We’re in Greece!

Hello, dear readers!

We have made it to Greece and I am sitting in our hotel room, writing this blog, as we fight jet lag and hope for beautiful days ahead.

Our travel days went well. We took the train to NYC on Sunday, flew out of JFK on Monday, and arrived at 9:30am in Athens on Tuesday! We are currently 7 hours ahead of our usual East Coast time, and have thus taken a couple hour nap to try and fight sleep deprivation.

I’ve made my way down to the lobby, where a kind man who works at the hotel made me an Americano to fight my sleepy eyes, and so I am now revamped and writing to you!

So far, our trip has been good, and we’re only a couple days in! Some things that have made this journey great:

• We bought TropicFeel backpacks last fall and LOVE them. They have pockets everywhere, are waterproof and very sturdy, and we ordered the “wardrobe” feature that is basically a big packing cube that can be condensed immensely.
• We packed light! We only brought one backpack each, and one personal item. We’re very proud of this packing job, especially for 3.5 weeks of travel! We have all we should need!
• Public transit has been our life saver so far (and will continue to be as we travel around Greece). We’ve taken the airport shuttle in both NY and Greece, we’ve utilized the metro and trains, and tomorrow we will be hopping on another train to Thessaloniki – our first big stop!
• Taking our time. We can begin to feel rushed sometimes, because travel is stressful and you need to make sure you have all you need and that you get wherever you’re going early… Well, we’re trying to avoid that feeling this trip (and every trip) and take our time. We had plenty of time on Monday morning in NYC to walk around Central Park. Our hotel was kind enough to let us check out an hour late so that we wouldn’t be carrying our baggage around while getting lunch or going for a walk. When we arrived in Athens, we had trouble deciding which train to hop on, so we waited and asked and found the right one. It’s all about patience, which we are trying to be very good at (we’ll see how long it lasts)!
• Being together is always the best part. It doesn’t matter where I am, as long as we get to adventure together, I’m happy.

As I sat on the balcony of our hotel, drinking my Americano and taking in the cool air, Steve said “you look like you belong there,” and honestly, it felt like it. There is nothing like the feeling of making it somewhere you’ve been planning on going for quite some time, and then being able to relax, drink a cup of coffee, and breathe in the new air.

I love exploring, seeing new sights, experiencing cultures and places that are different from my own, and I never want to stop. I can’t stop thinking about how lucky I am that I have someone who also wants to always explore, and always find new things to marvel at. Life is absolutely beautiful in so many ways – embrace them!!!

Cheers, friends, and see you next week with more Greece adventures!

-Skye

P.S. If you want to follow along on our trip, I’ll be posting quite a lot on Instagram. Our page is @mentallysailing if you want to check us out!