Gallipoli - mixed emotions

None of my family fought in Gallipoli, I have no reason to take it personally, but I have been surprised by my reaction to the history of the WWI battles. Turkey has also experienced a revival in interest in this region and the events of WWI so the area is well taken care of and there are regular reminders of their triumph and their heroes. They are rightly proud - and gracious in their victory - but I had forgotten that winners write history. When I visited Normandy, the stories were all told from the perspective on the Allies Here it is the Turks who talk of their matyrs and heroes and celebrate how they outwitted the Allies - quite spectacularly during the first offensive on Anzac Day when the Anzac troops could have taken Chunuk Bair if they had known that the 100 Turks they could see ready to fight were all of there was between them and their goal. But they didn't and months of fighting and thousands of deaths ensued and very little was achieved.

The problem is that Turkey's great victory was our great defeat.  I don't mean 'our' as in the Allies, but our as in the Anzacs. However it was viewed at the time, many New Zealanders today view Gallipoli as a pivotal point in our identity. We remember our brave soldiers, we slate the Brits and blame them for our defeat, and we have an odd respect for the Turks who, as as kiwi I met on a plane described it, whipped our ass.

In the morning before the tour, I hopped in the car and set off to see Kalitbahir Castle.  It was closed for renovations but I found a nice old Turkish battlements and little museum. This reminded me that the Dardenelles were a significant defence point for a long time before WWI and was held at various times by the Venetians, Romans, Iranians and Byzantines until the fourteenth century before it settled into Turkish (under various names) hands. It's importance as a defence point for Istanbul, and the rest of the Ottoman empire down to the Middle East was precisely the reason the Allies sought to take it in WW1. The way the Turks tell it they joined the war on the German side because the British refused to deliver two warships they had promised and for which payment had already been made because they now needed them for the war. I think there was probably more to it than that.

The bus tour was for about five hours and visited the main sites for the Anzac troops - Brighton Beach (where they were supposed to land ), Anzac Cove (where they did land), Lone Pine (where 3000 Aussies died), Johnsons' Jolly, Chunuk Bair (the major site for kiwis) as well as one Turkish site. You can still see where the trenches were in some places and they were so close to the enemy. The small space in between, no man's land, is the gravesite for most of those who died - Turks and Allies. There was no way to retrieve the bodies so the number of graves does not represent the thousands who died - and the whole peninsular is littered with cemeteries.

Those that did get a grave were given a wood cross and in the 1950s these were replaced with proper gravestones.  Families were asked if they would like an inscription added.  Some of these are heartbreaking.  I started tearing up when I read them - not cool in front of a group of people so I stopped reading them and went back to Anzac Cove the next day where I could read them and let my eyes water without feeling like an idiot.   Some inscriptions seek solace in religion and commit the fallen into God's hands, others are very poetic, many speak of their sons having served their duty, died for their friends or are standard war memorial phrases. "Their name shall not be blotted out" was common.  There were moving especially when you saw how young these men were.  Some were spoke of pain still felt - 30 years on: " My only son", "we loved him then, we love him still".

The Allies eventually won the war and took the Dardenelles and sailed the fleet up Istanbul.  But just like Chunuk Bair which the kiwis took at huge loss of life only to have it recaptured two days later when they have been relieved by the British, Musafah "I'm not ordering you to attack, I'm ordering you to die" Kamel Ataturk led the Turks on a war of independence which they won in 1922 on this very day and returned the area to Turkish rule.

Turkey - first impressions

Two days in Turkey and I've really only seen the road to Gallipoli, Gallipoli, and the road back to Istanbul.  I'll do a separate post on Gallipoli but here are a few impressions so far. 

Perhaps I should have done some research on the driving rules before I arrived at Istanbul and picked up the rental car.  No matter, I've picked up the rules along the way:

- speed limits only  apply in the slow lane which is as rough a groom after a three day stag do in Vegas
- lane markings should be treated as more of a guideline than a rule
- oncoming traffic has the right to pass at any time and you should move as far as possible to the side of the road in case they choose to do so
- I never have the right of way and should let those crazy nutters go first
- they tell you when you have to slow down but they assume that you are smart enough to know when you can speed up again (which I did, immediately, almost)

The weather has been a bit cooler here so my toes no longer look like little sausages.  It's still nice and warm and there was a nice breeze on much of the Pennisula.  The food however is very similar - I was given a Greek salad with my Kebap last night (which looked nothing like a Kebap that I know, but was very tasty).  They also gave me a plate of what looked like green chillis.  I warily ate the end of one and yip, there were chillis.  The waiter looked quite offended when I didn't eat them but my mouth was on fire after that one little bite.

It's Victory Day in Turkey today to celebrate their independence in 1922 (I think).  There was a short ceremony not far from my hotel room this morning with all the military brass out on display. I think they started with the national anthem as everyone in the street stopped while it played then carried on about their business when it finished.  Kind of like a flash mob - but without the dancing.

Have arrived at my hotel in Istanbul and I'm sharing with Mary from the UK.  She gets an extra 4 weeks holiday every four years and is quite well travelled.  Hopefully she'll be a good roommate.

Reflections, credits and bits I missed on Greece

I've said goodbye to Greece and I'm on my way to Turkey.  Greece is a lovely country and I am particularly enamoured with Athens - perhaps because of my three Greek friends - Marcella, Despoina and Kostantinos - all of whom helped plan my trip and made Athens special.  Marcella met me at the airport and spent the best part of three days showing me the sights, adding colour to them with her own stories and knowledge, and put up with my jetlagged state.  Despoina made me feel like a VIP with a special bottle of wine delivered to my room on my first day.  And Kostantinos had dinner with me in Plaka on my last night.  I particularly liked his description that Greek laws last about two months before people start to ignore them and go back to the way they did things before.  Both he and Yannis described the Greeks in a similar way - the 20 euro they have in their pocket may be all the money they have, but they will spend it to buy you a drink.

I had planned to spend my last day in Greece on Hydra but I was quite tired from all the travelling a couple of late nights so I decided to have quiet morning  in the studio apartment I was sharing with 4 strangers, a slow afternoon walk from near the Acropolis to Syntagma via some of the sights I had already seen and a nice evening walk with Kostantinos around the acropolis to Plaka seeing all the old stuff lit up at nice (and we ran into Yannis and a couple of people from my tour),  We have a fabulous dinner with a  mixed plate of meats - even Maurice would have been impressed by the size of the meal!  They refused to give me the bill until I had eaten the on the house nutcake (it's a tough life when you're forced to eat dessert).  In an aside, the in flight meal includes a quite nice applecake but I had a bit of a laugh to myself to see the label that describes it as homemade.  I have visions of some poor turkish grandma beavering away in a hot kitchen day and night to feed thousands of passengers daily.

There were a couple of stories that I forgot to include along the way so I might mention them now. 
- The Greek resistance during WWII was inspired by a couple of university students who snuck up to the Acropolis and raised the Greek flag in an act of defiance.   - The autonomy of their universities was so highly valued that the revolt against Turk rule was initiated as a result of their contravention of this autonomy.
- Greek figs are delicious when liberated straight from the tree by Yannis, not as nice (but still good) when bought from a street stall.
- There is an olive tree in Crete that is 2-3000 years old - and that's not even the oldest in the world.
- someone way back when, invented a cup to prevent his workers from demanding more grog.  If you fill it to the line, all good and you can drink away.  Fill above the line and the whole lot empties out the bottom.  The moral of the story: don't be greedy or you'll lose everything.
- Delphi is the centre of the world (aka the navel) and has a giant belly button sculpture to prove it - must have been an outie though.

Places of worship - the very old and the quite old

I've left the tour behind and am relaxing in a cafe waiting for my greek salad before I catch my train back to Athens later today.  The waiter has just have  me a nice jug of ice cold water and I am in heaven.  Needless to say it is hot today, again.  The main sights for the past two days have been Delphi and Meteora with a brief stop in the place where 300 Spartans (and 700 other fellas) held of tens of thousands of Persians for several days until they were betrayed.  The most interesting part of that brief stop was the bus driver getting told off by the policeman for doing a u-turn in the middle of the main road.

Delphi, the archaeological site is spread over three sites, two of which used to have the village of Delphi above them but the French government (or possibly the German) paid for the village to be moved so they could excavate.  The main attraction is the Temple of Apollo where the high priestess used to provide omens.  She had to be 50 years old with no remaining ties to her family and this was such a rarity, the women of the area were fed all the best food and treated with cotton will so as to ensure continuation of the priestesshood.  I think she was basic ally stoned when she gave omens.  Yanni describes the people who ran the temple as better than any intelligence agency today.  They would collect information so as to use it when people came to find out the answer to their question.  Answers were given in riddles and recorded so as to avoid any dispute if the prophecy was wrong.  People of all over Greece (from Marseilles to Turkey) would come to give offerings and seek to find answers to the future.  The site is rich in historical sources including a wall which was the gossip magazine of the day with events and news inscribed on it and some of the tablets with the prophecy riddles on  them have been found.  The museum was also interesting but mainly because of the stories that Yanni told about the scenes depicted on the statues.  There's a really old pottery thing which is supposed to be impressive but it was a bit like the Mona Lisa (I thought it would be bigger and more impressive).

* several hours later on the train back to Athens *

It's quite nice travelling solo although I do miss the nice comfortable bus.  Meteora is very picturesque and we visited an icon making shop before heading up to the nunnery (St Stephens) and then Varlaam monastary.  Then I hopped  of the bus and did a short but very hot walk up to the Grand Meteoro - the biggest of the six remaining.  The inside of each of the churches are very colourful with painted top to bottom walls and ceilings and painting of saints adorning the walls.  There are rules about who gets top billing and what scenes get depicted where.  Many of the paintings were done by Creteans.  Apparently the monasteries were very active in the resistance during WWII and so one was bombed by the Germans and has been restored by the Greek government.  The Ministry of Culture has three committees which distribute money for upkeep of the prehistoric, the classical greek, and the byzantine era historical sites. 

I had missed the 1.20pm bus and the next one wasn't until 5pm which would have meant that I'd miss the train, so I hitched a lift with a couple of nice Romanian couples back to Kalambaka and had a nice lunch before catching the train.  Despite emailing beforehand and being told that I didn't need to prebook, all the seats were gone so I'm sitting in the eating train.  Not terribly comfortable but I have a table so I've watched a movie and done a bit of reading.

The only thing so far to really annoy me on this trip has been a 69 year old man on the tour with us.  He was very touchy but at dinner on the second night he had his hand on my arm, my leg, my back, my shoulder all bloody night while he told a story about a time he was backpacking in Scotland and ended with him embracing me (the story was clearly complete bullshit).  It's just as well he is old else I would have been extremely unpleasant.  As it was I had a very brief and to the point conversation with him the next day when he was alone.  What annoys me is that I felt bad about telling the bastard that he was out of line.

It's dark on the train now and we still have a couple of hours to go so I think I'll watch another movie.

More old rocks and Hermes' nice arse

Day two of the tour was a lot more relaxed.  We arrived at Olimpia not long before the cruise ship tours arrived so the site was very busy.  The gym, the temples of Zeus (where one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the 36 foot high statue of Zeus used to be), the temple of Hera in front of which the olympic flame is lit before each of the four olympics is held, and the memorial are the most impressive part of the site.  The stadium itself is just a long stretch of dirt and not much else.  I knew that the ancient olympics were males only.  I hadn't realised that there were also olympic games for women held in a different year than the men's games.  The women were clothed in their games, but the guys all competed in the all together.  After a women snuck into the games one year in 300 something BC, all 40,000 spectators also had to enter the arena naked to prove their manhood.  Only one woman was allowed into the arena - the high priestess of Dimitrius (I've spelt that wrong too) who was one of the few who had a chair provided.  The  judges had seats but the rest of the audience just had grassy slopes.

The museum at Olimpia has some very nice sculptures and artifacts including the winged statue of Nike (well, her wings have broken off), Apollo looking serene at the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs, and Hermes who is looking very fine.  Apparently he would look even better with sunlight streaming down on his marble glory so you should all write to the museum and ask for him to be moved.

The drive to Delphi was broken with several stops, most of which were just for coffee.  We crossed the new bridge joining the mainland and the Pelonponese and stopped to watch a short video about the construction and to take a few photos.

This hotel is a bit nicer than the previous one, but the bed still looks a bit rock like.  But I had a nice swim before dinner which had some interesting conversation with the others on the tour.

On tour with grey power and a couple of Aussies

Thursday morning I said goodbye to Athens and hopped on a bus for a quick tour of the Pelonponese, Delphi and Meteora.  As I type, I am sitting on the bus outside a souvenir shop just out of Olimpia where we have tasted wine, olive oil and smoothed my hands with olive butter.  There are an interesting assortment of people on the bus which is fortunately half empty.  There's an Aussie couple from Brisbane who are about my age.  The other 10 are pushing 70.  There is a small spanish speaking contingent, a couple of Canadians one half of whom is a physicist from some facility at UBC, a couple of American guys one is an english professor and the other a psychairatrist, and a couple who I have not yet ascertained where they are from.

Grandma told me that the Corinth canal looked like a drain.  She was right.  However, Nero started its construction in 1 AD and then, according to Yannis our guide, gave up and went home and burned Rome.  We stopped for a few photos before heading to Epidaurus theatre.  It is still largely in tact and is one of the few that didn't have the circle of the dancers destroyed by the Romans.  The acoustics are amazing from the circle.  Napflion was a bit of a drive by to get a photo of the three castles.  There is one that covers most of a wee island out in the harbour.  A chain from that fortress to the mainland prevented enemy ships from entering and made it one of the safe havens for ship owners to harbour their fleet over the winter.

I have always thought that Greek culture started with the Ancient greeks that you hear all of the myths and legends about.  But the area has a very lively pre-history and Mycenae which is 34 centuries old is a fine example of this.  It was vaguely reminscent of the ruins in South America.  I had the obligatory photo at the Lion's gate and then we went exploring down to the spring that Yannis had specifically told us not to try and see.  The aussies had a torch on their iPhone and about five of us ventured down by this one tiny light. Ashley made it all the way to the bottom but wasn't impressed with the muddy pool so the rest of us just looked from above.  A nice surprise was the very intact tomb of Agamemnon (or whatever his name is) which is just below Mycenae. 

We then embarked on a very long drive to Olimpia where was stayed in a 'first class' hotel.  I don't think it has been refurbished since 1983 and the beds were as hard as a slab of rocks.  The food and service were great though.

Thursday: Athens - Corinth canal - Epidaurous - Napflio - Mycenae - Olimpia
Friday: Olimpia

Highlights of Athens - Scene II

I've seen a fair few theatres over the past few days and the Greeks are famous fo r their plays.  The theatre used to be attended all day over several days.  You  would see several tragedies and a comedy for each of several playwrights and  at the end the winner was proclaimed based on the loudest applause.  For my 'theatre' experience, I went to an open air theatre and saw Expendables II - so bad it was good.

But I was going to tell you about the food.  I am a big fan of souvlaki, our first night's dinner, and we had a great tasting plate for lunch at a taverna right next to the Roman Agora on Monday.  The courgette balls, grilled capisicum tomato balls were divine and the cheese balls,  lamb balls, dolmades, little sausages and cheese were also very nice.  The tomatoes stuffed with rice I had for dinner on Tuesday night were a little bland, but very nice with the feta that Marcella recommended I have with them.  Greek salad is everywhere and is just like the kind Mum and Frances make (except the greeks add capsicum which is a nice addition).

The churches have been a nice surprise.  Little byzantine ones dotted over the place, the white church on Lykavittos hill, even the newer churches look interesting (no glass clad monstronsities for the Greeks).  The metropolis cathedral was beautiful with it's blue and green marble from brazil and white pentali marble.  They are going to remove the blue and green marble as it has only been there 20 years and they are restoring it to the original.  There are paintings of saints in all of the churches and when people make requests of the saints they make an offering of a gold or silver addition to the painting - the Madonna get a halo, some are 'dressed' almost entirely in silver, the poorer people have a small card size offering which is tied to the painting. 

The sauna, I mean Metro, in Athens is fantastic.  Not only are the trains on time and frequent, but the stations themselves are quite nice - artwork is in most of them, some have excavations as integral parts of their strutures, and Monstraki station itself is quite nice.  I have had to learn to be rude though in order to get on and off the trains.

Wednesday was for trips out of Athens central.  Marcella and  I caught the Metro out to Faliro (?) one stop before Pireaus where we passed the peace and friendship stadium and then had lunch by the sea  - right be the sea, it was one foot away from our table and people in the neighbouring table were feeding the fish.  I had cod and ouzo (which is apparently a traditional combination).  I liked the ouzo, the fish was a bit dry and the potato garlic that came with it was awful (very strong garlic).  The mountain herbs were very nice - Marcella described it as herbs with olive oil and lemon juice - it tasted like spinach.

Later that day we caught the bus out to Cape Sounio.  The coastal route is nearly two hours long and it wends its way past beaches full of umbrellas and bobbing heads in the water, and people scatter on the rocks by the water.  Houses and hotels line the shores just about all the way to Sounio.  We, with about 100 other people, watched the sun go down from the Temple of Posidon.  It was very peaceful with a gentle warm wind and the strangers from all over the world around.  One brave chick was doing yoga to the sunset on a precarious looking rock, there was a romantic looking greek couple next to us, and one family taking 1500 photos of themselves with the sunset behind them.

* Lowlights *

There are signs of the financial crisis if you are looking for them but they are not obvious.  Empty shop fronts where buildings have closed, the national gallery which I visited on Wednesday morning is closed except for one floor.  I was talking to a greek woman while browsing in the shop and she explained that they can't afford the staff to open the other floors - which is a shame as I didn't get to see the more modern art, but I did see some very nice late 19th/early 20th century paintings. 

Jetlag blows.  I thought I was doing so well on Monday.  We saw a lot of the archaeological sites and then caught the funicular (cable car) up to the top of Lykavittos hill to see the sunset.  We escaped the crowd and had the steps mostly to ourselves and then made our way back to the top again in time to see the flag being lowered for the day.  We walked from the bottom of the funicular through Kolonaki (where the rich people live) and were going to get dinner.  But I was so tired I almost burst into tears trying to decide what to eat so I went straight back to the hotel instead.

Wednesday: sleep in :) national gallery, pireaus, cape sounio

Athens - Piles of old rocks

I had read somewhere that you could see Athens in a day.  You might be able to visit the most important sites, but you would see very little.  After two very full days - one with Marcella and one by myself - I have seen most of what I wanted to see.

The highlight for me was the Ancient Agora and the other buildings on this site.  Sure, the Acropolis is majestic as it looks out across the city demanding attention, but it's a look but don't touch site and there are always, quite rightly, scads of people.  Ancient Agora is a tree filled site with wandering pathways,  one of the most intact temples in Athens, and Stoa - long thin multistoried building - in which you can wander around .  It houses a museum with the ubiquitious statues and busts.  As I looked out from the second floor, I pretended I was Caesar's wife until I remembered she was Roman not Greek.  Besides which, Caesar had her killed. 

The museums in Athens are magnificent.  I saw the new Acropolis, National Archaeological, Keremeikos (cemetery) and the Ancient Agora museums.  You'd think, having a history degree, that I would love museums, but rows and rows of ancient vases and statues are kinda dull.  What I did like was the way that the artefacts are presented.  Restoration is part of the display - including on the sites, most of which had people working on restoration and excavation.  In the Stoa there is the occasional clear pane in a line of frosted glass that allowed you to peek into the areas where people were working.  The new Acropolis museum is built on an achaeological site and you walk over glass panes with the excavation below you.  This them of light and 'peeking' is continued in the rest of the building (don't wear a skirt!!)  Some of the statues are quite beautiful such as the Caryatids which you can watch being restored in situe.  There is an interesting video about the Parthenon and then, of course the replica of the Parthenon and the magnificent views up to the real thing.

Most of the women statues in the sites and museums are clothed and most of the men are in thier full, willie snapped off glory.  The few that still have their willies makes me very sorry for Greek women (-waggles little finger-).  Greek men have a hobby of 'harpooning' women tourists and comparing notes afterwards.  I wonder if they realise that the women also discuss their conquests and giggle at Greek men's lack of um....

Anyway, I have strayed from the highlights of Athens.  The food has to be right up there, but I have a date with an Art museum, Pireaus and Sounio so I'll have to tell you about that next time.  In the meantime, this is what I've seen:

Monday: Syntagma Square - National Gardens and zoo - Zappeio gardens and palace - Panathiniac (olympic stadium) - Temple of Zeus - Hadrian's Arch - Theatre of Dionysos - Herodes Odeum - Acropolis - old area?? - Monastraki -hotel - lycabettes hill - kolonaki - hotel
Tuesday: New Acropolis Museum - Monastraki - Roman Agora and Temple of the Winds - Ancient Agora - Keramikos museum and cemetery - National Archaeological Museum - hotel - traditional greek restaurant - open air movie.

Jetlagged in Athens

Cat Stevens is playing as I sip my cappaccino (looks like a flat white to me) on the top floor of Public (like Whitcoulls Queens St) and look out over Syntagma square.  So far I've seen Elvis standing on a guitar and Spiderman sitting on a stack of books - and that was just the first floor....

My hotel room is very nice and clean but a bit noisy.  I slept like the dead last night so it didn't really matter. 

Marcella and I went for a wee wander yesterday afternoon/evening.  I really just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for a week, but I've made that mistake before.  Omonia square is where the rich people used to live but it is now the hang out for drug addicts and illegal immigrants.  It was deserted when we walked through it.  You can see signs of the protests and riots in the graffitti everywhere - some of it very violent and huge anti-police sentiments.

We say the National Library, the University of Athens headquarters and the Academy of Athens all in a row.  The graduation ceremonies are held at the headquarters.  There are statues everywhere.  Athena, goddess of wisdom, and Apollo, god of music and arts, sit atop the Academy which is undergoing some restoration work (like many of the buildings in Athens).  One of the statues in front of the University is Kapodistrias.  He was the first prime minister after they achieved independence from Turkey.  He tried to introduce potatoes to relieve the starvation of the greek people, but no-one was having a bar of it.  So he planted some in his own garden and stationed guards around it saying that they were exStremely rare.  As expected, people stole his spuds and started planting their own.

The old parliament buildings were next complete with a statute out the front of someone famous.  I can't remember his name but he is pointing to Lykavittos hill and apparently this is important.

Old stuff is all over the place.  We came across an byzantine church in the corner of a square.  It has a bell with a chain hanging down.  Naturally, I rang it.  (I'm  a bell ringer now too, Abi!)

By then we were a bit thirsty and peckish so we stopped at Everest (chain fast food) for a cheese pie before tackling the main shopping street.  It's sale season (so many shoes...) so lucky it was Sunday and everything was closed).  The sweet shop, however, was open and we bought some loukoumi (turkish delight) and the saleswoman explained about various sweets.  Mastich is very greek.  It comes from the sap of Mastich trees which grow on Chios Island (there have been bush fires there in the last few days and most of the trees have been burnt). 

Souvlaki was for dinner.  A very nice outdoor meal of mini kebab (domer souvlaki) and some greek salad.  The meal was marred a little by a very insistent beggar.  I was feeling dreadfully guilty but the restaurant owner told us that he was a drug addict and had refused food when he had offered it to him.

I was so tired that we caught the Metro back to the hotel and was in bed by 9pm.

Mum, it's been clear blue skies and a 'mild' 30 degrees  :)

In Transit

Flying half way round the world is kinda dull.  But I do have a wee bit of free time so a blog post seems in order.  I'm writing this from Dubai airport where I am waiting for my hot stone massage.  I am very pleased that I booked ahead as there are quite a few people being turned away as I sit here typing.  Some of them are none too pleased.  It's a little extravagant but after sitting in cattle class for the best part of a day I need a little spoiling.

I arrived at Auckland airport nice and early (thanks Mum and Maurice for dropping me off) and the departures board status told me to 'Relax'.  Ever obedient, I kicked up my feet in the gate lounge and rested my eyes for a few hours.  Plus points to Auckland airport for surprisingly comfortable seats to lie down on, minus points for no free wifi.

The flight was delayed due to a problem with the seats (one of the air stewards later told us that the plane was four years old and clearly in need of replacement - don't we live in a disposable world??).  My lovely seat with no one next to me was a casualty of the reshuffle and I had instead I had an indian chappy with a pointy elbow and a pertpetual need to go to the toilet.  Oh well, it was only a three hour flight and there was quite a bit of legroom.

Sydney airport transit was quite short but they still made me go through border control again and they made me skull all my water.  Free wifi was nice.

Marcus and his nephew Rodney were my new companions for the 13 hour (!!!) flight to Dubai.  They were on their way to the Ukraine to check out farming techniques (and here I thought men went to the Ukraine to find a wife).  Apparently they have tractors with GPS so that they can plant seeds in between the rows of the previous year's crop.  Marcus was very chatty, but I had to joking threaten to punch him in the face when he started rubbing my shoulder.

* a day later from my hotel room in Athens*

The massage was a good idea, but not as fabulous as I had hoped.  The room was a bit chilly.  But if was nice to be spoilt for an hour and I was able to have a shower afterwards.   Dubai airport is madness.  Crazy full of people and I was glad to leave.  I had a very nice kiwi girl next to me on the the flight to Athens.  Seats were hideously uncomfortable, movies were very difficult to watch but we did have the exit row seats so plenty of leg room.

I have been amazed at how relaxed the customs process is after Australia.  It's a bit of a push to get people to even look at my passport.  Greek customs consisted on the woman stamping my passport and that was it.  No baggage scanning, no questions, no 'where is your return ticket.  Just straight out the door where thankfully Marcella found me straight away and took charge of finding me a coffee (a frappe, served by a woman who was a bit surly until I asked Marcella how to ponounce thank you - Ef - ha - rist-o - and then she came up all smiles.   We caught the blue line of the metro in and changed at Syntagma to the red line to get to the hotel.