When we found out that Erik’s holiday schedule left him with a month of time off, we decided to use it for travel. Initially we were planning to visit countries in the Balkans, namely Croatia, Bosnia, Albania, and finally Greece. Once we started the trip planning, we quickly learned that the logistics of travel in that region without a personal vehicle were a bit too challenging for one month. That’s when we saw that Worldschool Popup Hub was hosting a week in Athens and decided to change course.
The Worldschool Popup Hub is the passion project of a lovely family of 5 who have been travelling full-time and home educating their kids for almost ten years. Being in their teenage years, the family realized how important community and social connects are. How do you expose your growing kids to community and lasting friendships when you are constantly moving? Their answer: Get friends to come to you. They created this ‘popup hub’ as a means to show other families where they were going to be, what they would be doing, and inviting others to join them.
We had heard great things about the pop-ups from other travelling families and decided to attend the pop-up in Athens. Thus, on a cool, misty morning at 4:20am, we loaded onto a night bus heading for Heathrow feeling excited about meeting other families. The route was long, the bus overheated and very crowded with early morning airport staff going to work, and we were really tired, but it all went well and we were fed and into the plane by its 7:20am departure time.
Once in Athens, immigration went fairly smoothly, although we seemed to have chosen the slowest line and were the last from our flight to be processed. We found the train station that would get us into the city centre and waited about 20 min for the train to arrive. Spirits were mixed – some of us were feeling pretty pooped and just wanted to lay down for a bit. Others were making plans for what to do first, where to go, what to see. Our metro trip felt long and Simon fell asleep at my feet on the floor (we didn’t get seats on the second train). It got crowded and I had to pull him up to a standing position as he kept trying to snooze. I was happy to reach our destination.
Unfortunately, our rented apartment was not yet cleaned and ready despite it being the proper check-in time. Our host was quick to resolve the issue and asked us to go out for about an hour while the cleaners prepared the place. We found a café and had some of our first Greek pastries: spanakopita, hortopita, and perek. We noticed there was a large park close by so we headed off to check it out. It wasn’t the kind of park that kids play in – more of a bit of green space that wasn’t green with statues and an empty fountain, but it did have an open Christmas market with a few interesting stalls. We killed some time, found a statue of Athena, and then got some groceries for the next few days. Upon return to the apartment, we found it clean and ready for us to unpack and unwind! Bed came early for all of us.
One of the best features of attending a Pop-up Hub, is that the itinerary is already set. Coordination has been done on your behalf and you need only show-up. There’s no expectation to participate in every planned event, nor are you in any way bound to remaining at a function. It’s very flexible. Our hosts in Athens worked hard to find budget-friendly activities as well so we didn’t feel pressured to spend extra money. This was the first time Erik and I didn’t make our own agenda and our own arrangements. It was quite nice!
The first agenda item was a family meet-and-greet at a lovely park neighbouring a nature reserve. We decided to walk there from our apartment and wandered through colourful streets covered in graffiti, with nearly all of the stores shuttered with their corrugated metal doors. It was still the holidays and many places were closed for the week. We quickly noticed just how many surfaces were painted – very different from other places we’ve seen. We also noticed that many of the vehicles on the road were gas-powered scooters and motorcycles that made quite a noise as they sped past. In fact, we ventured off a main road just to get away from the noise.
Once at the park, we quickly made friends with the other families. One family from Italy home-schools and takes one-week breaks to travel. One family has been driving around Europe for a few months. One family flew in from Israel just for this pop-up and would fly home after. One family was living in Athens (diplomats from the US), and another has been on the road for over a year. Despite our different circumstances, we quickly bonded over the love of travel, the crazy conditions of nomadic life, and the frustrations with trying to home-school our kids!
We spent the afternoon together in a variety of forms, wandering the nature park and creating memories. We headed back to our apartment for some rest with a renewed excitement for the week with new friends.
Over the next seven days, we did a number of notable activities with the pop-up.
To kick things off, on New Year’s Eve, we were welcomed into a local family’s home to learn about the Greek Orthodox traditions around both Christmas and New Years. We learned that traditionally the Greek would decorate boats for Christmas, as shipping was such a central part of the way of life. Today, there are more trees being decorated as it is being adapted through pop culture. We learned about some wacky traditions center around luck including throwing a cross into water and having men dive in after it — whoever is able to retrieve it first will have good luck for the whole year. Also, the first person who enters your home on New Year’s Day must bring a pomegranate to smash on your floor. The dispersion of seeds, and the number of seeds, dictates how much luck will come your way over the next year. Oh, and you have to leave it there all day. If you clean it up before the next day, it’s bad luck.
We learned that children go carolling three different times, one of which is on New Year’s Eve. They have specific songs to sing for each of their days and they carry around cups for people to put in money or other offerings. We heard carolling all day – at the demonstration, on the metro, along the shops on the street. Our host family also had an assortment of cakes and treats that are typically offered for the holidays. The big cake has a coin hidden inside. You cut and serve the pieces in order of age with the youngest first and the oldest last. Whoever gets the coin, you guessed it, gets the year of luck! I got the lucky coin in my piece, and so far we’ve had a great year!
Next we played at the Ellinikon park which is a multi-purpose area along the Athenian Riviera that was once an airport. We later learned that this area is being developed with sustainability, efficiency, and restoring nature as the central focus. Two of the features already completed: a massive kids’ play ground, and a singing, blinking, water-spouting fountain that creates a bit of a maze for people to navigate. We easily killed a few hours playing there! There are many years of development to go, but the place looks like it will be a lovely spot to live.
We had heard rumour of a kids’ fireworks show for the New Year’s Eve that would take place at 8:00pm. We tried our best to find details and failed to locate this show. Instead, we wandered through the main square where the city mayor was opening the evening’s festivities and watched a few performances before heading back to bed.
We woke to a new year and new month and decided to check out the Changing of the Guard show at the Presidential Palace. The guards had the most unique ceremonial uniforms we’ve seen so far. Their skirts have over 400 pleats, their red clogs weigh about 3 pounds and have up to 120 nails on the sole, and they sport a large, black pompom. Their drill movements were very slow and exaggerated, requiring both strength and balance. They kept synchronized despite not always seeing each other. It was a short but fun show to watch. Had it not been a holiday, we would have seen a full change of the guard. Next time. You can see how they marched on our video.
Our host family found a great program for us to do as a group. It was a murder mystery and the story took place in Ancient Greece. There was one actor who took on the roles of detective and each of the four suspects. We had to ask the detective and the suspects lots of questions to see if we could work out who killed Kalinamos. We learned about some of the roles of different people back in ancient times and were successful in finding the real perpetrator. We also played a few historical games and had some good laughs.
On a sunny, warm day, we all hiked up Lycabettus Hill for great views of the whole city. It was dry and warm but was quite manageable. The kids kept each other motivated which was great for the adults. We found ice cream at the top as well as a small church. Athens is very dense city that is built in and around a number of hills, one of which being the Acropolis. From up high, it’s hard to see the limits of the city as it seems to stretch all the way to the Mediterranean. It was also a bit smoggy but our views were pretty decent.
The final event for our family was to visit the Acropolis and to see the Parthenon. We watched a video about its history and learned quite a few interesting things including that it was once a storage building for gunpowder. As the city changed ruling cultures many times, so too did the Parthenon’s use-case. It was a temple for worshiping a number of Gods, a temple for worshiping just one God, a burial place, church in which to worship Saints, and a military fort. It’s history is rich and complicated and we wish the walls could talk! It was a hot day when we stood at the top of the site and wandered the ruins. The crowds were thick and we ran out of patience before we ran out of water. It was worth seeing, but we admitted to enjoying the video more than the site itself.
We can’t possibly leave this post without also mentioning the food we had! We all quite enjoyed souvlaki, especially wrapped into seasoned, doughy pita bread. We found the oldest (and tastiest) donut maker in the city and enjoyed a few orders of donuts. We walked some open seafood and meat markets but only bought dried fruits and nuts. We tasted some candies, enjoyed some baklava, and were impressed at the many different ways puff pastry is used. We’ll admit that most of the street food is quite salty, but definitely tasty!
Overall, we liked Athens but did find it to be a bit more exhausting – perhaps the grafitti, trash, and the constant car and motorcycle noise make it more chaotic than the other European cities that we’ve visited. It was fairly easy to get around provided that you could recognize some Greek letters. Google maps did a good job telling us which metro line to use and what stop to get off at. We never had issues buying groceries or ordering food. There was a lot of police presence – more than we’re used to seeing – which may have also contributed to our feeling a bit uneasy overall. That said, we’re glad we went, happy to have met other travelling families, and looking forward to crossing paths again.