Happy 35th Anniversary to Us! Headed to Greece
June 30, 2024
On June 17, Wally and I celebrated 35 years of marriage. What a gift. Not just 35 years, but he is and our marriage is. God is always good, but He has been particularly kind to us as we have walked through so much of life together. Like the Michael Card song Wally gave me shortly after we met and that we had sung at our wedding, God has truly given us a Joy in the Journey.
After over a year of saving money and planning, the day has arrived for us to take a special trip. To Greece.
It’s 5:04AM and Walker and Charlie spent the night last night, so he could drive us to the airport this morning. I’m packed and ready to go. We leave at 5:30, so I thought I’d see if I could maybe turn my site into a sort of travel blog since so many people have said to send pictures. We’ll see…
Our flight leaves Jackson at 7:40AM and arrives in Atlanta at 10:04. We hang out there most of the day and leave at 5:00PM for Athens. Scheduled to arrive there at 10:16AM tomorrow.
From there we’ll take a bus to Piraeus port and either by foot or taxi go the kilometer to the Hertz car rental place and then drive back to the port for Blue Star Ferries, where we’ll be heading to the island of Rhodes, where my yiayia and papou married in 1934. 90 years ago. What a lot of life has happened in 90 years!!!
We rented a sleeper cabin. If it’s like last time, it will be twin bunk beds in a tiny shoebox room. But at least a place to put our stuff and get some rest.
This will be my first time to Rhodes. I’m eager to visit the museum and see if there are any jewels that say they were donated by Mussolini or Alfonzo Nuzzo, as they were part of the dowry that my great-grandparents gave to my papou’s youngest sister Hariklia, when she married Alfonzo. An Italian in the army, my dad’s sister, Aunt Calliope explained that he wanted to get in good with Mussolini, so he gave them to him. And in 1951 when Papou took the family to Greece, they visited Rhodes and went to the museum, and when he saw his mother’s jewels, a tear rolled down his cheek.
Seventy years later, would they even still be there? Or labeled? It’s a shot in the dark. I’d love to see them out of curiosity, but not really expecting to. Lord God, if You want me to see them, would You work that out? I intended to send a follow-up email to them–I emailed once and didn’t receive a reply. Maybe they were afraid I’d make some sort of claim??? Ha! Nope. They were given to Mussolini. We have no claim.
I wish I knew which church they married in there, but I don’t.
We’ll spend two nights there in a hotel named Evdokia Boutique. I picked it because my godmother was also named Evdokia. She was yiayia’s younger sister who helped raise my dad. After he and mom divorced, he lived with her for several years.
From there after a couple of days, we’ll go to the island of Kos. My dad and cousins jointly own a small piece of property there that they are trying to sell. Papou bought it twice in the 1930’s. But that’s another story. I look forward to showing it to Wally.
And then we head to the island of Patmos, where our family is from. My cousin Irene Prekezes, who we all call Cookie, inherited from her mom the house Yiayia grew up in. Though she lives in Skokie, IL, she happened to be planning her trip the same time, so we’ve looking forward to time with her too.
Time to leave!
