How we got here

Five years ago, we made our first trek to and through Greece.  We did not see anywhere near everything that we wanted or even could see, and as a result, we promised ourselves that we would return and try again.

Of course, even remotely trying to "repeat" that trip was misplaced effort.  American Airlines alone made it near impossible for us to redeem miles in any meaningful fashion (we ended up traveling from Boston to Düsseldorf to avoid the airline fees), and this time we opted to arrange all of our accommodates in advance, albeit entirely through AirBnB.  

As a side note, I took my obligatory two semesters of German in college and remember enough to know that compound verbs are annoying.  But Düsseldorf is a more civilized place where the citizens don't get angry if you can't speak German (ask me about my train ride from Cologne to Essen), and since I can still say "excuse me" "please" and "thank you", Randall and I were able to get by, which was important because when we got off the flight from Boston to Düsseldorf, we dutifully retrieved our checked luggage and then followed the green arrows on the floor to terminal A, where our next flight was leaving.  Except at no point along this way were we given the opportunity to recheck our baggage (we were not flying on one continuous reservation), but we were confronted with an agent who needed to see our boarding passes for us to continue our progress.  Of course the boarding passes scanned.  And then we saw that the next room was security check to get to the gate.  And we still had our 3 checked bags.  So, I left Randall with the bags and went in search of an answer.  "Entshuldigen Sie bitter.  Sprechen Sie English?" didn't sound as much of a question as a desperate plea.  The agent was responsible for overseeing passengers coming through the automatic gates, and dealing with the myriad issues which arose from the warning beeps of people trying to scan their boarding passes too quickly after the previous passenger, or worse, trailing through after another passenger (think MBTA turnstile jumpers).  She was kind, and started to look up where I needed to go to check my bags, meanwhile swearing in ever increasing German at the problems which continued to arise as she dealt with my unexpected issue.  Now, if you really know me, you know that I can be obsequious to a fault when I needed, and since I had 3 hours to kill, I could afford to give her 15 or more minutes to answer my question, while she was still trying to do the rest of her job.  We were told we needed to leave the intermediate area, and return to the outside world where we could check our bags.  Of course, getting out this area was not easy, and my new friend had to stop the flow of passengers to let us out.  Why is this relevant, you are asking?  Because after waiting over an hour to get to the ticketing agent to check our luggage, we then had to go back to turnstile area and have our boarding passes scanned to let us in.  Except now, the error code said these were duplicate passes since they had accidentally already been scanned.  Except, my new friend was still there, and as soon as she saw me (R was in the turnstile closer to her), she immediately brightened in the face of the issue, said "I know you", and let us through a special gate.  So nice.  Of course, then, my watch set off the metal detector, and I got felt up by a grabby German "TSA" agent.  I hope it was good for her.

The flight from Düsseldorf to Thessaloniki was otherwise uneventful.  It was your standard Airbus 320 with rows compacted for maximum occupancy.  Randall and I quickly discovered that since this was a daily shuttle involving two non-standard locations, the flight was generally comprised half of Germans and half of Greeks...and us.  We had to have been the only two native English speakers on the flight, not that it mattered since we were both so tired, we slept through nearly the whole flight.  I will note that as we descended into the area, from the air, the geography of Thessalia is significantly different than Athens or the Peleponnese.  This is more about farming and less about olive production.  And the airport was yet another example of the flagrant use of marble on the floors in the baggage claim area.  

We rented our car, a SEAT Toledo (???) saloon car, aka, hatchback.  We were supposed to get a Mercedes A3, but Hertz somehow thinks this is "similar".  Whatever.  It's automatic transmission, and that is what is really important for those imminent switchback mountain passes.  The biggest question then was whether to follow Waze or Google maps.  No more Tom Tom Greece--I will miss "Iris"; the voices of Waze and Google are (unfortunately) already named.  1.5 hours later on some surprisingly high quality roads, we arrived in Paleo Kavala to our first rental--a delightful first floor, garden apartment.  We had seen horses, goats (on the side of the highway as per the warning signs!), and multiple dogs, including the very excitable Lukas, the terrier of the owner's parents who live upstairs. We wandered into town seeing more dogs, but no sign of cats, and then as if sent from the gods, as we were finishing dinner, in trotted this affectionate little girl.  

As you may remember from my last journey, it is my goal to make contact with at least one cat every day.  Level 1 unlocked.