Our Thanksgiving Feast!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We decided to try to make our own Thanksgiving feast.  A guy on Brian's team's dad actually has a turkey farm but we couldn't get one that was small enough to fit in our oven so we decided to use a whole chicken instead.  We spent a couple of hours Wed. at the big grocery store here deciding what else we should make.  I found a recipe online for Potato Gratin that I thought I could find all the ingredients for then we decided to wing a stuffing and stuff our chicken like a turkey :-).  I found  a really simple stuffing recipe online but we couldn't find half the ingredients so I made it up basically.  I spent most of the day cooking and it actually all turned out really good!  My favorite was the stuffing. Brian brought home a really good apple pie and we successfully had a Thanksgiving meal in Greece :-).  

Happenings this week

I haven't written much lately b/c ever since we got the pup we haven't gone on any exciting trips so if I write once a week I can pretty much sum up what we did :-).  This past week was fun b/c the two Slovakian players on Brian's team had their girlfriends here visiting so I got to hang out with them.  You see me in the picture with them above.  The one in the middle is Romana (Josef's gf) and she is from Croatia and is so nice and speaks really good english.  She made me really want to go to Croatia, it sounds so beautiful there.  The one on the right is Nika (Michel's gf) and she lives in Slovakia and is much quieter but also very nice.  The boys left on Fri. to go to Athens to play their game so Maria took us to W for dinner.  The food there is sooo good and as you can see so is the dessert!  We definitely enjoyed ourselves and I left Marco home alone for 5hrs (the longest he has been alone!) and he was not happy when I got back.  Oh well, he has to learn.  On Sat. Maria, Romana and I walked around the shops and it started to pour rain so we sat and had a coffee while the boys were in Athens playing Panathanaikos.  They lost, unfortunately, but Brian said there were around 1000 people at the game screaming, banging drums, and basically creating chaos and making it so loud the boys couldn't even hear themselves talk to each other in the water.  He made it sound like it was a big distraction.  Hopefully they will beat them when they play them home!  Our fans aren't as crazy, that I've seen yet, but maybe we will gain more as the season continues.  This Sat. is a home game against Chamia and the boys are due for a win!

We have been trying to find a park for Marco to run around in.  He is small and a few sprints down our hallway tires him out but he still deserves to be outside in the grass.  We are learning that the manicured lawns here are few and far between.  You don't even see any lawns in front of any of the houses.  There is dirt everywhere, or cement.  There is a park right by our house that is fenced in and everything, would be perfect, but we quickly learned that we were not allowed to bring him in there.  There is another nice park by the sea but it is full of creepy refugees and stray dogs.  It is right by NOP's pool so one day Brian and I walked along the boardwalk there and let Marco play a little in the grass on his leash.  It is a beautiful location and they really could make so much more out of it but it seems like the refugees have taken over any locations perfect for relaxing and hanging out, since that is all they do all day, that and chase trucks on to the ferries.  We eventually had to pick him up though b/c we unintentionally made friends with a stray who followed us most of the way.  We let them sniff each other but Marco hasn't finished all of his shots so he isn't supposed to play with the potentially diseased.

On Mon. we decided to just drive up into the hills to see if we could find any open land for him to run.  It was an interesting adventure.  Up in the hills is where the nicer homes are supposed to be but you see a lot of construction, a lot of unfinished construction, so there is trash and dirt and noise everywhere.  We climbed pretty much as high as we could go and found a tilled farm that had some grass and Marco had fun getting muddy in that.  On our way back down the hill we ran into this guy in the top picture shepherding his flock.  It was pretty cool to see.  Just down the middle of the road.  Quite an authentic Greek moment :-).

1st Game against Panionios

This Saturday Brian finally had his first official league match!  Luckily for me it was a home game and they played the second best team in the league, Panionios.  All the boys have been anticipating this day for almost three months now!  I also have been anxiously waiting for the season to start.  The two Slovakian player's girlfriends are here so the three of us (and Marco) went to coffee before the game while the boys were together gearing up for the match.  I drove us to the pool and hesitantly brought the puppy, but it turned out fine, nobody said anything (at least not to my face) and he was quiet and well-behaved the whole match.  

The game started out great.  The first quarter Brian's team was up two goals.  Brian played an aggressive defense and got kicked out twice in the first quarter but he scored an amazing goal.  After that though they seemed to get a little disorganized and started to get scored on.  They ended up losing 11-13 but against the second best team in the league it proves that they can hold their own!  Brian scored two great goals and I think the overall attitude after the game was relief that they didn't get their butts kicked and an elevated sense of capability.  I think it was a great way to start off the season.  They definitely have the ability to beat this team and I think they will prove this the next time around!

It is getting MUCH colder here AND we don't have our heat turned on yet.  I heard that there has to be three cold days in a row before they turn the heat on in the buildings.  I think this is the third day of what I consider cold so I hope they turn the heat on soon!  I sit in the house in my winter coat.  Especially since we have to leave the door open so that Marco will go potty outside (even though he is still struggling a bit at this skill).  He is getting much better at being on the leash and we have taken him out a couple of times to run around and get some exercise.  After about 20mins he tires out though, a little running goes a long way for a little pup.  We even left him home alone today for the first time, for about 2hrs, and when we came home there was no evidence of a panic attack so that was great news!  So far he has been great!

Next weekend Brian travels to Athens for his next game.  This week we are just staying warm and playing with our new toy, Marco.  He is lots of fun :=).

New bundle of joy

Not a lot has happened this week.....mainly because one BIG thing happened, and that is we got a PUPPY!  Yes, mom and dad you can curse now but after much deliberation we decided to get one.  We had been talking about it for some time, and while getting a puppy might not have been the most responsible decision of our lives it sure has been special.  His name is Marco, he is about 7 weeks now and he is either an Italian Spinone or a Wirehaired Pointing Griffon, or some sort of mix between them maybe?  There is a pet shop that we often pass on our walks because it is on one of my favorite streets here and we always peek in to see the puppies.  We almost took another one home a while back but I talked Brian out of it because it was much larger.  This time though I knew when he called me to meet him there that it was going to be a struggle to talk him out of this one.  On the phone he said, "Where are you?  If you don't get here soon I'm just going to buy him."  So of course when I walked in the shop and saw this ADORABLE face laying in Brian's arms like a baby I fell in love as well.  We were in the shop for about 2hrs discussing it.  How big will he get?  Will we be able to bring him on the plane?  What about the costs?  etc. etc. etc.  The pet owner even let us take him to a vet to get a quick physical to make sure he was healthy before making any decisions.  She told us he was a Spignoli Griffon mix and was a mini dog and would only get to be about 5kilos (about 10-15lbs I think).  So neither one of us wanted to say no, and he was becoming more and more part of the family with us standing there holding him so I finally said OK!  I've had several panic attacks since then, mostly about the worry of taking him on the flight all the way home more then once, but he is young and resilient and I am sure he will be fine.  So after much research we could not find any type of breed called a Spignoli (only Spinone) and Griffons are small weird looking dogs that look nothing like Marco (yet Spinones are also known as Griffons) and so we are utterly confused on his breed.  There are breeds called American Wirehaired Pointing Griffons that I think look a lot like him and Italian Spinones also look similar so we are guessing he is one of them (I think they are pretty much the same dog).  That scares us a little though because those dogs can get up to 60lbs...so I'm wondering where the mini comes from ....?!  Anyways, he is part of the family now and he has been wonderful!  He listens and is cuddly and loving and is learning to sleep in his crate (he slept for 8hrs straight without a peep last night!!  We were so proud :-).  He is pretty good about pooping and peeing outside on the newspaper...he's had some accidents but luckily we have tile floors so we wipe it up and it's like it never happened.  Yesterday he got his first round of shots so we thought we would celebrate with a day out on the leash.....but that didn't go so well.  He wouldn't move so Brian more kind of dragged him for a few feet and then we gave up.  I think it was a lot to take in at once...I'm sure he'll learn.

Well that is the excitement in our life right now.  Brian has his first real game tomorrow (YAY!).  We hope Marco will be a great traveling dog so we can take him on some of our adventures in the future!

Nafplio

A lot has happened in the last week (including a futbol game where there was a HUGE fight in the stands) but most importantly was our trip to Nafplio.  Nafplio is one of Greek's prettiest and most romantic towns (according to my lonely planet tourist book).  Brian had been here in 2001 with the Junior National Team and fell in love with it so he wanted to share  it with me, and I of course fell in love with it as well!  It is located on a small port on the east side of the Peloponnese, about 2hrs away from Patra.  We pulled out my book and found a pension they recommended so we headed straight there when we got into town hoping they would have a room available at such late notice.  Luckily they did and the receptionist was so jolly and friendly he instantly put me in a great mood.  The pension was called Pension Marianna and sits way up on the hill so our room had this magnificent view of the town and the water.  We could even walk out the back and look up to another magnificent view of the breathtaking fortress up on the tip top of the mountain.  After dropping our stuff we immediately hit the streets and went for a little walk.  The town is graced with attractive narrow streets filled with adorable shops and restaurants.  We instantly saw the Museum of Komboloi and we got excited.  The Komboloi are the worry beads that all of the Greek men flop around their hands when sitting at coffee or at a futbol game or just chatting with their friends.  It is a very Greek custom and we were intrigued.  Brian even entertained the idea of getting one but I kind of talked him out of it since it is such a Greek custom and well....we aren't Greek :-).

Nafplio was the first capital of Greece after Independence and has been a major port since the Bronze Age.  Despite its relatively small size it built three fortresses to protect its strategic position.  We visited two of these magnificent fortresses.  The first you can see in the pictures sits on a small islet and is called Bourtzi.  We took a little boat out there on our first day to explore.  The views of the sea and back towards the town are beautiful.  The second fortress is called the Palamidi fortress and is located 216m up on top of a rock overlooking the town (you can kind of see it behind Brian and I in the picture).  It was built by the Venetians between 1711 and 1714, and is regarded as a masterpiece of military architecture.  It is VERY intimidating but the minute we got to Nafplio we decided, we are going to do the walk.  There are two options of getting to the top of this fortress, one is walking the 999 steps to the top, the second option is driving.  Of course, us being our young energetic selves decided we were going to walk.  After all, you can always drive up there but someday we will not be able to make the walk!  So we decided to leave that for our second day, for the morning when it wasn't quite so hot.  After a large lunch our first day and a short nap we had dessert and some coffee on the water and hit the sack, gearing up for our big adventure.

We woke up kind of questioning our decision to make the walk, after all we had our very own car and we could zip right up to the top, even though I argued our car had the potential to zip right back downwards unannounced........so we eventually motivated, after our small pension breakfast (still no pancakes, omelettes or strawberry/banana smoothies we crave).  So off we went beginning the ascent.  Supposedly the number of actual steps is up for debate, so naturally Brian decided to count all of them.  Once we began I was immediately drawn into the views and couldn't stop taking pictures.  We could see over to the other side of the peninsula and saw a beautiful beach with only one person wading in the water (we should have brought our bathing suits!).  It was a beautiful day and we started early enough because the stairs were still in the shade.  After about 912 steps, and lots of water and short breaks later (only about 15min. actually) we made it to the fortress.  It was amazing being up there.  The fortress isn't actually much to look at, a bunch of stacked stones to be honest, but it is well preserved and quite large and unlike anywhere I've been in the states they let you explore on your own.  There are no railings to catch you if you trip and plummet off the side, no restrictions on where you can go up or down or thru.  So of course we went exploring.  Brian wanted to go as far as possible so I followed him.  In the top picture you can see we found these stairs seemingly leading off the cliff but they lead us to a path around the side of the mountain, over a very creaky unstable bridge, under a hornets nest and basically into rattlesnake heaven.  After hearing two rattlesnakes at my feet I panicked (to say it mildly) and made Brian leave.  That might be the last time I follow him to explore ;-).  We made the descent with much more speed and once we got to the bottom we knew we would be hurting the next few days (oh the burning calves).  We walked around the town for a little while longer, had another coffee and then headed back to Patra in time for Brian to make his evening practice.  Brian and I have both listed Nafplio as one of our favorite cities and we are excited to take our next visitors there!