Crashing a Honeymoon

I started writing this months ago and I just finished it...give me a break, I've been busy! What a great trip this was...only a best friend would be willing to share their honeymoon with us!

My high school best friend, Kaitlin Poe, and I had big dreams to live down the street from one another, raise our families together and travel the world together. For our high school graduation trip we decided we wanted to go to Scotland to play St. Andrews and backpack through Europe. Our grand idea came to an abrupt halt when we started planning and realized how expensive this trip was going to be.

Kaitlin and I (and her cousin) just after our high school graduation.

Our group of high school girl friends.

Kaitlin came out to one of my tournaments and instead of telling the world what a great golfer I am, she said this...
Best friends are the best at keeping us grounded! 

Fast-forward 7 years to 2014. This was a big year in which the stars just happened to align. Kaitlin and Sean got married and the newlyweds decided to honeymoon in Greece. Since James and I weren't able to make the wedding we said, "Hey, the Turks and the Greeks hate each other. Let's meet Kaitlin and Sean in Athens and see what the bickering is all about!" A few weeks ago we hopped on a plane headed to Athens to crash a honeymoon and had a trip that was worth every penny...even the extra pennies that others had their eyes on. (We'll get to that later.)

Our first night walking the streets of Athens.

Our planes landed in Athens about an hour apart. Sean and Kaitlin waited for us so we could all ride the metro to our hotel together. We checked in and they were exhausted and we were starving so we walked around found a cute little restaurant to eat at and then geocached our way back to the hotel. For those of you that don’t know what geocaching is, it is basically a high tech way to find hidden treasure. People will hide a "cache" and record the coordinates online and then others use those coordinates to try and find the cache. It was an awesome way for us to get off the beaten path, see things we wouldn't normally, get into some sketchy parts of town and really just enjoy each other's company.

Dinner the first night.

The next morning we went to Hydra which is one of the many Greek islands and the one that I have wanted to visit most. There are about 3,000 people on the entire island and the only motors are the garbage truck and the fire truck. (Literally just a little pick-up with a fifty gallon barrel in the bed!) We caught a water taxi from Athens and when we stepped off we were in old Greek island life. Donkeys lined up to take luggage and supplies to hotels and homes. Sean had looked up the different caches on the island and there were a whopping 3! The first one was looking inland into town. The next one took us along the graveyard, past a makeshift horse stall, halfway up the mountain, into a hidden cliff full of old bee boxes and on top of a boulder overlooking the entire city. It was an amazing view. We sat there for a little while and I couldn’t help but think, that 7 years ago Kaitlin and I had dreams of seeing the world together and here we were on top of a Greek island together! It's funny how life works out.

The 4 of us at the entrance to the port.

The happy newly weds.

Enjoying the views from our first geocache location.

We meandered back to the port and grabbed another cache in a neighborhood. It looked just like you would imagine a Greek island to be. Stairs leading this way and that way, cats running between your feet, bougainvilleas. Beautiful and tranquil. Once back at our water taxi a woman came up to us and told us our boat ride was cancelled and we could stay on the island for the night. We said we couldn't do that, we needed to get back to Athens where our hotel was. She had us follow her which led us into an alley and we all looked at each other and were thinking the same thing...Should we be blindly following this stranger? It turns out she was legit and got us a ride on a little fishing boat that would drop us off on the mainland and a taxi would be there waiting for us and take us back to Athens. We didn't have many options so we went with it. When we were picked up by the taxi, there was one light on a little dock and no one was around except the driver. Again, we looked at each other and questioned whether we should just hop on in...we did. I was in my second trimester at the time and the road was anything but straight. I was sitting in the middle, James on my left and Kaitlin was sleeping on my right. I began feeling queasy but I didn't want to be that girl so I kept quiet. James noticed and kept asking if I was alright. Then it happened....I puked in the taxi. James started yelling for the driver to stop (it took a minute due to the language barrier) I was kind enough to let the vomit hang out in my mouth while simultaneously trying to wake Kaitlin up, unbuckle her, open her door and climb over her. I'm not sure how but I didn't spill a drop in that car. It took about 2.5 hours in that cab to finally get back to the hotel. Long, great day.

Trying to figure out how we were going to get back to Athens.

The solution....

Waiting at the port. 

The next day we headed out to the Acropolis. The four of us were sort of scattered in the metro car and it was stuffed to the max. When I stepped off, I looked at James and saw the look of pure panic in his eyes. He yelled, "they took my wallet!" We had taken money out at the ATM at the train station and that's when we painted targets on our backs. We had to stop at a café that had wifi so we could cancel our credit cards and get in touch with base personnel to help with the government items that were stolen. James hadn't taken ANYTHING out of his wallet so he had to do a lot more work than if he would have just had the essentials. Lesson learned. Now we travel with those sexy money belts and minimal cards! After we got all of that taken care of we went to the Acropolis and the Acropolis Museum. So amazing! We just meandered, listened to Rick Steves explanations and descriptions and did more geocaching. By the end of the day I think we were all pretty worn out. We went to dinner one last time and said our goodbyes. Sean and Kaitlin were leaving early in the morning and our flight was later in the day.

Just before the incident.

Canceling cards and notifying the bank....so much easier to do that sort of thing on a computer. 

In front of the Parthenon.

Odeon of Herodes Atticus stone theatre.

Parthenon. The white portions are "fillings" used to replace missing pieces. 

The next morning James was so paranoid about pickpocketers that he bear hugged our luggage through the metro station and all the way to the airport. Once we got back to base James had to be escorted to the base police station because all of his IDs had been in his wallet. It took another two hours to finally get home.

I'm not sure but I think he's ready to get home. 

Despite some of the falters it was an amazing trip, with Hydra being the highlight. If you ever get the chance to see it...just do it!

Kaitlin and I wanted to buy this fixer upper and have our Greek getaway home. The boys told us no. 

Fruit stand near. 

Street art was everywhere!

James found his first cache!