Ferry Boat to Yunanistan!

What's Yunanistan you ask? As if I should have to tell you - that's Turkish for Greece! :) You're welcome for the random tidbit of information that may or may not win you one million dollars in a trivia game!

The ferry to Samos, Greece takes 1 hour and leaves from Kusadasi (Koosha-doss-uh). Well Kusadasi is about 2 hours from Vickie & Pete's place and the boat leaves at 8:30 am. So, instead of waking up at 4 am to start that trek, we opted to take the train down the day before and stay overnight in this hostel. This way, we only had to be up at 7 am to make it to the ferry. It was quite nice for a hostel but definitely a bit of a hippy commune. There were lots of 21 year old American backpackers and they played Dave Matthews by the pool.

Pushing Daddy in the hammock like a good daughter should.

Just behind the hill on the left is the ancient city of Ephesus (which we didn't have time to tour but we saw it from the road. I regret not being able to spend some time there but there's only so much you can do in 5 days)

The "nomadic seating area" complete with backgammon games and hookah pipes.

Our miniature middle-aged women, having a nice game of backgammon at 7 am.



This is they way they preferred to ride.

Love these two old ladies.

(honestly, not even sure what this photo/video/flip book is... but it's awesome. I don't know how our camera did this but I did not do it on purpose. Wait, yes I did, I fully intended to make this awesome thing)

 Oh...does it now? (in the ferry terminal at Kusadasi on our way to Greece)

We're getting on the small one on the left, not that big boy. :)

Coming into the Port of Vathy on Samos

It was so beautiful I thought my eyes might explode.

 Ferry Worker

The lovely Blue Sky bed & breakfast, owned by Nikos and his wife. Nikos is an old, kind, jovial Greek man and we miss him dearly. :) Just yesterday, home here in Dublin, Wayne goes, "Aw, I wonder what Nikos is doing right now....". He was a great host - the place was small but spotless and at 70 Euro for TWO nights, it can't be beat.

We had a small 'studio' room down the hall from Vickie, Pete & Reese. Pete is the resident chef so they had the room with the small kitchenette.

 Love this picture of Pete - I feel like he should be yodeling or something.

The girls running in the front door.

 Thank you picturesque Greek chair in an alleyway - you made my best photo. :)

Our hotel was 400 yards from the beach and this was the walkway to get there. *pinching ourselves!*

 Walkin' to the beach...

"Oh wait, there's a giant cockroach on the ground"

 Reese being so cute.

Look at the color difference in these two. Also frame-worthy.

 Norah waking up from her nap on the beach chair

You'll see below, Wayne and Pete climbed to the top of that hill in the background.



Wayne up top

Kitty Kitty

To give some perspective, the mound on the right, is the hill Wayne climbed earlier in the day - so the beach was behind this hill of houses.

These are so great to have. Two girls from Renton, Washington just having a little dinner in Greece with their husbands and 2 year olds. Not a big deal. Nope, not at all. :)

I'm here in Greece, at a Greek restaurant on the beach and (the oddball that I am), I kept thinking, "Hm. This looks surprisingly like the Greek restaurant in Fremont, back in Seattle"

Reese passed out cold, 10 minutes before dinner arrived. Beach days are tough.

Wayne was in heaven with this dinner.

I opted for the carnivore platter - that comes with not just a baked potato, but also with French fries....

Norah feeling the teeth inside the carcass of Daddy's dinner. Nice. It had surprisingly weird little molars and a mouthful of teeth.

I caught a moment of unadulterated pure sweetness and love between these two. It was sooo cute!

Outside our hotel room at Blue Sky - this was the view out the window in the hallway. Come ON people!

Nikos' Blue Sky Hotel. I want to remember this place always!

The village we stayed in was called Kokkari and this was their only playground. It wasn't quite as "third world" as the one in Selcuk, Turkey from the day before but it was pretty....rustic.

This one may be a framer.

Reese learned to strike a pose (love Norah's head peeking over her arm in the background!)

I snapped a picture of these because I just thought they were so ingenious! These are all throughout Turkey and also here in Greece. These are their hot water tanks, (always stored on the roof) which are heated by the connected solar panels! Helloooo! Genius. Why this isn't the norm the entire world over, I don't understand.

I understand I've just included about 80 photographs for Samos but I'm not done yet. :) There will have to be a second post for our 2 days on the island. It was so gorgeous I can't bear to leave any of it out.