Sifnos Week 1: Let the adventures begin!

It's hard to believe that only a week has gone by. We have quickly adapted to a Greek life-style of enjoying great mornings by the water, a break for mid-day rests, and more fun in the afternoon/evenings. Zane keeps getting the amount of time that we've been here wrong by a factor of 2. 

Since our first post, we've started exploring much more, including hikes to multiple parts of the island, taking an incredible boat trip and enjoying many new foods. A few highlights:

Adventures:

We've enjoyed a number of beautiful hikes along the shores of Sifnos. We started with an overly ambitious attempt at a 7 mile, rock scramble that we had to call early for fear of heat exhaustion, but it gave us our first views at the island from above, which were stunning. It turns out that Zane loves "rock climbing", as he calls it, and Zaylee is also a little billy goat, at least for the rare moments that she is hiking and not riding on Sammar's back. Humbled by our first attempt, we decided to take a less intensive route a few days later, hiking to the neighboring bay of Chrisopigi and Faros. Chrisopigi featured a stunning view of a church that extends out into the water, and the bay itself was a paradise of shaded Alamiki trees lining a soft sand beach that we shared with only a few others. We played on the beach, found some beautiful sea glass, and relaxed before returning to the trail. Our next stop was Faros, a smaller seaside town where we swam in some of the clearest waters we've ever enjoyed and found and skipped some of the most perfect stones I've ever seen (no lie, Zane through a stone that skipped 10 times!). We capped off the week of adventures with a once in a lifetime boat ride where we visited the crystal clear waters off the uninhabited island of Poliegos, snorkeling, collecting stones and swimming and then visiting the neighboring island of Kimolos for a delicious and enormous lunch before enjoying the ride back to Sifnos. Many of these experiences, especially the boat trip, could not have been possible without the gracious investment of time and many years of local wisdom from Maki and Martha, we cannot thank them enough.

Delicious eats:

We knew that we would love the food in Greece, but it has been amazing to see the kids embrace trying new things (and liking them!) in ways that we never imagined. Zane found a lamb dish that he gave 100 thumbs up to and Zaylee ate nearly half of a goat dish the next night. For those that have eaten a meal or two with us before, the kids have hardly ever touched a red meat so this was both shocking and wonderful. With this revelation, they have begun to explore even further enjoying dishes with squid, prawns and multiple varieties of fish. Sammar and I meanwhile have really enjoyed all of the fresh vegetables, fruits and cheeses that we can find, and have especially enjoyed the Sifnean eggplant dishes, roasted meats, and dips which have been incredible (ask Sammar about the Caper Salad dip!).

Little moments:

We hoped that traveling with kids would be wonderful, and we expected that it would also be challenging. As we embarked on the trip, both Sammar and I were most looking forward to experiencing the world through their eyes. One fun thing that we've seen this first week is how quickly Zane and Zaylee have been able to make friends with other travelers, whether they are English speaking from the United States or Australia, or Italian and Greek children that cannot speak English at all. Fun just seems to transcend language barriers. Zane and an Italian boy named Antonio played a game with a ball in the water for 45 minutes only saying 4 words, "1, 2, 3, Gooooall" and they would attempt to throw the ball past the other. The second fun thing has been seeing both kids interest in learning new languages. Before the trip, I would try to say something to Zane in Spanish and he would roll his eyes. Now, he and Zaylee both say hello (yassas), good morning(kali mera), and thank you (efharisto) to people daily and they are actively asking how to say new words when we go to the store so that they can learn more. It is incredibly cute to hear little Zaylee say a Greek word and then flash her bashful smile afterwards.

There are many more moments to capture, but I'll spare you the rest for now as I've already written a novel. 

Yassou! (goodbye / good health in Greek)