Spring Break in Greece!
Welcome back friends! It’s Spring Break here in New Jersey which coincides with Greek Easter this year — that’s right, for those of you who guessed correctly —myself, Stelios, and Leo are headed to Chios Greece for 8 days to visit the Tsoukalas side of the family and celebrate Greek Easter together. Stelios’s parents are already there and we can’t wait to see the rest of the family. It’s crazy to think the last time we were in Greece was 3 years ago, right after we got engaged. It doesn’t feel like that long ago, but I guess time flies when you’re having fun!
Since it’s April and the weather is cooler, the weather is supposed to be 50s at night to high 60s during the day so I really struggled with what to pack for this trip. I also just landed back home from Florida on Monday and we are heading to Greece on a Friday (4 days laters) so the laundry/packing fatigue was real. I brought a mix of jeans, linen pants, shorts, a few dresses, tank tops, a few long sleeves/sweaters, a leather jacket, and fleece jacket for night time. Shoes wise I packed sneakers, booties, sandals, and canvas slip ons. Do I feel like I overpacked and probably not correctly for the weather? Yes. But it all fit in one medium checked bag, and if I need anything else it’s an excellent excuse to go shopping!
Contrary to my usual travel style, we have absolutely NOTHING planned for this trip aside from celebrating Greek Easter with the family and for Stelios to catch up with his cousins and friends at various points throughout the week. Not even a single dinner reservation has been made! WHOA. If you know me this is very unlike me. The lack of planning is because I’ve had a VERY busy spring between planning my friend Janna’s bach in Florida last week, planning my dad’s 60th birthday trip to Napa in early May, trying to decide what to do for my own 30th birthday, and some exciting news – I got a new job! A lot going on within the same 30 day window, but all very good things on the horizon. All that aside, this is our 2nd time to Chios altogether, it’s more of a family trip, and it’s not during high tourist season so I didn’t really feel a need to plan an agenda. I did tell Stelios that I would like to go on some hikes and that I want to take a motorcycle lesson – we’ll see if that happens or not! Otherwise we will just go wherever the Aegean air takes us this week.
To start, here’s a recap of our travel day below:
Our flight time wasn’t ideal for a red eye (3:30pm from EWR) so I decided to wake up at 6am and go to Pure Barre in hopes that I would later be exhausted and pass out on the plane. (Shout out to Lisa for kicking my butt this morning, my body is sore and sleepy as I’m writing this before takeoff which is exactly what I needed). At 10:30am Stelios went to pick up Leo and we were on our way to the airport by 12pm.
The airport was shockingly empty, especially for spring break, and check in was a breeze. After checking our bags and getting through security we headed to the United Club Lounge. Leo was very excited to experience the lounge and I reminded him how lucky he is because I didn’t get to experience the club lounge until I was an adult in my early 20s! Full smiles up the escalator, we headed into the lounge, and grabbed a comfy table by the window. We perused the buffet options for lunch and the boys were very happy, but the dairy free options for me were somewhat limited – I opted for the chicken salad sandwich and a side of rice with veggies. I think I prefer the breakfast selection more, but it’s free (thanks to our United MileagePlus Credit Card) so I’ll take what I can get. Stelios ordered a beer, I sipped on a red blend, and Leo enjoyed the citrus fruit water. After eating we had an hour until boarding so I broke out my deck of cards and we played War and Crazy Eights to pass the time.
By 2:30pm we walked to our gate to board. Stelios and Leo sat in front of me and I got the window seat in the row behind them. It’s a 10 hour flight to Athens and then we have a 2 hour layover and a quick 35 minute flight to Chios. I am ready to pass out after writing this and it’s only 4pm. Be sure to subscribe to stay up to date with the rest of our spring break adventure. καληνύχτα !
