Come...I Give You Good Price

As English teacher assistants we have a very rough schedule of 12 hours a week (it's harder than it sounds...for some) and along with that every other month we have a two week vacation. Our first vacation landed in our first month of work. So on the 23rd of October we started Le Vacances de la Toussaint (basically a two week break for All Saints Day a.k.a Halloween).

We had planned a five day trip to Athens, Greece. Our flight was at 6:30a.m., and we had schedule a shuttle to pick us up at 5 a.m. To only be awoken by Lauren's brother-in-law letting us know the shuttle drive had insisted on a 4:30 a.m. pick up time...it was 4:15 a.m. when we received the call. The driver also arrived early at 4:20 a.m. So, we threw some clothes on, grabbed our bags and rushed out the door.

Of course we got to the airport an hour and a half early. At least we thought...
Turned out our flight had been delayed till 9:30 a.m., and we had checked the night before and there had been no change. We had the next four and half hours to kill. Sweet.

(There had been a train strike going on that week, which was the cause of the delay in time.)

We FINALLY boarded our plan at 10:30 a.m., which set us back practically a whole day in Greece, because it was a 4 hour flight there and getting from the airport to the hotel.

From the airport we caught a taxi with an overly friendly Aussi-- who gave us a tour along the way. Once we arrived at our hotel, we had problems with check-in and the pre-arranged price. Of course. So, we ended up switching hotels last minute, which worked out in our favor. Finally!

After dealing with the hotel, we decided to head towards downtown Athens for some dinner. Problem was we didn't know where to go. We literally asked an older American couple if we could follow them to the main streets. They were very nice, and had sons our age. We chit chated along the way till we reached their destination-- a roof top restaurant with the Parthenon behind it. They ended up inviting us to join them for dinner with their friends! It turned out to be alot of fun. We talked about Europe and America-- the differences between them-- and updates from home.

Over the next four days, we got to know the little, twisty roads of the tourist area really well.Athens itself is extremely crowded and polluted (It made Paris look spacious). So we stuck too the cute touristy streets. Where we learned the art of bargaining, which is considered perfectly fine..even in stores. Basically the convoerstaion would go like this: (Imagine in a classic Greek accent)

"Come...look...I give you good price," Sales merchant

"Oh that's ok we are just browsing." or if we found something, "How much is this?"

"Oh this is very beeeuutiful. You have very good taste. I give you good price."

And if we didn't like the price and started to leave, we got this: "Ah, wait I give you good price. Why you don't want? You don't buy yourself enough gifts. You are on vacation and all you do is buy, buy for friend and family, but what about you? Life is too short to worry about money. You only live once. Everyday you buy a little things like food and coffee. You see, these prices add up. So you just buy this one thing and it is the same."

We got very good at ignoring them or when we did want something, we knew if we started to walk away they'd knock another 10 euro or so off the price. I would say my best bargaining was either getting three wallets for the price of one or getting 95 euros knocked off a designer, leather purse.

Along with the learning the art of bargaining, we also did some sit seeing. We went to the Parthenon and saw the Acropolis and Nike. We also went to the Temple of Zeus and walked around the gardens.

In addition to our sight seeing, we went on a one day boat tour of three Greek Isles. Of course it rained most of the trip like it had been most of our time in Greece (another lost opportunity for October tans), but there was one Island that was classic greek style with donkeys and all. We took a 10 min donkey tour around the Island (on this Island, the only form of transportation is donkeys), which I thought was fabulous, but Lauren didn't enjoy soo much.

I would have to say my favorite part of Greece hands-down was the food. Oh! It was amazing! Greek salads, Tzatziki sauce, Zucchini balls, warm (!) bread rolls with the best butter ever, and Gyros.

There was one night we were out walking along the streets, and we had heard about a show that was going on. And while looking for that place, an old man came up whisked us off to a Greek restaurant. He ask, "Do you like to dance? Yes, then you come with me." They had traditional Greek dancing. We ended up getting up on stage and dancing with them. It was alot of fun!

We had our favorite restuarant outside of the Parthanon (the same one the American couple showed us) that we went to three times. On our last night there they gave us a free dessert (fruit) and Oozo shots (super sugary and strong).

All and all Greece was great. I would recommend seeing Athens for a day or two and then going to one of the Islands, but make sure to go when the sunshine is a guarantee.

Paris, Barcelona, Paris, and Athens

Lauren, my room mate, and I have gone on two trips since moving to Paris six weeks ago. Our first was a weekend-jaunt to Barcelona, Spain.

It was the first real cloudy, windy and wet week in Paris. And by Thursday morning we were sick of it. So, I wasn't too surprised when Lauren sent me a text wanting to know if I'd be up to hopping a plane to Barcelona that night. Why not? When in Paris, right?

After rushing home from work, and throwing some clothes in a bag; we were off to the airport for some sunshine and late October tans.

We didn't land in Barcelona till around midnight, and crashed into bed around 1:30 a.m.

Bright and sunshiny early, we headed off to the center of Barcelona-- La Ramblas. During our weekend stay, we pretty much spent our entire time walking up and down La Ramblas admiring the odd street performers and merchants. They sold all kinds of things, from jewelry to pets (bunnies, birds, chickens, mice, ect).

We also took a hop-on-hop-off bus around to all the touristy stuff. Our favorite was Park Guell, which was designed by the famous Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi. It was beautiful with all the flowers, greenery and the tiled architecture -- very breath taking and original. The park is in a French film called "L'Auberge Espagnole."

La Ramblas is also known for pick pockets and even though we were on the look out, my purse was still almost stolen. While waiting for the hop-on-hop-off bus we sat down by a fountain to talk. There were many people around doing the same. A man sat down next to me and I didn't think much of it except he was rather close and breathing heavily. After awhile of him fidgeting, I glanced down and noticed he had his finger on my purse. I instantly grabbed it, placed it in my lap and told Lauren we should leave. I think while he was fidgeting he had managed to move my purse closer to him, because I had originally placed it in between our legs. As soon as we were in line for the bus, two men approached us stating they were police and saw the man had tried to steal my bag. Needless to say it was a little more excitement than I needed.

Unfortunately, it was not very warm. Even though it was sunny, there was a constant wind keeping it just chilly enough to prevent any sun bathing.

--more to come on Athens--

Pizza, Pizza!

After waiting five hours to get into our apartment, we unpacked and started to organize our things and decided to order a pizza.

First issue, where do you order a pizza in France? We knew where to go and get one, but the whole point of ordering in... is to stay in. So, I googled it and Pizza Hut popped up. Sweet! It was only a few blocks from our apartment, but sticking with the decision to not leave, (also, the locksmith had told us it would be better to not leave the apartment with the door broken) we placed an order for delivery at 8:20 p.m. They said 40min delivery time.

We had some friends coming over and thought it would be perfect timing for the pizza too. Our friends arrived at 9:30 p.m. and the pizza hadn't come more than an hour after we had ordered it. No big deal.

Another half hour goes by. 10:00 p.m., we decided to call in. They said that is was on it's way, and we proceed to explain we were given a 40min delivery time at 8:20 p.m. They lied and said it was 9:30 p.m. when we ordered the pizza.

Here's where it starts to get interesting, our French friends get on the phone. They proceeded to debate for an hour over whether the pizza should be free or not. The manager refused to do so, and we refused to pay. After waiting for pizza for two hours, we gave up. And then the door bell rings.

Our French friends were still on the phone with the manager when the pizza man arrived. They ran downstairs and handed the phone to the delivery man. We got two pizzas for the price of one. Scratch that, two cold, hard pizzas for the price of one, and one of them was baby size.

Don't order pizza for delivery in France, but if you do be prepared to have a debate about the difficulties of the day-to-day life of the working man and why we would want a pizza in a timely manner--just make sure to be tip-top on your French skills or have a native close by!