To Athens, James!

The train(s) to Athens were a world of pain. My dad's favourite saying while we are on public transport, is that the country is going backwards because everyone is sitting on their arses.

We sat in the section of the train that had two seats facing forward on each side, then one seat facing the side. On the side I was sitting with my dad, he was in the sideways seat, Cody was in her stroller in between the seats and I was on the aisle seat in the two seats. Cody's stroller essentially blocked off the window seat.

So this young woman jumps on the train and goes to barge into the window seat where Cody's stroller is. Suffice to say that whilst I didn't understand every word my dad said to her, I got the general idea between his face, his tone, her face and her tone in return. Not to mention the muttered comments whilst she was forced to stand ;) She wasn't the only person who tried to sit in there; one other guy did, but he was much more accommodating about the fact that it would not have been comfortable for anyone for him to sit in that seat.

After a quick change of trains, we finally arrived at Omonia Square, 50m from our hotel. By this stage, I was hoping for the Taj Mahal worth of 5 star accommodation and was sorely disappointed when it wasn't ;) My spirits very quickly lifted when I saw how much room we had in our two bedroom suite.

All in all, whilst the ride into Athens was um .. overwhelming, along with a full day wandering around to kill time and avoid sleeping through the day, it was nice to be off a plane, off a train and just free to wander.

Having said that, the only thing I really enjoyed about our day in Athens was the view up to the Acropolis and a quick gander at the flea markets. I hold much higher hopes now that a) I am back to understanding most of the language and b) we are not dead tired after jumping off a plane.