One of my good friends from Australia, Brendan, visited me here in Denmark!!  Bringing back many memories of my time back in Melbourne.  He stayed in Denmark for a week, checking out the sights while I was stuck at work.  Nights, we spent having dinners/drinks with the other Interns.  But the highlight was when we went to Greece for four days!!!!!!!!!!  The intent was to head out to one of the islands.. either Mykonos or Santorini.. but this is what happened.....

 

On Friday, we checked in after waiting in line for about an hour or so, board our plane and it takes off.  10 min later the Captain comes on and says that we have to return to Copenhagen due to a problem!!!  Since the flight attendants didn't freak out, I didn't freak out.  BUT... when we landed and were taxiing to our stop, there were fire engines!!  Apparantly when we landed, the tyres had smoke coming out so they thought that we caught on fire.  Anyways, we had to wait another 3 hours before they fixed the hydraulics problem.

 

So... we finally get to Athens after a 3hr flight.  We go to one of the travel agencies at the airport to see if we can check prices for ferries.  What we didn't know was that they were fully booked out for the weekend since it was peak season and a Greek public holiday on the Tuesday!  So we had to re-think our trip, luckily the guy was really good and suggested that we take a one day cruise/tour of three islands instead, and spend the other day sightseeing in Athens.  Since that was the best way to spend our time, we agreed.  Friday night we checked into our hotel near Omonia Square, an area known for its pickpockets and prostitutes. So we spent some money in the area... on food!!!  mmmm authentic souvlakis.  We also ate and had drinks in the areas of Plaka and Psyrri.  Plaka is the best place as that is where most of the people are, so the atmosphere is great.

 

Saturday we spent seeing the sights.  Spent €5 on a tourist bus where you can jump on and off from the bus AND use it for any means of public transport.  Quite worth it.  So we saw a few sights but spent most of our time at the Acropolis.  Where we saw the Theater of Herodes Atticus, Propylaia, Temple of Athena Nike/Parthenon and the Acropolis Museum.  On the rest of the bus tour we stopped to see the Temple of Olympian Zeus, Hadrian's Arch, Athens Stadium, National Gardens and the National Archaeological Museum.  Standing next to such old buildings does put things into perspective.  Because you wonder how it lasts so long and stand in awe at how big they made them!!  Was a really cool experience.

 

After going back to our hotel for some nap time, we took the tram out to one of the beaches.  It wasn't that good because it was just rocks under your feet once you get out in the water.  But we still had fun.

 

Sunday was the day of chillaxing on the one-day cruise.  The first Island was Poros which had a beautiful bell tower on top of the hill where you can get panoramic views grom Poros looking back onto Greece.  The next stop was Hydra where we spent all of our time at a swimming area.  It was just some rocky/concrete platroms where you can jump out to and swim in the sea.  Was quite cool and different.

 

It was lunchtime where we were treated to some Greek music and cheesy cruise entertainment followed by some great Greek Folk Dancing.  Was heaps of fun and Brendan and I were dragged up to participate.  Sorry, no photos of those *breathes a sigh of relief* .  The last island was Aegina.  The beach there was the best!  Nice warm water which was still cool enough to get out of the heat and no rocks underneath.  So, obviously we spent our time just on the beach.  That was pretty much it, Monday was an uneventful flight back to Copenhagen *phew* and Brendan left the next day for the rest of his round the world trip. 

 

One thing about Greece is that everything is geared towards the tourist spending more money.  When we went to the first travel agency at the airport, she wanted us to fork over heaps of € and fly to one of the islands then stay in Athens. Luckily the other guy we talked to was soo much better.  Then wherever we were eating or sitting, beggars would come up to ask for money or people would come to try to sell us things.  On the boat, they offered "optional" tours for the island of Aegina which we said we didn't want to go on.  We asked if there was a beach there and they said that there was, but it was dirty and the shops would be closed because it was the hottest part of the day.  But they weren't, and as you can see the best beach was on Aegina.  But despite this, I still had a great time.  Seeing all the ancient sites and soaking up the mediterranean sun was a fantastic holiday.  A great way to relax before work started getting hectic again!  I will definately go back to Greece, but this time travel there in September so there aren't as many tourists, its still sunny and ferries to the beautiful islands that we missed out on are still available.  Wanna come?  Start saving!!!!