Cook to Kook

Like most of my travels, I’ve had a few, usual, slight mishaps along the way. This trip has been no exception to the rule. Like Murphy's Law... but I prefer to think of it as the law of the inevitable blunder. Somehow, in a feat that still completely baffles me, I managed to spill my entire bottle of body spray all through my bag. It leaked onto absolutely everything inside... including the jeans I was wearing, because by the time I finally realized, the bag had been smacking against my leg long enough to form an enormous wet blotch.

Soaked. And stained.

Nothing I enjoy better than the aggressive odor of floral ON ME for an entire day because your toiletries wouldn't cooperate with the realities of travel.

I also managed to break the shouldere strap on my beloved bag. I have no idea how I did it, but in the process of the destruction, I also twisted the straps so badly that a Rubik‘s cube would’ve been easier to figure out. Finally, after HOURS of us messing around with it, Merel had the insight to flip it back in between itself and around... and then around again, and she eventually got it to the point where it was... fixed... but the buckle loop itself is still broken, so it is currently being tied together with a safety pin.

Buy a new purse?

Maybe,

No.

I love this one.

Then there’s my damn knee. Every once in a while, thanks to the presence of ever increasing arthritis... and the undeniable fact that I’m getting older, my right knee occasionally decides to put on a performance of its own. As I walk along, it's like 'cum cum on the kick drum'... click clunk, click clunk, click clunk... like I’m a bloody wind-up toy making my way down the street. While I know most people probably can’t hear a thing, I’m convinced everyone can. It’s a bit like wearing squeaky shoes. Even if nobody else notices, you feel as though your every step is announcing your arrival. I actually mentioned it to Merel at one point when we were strolling along behind the acropolis, and she said that she could hear it. So I'm not going crazy...

Well... maybe a little bit. But not about my stupid knee.

My accommodation in Athens was fine. Truly. Fine. Super fine. It wasn’t far at all from where Merel and Tom were staying, which made everything incredibly convenient. And honestly, the apartment was completely acceptable... clean enough, functional enough, and perfectly doable for the three nights I was there. But I’ve come to accept that with every “perfectly doable” accommodation comes at least one deeply bizarre design choice. It’s a universal law of travel.

And where would I even be in life if I didn’t have something to criticize? I've been told it's a “projection of what a horrible person I am.” Bwahahaha. And... I choose to roll with it.

Each room was decorated with an alarming number of dream catchers. Not authentic, handcrafted dream catchers... not at all. These were very much 1980s rainbow, drugstore-bought dream catchers. Everywhere. Dangling from walls, corners, doorways. It felt less like an apartment and more like the inside of a teenager’s bedroom from 1987.

Then there was the colossal teddy bear positioned squarely in the middle of the living room like some sort of silent guardian of the suite. Watching. Waiting. Creepy.

And on the bathroom door... peeling ever so slightly at the corners... was a sticker of a cartoon little girl sitting on a potty.

Hmmmm....

Odd? Yes. A little tacky? Also yes.

Tom suggested that maybe someone actually lived there full time, but I’m not entirely convinced. The place felt strangely sparse aside from the giant teddy bear, the dream catcher explosion, and the potty-training décor. Still, bizarre decorating choices aside, the apartment absolutely did the trick and gave me a place to land while I spent my three nights in Athens.

While I was there, I convinced Tom and Merel to come along on an Athens Greek food tour with me. Naturally. I love food tours and take every opportunity to do them whenever I am in different countries. When I visited them in Middelburg, they gave me their own unofficial version... introducing me to all kinds of Dutch foods I probably never would have tried otherwise. For the last year or so, I’ve also been casually... and by casually, I mean relentlessly... trying to convince them to start a food tour business of their own, since Middelburg somehow still doesn’t have one.

So far they haven’t taken me up on my entrepreneurial brilliance… yet.

And I say yet very intentionally, because I’m convinced one day they’ll do it.

The Athens food tour itself ended up being absolutely top notch. TOP NOTCH.

I’ll admit though, at first I was a little worried it might be a bust. The square where we were supposed to meet was absolutely packed with people, and I immediately started imagining one of those giant tours where you spend three hours awkwardly following a flag through crowded streets while fighting for tiny samples of food. Eventually, the chaos organized itself, and we were paired up with a young guide named Yannis.

And... it was only the three of us.

Private tour? Incredible.

Just the three of us and Yannis, casually strolling through Athens like culinary VIPs.

But… not so fast.

As it turned out, the other guests hadn’t abandoned the tour at all... they were simply waiting at the other Church of the Virgin Mary. Because apparently, Athens has quite a few of those.

I think I counted ten.

In fact, to be absolutely honest, I had originally been marching confidently toward the wrong church myself before Merel stepped in and reminded me that we were meant to be meeting in Monastiraki Square. Phew. Crisis averted...

Then, at our very first stop, the missing guests appeared. And just like that… goodbye, private tour.

BUT... it was all fabulous. Guests and all...

There was a Canadian couple, an Aussie couple and an American couple.

At one point, I was speaking with the American couple about Santorini, as they'd just been. They were telling me about how they'd visited a winery on Santori and tried some Greek wines. I replied, "Is that retsina?" ... to which they replied, "Yes... I believe it is in the Red Sea."

Ok...

Our conversation ended there.

As a food tour guide myself, I went in curious... and I left impressed... thoroughly impressed. We tried close to 30 different things over the course of the tour.

THIRTY.

That’s a far cry from my Banff tours, where guests typically get 5–10 stops. But to be fair, Banff doesn’t have the same street food culture... and everything there is significantly more expensive—so it’s not exactly a fair comparison. Still… it was a lot.

Cheese. Spanakopita. Custard pastries. Coffee. Meatballs. Zucchini fritters. Bean tomato dish. Fried eggplant. Fresh bread with olive oil. Chocolate donuts. Honey walnut donuts. Calamari. Anchovies. Wine. Ouzo. Honey (multiple flavours). Olives. Yogurt with strawberries. Tzatziki. Spicy cheese dip. Gyro. Fried cheese. Wild greens. Greek salad. Greek coffee. Greek (Turkish).

I'm missing something... I just know it.

Regardless, it completely exceeded what I expected from a food tour.

And honestly? It pushed me to think differently about my own tours... about pacing, variety, and just how much you can actually give people in one experience when you lean into a strong food culture.

There was one very funny moment on the food tour that absolutely deserves to be mentioned.

As we wandered through the streets of Athens, Yannis guided us through all kinds of different neighbourhoods and markets... the flea market, the fish market, the meat market, the spice market... and at one point, we passed the stately building of the Bank of Greece. Yannis gestured toward it and announced quite professionally, “There is Greece’s national central bank.”

And without missing even half a second, Merel deadpanned, “There’s no money in it.”

The timing was flawless.

Poor Yannis didn’t quite know what to do with that. Tom and I burst into laughter.

Strangely, gluten doesn’t seem to affect me here. I ate everything. If anything, I feel like I bloat more easily... but not in the same way. I don't wake up feeling like I've been punched to death. Either way, I took a two-week break from being vegan so I could fully enjoy the experience and not feel like a burden to everyone around me.

Yannis also took us to a whimsical, little place called, "Little Kook." Little Kook is one of those places in Athens that feels like it shouldn’t quite exist... anywhere... let alone in the middle of Athens. Tucked into a narrow street, it’s a café that goes all out on decoration. Less is NOT more here.

The exterior is transformed every season into a full theatrical installation that spills out onto the street so aggressively that you don’t just “see” it... you kind of stumble into its world. While we were there, every surface was covered in Alice in Wonderland theme: façades, balconies, lampposts, even nearby alleyways get absorbed into whatever theme they’ve chosen. It’s loud, maximalist, and unapologetically extra in the best possible way.

There was an old-fashioned British telephone box in the Alice display, and I asked Tom if he wanted a photo in front of it, being British and all. He said no, but before I even had time to move on, a random crazy man behind me immediately jumped in and posed, ready to have his photograph taken. I was ever-so slightly bewildered by how fast it all happened, that I wasn't given proper time to react or respond.

And just as quickly, the situation took another turn... the man started shouting at me in Greek and stormed off in a huff, apparently upset that I hadn’t taken his photo. It was one of those moments where I was left standing there shocked… how did I just become part of that?

Ya... everything was great.

Yannis was fabulous.

There was actually TOOOOO much food.

We were stuffed.

The final stop was Gyros and I didn't even have one single bite of it.

Hands down... one of the best food tours I've ever done.

AND... the American couple were the only ones who didn’t tip.

Brutal.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/0dab89_351ddf0ee98d47808825cae7ad80a221/480p/mp4/file.mp4

Little Kook... ❤️