An evening in Athens

The previous post in this series is here..

After that Viator tour of the Acropolis followed by a late lunch and a nap, the family informed me that we were going to a very nice place for dinner.. it was a 30 minute walk from our Airbnb towards the old city square. They were all nicely dressed too. I had not recevied the memo! My options in that place were going to be limited. So I coaxed San to go with me to Babaji, the Desi place that had been closed earlier at lunch time.. by saying "you will get good Chai there!". Once in the place, I decided to order a Tandoori roti, dal, rice and yogurt.. and gobbled it up as fast as I could.. the rest of the family was not pleased..but a man with allergies has to take care of himself in such situations! Definitely recommend this place.. Everything I ate was just mouth watering!

We walked to the place (Taverna Klimataria), only to find that it was fully booked for a party. There was live music going on inside as well.

The kids were really disappointed. We decided to quickly find an alternate place to eat. Vegetarian food was not easy to find. However as we walked past the old square there were a few middle eastern guys waving us into a restaurant saying "you vegetarian? we have vegetarian!". Guess we were not the first desis with that hangry look walking past the place!

The food options were limited but we made the most of it! Once something is in the tummy, the family spirits were higher. The food was actually good and we walked around, had some Gelato (Buffalo milk ice cream!) with other snacks, visited an old small Church in the middle of the square and finally walked back to the Airbnb.

A very short video clip! The market and restaurants and walkways are lit beautifully and the old buildings give this a very nice vibe!

Then there was the bitter realization for the kids.. (had saved the screen to remind myself of their protest and yelling)

Promises were made that this would be the last time ever that an alarm was being set for such ungodly hours (their words, not ours). At the time of writing this blog, that promise is already known to be broken on our most recent trip as we had to catch yet another first flight out.. 

We were on the first flight out to Santorini the next morning.. it was goodbye to Athens!

Super bloom revisited..

In early May? we visited Cal Poly and checked out a local super bloom. Given the thing moves up north every week, it came closer to us last month.

The previous year our hiking group had noticed this amazing hillside on the return path from Monument peak. So we decided to go to Monument peak in reverse and try to get pictures of the hillsides with wild flowers.

It was great for pictures, but somehow really really bad for allergies to the point that I called the photo album "sea of allergies". 

The wild mustard was 6-8 feet tall and the trails were full of thorny shrubs that had not been cleared well. Between the flowers and thorns, 3/8 people in the hiking group started sneezing and two (myself included) had nosebleeds before we exit the trail. It took a good 2 weeks to recover from that hike. 

However, the pictures did come out great! The thing was beautiful till my watering eyes could see clearly no more..

This was the path from Ed Levin County Park to Monument peak. This summer has also been extremely hot and I would not recommend going up on these barren hikes with no possibility of shade. Take lots of water with you and hydrate well. Wear a mask if that helps. Like my old mentor told me "you should have just stayed home and watched a youtube video of someone else doing this hike given your allergies!". For a second he turned into Gounder saying "dei naaye, unakku idhellam thevai dhaana daa?!" and I burst out laughing. 

I sang "vazhi neduga, kaatu mustard" for San on this hike.. why not?!

The superbloom is more interesing when there are multiple colors.. this was all wild mustard and yellow. we didnt see the poppies or the lavenders.. so compared to the one near SLO, this was okay!

Maybe someone who has severe allergies and wants to see what this is all about.. can just watch the video below and save themselves the pain.. 

Next year, not falling for the "super" hype!

Chasing the super bloom..

A month ago, (feels like ages ago).. the not so little one wanted to go check out Cal Poly at San Louis Obispo as a possible college option, given its relative proximity and she liked their UG program. My knee was just recovering after doing all that rest, ice, compression business. It was but a 3 hour drive and we made a day trip out of it. Even took a Friday off work for this. 

The college was interesting. We walked around the place, ate lunch in the cafeteria with a bunch of students and did some more walking, had a late evening cocoa and lemonade in the store near their latest dorm and decided to drive back.

San's one line summary after we exit the college was "I feel like we were in a baywatch episode for the last 4 hours!"... an obvious reference to practically 95/100 girls who walked past us being in some kind of beach wear! Our kid did the usual eye rolling for such comments from mom. We are old, I got it. Wifey is still in the anger to denial phase.. eventually she will get to acceptance. 

On the way out, there was the plan to see teh super bloom! Apparently this Carrizo plains national monument, famous for the California super bloom was close enough. Then we learned that in the interest of time, there was a poor man's (time wise poor that is) Carrizo 25 minutes from SLO on a windy road which had pretty much the same experience. There was more eye rolling as it was a 95 degree day outside. One cannot have a trip where daddy drove 3+ hours one way and walked around a college that looked like a baywatch set where he felt like a time traveller, and not get anything out of the trip.. the eye rolling was ignored!

A 25 minute drive into more searing heat and there was a carpet of flowers as advertised. It was amazing. Except we were there at 3 in the afternoon with the sun beating down. The photos of folks did not come out. Wanted to wait there till golden hour and catch sun set photos, but that suggestion turned the eye rolls into downright mutiny. So took a few photos, enjoyed the scenery and drove back. 

The drive back was bad as there was an accident on 101 and maps rerouted us through small fields for a good 20 minutes. Ended up being almost 5 hour drive back and my knee got worse to the point that the next two weeks were spent with an ice water machine hooked up to knee 8 hours a day! It is much better now. Just when I was dreading the repeat of that drive, the kid has decided to go farther south on the same route for college. Don't know what fate has in store for me over the next four years on 101 South!

Back to the bloom.. here are some pictures..

and a video that shows this amazing landscape.. with a creek that we had to cross to get to the flower fields.. 

Here are some tips, in case you want to visit this next year. Time it right. The super bloom of flowers moves up north by 50 miles a day across california per most reports. we just had to wait three more weeks to catch it in our area! If you are prone to allergies like me, wear a mask except for pics. It took me two weeks to not just recover the knee but also get over the allergies. A sea of flowers cannot be good for a person with allergies! stay for sunset or go at sunrise. This would be out of the world at those times!

It was worth the pain though to see this beauty! Nature is amazing!