Athens, Greece - September 7-10 2010

On landing into Athens (Tuesday, September 7 well really early morning Wednesday, September 8) I have a great view of the city, boy this city is big! After taking a bus to the terminal the bags arrive a few minutes later - thank goodness, although I'm torn with this. Half of me is happy the other half is sad. I could have quite easily said ciao ciao to my pack forever!! I walk out and am greeted with a sign -- Mr Jordan Saia...yes I suppose that's me. I am super pleased I've arranged the taxi, I'm so tired I can hardly walk straight let alone work out how to get to my hotel.

My taxi driver is a lovely man who's English is brilliant - he use to be a seaman so we chatted for ages on where be has been and what's his favourite places. Unfortunately he never made it to Kiwi land but his daughter is looking at going so I said he should go with her. On arrival into the city centre he takes me on a small tiki tour - everything looks amazing all lit up.

Finally get to the hotel and on checking in am upgraded, I'd like to be happy but I'm just too tired. Never again will I travel so much in a day......grrrr I actually have worse to look forward to when I fly London to NZ but I won't start thinking of that quite yet. Please Mr Upgrade God help me.

Wholly smoke I have a view of the Acropolis from my room - now this is an awesome end to a very long day!

Wednesday morning I slept in a bit, I really need to be having more than 5 hours sleep each night. Went downstairs for breakfast, ooh the Greek food. I had forgotten how great it was. Goodbye Italia, hello Greece!!! Think I'll be living on a diet of feta cheese, cucumbers, olives and spinach pie for the next two mornings.

The restaurant is just above street level, I'm enjoying just sitting staring at everyone go through their daily routines. The traffic seems as crazy as Egypt and Vietnam - you need a degree in crossing the road at the one spot I can see. It's definitely easy to sit and waste away an hour or more, but time for me to go to the pool.

The pool is on the roof top of the Hotel, with an amazing view of the Acropolis. I spent the whole day there just relaxing (reading and swimming) and admiring the view.

Decided to eat dinner in the hotel, just couldn't face going out given it was now dark. Tomorrow night I must - eating all 3 meals in the hotel just isn't cool plus its expensive.

Thursday morning I foolishly set my alarm but the second it went off it was switched off - definitely not getting up now.  When I finally managed to drag myself out, I showered then went for breakfast. It was like forcing food down, I really needed to wake up more and the gross filter coffee wasn't helping me.

I decided that I would visit the Acropolis today, given it was later than I planned I thought it best to take the metro rather than the hop-on hop-off bus. Now this would be all well and good if the metro wasn't on strike again. So I had a very quick turnaround, 10 minutes, before the next bus passed my stop. Wow I can move when I need too!! Always good to know.

It was already very hot so instead of doing a full circuit I decided to get off at the Acropolis stop, which is just as impressive close up. I had two hours here just wandering around taking it all in. Took a lot of photos and not just on my camera. Met 3 ladies who live in Saudi Arabia as nurses. Chatted to them for awhile then continued my wandering. It's amazing to think these sites have been around for years and years. Imagine how many people would have visited.

I ended up meeting up with the girls at the bus stop, given the next bus wasn't for another 25 minutes I ended up walking down to the next stop with them. We stopped en-route for a couple of hours to drink beer - this is definitely the life! It was so nice to have a normal conversation again, I know I'd only been on my own for 2 days but I was really missing it.

Our first stop was at the Temple of Zeus, which I'd seen from the Acropolis. Was great to see it from ground view. From here we walked to the Panathinaikon Stadium. The stadium is made entirely of white marble.

In the 2004 Olympic Games, the Panathinaiko Stadium hosted the archery competition, and the finish of the Marathon.

We had a good look around, including walking on the track and standing on the Olympic steps -we all of course had a turn at getting the gold medal.

We got on the bus at the Stadium stop and headed home, I was completely had it. Being in the hot sun all day, not eating lunch and drinking had taken it's toll on me. I was hot, sweaty and felt like I had all of the Acropolis sand on me. Time for a happy drink on the roof top me thinks then dinner.

Thought I'd be brave and venture out of the hotel for dinner. On arrival the other night I'd noticed a restaurant directly across from the entrance of the hotel - ok so not exactly venturing far but at least I wasn't eating in the hotel again :)

I went with the waitresses recommendations, fried feta with tomatoes, olives and red pepper then Moussaka. Both were very good but after eating all of the Tzatziki (which as some of you know I absolutely love and could live on) there wasn't much room left. Next time I know only to order Tzatziki....ok maybe something else to go with it.

Friday (10 September) I was up before the sun, 5.20am is just not an acceptable time to be getting up on holiday....but I had a ferry to catch to Santorini where I definitely won't be seeing the sun rise ever!!! There ferry ride is 5 hours, and that's on the fast boat.

I'd met an Irish couple last night at the pool bar and got talking to them. We are going to share a taxi to the Port which is great for me pocket.

We left the hotel at 6.30am and in what seemed like no time arrived in the port area, along with half of Athens! Getting to the actual Port seemed to take awhile, I was getting nervous as I'd read on the ferries website you had to be there 1 hour before and for me it would be more like 30 minutes before departure.

In the end it all worked out and I was sitting down with 20 minutes to departure. No idea why you need to be here so early. As I'd booked last minute I had a VIP ticket, this means sitting upstairs and that's about it.

After I'd napped on and off for an hour and a half we arrived at our first stop, Paros. I went down to the luggage area to collect my elephant and bring it to where I was sitting - feel much more better good having it with me.

It's now well past cafe-o'clock, time to taste a Greek coffee. After asking what the difference is between Greek and normal coffee, which I now regret as the Head Purser was so bloody rude about it and I still don't understand the difference, I was now ready to start to feel half normal again.

We had two more stops before we are due to arrive in Santorini. This boat seems to be taking forever, next time I will be researching flying.

Ciao for now Athens, I'll be back in 11 days.