.... we will be enjoying a wonderful dinnery with a large group of friends in Athens!!!!

We are so looking forward to TUT!!!

JoAnn, thanks for all the planning for Athens!!

Susan and Priscilla, thanks for all the planning for the hotel!!

Ngaire, thanks for a wonderful cruise!!!!

See everyone really soon...

....after....

our EXODUS from Alabama :D

I'm counting the days with you :hug:

Translation

Although mazel tov literally translates to "good luck", the phrase is not used in the way that the expression "good luck" is used in English (typically as "I wish you good luck"). It rather means "good luck has occurred" or "your fortune has been good" and is an acknowledgement of this. The phrase "mazel tov!" parallels the use of the phrase "congratulations!" and conveys roughly that "I am pleased this good thing has happened to you!".
The phrase for wishing good luck to occur in Hebrew, in the way "good luck" does in English, is b'hatzlacha (בהצלחה), literally meaning "with success".[3]

Thanks, Suzie, and I must say we're really looking forward to this good fortune of a cruise even though the only thing we have packed so far are Euros. But that's a good start.

See ya'll soon!

Cheers! Ray & Penny

We'll be there, can't wait!!!

Ray, like you the only thing packed so far is the euros. But.......today we officially start the packing.

Hope all you TUTsies have the best cruise. Can't wait for all the great seamail and pics.

Yes - don't forget those of us who are vicariously enjoying your cruise!

I am sure that all the people on TUT will have a marvelous time. Only regret is I won't be on it with you but I shall be looking forward to your seamails if you have the time to write. I know you will have a ball and I hope calm seas.
Elaine

Oh the Souvlaki. Accompanied by fresh tomatoes and tzatziki. EXTRA tzatziki please. The cold Alpha beers (and Mythos in a pinch.) We can't WAIT to hit Athens. And then the obvious added bonus of boarding Voyager (our favorite ship to date) a couple days later and sailing to parts of the world we have never been but have only dreamed of. (As well as returning to some happily familiar places.) And sailing on an escorted cruise with so many newfound LCT friends.

And then disembarking in Venezia??? Wow. This will, for sure, be the trip of our lifetime.

Just trying to take it all in........the anticipation is as much fun as the trip itself, of course!

I love your enthusiasm Kristin and mine kicked in big time today!!! It has been there but finally realized today WE ARE GOING!!! I had to google your food thoughts - guessing you just look for it on menus in restaurant windows OMG it sounds soooooo yummy! I cannot wait for sail in to Venice - did it once in or out, I forget, but IT WAS spectacular!!! Can't wait to see you both XXOO :ch: :ch: :ch:

Kristin don't forget the Retsina and Ouzo!!

I know a great place right by the dock in Mykonos where you can get souvlaki and a bottle of retsina quite cheap. Actually, it wasn't that cheap last year because Arlene went shopping while I was eating. :D

Oh yeah today we officially started the packing and now it seems real!

Kristin - all those things you said!!! Can't wait to hit Athens. And then of course the Voyager and all that it will bring, not to mention amazing ports, and friends.

Joanna - Friday night - souvlaki, that is where we are going, hopefully we can still find that place!! LOL. Promise to get directions from the hotel concierge.

Marc you are ON for Mykonos! We loved just walking and chilling at seaside bar.. JoAnn can't wait! I have euros and have lists but doubt any packing till Sun/Mon -

Packing going on here. We leave Sunday morning for Vienna. I bought an iPad and it has been quite a distraction, but I have just a few errands to do tomorrow and then will make the packing decisions. Vienna is going to be chilly so that is adding complication.

Arlene is a great shopper. Russ took a wonderful picture of her shopping at Ephesus last year. She looks soooo slim.

Have a massage planned for the morning of Mykonos. Then we plan to get off and go past those restaurants where we sat before along the harbor, way back toward the windmill and have lunch at one of the restaurants along there, which we saw and loved on B2B, but by the time our Monastery and walking tour was over we didn't have the energy to walk all the way back to.

Joanna, we actually haven't started putting stuff in suitcases yet, but just started getting stuff out and checking to see if anything needed washing, putting things together, making sure we have room in the suitcases and such. We are slowly getting our act together.
I think you will like this little place in the Plaka we found.

No packing for us until Sunday. We are going to see how much more we can get unpacked and organized tomorrow, first. We still have three rooms plus the garage that need to be done. :(

Arlene said she found the docs today along with passports. I guess we are ready to go. :)

Susan:

PLEASE, if you see Arlene or I attempting to buy ANYTHING....

STOP US!!!

We are unpacking. Besides the stuff we acquired in all of our travels, we just got out of storage "stuff" we haven't seen (or needed) in four years. We are not buying ANYTHING, except maybe from Egypt as we have never been there.

We have so many Greek adn Italian plates, platters, trays; we don't need anything more Mediterranean.

well at least you found the passports and docs, maybe the two most important things. LOL. :app:

OK OK we just had a chat here - I plan to bring my one large suitcase and small carry on - T says ditto for him - then HE suggested we "share" a third suitcase for extras - share means he uses 90% - soooo typical

"I think you will like this little place in the Plaka we found." --- WE WILL!!!!!!

Well, I'm not a big fan of ouzo, but I'll have to try retsina - never had it. And I'll try anything once. Oh, except for patsa (which is supposed to be TRIPE soup - ewwww!).

Somehow, I am just not surprised that Leslie bought an iPad. Well, for the rest of you not on this cruise, I am annointing her supreme leader to send you pix, because Brad has as good a camera as Eugene, who just did the river trip with his. Right? Brad is in the "lens lad" league for BK, as we all know from previous cruises!

Oh! the anticipation from this group for seamail and pix! I can't wait!

Yesterday I exchanged several emails with Eugene who was very helpful in helping me get my iPad ready for downloading and uploading photos - it is so easy I almost can't believe it, so yes, definitely I will post some pix as we sail along.

Got some Euros last week (of course I waited until the Euro had gone up a few cents :mad: ). We'll start the packing process sometime this weekend. Really looking forward to seeing everyone and sharing some Retsina!!!! Kristin, I'm not much for Ouzo either--actually, I kind of like the Greek white wines and we love all the Greek food--after Mexican, it's our favorite ethnic food.

doing last minute laundry.....gathering.....sorting.....packing......adding.....eleiminating.....organizing......packing......deciding......packing.....
only three more days.......nails......hair.....we are getting ready! :app:

yay for you all

Noooooooooo! Thanks to Marc's posting about travel disruptions, I went to check our reservations and couldn't get in to the record on AA, so went to Iberia.com and pulled the record only to find out that Iberia has cancelled our Wed night flight, we have been rebooked on Thursday, but no one re booked our MAD - ATH flight to Fridayj. Just finally got off the phone with AA and got us now booked for Oct 1 MAD - ATH. There goes our great tour we had planned for Friday.

Joanna - what time do you get in Friday? We now arrive at 4:10, so will hopefully get to the hotel around 6. Whoever gets there first leave a message for the other so we can hook up.
Arrrrggggghhhhh!

We get in at 9:30 am on Friday, Oct. 1. Never got a call from the GB, so I emailed a request for an early check in--hopefully that works. We'll leave a message--give us a call when you get in. Anyone else getting in early on Friday?

SOOOO sorry to hear this news JoAnn - we are "scheduled" to arrive Oct 1 at 9:30 am - now I am going to check my reservations - don't worry we'll hook up come H or high water :mecry: :mecry: editing to say my reservations NOW show no changes wish we weren't going through dreaded JFK

Yes we will.

Joanna, are you on Delta out of JFK at 4:15 on Thursday? If so we're on the same flight.

YES PEGGY! Get to JFK at 2:50 PM

Yippee--see you there. We get in from DFW at 3:00. If there's time for the Crown Room we'll go there--otherwise we'll see you at the gate.

Just what I was thinking :lct: we leave Jax at 8:30 thru Atlanta getting picked up at house at 6:15 am so it will be a longggg day

For anyone who will be in Athens Friday night, Oct.1, I've found a neat sounding Greek restaurant a couple blocks from the GB --Tzitzikas and Mermigas. We'll probably go over there Friday night (we'll break the Greek rule and go pretty early) if anyone wants to join us. Here's a kind of long review:

Tzitzikas & Mermigas (The cicada and the ant, the name is derived from Aesop’s Fables)

SYNTAGMA SQUARE
Mitropoleos 12 – 14
210/32.47.607

The restaurant is owned by two women, if they created the name of the restaurant after themselves, the cicada is the creative one and the ant is the business person. Whatever they are, their restaurant seems to demonstrate that, unlike Aesop’s ant and cicada, creative types and hard working types can work together.

I violated the true foodie’s cardinal rule. Never go to a restaurant too hungry and never, ever leave too full.

I committed both.

We’d been hearing buzz about Tzitzakis & Mermigas for awhile. Friends who work in the Parliament building say it’s their favorite long lunch, so we thought we’d better check it out.

It is a beautiful February afternoon, about 60F degrees in the shade, and we strolled across Syntagma Square to Mitropoleos Street where, nestled among the modern buildings, a place reminiscent of my childhood invited us inside.

Six o’clock in the afternoon in Athens is too late for lunch and way too early for dinner. Sure, around Plaka you’ll find tourists dining at this hour, but it is very un-Greek so you can imagine our surprise when we saw that the restaurant was almost full with locals. A quick survey around the first floor dining room made it clear that these were not people there for coffee and dessert (that’s a Greek thing, eat dessert in the early afternoon and wait until 9-10 pm to eat dinner), and throughout our 3 hour stay, people – Athenians! – kept coming in, even at that odd time of the day.

The menu was traditional with a twist, it had old recipes from various parts of Greece, along with some interpretation using traditional regional ingredients.

The restaurant looks as if it were leftover from bygone years, shelves line the walls, stocked with dry goods, canned goods and spices, bulk drawers stuffed with dried peppers, beans and bay leaves, it is the quintessential Greek grocery, with the only departure from tradition being the modern wooden chairs. I was slightly disappointed not to have a traditional taverna chair, with the choice of two rungs, to rest my foot upon. Yet the creativity that shines through with touches like the old style flour sifters turned light fixtures and the giant flour emblem on the ceiling above the entrance let me forgive the missing footrest.

We were greeted by our waiter immediately, another pleasant surprise for Athens and brought over a dish of various types of olives and peppers along with two complimentary glasses of raki (one of the many grappa like drinks that are distilled from grape skins).

For years we have been on a quest for the melintzanosalata (roasted eggplant garlic spread). In fact, once we have determined that a restaurant doesn’t use mayonnaise in their eggplant salad, we always begin our meal with it. Unfortunately, the craze of late has been to add mayonnaise to the recipe, and it seems to not be limited to Greece, it occurs in Greek restaurants throughout the world, much to our dismay. Not here though. The eggplant was roasted and coarsely chopped with just the right amount of garlic and vinegar to dance on your taste buds, drizzled with quality olive oil and some chopped walnuts finished the taste with a slight crunch. When we looked for the silverware, the waiter noticed, smiled and said they were in the drawer of the table. Another clever touch, it reminded me of my grandmother’s house in the village. That’s where she kept them!

We also ordered the pougakia and pitakia (notice the –akia ending in both words, that is diminutive ending meaning small) purses filled with creamy goat cheese and shrimp) and the pitakia, empanada like in shape, and filled with melted cheese. Both “little purses” were wrapped in a flaky dough and deep fried. And though they did look lovely, we decided we prefer our “pitas” baked, resulting in a dryer, less greasy taste allowing the flavors of the stuffing to take the prize. We ordered a bottle of Antonopoulos red (a red blend of Mavrodafni, traditionally a sweet wine, but when the grape is picked early it has a wonderful rich buttery dry taste and Merlot, €24). It was the perfect accompaniment for the dishes we ordered.

Next came the mussels in ouzo sauce. These were fresh local mussels, no shells, and a nice size serving for two as an appetizer. Mussels are another of my favorite “test” dishes for a restaurant and a chef. They are wonderful when fresh and out of clean waters and awful when they are past their prime or from dirty waters. If you ever had mussels you did not like, try them here, you will fall in love with them.

When we tasted the mussels the flavor of fennel was prominent, even though the description of the dish did not include fennel. This was my opportunity to meet the chef, Panagiotis, a man of great stature with a mustache and definitely at the top of his game. I asked him about the mussels and he told me they had not been able to get mussels for quite awhile, despite being a regular menu item. In fact, this was the first day they were serving them. He told me the “secret” recipe. Salt, pepper, garlic, ouzo, cream and parsley … such simple ingredients, such wonderful taste.

The bread was sourdough, with a heavy thick crust yet moist and chewy inside. Great for soaking up the tasty light cream ouzo sauce leftover once we had devoured our mussels.

We should have stopped there … but alas, we were lingering, enjoying the ambience, unrushed by our server, and as time passed we ordered more. Keftedes (from the Turkish word Kiofte, Greek meatballs), two kinds, one pan-fried and one in a tomato sauce (“tis giagias”, grandmother’s meatballs, a daring name in a country where no one cooks better than anyone’s grandmother). The pan fried keftedes came with fried potatoes (I do not dare call them French fries, because these were outstanding and I don’t want to give the impression that these were anything like you have tasted before). Cut into odd shaped cubes, roughly 1″X1″ fried in olive oil until crisp on the outside and moist and soft on the inside). I have tried many potatoes, all around the world, from Peru, were potatoes are native, to the US to Europe. There is something special about the Greek potato. It is probably grown at a higher elevation turning much of its starch to sugar. This causes the potato to brown to a crisp on the outside, even when baked, and stay moist and soft on the inside.

The meat balls themselves were very round. I am used to them being slightly flattened (of course, my grandmother made them that way). They were crisp and hot on the outside, but disappointingly lukewarm on the inside. From our vantage point we could watch the kitchen as we ate and could see the two microwaves being used quite a bit to warm up dishes. Saying that, I need to add that everything was very fresh, the microwave ovens were only used to make the food hot. The keftedes tasted very fresh and they were very meaty. Meaty? You may ask. Traditionally, keftedes are made with a fair amount of bread mixed in with the meat. It was a way to make the meat go further. Some restaurants take that too far. Not here, however.

The keftedes in the tomato sauce are basically the same item, however, the meatballs are simmered in a sauce of fresh tomatoes, onion, garlic, olive oil, and some secret spices. The flavors blend well together.

Finally, as if all this was not enough, we also had the filiana dolmades, which were a disappointing attempt at fusion cooking. Perhaps using onion layers to wrap fillings is traditional somewhere in Greece, but we haven’t found it yet (there are however, 1000 islands, and we surely have not visited them all.) These dolmades, stuffed with bacon, cheese and spinach, sounded like they’d be make an interesting dish. But in the end, the gobs of melted cheese on top, and the instability of the “dolma” wrapper (the onion) coupled with the lack of substantial stuffing (normally a rice or meat and rice combination) left an unstable dolma which fell apart when cut and was not at all impressive.

Overall, the portions were generous, all the dishes we ordered were appetizers, but they were very filling.

The restaurant has a variety of meat plates, many traditional and some frequently found. On a subsequent visit, we’ll certainly try the Metsovitiko, lamb with leeks and cheese, the Santorinio, with a puree of eggplant and potato, and the Mastihisio, chicken in masticha sauce.

Of course, we will make sure not to order appetizers first … well, maybe just the mussels.

The total for 2 with wine came to €74.

Tzitzikas & Mermigas is located at Mitropoleos 12 -14, about a block and a half off of Syntagma Square. It’s a great place to experience life as an Athenian. Lunch is served beginning at 1 PM, and the tables will be full of business people, Athenians taking a break from shopping on Ermou and lots of Parliament employees practicing the art of the long Greek lunch. Mondays and Wednesdays seem to be the days most likely to find Athenians lingering, as these are the traditional days for many offices and businesses to close early and not reopen after siesta. Of course they are also open for dinner (the don’t close in between). The restaurant is a great alternative to the “combo plate” tavernas in the heart of Plaka, and it’s worth the 5 – 7 minute walk from the historical center.

YUM!!!!! Peggy sounds like a winner! We'll crash that afternoon so probably eat dinner later -

Peggy, your restaurant sounds like a real find. I love Greek food. Oh, I can't wait!

Joanna, so sorry to hear about your change in plans. I do hope Spiros will be able to take you to Mycenae on Saturday. (That was what you had planned for Friday, right?)

It's so close now. This is REAL!!!