Kalimera! (Good morning)

Sunday, 25 March

We had a very long night in the plane. I got quite a bit of sleep- mostly in bits and bobs. I watched 1 movie- The three musketeers. They brought us dinner at 12 o clock and breakfast at about 4:30. We landed in Dubai ( Asia!) and caught our connecting flight- which was about 5 hours long.

We arrived in Athens and Mom, Ash and me bustled through the European passport line (while dad was stuck in the 'other' passport line) We went to fetch our bags and had almost all of them before dad joined us. Then we met our driver, Nikos. He drove us from the airport, through the tiny streets of Athens and, finally, to our apartment: Athens Heritage House! We love it- it is charming, spacious and has the perfect position- the Acropolis is walking distance away! We got settled in, explored the rooms and had a shower. They had left us some sweet goodies, so we had those with a hot chocolate.

Athens airport

Goodies

Kitchen

Ash & my bedroom

Then we walked down our street, to the pedestrian walkway. It was bustling with people. Everyone seems so relaxed here (it was Greece Independence day- so that could have contributed to all the people strolling around, buying things from the vendors on the side of the road) It was very nice to join them, and get the feel of the people and this amazing city. We also got our first look at the Acropolis hill- it is incredible. What really amazed me about Athens is that you walk past so many historic sites as you are just strolling along. On the right-hand side of the walkway, there was a palisade fence and behind it theses bits of buildings and tunnels that were once the waterway for Athens! I am looking forward to the walking tour we are going to do, where we have a guide to tell us about all the historic sites.

Acropolis!

We were starting to get hungry, so we walked back down the walkway to a little restaurant we had seen. Don't even ask me what the name was- it's all Greek to me :D We ordered the starter platter and the meat platter. Wow! I think Greek food is now my favorite- the flavors were incredible. The platters were quite big, but we polished them off. It was such a lovely introduction to Greek food. There was a soccer game on the TV outside the restaurant, and a Greek club was playing against a club for Tripoli. (Mom asked some people about the game) It was such fun sitting there among Greek people and watching them cheer for their team. Now this is amazing: we got pudding on the house! It was also very yummy, but I'm not sure what it was. All I know is that is was almost like Malva pudding and was dripping with honey.

All Greek to me!

Pudding 'on the house'

Starter Platter

It was about 8 o clock (Greece used to be on South Africa's time, but yesterday they set their clocks forward an hour- so in SA it was 7 o clock) It was almost dark and getting really bustling. We went for one more walk down the walkway and then decided to go back to the apartment. Me and Ash went to bed at 9.

This morning I woke up at 7 and now I am sitting here writing this (By the way, I almost always blog about the previous day, but I will put the day that I am blogging about at the top of each post) Now we are going to have to find a supermarket and get some food! Later today we are also going to do that walking tour that I was talking about.