Greece Part 1

For those who care, I'll be telling about our trip to Greece in 3 parts.  We headed to Nairobi on Saturday afternoon, April 26th and went to dinner, put the kids to bed at 8 and then had to wake everyone up at 12:30 to head to the airport! Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you look at it) there were TV screens on every seat, so our kids were in heaven. Cole never slept again. The others slept varying amounts throughout the next 6 hours. Tucker managed to spill an entire cup of water on my lap and need a diaper change in the world’s smallest changing area, an airplane bathroom.  Tucker was also a huge hit with the Turkish airline stewardesses. Once he decided he was done with his car seat and was walking around, they literally were all over him, kissing him. This one lady must have kissed him 30 times! Then she brought him chocolate. J Eastern Europeans love children, random people in the airport in Istanbul would stop and touch them, try to hold them and even kiss them!

Crazy kids killin time in the Instanbul airport!

Turkish Delight!

We were traveling with our friends the Kelleys and the Davis’s, so we had 6 adults and 9 kids to keep track of as we navigated the airports. It was quite a herd. We entered the 1^st world again in the Istanbul airport, to a huge mall area, something we hadn’t seen in 9 months. Lots of white people (unusual) and lots of things that had not been available in some time. We spent 2 ½ hours there before leaving for our destination....Greece! We arrived in Athens around 2:30, very tired but ready to be there! The first thing I saw as we flew in was an Ikea! We’re not in Africa anymore, baby!

            Monday was a free day for Eric so we spent the morning exploring the grounds. We found the playground, the beach and the pool. It wasn’t that warm (60’s) but the boys insisted on going swimming. So they got in the freezing cold water for a while. The meals are served buffet style in a big cafeteria. The food was awesome. The two littles and I took a nap in the afternoon. There was a huge rainstorm in the afternoon. We hung around dinner for a while extra and then came back and put the boys to bed.

The ocean!

The freezing cold pool, so much fun!

            Tuesday Eric started classes with an ultrasound class. I got up and ran before he left and then took the boys to breakfast. There is Nutella and croissants, which was a favorite among the kids. They begged and begged to go swimming again so I took them all to get ready and they swam in the freezing cold water for approximately 10 seconds and then ran around the pool for the next hour+. They played with their friends Josiah and Annie and then we met up with Eric for lunch. Afterward I kept all the kids in while the littles napped. It was akin to torture for the older two. That evening we had a main session where everyone came (there are 700 people here) and it was an introduction, naming all the countries people came from and we were all to wear dress from our country. Very cool. 

Going to Greek School!

    Wednesday the kids went to class for the first time. Overall they did really well. The bigger boys really loved it. They did some sort of a Greek VBS theme. Eric went to different medical sessions and I went to the spouse’s group. We have a speaker that speaks every morning for awhile and then different women share about their fields and their joys/struggles. Then we break off into a small group for prayer/discussion. We then go and get lunch and there are other spouse’s activities in the afternoons, lessons, painting, crocheting J, haircuts and manicures (done on each other!) but I take the littles back for naps. The big boys go back to class. That ends around 4:30 when we all somehow end up back at the freezing cold pool J Dinner and then we usually have to skip the evening session to get the boys to bed to start all over again! Next time I’ll tell about our weekend trip to Athens!