It’s All Greek to Me — My First Foreign Travel Experience as a Blind Woman
Venturing overseas with my Greek Cypriot born husband
On June 2nd, 2023, we arrived at SFO with great anticipation. This date heralded our first trip to Greece and Cyprus in six years. With Covid intervening, a dramatic decline in my vision created obstacles I had not encountered in my everyday life.
This was my first plane trip in almost four years as a blind woman, so there were many aspects of travel that presented new challenges to me. My daughter, Eleni, drove us uneventfully to SFO International, where we would board an international flight to Frankfurt, with connections to Athens, and later, Cyprus.
A major hiccup occurred when our departing flight was delayed twice, creating two missed connecting flights. We scooted around Terminal 23 whenever too many people assembled in the waiting area, as we were still concerned about the possibility of Covid-19 transmission and wore our masks for a time. When our stomachs growled for food, we ate at a tasty Asian rice and meat bar, which tamed our tensions and sustained us until we boarded the Boeing 777, with a capacity of 350 passengers.
One perk of my blindness that I utilized was the request for a wheelchair going from the ticket counter to the Terminal, straight through TSA security. The staff easily deduced that I was blind from my use of Ted as my sighted guide.
This consideration of my needs facilitated movement to special lines at ticket counters, security terminals, and passport control. Heavy carry-ons were loaded in my lap, and I felt grateful for this special handling, as if I was a china doll. I also appreciated that it relieved Ted of functioning as both luggage navigator and Kathy’s sighted guide. Never before in our 38-year marriage has Ted’s eyes provided me with such reliable and ever-ready support.
One early challenge was navigating our way down the narrow aisles on the plane, barely two feet wide, with my husband leading in front, and me trailing behind. Each of us grappled with our hefty 20–25 lb. carry-ons (Ted’s, a duffel bag in front of him, and mine a shoulder-strap tote) with gifts for the family, including Vans shirts, California cutting boards, coffee mugs, and See’s Candies. I struggled to keep an equilibrium in these narrow aisles, trying to keep my stuffed shoulder bag in front of me so that I wouldn’t sock any passengers in aisle seats, as we maneuvered to row 33.
My husband skillfully hoisted our bags to the overhead compartments while there was still room, and we took our seats, a middle and an aisle. Our companion passenger at the window seat arrived, and we darted into the aisle until the passenger was comfortably seated.
Later, we learned that this young gentleman was a Ukrainian going to Copenhagen to voluntarily bring some four-wheel drives back to Ukraine. We listened to all the usual security information, clicked our seatbelts securely, and readied for an interminable 11- hour flight to Frankfurt.
I felt like a sardine, without the tin, oil, or fliptop. The tiny airplane bathroom served basic toileting needs for a sighted person, whereas I, as a visually impaired woman, required more space to navigate around. However, a compassionate stewardess allowed us to traipse to the front of the plane and use the first-class bathroom and my bathroom needs were completed easily.
Mealtimes presented another challenge. The twelve-inch tray table in front of me seemed like a million miles away. Ultimately, I invented a novel, albeit an unsavory way of guiding food from the tray to my mouth. I lifted the meal to a mere three inches from my face and navigated with a crude, wooden imitation of a fork the forkfuls into my mouth, which consisted of turkey pasta and salad.
Although I enjoy salads at home, I did not have the security of the salad bowl to house the lettuce, so I abandoned it in its compartment. I did, however, enjoy six delicious truffles for dessert. All this mundane food washed down my gullet to provide nourishment until the next morning.
Sleeping at night while in the air brought another dilemma. While Ted snored gently next to me, I could not immerse myself into sleep while sitting upright in economy class. I listened sporadically to my mp3 player collection of books but discovered selecting a title that I could hear well was almost impossible.
I selected vignettes from Olive Kitteredge, Robert Frost’s poetry, and Lisa See’s “China Dolls,” the latter of which finally hooked me. Interspersed with my reading was a montage of audible coughs, whispers, or warnings from flight attendants to keep the aisles clear. The swishing of the airplane’s ventilation system provided a calm of sorts, as I recognized that its efficiency hopefully kept viruses at bay.
We arrived at 5PM in Frankfurt, and our airline issued an overnight stay in Frankfurt at the airport as compensation for the two missed connecting flights. We enjoyed stretching out onto our comfortable beds and a tasty dinner and breakfast the next morning. Gratitude coursed through us for this turn of events.
Now enough about the flight, let’s move onto my destination. A day after our anticipated arrival, we touched down in Athens. We stayed in Athens for one night at my niece Julie’s apartment, where we were greeted by Julie the hostess, her boyfriend Demitri, our niece Marina, her husband Yiorgos, and their two children Cristos, age 14, and daughter Maria, age 13.
A delivery of marinara pizza, accompanied by white wine sated our stomachs’ hungry growls and provided familiar tastes to our mouths. As the children were shy about speaking in English, they sequestered themselves into the kitchen, enjoying each other’s company while the six adults easily picked up our six years apart.
The next morning, we left for Nafplion in the Peloponnese, a peninsula south of Athens, where we joined Panos and his wife, Michelle. Panos graciously agreed to pick us up from Athens and bring us to his Nafplion home, a two-hour car trip. Once we arrived at their home, which was a renovated and enhanced version of Panos’ childhood home, I marveled, via Ted’s descriptions, at the spacious four-floors of their home, including access to all levels via an almost soundless and efficient elevator.
After depositing our luggage in our assigned bedroom, we greeted Michelle and had a snack and cold water before being escorted to a lovely fourth-floor rooftop, where plants adorned the deck and a medieval castle named Palamidi, painted a lovely picture on the distant hillside. We spent the next two days with our lovely hosts, touring Nafplion, and enjoying Greek food either at home or at sea-side restaurants. Conversation flowed easily, and Ted learned many things about Panos previously unknown to him.
As we left Athens, my heart found sadness and new hope for this rekindled friendship — our invitation for them to come to SF and theirs for our return to Nafplion and possibly Cyprus. We exchanged email addresses and phone numbers. We gratefully accepted Panos’ return trip to the Athens’ airport for our next flight.
The next leg of our trip occurred June 7th, as we flew from Athens to Larnaca, Cyprus’ main airport, where we were met by Ted’s brother, Nick. In Cyprus, since it was an English colony, driving was on the left, which was difficult for Ted to navigate, so we left all the driving to Nick. As Nick skillfully navigated the return to Nicosia, his primary home with his wife, Mary, we settled into comfort and amiable interactions immediately.
One of the standout features of their two-level stucco house was the windy 18 marble stairs that would be unforgiving with any falls. I learned to proceed cautiously up and down the stairs, down with the rail on my left, and up with the rail in its reverse on my right.
Thankfully, my entire Cyprus trip yielded no falls or injuries, just relentless mosquito, or gnat bites, totaling 16 in all on my arms, legs, and one in the middle of my right cheek. Because of the histamine released from the bites, I became agitated at times, especially at night, and had to quell this with topical steroids, or Benadryl. These bites were one of the only negative aspects of my trip.
When we arrived in Latchi and deposited our suitcases in our au pair unit, we immediately joined Nick on the tour of his beloved two-acre orchard, which included numerous trees, fig, peach, apricot, nectarine, pecan, and carob. During springs, summers, and falls, Nick toiled lovingly in the orchards, pruning, and weeding his dozens of trees, along with immigrant helpers from Romania or Bulgaria.
His orchard crops were so prolific that during the apricot season of our visit, Nick delivered bulging plastic bags of apricots to no fewer than eight friends. The bags, in my estimation, weighed about ten pounds each. It warmed our hearts to see the joy that Nick felt from this continual farm to table cycle. As an aside, during our two weeks in Latchi, Nick asked Ted humbly to deliver heavy buckets of water to the far end of the orchard where the pecan trees stood, since the multi-gallon bucket was too heavy for Nick to carry. It gave Ted joy to feel of value in the orchard.
While Ted and Nick wandered through the expansive garden, Mary and I spent long periods of time at the kitchen table sharing our extensive and mutual literary bonds. Mary and I easily discovered how much we devour books, when not eating, swimming, or participating in other domestic chores. Our joint literary ventures span the thirty-nine years of my marriage to Ted. With each visit, I typically choose at least six books to bring Mary, since English texts remain hard to find in Cyprus. Paperbacks are the most lightweight and space-conserving books to tote in my carry-on. Since I am intimately aware of Mary’s literary preferences, choosing her books represents a delightful process for me.
One of our favorite reads to discuss was, “The Silent Patient,” by Alex Michaelides, who is a Greek/Cypriote writer, and it involves the protagonist shooting her husband, a fashion designer, and then never speaking again. Mary and I praised Michaelides’ plot, suspense, and narrative arc as the author deftly inserted elements from his mental health career into the story. Given that the writer comes from a Cypriote past only added to the high level of enthusiasm we felt.
Another favorite read of mine to share was, “The Maid,” by Nita Prose, which involves a maid in an unnamed Canadian city and her brushes with murder, and a full cast of characters that are wealthy clients at this hotel. The Canadian backdrop of “The Maid” interested me since Mary is Greek-Canadian, from Montreal, where her family owned a Greek Restaurant. Mary has yet to read this selection, but I expect her connection will be positive. The hotel maid character interested me since I had also been a hotel maid in the summer of 1968.
A third shared focus with us was “The Language of Flowers,” by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. The protagonist, Victoria Jones, bonds with flowers through flower arrangement in a nursery. Through this creative process, she understands more clearly her life of fragments, gifts, and losses in the foster care system. I readily shared this book with Mary because of my involvement as a foster care nurse from 2003 to 2015, during which I identified and strove to meet foster children’s healthcare needs. This book was submitted to and chosen early in my book club’s lifespan in 2012. Mary easily identified with gardens and flowers as a backdrop, since she and her husband also share these passions, both in Nicosia, inland, and Latchi.
As many vacations universally are food, culture, or people-centric, ours was a delicious combination of food, Greek friends and family, and the Mediterranean. Although the sea was not as warm as I had hoped, I grew accustomed to it. My guess was that the water was 75–80 degrees Fahrenheit, in contrast to our club pool, which is a soothing, not-shocking, 84 degrees.
We frequented Yiannakis beach near Ted’s birthplace, Polis, often situating ourselves on beach chaise lounge chairs with blue and white umbrellas sprawling above them. Usually, we were only a few feet from the water’s edge, and for me, my water shoes provided an easier entry onto the pebble-filled beach, in contrast to the sandy shores of Hawaii, or the Caribbean.
Once in the water, after a couple of minutes I gingerly immersed my entire body and head into the cool sea. Surprisingly, now that I can only see light and dark, I was also able to maneuver my way into the sea with the same finesse that we have at our club pool. I treaded water, almost directionless, with Ted shouting out directions to the right or left so that we could proceed to the buoys and spend 45 minutes to one hour in the water.
A few times, our swims received special color as we talked with other swimmers from various parts of the world, usually England, Germany, or Australia, and of course, at times, local Greek Cypriots. A most memorable one was a middle-aged woman from England, who was vacationing here with her husband, a surgeon for the National Health Service. She reported having come to Cyprus for the last twenty years during the summers, so she could have the warm aquatic experience that is not possible in foggy, cold England.
Although I could not see the clarity of the water, Ted announced it to me and the appearance of brown, red, or gray fish, gliding through the water. No garbage, no loud motorboats, or boomboxes. All yielded tranquility and a special Mediterranean ambiance.
We basked in the sunshine, which usually hovered around 80 degrees, rather than the 100-degree range Cyprus delivers in July or August. I religiously spread facial sunscreen and body sunscreen onto my skin to avoid the possibility of burns or skin cancer. To those observing changes in my skin tone, they complimented my noticeable brown tan. Not as deep as a chocolate bar, but rather more like a café latte.
Upon leaving the sea, I usually flopped once or twice trying to come out. I am glad I could not see the other beach inhabitants being amused or disgusted with my foibles. We usually baked on the chaise lounges for one to two hours, and occasionally lunched at the simple seaside taverna above us, having both times Greek country salads, topped with calamari or octopus, and flanking our salad was fresh Pita bread.
Our dutiful and reliable chauffeur, Nick, returned to pick us up either at 1:30 or 4 PM, upon that day’s arrangements. This trait of Nick’s was truly admirable and never to be taken for granted. Nick never seemed exasperated or put out with his driving duties, and this lent such comfort and joy to our travels.
Nick’s wife, Mary, gingerly like me, swims for half an hour with a visible white hat that always allowed Ted to spot her. Upon our return from the beach, we indulged in Nick’s array of Greek/Cypriot cooking, whether Pastitsio, a noodle dish covered with a white Bechamel sauce, country salads, which include cucumber, the juiciest tomatoes ever, onion, olives, and feta, without the lettuce greens we use in America.
Nick sprinkled olive oil vinaigrette with oil from his own olive trees, always ending the meal with the most delectable juicy watermelon, fruit from his two-acre orchard (currently featuring only apricots), and cherries from the large supermarket. After most lunchtime meals, at 2 PM, we washed down our morsels with Carlsberg or Keo (Cypriot beer) and we all traipsed to our bedrooms for a two-hour siesta.
Our chef extraordinaire, Nick, adopted a farm to table practice, whether from his orchard or procurement of food items for a planned meal. We accompanied Nick one day along a country road to Droushia, a village near Latchi, where he landed at the region’s most notable shepardess and cheese maker, Maria, her last name unknown to any of us. Nick returned to the car with kilos of halloumi and anari cheese, both delicate white cheeses, which he will use in all his concoctions throughout the summer, freezing most of it until his next guests arrive. Halloumi is a patented Cypriot cheese now widely exported, including to our very own Oakland, California supermarkets!
Dinners were often celebrated in local seaside restaurants with family and friends — cousins Sonia, Yannis, and Kyriacos, or friends, Andreas and Petronella. Often, the gentle waves of the sea were audible to the diner, and only a few feet away from our table.
Another omnipresent delight, although at times a challenge to me, was being audience to the never-ending chatter in Greek about memories, politics, childrearing, or in some cases, illnesses, and demise of those we love.
I noticed that I handled others’ fluency in Greek with two opposing approaches, one to tune in intently so that I could discern possibly 10–25% of what was being discussed, and therefore remain on track, or the second, tune out briefly so that I only attended to the musicality or tone of the conversation, rather than actually translating its lyrics.
Most adult family members or friends were bilingual Greek and English, while the children, our nieces, and nephews, displayed hesitation speaking English, therefore relying on more interaction with the other kids than with the adults.
In addition to all the mouthwatering oral treats we had from Nick and other restaurant fare, my ears perked up to the daily sounds of myriad Cyprus birdlife. Since we are not birders, we could not name the specific birds, but every day in Latchi, there were solitary or groups of chirps and songs, providing music to our ears.
Ted was unable to photograph any of the birds we saw, which included the Chiff chaff, Crested Lark, and Eurasian Dove. Although we are not ornithologists, I primarily relied on auditory memory to identify these birds. Upon our return home, we learned of an app called Merlin which identifies bird song and chatter and provides the name in yellow for the user.
Three very special memories included a casual dinner at an outdoor restaurant located in a park in Nicosia, which featured kebabs with all the trimmings. While sitting outside in the park presented a treat to all of us, I recall an unpleasant aspect to this dining: behind us a long, rectangular table full of young Cypriot men dined raucously.
One man kept leaning back and bumping into my chair, which irritated me. I envisioned standing up, finding the head of the table, and stating “I may be blind, but I definitely feel every jolt into my chair!”
Thinking about these options mitigated my irritation and I ended up doing nothing, because alas, what if they did not understand my English and replied only something in Greek to me? I merely stored this unpleasant experience in my memory bank, which indeed added color to my recollections of this outdoor dining event.
Another was a rooftop dinner, at Odofragma (barricade in English), which coincided with our 38th wedding anniversary, and our farewell from Cyprus on June 23rd. A very special pistachio cake greeted us at the end of the meal, with flames leaping from massive candles. A special treat was that our older daughter, Julia, was also present at the dinner and she would depart a day later for a trip to Copenhagen. Special music to my ears featured the four great-nephews and niece (Maria, Christos, Nikos, and Lambros), who giggled with each other at the far end of the table, almost continuously throughout the event. I will remember them as giggle-boxes and have no idea what kept their giggles flowing. It was so cute to listen to them!
A third highlight was the stray cat that frequented Nick and Mary’s seaside home in Latchi which charmed us with its ‘felinicity.’ She was black with white mittens, and a sprinkling of orange spots. We know that Cyprus has per-capita one of the greatest numbers of stray cats in the world. Because we did not know it or its whereabouts, we could not give a name to it, or offer cuddling other than frequent hand petting.
Leftover meals were provided to this kitty two or three times daily, and it ate almost everything presented, whether fruit, veggie, or carbohydrate. The sight of this kitty etched a tender spot in my heart, as I reminisced about my daughter Eleni’s two kitties back home, Mickey and Cali, and our long-term friendship with our cat Waldo, until 2016. I had fantasies of taking her home, but Ted would definitely not approve.
Later in the summer, our family reported that this lean cat delivered a litter of four kittens, which she moved to some bushes on the patio to provide some refuge from humans. The news of the kitty’s delivery totally surprised me since she had such a thin, sleek body that I could not envision her carrying a litter within. In July, my niece Marina reported seeing movement within the cat’s abdomen. Since so many cats in Cyprus are strays, it warms my heart that this cat had given birth to four healthy offspring.
On this trip, my husband reconnected to his childhood friend, Andreas, and another friend Kokos, who was the owner of a small hotel across the street from Ted’s childhood home. As children, in about 2000, our girls had enjoyed Greek treats, souvlaki, and the adjoining swimming pool, all within a bird’s eye view of their grandmother’s home.
We had a very special rendezvous with Ted’s cousin, Sonia, age 61, and her husband Yiannakis, at Nick’s seaside home, and later lunch at a restaurant near the water. They had journeyed three hours south from Limassol, to meet us.
In my mind, this meeting of our souls grew so special since Sonia has struggled with kidney and dialysis concerns at her young age, and nearly died from complications two years ago. On the brighter side, her husband Yiannakis regaled us with a plethora of stories from his days working on a cruise ship from the 1970s to 80s, where he visited numerous ports all around the world, and served as a maître de.
To sweeten our visit even more, Sonia and Yiannakis brought a hefty box full of Cypriote sweets from the largest bakery chain in Cyprus called Zorba’s. This array included baklava, galaborco (custard-filled pastry), and daktila (translates into “fingers” and is a rolled confection with almonds and sugar inside). My mother-in-law, Ioulia, used to prepare these by rolling the dough with her three-foot dowel brought from Cyprus, pre 9/11. Julia would help her fill the daktila with nuts, and she still remembers that fondly.
This trip to Cyprus differed from all previous (the last in 2017), due to my visual demise (yielding only light and dark perception), which hampered me in pursuing museums and other cultural sites. We did, however, go to a shopping district close to the occupied Turkish area and found burlap olive decorated totes, and T-shirts for Eleni, one with Cyprus boats and the other with an assortment of felines, which of course she loved.
In the courtyard of this shopping area in old town, an inanimate colorful donkey stood with a colorful hat, which looked at shoppers, and the girls loved looking at the picture of him, as Eleni often collected Cyprus stuffed donkeys when she was young. We felt fortunate to find several donkey decorated keychains, that flipped over to show a map of Cyprus. Otherwise, our gift purchases were sparse, as we knew the strain on our bodies inherent in bringing back stuffed carry-ons.
I deposit and retrieve this myriad of tender, loving, and sun-drenched images of my Greece/Cyprus vacation, where I could continue to feel the refreshing and love-filled sounds, tastes, and feelings of Ted’s birthplace. Gratitude fills my heart when I recount the back-to-basics vignettes that Ted encountered, and most notably, leaving behind any troubling or vexing concerns of life back home, whether it involved relationships, bills, or home maintenance details. Long live Cyprus, and may we enjoy you again soon.
