands, the sea, the blue skies... and then ATHENS!!!!! :) The new airport is outside the city.... which the first thing I noticed was all the trees... I didn't expect that. Also the Thrusday before there was the announcement of 5 billion dollar investment to Greece from Qatar. That is going to be good for the people of Greece.

We were going to take a taxit to the airport but then upon leaving the terminal, we met some men with Mercedes Sedans that offered to take us anywhere we wanted to go. So we meet Demetries... the first of many HOT greek men. He was the nicest guy and a perfect way to start this leg of the trip. He got us to the Hotel Intercontinental... gave us alot of information and just was a GREAT all around chauffer. We dropped off our bags and then headed out to dinner. We had dinner on the rooftop of this place, with the almost full moon to the left, and the lit Acropolos up and to the right. Dinner was great, company was great and you couldn't get a better location!!!!!!! We walked around a little while after dinner and eventually realized we were a little confused on which way the hotel was. So we got into this cab. Well a little story.. Demitries had told us that day that Athens city center was closed down to vehicles due to a Terrorist scare of a female suicide bomber. We had also heard that all of Europe was on higher alert for some possible incident. Anyway back to the cab... we get in and tell the driver where we wanted to go. He starts of with "I hate the US government"..... we all thought great.. it isn't a female suicide bomber but a male greek taxi driver and we were going to be at ground zero of some terrorist attach in Europe... I wasn't dressed for that event to be on CNN... anyway we eventually got back to the hotel... and off to bed. Michael was doing homework, and I was reading and checking my email etc. We 2 got to bed somewhat late.. but up and perky the next morning... at least I was.. We were only spending 1 day in Athens since the vast majority of the vacation is 10 days in a villa in Mykonos. As I write.. I keep thinking that I have had the best time so far.. and we are still NOT in Mykonos!!!!!

The next morning we got up and had this great buffet breakfast at the hotel. It appears that I eat a lot of food but that was going to be my main meal for the day or so I thought. We headed out on the walking tour of Athens. We walked to the parliment and watched the changing of the guard, and then to this museum which was great. We then headed up to the Acropolois which is BEAUTIFUL. The weather was PERFECT. sunny and warm.. but not too hot. The 4 of us walked up and all around and took alot of pictures. We eventually made our way back to the hotel, took more pictures of the blue man, and the cute security man, and our driver Demetries again picked us up and drove us to the airport. We had an early evening flight to Santorini. Sitting at the airport was one of the best times I have had sitting in an airport waiting. The people there were beautiful... and we had a great time talking to some of them, and just looking at the rest. Met some nice people.

We got to Santorini around 9 PM. Santorini is a beautiful place and I am telling everyone.. 1 day is NOT enough time to be here. So if you plan to visit and you should, then at least 2 days if not more is called for. We got to the Vedame which a 5 star luxury hotel. We had a 2 bedroom suite but then got upgraded since they have availability. The hotel picked us up at the airport, and drove us to the property. They had champagne waiting for us upon check in. They showed us around the property.. GORGOUES..... The place and the people.. We dropped our bags, and then went to dinner at the hotel. We had a great meal... the food is as good as everything else. I came back, took a shower and went to bed.

This am.. I got up, and just went out on the patio off my room... and just looked out at the Aegean Sea. The blue skies, and sunny morning was a great way to start the Greek Island portion of this trip. As I said before, our plan was and is 1 day / 2 nights here and then off to Mykonos. I could stay here for a few days... but then when I get to the villa I will feel just as good I am sure. We had a great breakfast and then Tom and I went off to a Olive Oil massage at the spa. it was a great way to start this day. Now it is only 12:23 local time here.. I am sitting on the patio off the living room looking at the sea, and hearing all kinds of noises. I hear kids in the background.. there must be an elementary school near by.... and then I hear a loud speaker of a man out on the road..they are driving down the road in a grey unmarked van.... not sure what that is all about.. but it is a beautiful day. Michael is at the gym, tom is at the pool, Joe is .... I am not sure. He just came in and gave me his ipod to charge, dressed and then was off. I am here sitting in my swimsuit, catching up on my blog.

I forgot to mention also in our villa inside the hotel, we have a pet .... a cat that came up to us on the patio.. we just call him el gato. Not sure where he belongs but seems to be a street cat... but clean, has a prior gash/wound behind his right ear... but pretty affectionate. Tom gave him some milk... and now he will be here forever. We just told him NOT to tell his friends. There will be pics of him too.

So enjoy a few pics of Paris, Santorini, El Gato... and I am off to the pool for a couple of hours.

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