That One Time We Gained A Greek Family

Once upon a time I was looking up flights to New York City for spring break, and I found an insane flight deal for $450, roundtrip to Europe. It ended up being cheaper to fly to Athens, Greece than NYC, so I immediately called my friend Alisha, who used to be my number one travel companion, to see if she was interested in a random trip to Greece. She was, and eventually we got our friend Brooke to join in the shenanigans as well, and thus was born the greatest travel trio of all time.

Everyone we knew, and lots of travel blogs, said not to waste our time in Athens because it was a “shithole”, so we made sure to divide our time between there, Thessaloniki, and the island of Crete. We didn’t really know which island to visit, and due to time restraints decided to limit ourselves to one so we could really soak it up and enjoy it instead of rushing around, so we arbitrarily chose Crete. I think we just decided the typical Mykonos and Santorini were overdone, and I think it was definitely the right choice for us.

Thessaloniki was really nice, and we would fill up on Greek yogurt and pastries from around the corner every morning. We also rented a car and took an amazing day trip to Meteora to see the “floating” monasteries. It was so beautiful and definitely worth the trip, plus we got to pass Mount Olympus and say “What up?” to Zeus on the way. Near Mount Olympus we stopped at a truck stop to get some desserts - our trip basically revolved around food - and naturally we ended up having a photo shoot in the parking lot. A trucker told us he loved us, as did many other Greeks we met on our trip, and we just really brought joy to the people.

Our Airbnb in Crete was in the town of Rethymno, was pretty baller, and has actually won some awards. The host, Marinos, was so wonderful, and gave us an extremely detailed breakdown of the town and all the places to eat. He also gave us a mini Greek lesson, at our request, and we learned the basics “May I have the check please? Thank you. Good morning/night.” It’s amazing how much knowing just those few things can get you in another country. We visited the town of Chania while we were there, where we were “blessed” by a souvenir peddler to “Find the love of your dreams,” which ended up being successful for 1/3 of us, as Alisha was single on our trip and is now happily married. We also visited Elafonisi, or “the pink beach,” which was nice, but only slightly pink.

In the end though, it was “shithole” Athens that won us over. Our first night there we asked our Airbnb host for a restaurant recommendation, and he directed us to a small place just around the corner called Taverna Saita. We were greeted by our adorable server Chris who spoke perfect English, and made really good menu recommendations. We ordered way more food than 3 people should eat, and definitely judged the stupid Americans at the table next to us who kept ordering rounds of French fries. We loved Chris and the food so much that we went back for dinner the next night we were in Athens (our time there was split at the beginning and end of the trip), and were greeted by the equally adorable and bilingual Nik and Periklis. The staff remembered us from our first visit, and brought us some of our favorites out and visited with us at our table. By the third time we ate there, all the guys were coming over and hanging out with us, giving us shots, and introducing us to their entire family, who ran the restaurant. We all took photos together, and ate and drank more than should be humanly possible. We were devastated when our final night there they told us they were out of baklava. (Sidenote: baklava slices in Greece were like as big as my face, how come in the states they’re always like a tiny one inch square?!) They felt so bad that they didn’t have the baklava for us that they brought us out some of their grandmother’s orange cake instead. I’m very particular about my sweets, and baklava is one of my favorite things, and fruit-based or fruit-flavored desserts are some of my least favorite, so I was being less than grateful. That didn’t stop me from taking a bite though, and I’m so glad I did, because wow. That cake was delectable, and to top everything off, they ended up finding one last slice of baklava that was hiding somewhere in the kitchen for us. It was a spring break miracle. It was honestly a really emotional last meal with “our boys” - as we now lovingly refer to them - and I was genuinely sad to be leaving them.

When I got back to the states I looked up Taverna Saita on Yelp, and apparently we are not the only fans of the place. Nothing but rave reviews, and some people even commented that they had eaten there 20 years earlier and returned just to see if it was as magical as they remembered, and it was. I hope that’s me in 20 years. I also messaged one of my friends who had told me Athens was shit to see why exactly he thought that, and he literally said, “Well, one of the things is just that it was annoying how slippery their sidewalks were.” “What? You mean THE SIDEWALKS MADE OF EFFING MARBLE?!” That was when I decided to always find out for myself the vibe of a city because everyone’s experience will be different.

Alisha, Brooke, and I mailed the boys a card with the photos we took together, and Nik messaged us not that long ago that he still has it (3 years later). Not a single day goes by that I don’t think about “our boys” and dream about my return because believe me, it will happen. Until then, I keep in contact via Instagram and Facebook, and dream about their food.