Sleepless in Seattle: night three

Today we really hit the ground running. We had a full itinerary. Luckily our bodies are on east coast time so it wasn't that hard to get moving and Nancy is good about getting up when she has to. 

First stop was the Chateau Ste Michelle winery. Julie is a big fan of their wine and we didn't get to go there the last time she was in town. While checking out their website for what time they opened I saw they had a garden tour Tues and Thur at 11am for only $10. You can do the regular winery tour for free but Nancy and I have already done it and we thought this would be a great way to get in some walking. We really enjoyed the tour, instead of being with a large group of people it was just us 4 and our tour guide Ann who knew so much about the winery and the foliage all around the winery. I was only partly listening but Nancy can tell you all about the trees and bushes all of the winery if you need an informal tour. It really a beautiful and informative tour and we all enjoyed it. 

Now my original plan was to buy stuff and do a picnic lunch at the winery since their grounds are so beautiful but just never got around to the store to get some food but Ann came up with a brilliant alternative, lunch at The Barking Frog! It was two minutes away from the winery and the food is fantastic! Since we knew we were going to be eating a lot for dinner we ordered some salads and apps so that we wouldn't get too full. It really was the perfect amount for all of us. They're famous for their grand marnier prawns so of course we had to order them, as well as penn cove mussels (my family goes to penn cove to harvest our own mussels, this is a lot easier), beef tartar, a baby spinach salad and a dungeness crab and bacon prawn cobb. My fave was the cobb salad, oh my goodness it was so good! Only Nancy and I liked the tartar, it was too strong for the other gals (the beef heart tartar at Damn the Weather is much better, that will be a future blog post) and while the mussels were good, I liked the ones at Toulous Petit more. We all walked away sated and satiated and quite happy with our  lunch. 

 To really get the Seattle experience we decided to stay a couple of nights in Seattle, which ended up being a fantastic decision (it was my idea, LOL). We rented a house add on through AirBnB that was 2 blocks from Green Lake. So after lunch we headed to Seattle to get checked in. We were greeted with a bottle of wine, a bottle of perrier and a salted caramel chocolate bar. That's my kind of welcome!

By the time we got settled it was time to get ready for dinner. I know, we just finished lunch! Keep in mind there was travel time to Seattle, 4 girls getting ready in one bathroom and we were making a stop to visit Adam on our way to our event. We checked in to our place at 3:30 and were out the door by 5, that's pretty dang good.

While surfing the web trying to figure out what to do in Seattle while the girls were in town I came across a food event that was happening, Guest Chef Spectacular, a charity event with over 40 local restaurants, wineries and distilleries. Tickets were $85 but I knew my fellow foodies would be as into it as I was and I was correct.

Sorry I don't have pictures of the food, our hands were too full to take pictures. I think the event lasted until 9:30, we tapped out long before then. When you get there they hand you a plate and an empty wine glass and you just proceed to eat. Everything is bite size but it adds up quickly. I was ditching anything non-essential, like bread. Stomach room is precious. Some of the highlights would be pistachio sundaes made with nitrogen, 72 hour braised short ribs, smoked oysters, salmon tartare, loco moco, firecracker shrimp, savory crepes, Japanese cheesecake with passion fruit, crab cake with crab claw on top and more! I didn't even try the sausages which looked good but if I have a choice between seafood or sausage, I'm going seafood! 

Next time I do something like this, I would wear more comfortable shoes. I had on flip flops and even tho they were thick, they didn't offer up enough support for hours on my feet. We were all full and exhausted by the time we rolled out of there but we grabbed another pistachio ice cream on our way out, it was so freaking good!

Once we got back to the house, I was ready for bed, it was a late 9pm lol but Julie got us up and motivated so we all changed and went for a 3 mile walk around Green Lake to try and work some of that ice cream off. I would have rather ended the night with a massage but it was a wonderful walk and a great way to end the day. 

Sleepless in Seattle: night two

Since I was combining a girlfriend trip with a family trip our first stop on Wed was Kimberly's house. OK, not our first stop, first I had to go to the grocery store. Decided to make lunch for everyone. It's a super simple salad but Sharon said it was one of the best salads she's ever had. Kim says she could eat it every day! Wish I had taken a pic for you but at least I'll tell you how to make it.

As soon as I got to Kim's house I was greeted by these beautiful faces!

The main reason why Kim's house was my first stop. Trying to catch up on precious baby time! When the boys are together it's hard to get them to focus on anyone but each other but at least they would give me hugs and kisses all day. Lily can go from laughing to crying in a minute. She keeps us on our toes! Julie practically tossed her back into Kim's arms as soon as she started crying, what a wuss, LOL.

I don't know why I insist on smooshing my face next to any baby's face. It's not a flattering angle but I had to post this pic because of the look on Lily's face. 

While trying to squeeze in baby kisses,  I worked on the salad. This is a perfect summer salad using fresh corn on the cob. I buy about 4 or 5 ears of corn, cut the corn off the cob and sauté it in butter and fresh chopped garlic. Finish it off with salt and pepper. Set it aside to cool down some.

Then prepare the rest of the salad. I love adding rotisserie chicken to my salads for protein and it's easy. Julie shredded the chicken and we set it aside so that people can add as much or little chicken into the salad as they want.

The rest of the salad consists of things that I love on a salad, arugula, cucumbers, avocado, red onion, shaved parmesan cheese and salt & pepper flavored slivered almonds (they are amazing on a salad, found in the produce section, a splurge but I buy them when they're on sale).  I add the corn and toss all the veggies together and then let people add the amount of almonds and cheese so each salad is customized to personal tastes. I use Ken's light sweet vidalia onion but any dressing you like will work. Try a salad with the corn and your favorite salad fixings and you'll love it!

BTW, if you don't feel like sautéing the corn, you can microwave an ear of corn in it's husk for 2-3 minutes and cut the fat end and squeeze the corn out and voila, easy corn on the cob! Thanks Kim for that tip!

After we left Kim's we went to Lynnwood to hit Olympus Spa. Nancy and I love this place but it's a naked lady spa so hard to get others to go with us. Julie and Sharon don't have that problem, woo hoo! Poor Nancy had to work so she met up with us after work and still got some spa time in. The spa features not only hot tubs and steam rooms, it has different rooms that you go in and relax (I fell asleep in the sand room, my snore woke me up, I should have gone into the nap room). Each room with a different benefit. You can spend hours there going from room to room and hopping into various hot tubs (different temps) but since this was a special occasion we also scheduled treatments. I got a 90 minute massage. Too bad my masseuse didn't know that. After I got out I noticed the time and had to go let them know. They refunded me the rest of my massage but it doesn't make up for the lost time. This is the second time I booked a 90 minute and got a 60 (the other time was at massage envy). That time I let them give me the other 30 minutes and it was awful. From now on, I'll make sure the masseuse knows ahead of time, what I paid for. The other two had fantastic treatments and came out glowing. Luckily Nancy joined me not too long after my massage so we just wandered around the rooms, trying to find empty ones so we could gab.

After spending as long as we could at the spa we had to leave to meet up with Kathy and Jordan for dinner at our favorite all you can eat Korean restaurant, Original Sul Lung Tang which conveniently is right by the spa. Korean is one of my favorite foods and I've taught Jordan to appreciate it. We all ate until we could eat no more. It was awesome! Even though it felt like our belly's were going to explode, we headed out for some frozen yogurt. There's still a tiny bit of room in my belly that the yogurt could fit into. I think only Jordan, Kat and I had yogurt. The rest couldn't hang.

Being the wild and crazy gals that we are, we headed home to prepare for another action packed day!

Sleepless in Seattle

Original title, I know. Sometimes there's no need to re-invent the wheel.

Way back in Jan. Sharon and Julie decided that they wanted to come out to Seattle to go to a Diana Gabaldon event, we love our authors and as an extra bonus, Nancy and I lived there (well 30 minutes north of there). Well fast forward 6 months and I no longer live in WA. As I always say, never write my address in ink. Of course, I didn't want to miss out on any of the fun and I was a huge part of why they were going to Seattle (huge!) so I planned my trip home to visit my family to co-incide the with the girls visit.

Both Julie and Sharon have been out to WA in the last couple of years on separate visits but there's always things we think we should have done, after they left. This time we discussed what they wanted to do ahead of time (they're no help, they were down for anything) so I put together an itinerary, mostly an eating trip (that's what happens when you leave the itinerary up to me).

We landed Tue night and I knew we would be hungry, or at least I would be so we went to Toulouse Petit which has one of the best late night happy hours in the country! I didn't say that, their website says that. We took Dao and Michelle there when they were in town and I loved it but hadn't been back. I was worried that it would be too crowded but we were able to find a booth right away which was awesome! The hard part is for us to stop talking long enough to look at the menu. But somehow we paused in the conversation to order.

In this picture starting at the top left corner, crawfish beignets (I didn't want to order them but they ended up being fantastic) , oysters 3 ways (Sharon loved them so much she had a second order), mussels in saffron sauce (I had this before and was dreaming about them and it was as good as I remembered. I wish I had ordered more.), cajun meatloaf sliders (they were good but I wanted more seafood so I only had a bite) and sinister fried shrimp (fantastic!).

We also ordered barbecued shrimp New Orleans which is their version of shrimp and grits (good, just not as good as the sinister shrimp), manila clams with spanish chorizo (not as good as the mussels) and tuna tartare (I'm a sucker for anything raw. I loved it, didn't realize Julie didn't like fish, let alone raw fish, LOL).

They also make great mixed drinks there, Julie and I weren't drinking so Sharon and Nancy just ordered a drink, I can't remember what it was but it was delicious.

Afterwards we headed to Nancy's house where we proceeded to unwind and even tho we planned on going to bed right away (3 of us were on eastern time and Nancy can sleep whenever), Julie and I gabbed into the night and we could hear Sharon and Nancy chatting in their room. The best part about getting together isn't the eating, which I love, but the times when we're just lounging around talking and being with each other. I already know, the trip is going to to by way too fast!

I've lost all my comments...again!

Sorry when I switched URLs I lost all of my FB comments. This FB app is more trouble then it's worth so I'm back to the normal comments. Unfortunately, that means all of the previous comments are gone until I can figure out how to get them back. I can add some screenshots that will show some of the comments until then.

Eating like an Ox in Portland

Thanksgiving is my second favorite holiday, behind my birthday month, of course! It's an eating holiday where your biggest worry is will there be enough gravy (I like my potatoes and turkey swimming). What better time to talk about a recent eating extravaganza I had in Portland?

Nancy went to Portland for work for a couple of weeks last month. I decided to go down for a few days while she was down there to visit with Linda. OK, Linda lured me with the promise of letting me gather black walnuts at her dad's place but it was the perfect time to go, I hadn't been to Portland since March of last year. I love Portland and I love Linda, that was way too long between visits!

Since Nancy and I had recently had our birthdays (well relatively recently), Linda took us out for a birthday dinner. Did I mention the fact that I loved Linda? She chose to take us to Ox, an Argentinian inspired restaurant and it also happened to be Oregonian's Restaurant of the Year for 2013. Linda has excellent taste (in food as well as friends)!

They stagger the seating for their diners and don't accept reservations. It's a small restaurant but they handle it well. There's a bar next door and seating outside where people wait to get seated. The waiters were so cute that both Nancy and I thought the same thing, are we in Greece? Along with our drinks we also ordered some truffled pistachios. Many of you know I love pistachios but what I love even more is anything truffled. I'm not talking chocolate truffles. I'm talking the wonderfully umami mushroom truffle. I wish I had the super sniffer of the trained dogs or pigs so I could go on my own truffle hunt but until then, I will have to console myself with anything truffled. The truffled pistachios didn't disappoint. Just as we were digging in, our table was ready. 

We had a great seat, right in front of the counter where we could watch the chefs at work, not that I did much of that, too busy looking at the food on my table. 

They served a complimentary amuse-bouche which always makes me happy. This one was a creamed cauliflower soup and it was divine. I wanted to lick the tiny little tea cup it came in. 

One of my favorite things about Argentinian food is chimichurri. It's as common in Argentina as ketchup is. I love this stuff! I was first introduced to it when I lived in Los Angeles, there was this great Argentinian restaurant, Lalas, within walking distance to the last apartment I lived in (I moved a lot). I never knew what it was called until I told Linda about it and she not only told me what it was called but made some for me. Not only is it fabulous as a dip for your bread, it's amazing on top of steak. It's loaded with cilantro, parsley and garlic. How can you go wrong? My dear friend, Analisa, lives in Argentina. She knows of my love for chimichurri and has tried multiple times to mail me some. It never makes it to me. I had to beg her to not try anymore. I hate the waste of money. Luckily there are places like Ox where I can get my fix. The hard part is not getting full dipping my bread into this ambrosia. 

Looking at this picture would you guess that this was clam chowder? The presentation had us oohing and aahing, the taste had us drooling. This is one of their signature dishes, a fresh clam chowder with a smoked bone marrow. Is your mouth watering? Mine was and is. The bone marrow added a depth of flavor that truffles do when added to anything. This soup was complex and delicious. Nancy only planned on eating a bite or two and she couldn't resist eating more. One of the best clam chowders I've ever had (and I love me some clam chowder). 

As much as I loved the clam chowder I have to say I loved the sauteed mushroom and spinach side almost as much. Why was it so good? See those delicious brown bits on top? That would be foie gras! I had forgotten that there was foie gras in this dish when they delivered it and then I took a bite and did a squeal of happiness. I really did. They didn't skimp on the foie gras either. Color me happy!

Nancy and I split the grill special for two, it came with grilled short ribs, house chorizo, morcilla sausage, skirt steak, sweat breads, fried potatoes and green salad. Sorry I don't have a better pic of the meats. I am always a fan of the short rib, I love my meats fatty. It was nice and chewy and flavorful. Really enjoyed the chorizo. Turns out morcilla sausage is blood sausage. It wasn't bad. I only had a bite, wanted to try it but so much other stuff that I wanted to eat that was better. The skirt steak was my fave. I'd only had sweat breads once before. I really enjoyed them here. The grill added a smokiness to this. It looked like a smoked cauliflower but with a meaty taste. I didn't eat much of the potatoes or salad but they were good. 

Linda ordered a filet mignon. It was a special so it's not always on the menu. She got the last one of the night. It's not my favorite cut of meat but hers was incredibly tender. Her greens went perfectly with her steak. 

Dessert was a warm hazelnut brown butter torte, honey chamomile ice cream and  honeycomb candy. I only ate a bite of it but Nancy says it was delicious and it was our waiter's favorite dessert. I really enjoyed the honeycomb candy tho. I loved the chewiness of it. 

What a fantastic eating experience. Portland has some amazing restaurants and this one didn't let me down. I would go back in a heart beat. The service was phenomenal and the food top notch. Just writing about this eating experience makes my mouth salivate and it's been over a month. 

Linda has her finger on the pulse of where to go in Portland. One of the reasons I love to go there. When I try to figure out where to eat in Seattle, I never know where to go although I did have an amazing meal at Anchovies and Olives in Seattle. I'll have to see if I can find the pics I took. I might blog on it. 

While in Portland Linda also took us to Sunshine Tavern which is run by chef Jenn Louis who was on the most recent edition of Top Chef Masters. She was even working while we were there so that was fun to see since I'm such a fan of the Top Chef series. Jenn Louis went home for her banh mi, which if you don't know, if a Vietnamese sub. It was on her menu. There was no way I was going to order that. To be fair, she had the wrong bread on TC but if you're eating at a Vietnamese restaurant or deli a banh mi runs about $2.50. The most you will pay is $5. If it costs more then that, it's more American then Vietnamese and I won't order it when I can get a banh mi that I love for much less. 

I don't normally like to order my fries with anything on them. They get too soggy too quick but the girls wanted to try this and hey, there were 3 of us, so it would be eaten before it had a chance to get soggy. The french fries were covered in gravy and cheese but the gravy was more of a pork gravy. Yes, pork gravy. Yes, it was as good as it sounds. 

The oysters were lightly battered then fried. I really enjoyed them. Light and airy and not too big. Not as good as the ones I had at Brennan's in New Orleans but that's understandable. 

Linda ordered a sandwich that was thinly sliced ham served with butter, fennel and radish. It was actually very refreshing. Like having a salad on top of your sandwich. Since we had already ordered fries, the waiter brought Linda a spinach salad to replace her fries. How awesome was that?

Nancy's pizza was plum and pork belly with creme fraiche and almonds. She's more experimental with her pizza choices then I am but her choices are always fun. This pizza was actually really good. It reminded me of a bbq chicken pizza that California Pizza Kitchen has but with pork, which is oodles better then chicken in my opinion. 

Unless that chicken is fried. I'm a sucker for fried chicken. The first time I heard of fried chicken and waffles was in Los Angeles with Roscoes Chicken and Waffles. I never tried their waffles but their chicken was great. Then I moved to Atlanta and they had Gladys Knight's chicken and waffles. Her chicken is divine and someone else ordered the waffles and they were awesome too. If you do go there, it's well worth it to order the wings. You wait a little longer but so good!

Anyway, having been around chicken and waffles for awhile, it's not unusual to see the combo on a menu. If I could have, I would have just ordered the fried chicken but it wasn't a chicken restaurant so I had to either order this or a chicken sandwich. I went with the waffle instead. It's a yeasted semolina waffle with ham and clover honey. I love honey with chicken. Thanks to KFC! This chicken was served boneless so that made me a little leery. I want my chicken bone in, that's where all the flavor is but they get raves for this dish so I tried and and I have to say, it was juicy, tender and delicious! I am a fan! The waffle did nothing for me but Linda made up for it by making me her soda waffles the next day (crispy on the outside, light and airy on the inside, my favorite!). 

I can't wait for my next trip to Portland. Why did I wait so long? 

Greece, until we meet again...

Since we were flying out early the next morning this is our last day in Greece. Su really wanted to do the Delphi tour. I wasn't so into it but it was an all day thing and I'd hate to miss a day with my girls so I agreed. The great thing about traveling with the girls I travel with is if someone wants to do something and someone doesn't, we can go our separate ways. We don't have to do everything together. If you're going to travel with someone you haven't traveled with before, I recommend doing a short stateside trip before you go oversees with them. It will be an expensive and tough lesson to learn in a different country.

From our research, the highlight for many people who went to Greece was renting a personal taxi for the trip to Delphi so I loosened my purse string (which I gladly open for food) and we all chipped in for one. Su shopped around and got us a great deal (I can't stress enough how much money you save going offseason). They say the trip is personalized for you and on your schedule but it's not really. They pretty much have a set route, the only thing that really differs is how long you spend at a place. If you want to stay longer, you can. But while it was a pretty set itinerary, it was still a lot of fun and worth doing. Our driver showed up at 8am, Lina woke up early to go watch the sunrise at the Acropolis. Since we went to bed when the sun was almost coming up, none of the rest of us were doing that. 

I think our driver's name was Paul. He was extremely nice and had been a cab driver for 22 years so very knowledgeable of the area. The company we went thru was family owned and he works for his uncle (but his cousin really runs the show, she keeps them all in line). I can't remember the name of the company but Su will know if you need that info in the future. The coolest thing about Paul, he was Brian Williams personal driver for 2 weeks during the Olympics. We showered him with questions about that. Yes, Brian Williams is as cool and funny and down to earth as he comes across. 

Since it was early the 3 of us in the back quickly fell asleep as soon as we got out of Athens city limits. Lina sat in the front and her and Paul chatted til we hit our rest stop. They have great rest areas in Greece. You can get food, snacks and drinks. Nothing really appealed to me but Lina bought a dessert for the 4 of us to share and it was my favorite dessert of the entire trip so I had to wax poetic about it.

          

It had a very small cake like bottom layer, then a chocolate mouse, then a white mousse then more cake, then a frosting and the chocolate that was sprinkled on it was unsweetened which kept the dessert from being too sweet. I dived right into my side as you can see. It took all I had not to eat every one else's portion. I had to take a photo because it was so good. 

Once we got back on the road the back seat woke up. We just needed a little power nap to get us going. Actually, they needed a power nap, me, unless I'm driving, I always fall asleep on road trips. My dad used to joke that he could drop us off at the mall and we wouldn't be able to find our way home because we would all fall asleep on the way there. The mall was 15 minutes from our house, LOL. In our defense, we moved cross country a few times and always by car, usually packed to the gils. Sleep was our only refuge. I'm much better then I used to me. 

Our next stop was the Monastery of Osiou Louka. Paul gave us some history of the place and then set us free to wander. It was a beautiful place. So serene. I love that it wasn't crowded. 

Nancy's favorite spots were the monasteries. She says she could easily spend all day at them. It really was quite beautiful. 

Less then half an hour later Paul pulled over so we could take a couple of pics of Arahova, Delphi is on the other side of it. Arahova is a big ski town in the winter and driving thru it definitely feels that way. The buildings were cute, the roads narrow, lots of fun shops that we would have loved to browse in if we had had the time. A very Swiss Chalet feel to the town.

Apparently Delphi is famous for their Oracle. I didn't know that, I hadn't really done much research on it. I like to research where to eat, leave the history to the other gals. Of the 4 of us, only Lina actually saw the Oracle. Su and Nancy forgot to look for it and I had probably turned around at that point. 

Su and Nancy ran up the theater steps, I took the pathway up (big surprise, LOL).

The Temple of Apollo is pretty big. If you click on the pic and enlarge it, you'll see the people standing at the base of it. Would have been amazing to see when the building was in its entirety. 

While the rest of the girls went all the way to the top, I went back to the cab to rest. We've been living on 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night, I was exhausted. Paul was quote surprised to see me back so soon. He says it normally takes people a couple of hours to go thru. He should see how fast I go thru a museum. I told him to go back to talking with his friends, the other gals will be awhile and I curled up into a ball in the back seat and took a nap. 

Once the girls came back we made one more stop at the Temple of one of those A goddesses. I chatted with Paul while the ladies made the trek. Unfortunately my camera battery had died so there are no pics from it. Paul was showing me how the various temples and landmarks made a triangle but from different points in Greece, way before google earth. That was pretty fascinating. I'm amazed at what was accomplished over a thousand years ago without technology. 

We stopped at a family owned restaurant for lunch. This was our view with lunch. I don't know what this plant is, some kind of flowering cactus with lots of thorns but they had them in pots all around and they were beautiful. There is water out in the distance in case you can't tell from the image. 

Because we've been eating so much seafood lately, we were drawn to the meat platter, well, not Lina, our vegetarian. This was a platter for 2. The three of us couldn't finish it. None of us bothered with the chicken (we're all dark meat gals) but the pork was divine. So juicy but crispy on the edges, loaded in flavor. I also really enjoyed the sausage. We ordered another salad swimming in dressing. We really need to remember to order the dressing on the side! It was a lovely meal tho in a beautiful location. 

After lunch it was time to head back. I think we all stayed awake for the ride home, I was refreshed, LOL. They actually grow a lot of cotton there and you can see it all along the sides of the road. Paul said that there are actually people who gather the cotton on the road (that most likely fell from trucks) and sell it. Smart! 

Lina found a place for us to go to dinner, once we all finally got ready. 360 Degrees had a great website and awesome reviews. Unfortunately, others had the same idea we did and it was packed. BTW, we were right next to the building and I still asked the cute cops where it was located. It's a good thing I did, we were going to walk right past it. :) Since it was too loud for us inside and too cold for us on the roof we snapped a couple of pictures with the Acropolis behind us and went somewhere else to eat. 

We just ate at an outdoor cage in Monastiraki Square. For our last meal there, it was nothing to write home about but I believe the ladies got some wine out of the deal and it wasn't a very expensive meal on our part. 

Afterwards we went back to 360 Degrees and it had cleared out so we went to the bar to have a few drinks and enjoy our last night in Greece. They had a passion fruit martini which I totally loved. The bartender is one of those bartenders who takes his job very seriously. Everything is just so. He was very exacting. It was fun to watch him make drinks. I was waiting for him to flip a bottle over his head. We were watching mix up some weird shot concoction and it turns out they were for us, the DJ had bought us a round. Have I mentioned how much I love Greece?

Unfortunately, we had an early flight out and were leaving our apartment at 5am so we only had a couple of drinks and the shot before we called it a night. If we had found this bar earlier, we would have spent more time there. It was a lot of fun, great music and it's a given that the waiters are cute. 

I think we got back to our apartment sometime after 1 and needed to leave at 5am. Course we still had to pack. If you're gonna play, you gotta pay. Thank goodness I can sleep on planes! 

If you ever get a chance to go to Greece, jump at the opportunity. I've had a lot of wonderful trips in my life but this was by far my favorite one. I loved the people, I loved the food. If you go thru airbnb you can get great deals on apartments and if you don't want to go thru that route, the hotels we stayed at were all extremely reasonable. In the states they don't really notice if you have more then 2 in a room but the places in Europe are so small, you have to tell them so you do pay extra if you have more in your room but you're splitting 4 ways anyway. 

The waiters said they knew we were American right away because we smiled. The stigma of the ugly American hasn't reached Greece. I guess because those of us who are in Greece are thrilled to be there.

Pickpocketers do run rampant, but there are signs everywhere, the cops always told us to be careful and on the metro they have announcements telling people to be aware, as long as your mindful of that, you'll be fine. We took the metro at all times of day and never felt uncomfortable. Well, other then the old man who wanted to try and strike up a convo with Su and talk about the end of the world in a crowded train. That was funny, maybe not to Su. 

The riots that everyone was worried about are really controlled demonstrations. There are a handful of people who show up to make chaos and that's where all of the news footage comes from. Other then the transportation inconvenience, we'd never know it was happening. 

I will definitely be coming back to Greece. I feel like there's so much I missed. It might be a few years and a few more vacations to other destinations but Greece will forever hold a piece of my heart. 

Now I end our Greek adventures with the two last pictures taken in Greece which are some of my favorite pictures of the entire trip. Why Su thought she could wrestle with me I have no idea. I know her kryponite, am twice her weight and have 5 brothers. 

What I love most is this pic was taken less then a minute later. We are two peas in a pod! Do we look good at 2am or what? Can't wait for our next adventure!

A culinary adventure…even more then normal

We had a 2pm ferry ride back to Athens, well back to the metro stop that would take us back to Athens. If we had to do it all over again, I would definitely recommend buying a plane ticket versus taking the ferry. While the ferry is a nice ride and more economical when on vacation, time is precious. The ferry ride was longer then I thought it was going to be and even tho we had a 2pm departure we didn't really have time to do much in Mykonos before we left for the ferry. We wanted to go into Mykonos town to do a little more shopping but George advised against it. I did take time to wander around the hotel and take some more pics and work on my tan one last time while the gals returned the ATVs. 

 I will miss the Paradise View Hotel and George and his staff. We had a wonderful but brief time there. I can't wait to go back!

 The blues of Aegean sea are just gorgeous. 

By the time we got back to our apartment it was late. Lina found a restaurant that we could walk to from our apartment. It was a Greek style tapas bar. As always we were going out late for dinner but this was even later then normal. Due to the time of night and the time of season, not everything on the menu was available but we still had a culinary experience. Once our waiter found out how adventurous we were he started making suggestions. 

Lina ordered a raw zucchini salad. I'm so used to eating zucchini cooked that I was leery but it was actually quite delicious. I really enjoyed it. 

I live in the pacific northwest, why I insist on ordering mussels elsewhere is beyond me. But these mussels weren't bad. They are not as good as what we can find here but they weren't the worst we had. 

This was a smoked mackerel with dill. We didn't expect it to be a dill salad, LOL. I love the taste of mackerel but it's a very fishy fish, if you don't like that, you won't like mackerel. This was a little dry but the taste was enjoyable. 

The fried young calamari was a big hit. While I prefer my squid grilled, these puppies were very light and airy. I just wish they would have a dipping sauce like we're used to in the states. I miss my aioli. 

This was probably my favorite thing of the night. They were tiny little fish fried up with tomatoes and peppers and they were sticky and flavorful and all kinds of things yummy. My mouth is watering just thinking about this. 

This was an experiment. Our waiter said most people either love it or hate it. I was ambivalent about it. It's not something I would ever order again but was happy that I tried it just for the experience. The above is fish roe that's preserved in wax. On the ends of the plate are halves of apricots to give you and idea. It's served with bread slathered in butter (probably Nancy's favorite part of the meal, it was really good bread). You put the piece of roe on top of the butter to eat it. This was a very salty, fishy, waxy dish. Not really a surprise, LOL. I think I would have liked it if it was less waxy tasting. Apparently this is bottarga, the greek version of caviar. 

They didn't call these rocky mountain oysters but that's what these were. They were pan fried bull testicles. I have to say, tastes like chicken fried steak. If you can get past the idea of what you're eating, and obviously I can, it's pretty dang tasty. I think it would have tasted even better with a side of rice.

One of my favorite customs is the free drink or free dessert. This place brought us BOTH! I'm not a fan of this dessert, that was served everywhere, its a super moist grainy cake but this was probably the best one of the ones we were given. We got 2 kinds of liquors. One of them was made only on one island with the sap of a specific tree. Nope, can't remember the drink or the island. I didn't like the drinks but didn't want to be rude so drank them. Luckily these were little bottles. How cute are they?

Our second to last night in Greece, I'm not ready to go home yet!

Paradise by the dashboard lights

People say go to Santorini for beauty and go to Mykonos to party. I have to say, Mykonos is pretty dang beautiful in it's own right.  Surrounded by the gorgeous Aegean sea, how can it be anything but beautiful?

We got up and had breakfast provided by the hotel, yes, it had Greek yogurt and it was fabulous. When we checked in, George told us we could rent scooters or ATVs for cheap since it was off season. There's no way I'm driving a scooter, I could barely drive a Segway but I was down with riding an ATV. I originally thought I could drive but then decided against it and so Lina became the driver for us and Su was the driver for her and Nancy. We had to be picked up and taken to the rental place where the girls got driving lessons. 

Kudos to Lina and Su for driving. The roads here aren't very wide and they are curvy. I had a great time as a passenger, then again, I wasn't responsible for anyone's life. ATVs are a great and fun way to get around town. 

After a quick stop back at our hotel to refresh and orient ourselves we headed to Mykonos town for some shopping. We really haven't done much shopping on our trip but the town is so cute and we needed some souvenirs. Since I can't buy something for someone without buying something for someone else I only shop for myself. Makes life easier. 

Remember the sea urchin I was talking about and how they said that you can't fish for them in Mykonos. Walking from the parking lot into town we could see sea urchin all along our walk.  The water was so crystal clear it was easy to see. Where I go clamming here in WA there is sea urchin but it's very muddy. Nothing as pretty and clean looking as this. Those black spots on the rocks are the sea urchin. 

A closer look. 

I loved walking around Mykonos town, it was fun walking around at night but it was just as much fun walking around during the day. It's just so different then what we're used to here. When the ships get into town the streets are teaming with people but we beat the ships which was nice. I was able to get some pics without people in it. 

We were looking for new dresses to wear to dinner. As you can see, Zoolander showed up to go shopping with us. 

It was a pretty successful shopping trip. I bought a cover up that I was going to use as a shirt (if I had brought the right bottoms I would have worn as a dress, LOL) and a beautiful water color that will always remind me of being in Mykonos. The shops are really small so when you want to try something on, they make do. The full length mirror gets turned sideways and that's the wall you change behind. Sometimes they don't even have a mirror to hide behind. It's a good thing I'm not shy. 

We had lunch on the end of town. The food was wonderful. We tried a fish roe salad which is basically a fish dip. It was salty but I enjoyed it. They also gave us free olives and a tomato spread that the girls said was great. 

Our fish here was served deboned, was awesome!

After a quick trip back to the hotel to change and drop off our goods we headed out to Super Paradise Beach. There are so many beaches to choose from but since we're always limited on time we went to a close one and it was still a 20 minute ride. By they time we got there, it was, you guessed it, 5pm. The good news is it makes it easy to get a beach chair. 

While the day is still warm, the water was a little cool but not as cold as the pool was yesterday. Lina planned on lounging in a chair and relaxing. Nancy was going to join Su and I in the water but she was attacked by a minnow and decided she was safer on the shore (and she was in the middle of a good book). 

Su and I spent our time in the water being totally goofy. I can't even remember what we were talking about but there was a lot of Asian cackling. We weren't laughing so much when we were almost run down by a yacht. At first we thought we were safe because they were heading for the dock but they weren't. They were heading strait towards us. Thank goodness they dropped anchor before they got to us because our paddling to get out of the way was very slow. Very very slow, lol. I think Su could have gotten out of the way if she wasn't also pulling me and my spare tire.  

Once we got out of the water we thought it would be fun to go on the dock and take pics with my inflatable tire. The others on the beach were entertained by us as we entertained ourselves. Then we got goofy with each other. This was one of the more presentable photos. 

Our ATV didn't really have much of a get up and go and the beach was at the bottom of a steep hill. Not a great combination. Lina had to do the rocking motion to get us up. Go partway up the hill, roll back down to get momentum to get up. We got a little bit of momentum that way, I was leaning as far forward as I could to help and chanting I think I can, I think I can. I honestly thought the engine was going to blow, it was straining so hard getting up the hill, but it still beat the alternative of me walking up the hill. Just as we started going again we got passed by a couple on their ATV and he shouted out encouragement, we were trying! Once we made it up the big hill we finally got going and caught up with Nancy and Su who were pulled over waiting for us. Oh and on the ride home we also had to drive around a hobbled horse and his trainer who was just chatting to some guy in the middle of the road. Fun times!

By the time we got ready for the night, Lina was pooped so she stayed in. Good thing we had George there to do a shot of tequila with us. We offered to buy him a shot if he drank with us. At first he said no but we were able to talk him into it and then bonus, the drinks were on him! It's fun to drink with the owner of the hotel. 

Since George is Greek he eats Greek food all of the time so one of his favorite restaurants is an Italian place, Pasta Fresca. We have to go with what the local recommends. Nancy being the rockstar navigator that she's been was able to find it in the maze of buildings. They sat us outside under this giant olive tree. It was awesome! I learned the hard way that olives don't taste good until they've been brined (that was a different trip). But I was still tickled to be sitting under the tree. I think one or two even dropped on our table. 

For some reason we were extra giggly this night. Maybe it was the wine Nancy and Su were drinking. Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was because we were heading home in a couple of days and it was our last night in Mykonos. I just know we were being stupid and laughing about how stupid we were. Usually it's me laughing at Su and Nancy, LOL. 

Something we didn't laugh about was the food. George was a perfect 2 for 2. We had an amazing dinner. We had clams for an appetizer and mushroom ravioli but the show stopper was the seafood platter. This platter is supposed to feed 2, it easily feeds 4 and since we had no idea how huge it was we couldn't finish it. There were 2 kinds of fish, shrimp, squid and octopus. It was a definite food highlight for me. 

Course, just because we couldn't finish our food doesn't mean we didn't order dessert. The desserts were a miss but it extended our lovely meal so we weren't complaining. 

Ok, this next photo will help explain our goofiness. We saw the waiters give other tables a shot of lemoncello when they brought out the bill. They brought us a carafe. Did I mention our waiters were young and cute? Of course they were cute, we were in Greece after all! Christiano was actually from Albania or as Nancy likes to call it, Armenia. I think the lemoncello kept us there an hour longer because we each had 6 or 7 shots of it. It would be rude not to drink it all. As you can tell, the girls drinking the wine were feeling no pain. 

We ended up spending the entire night at the restaurant and it was a blast. We made it back to the bus stop just in time to catch the last bus. Oh funny thing, we stopped into a shop by the bus stop to grab a bottle of water and the cashier came out to chat us up while we were waiting for the bus. He was 16?!?!??! I guess it couldn't hurt for him to try, LOL. 

Lina was up by the time we got back, it could have had something to do with the fact I sent her a text, so while Nancy passed out on the bed, Su and Lina chatted the night away while I curled over in a ball moaning. Turns out, my body does no like lemoncello. Lesson learned. Of course, I would still do it again for a night like that.