Athens Here We Come!!!

We left our B&B in Rome the next morning and got on a train at 7:09 and rode it to the airport (had to change trains only once). Getting through security wasn't difficult at all, just a little nerve racking since we were afraid there was a chance they didn't speak English, and hung out at the airport for a little while. Our plane left a little late but we arrived to the beautiful Athens around 2:30 that afternoon. This time I got to have a window seat on the plane. Unfortunately, I was right by the wing so I couldn't look down. I never seem to get any good luck on the seating arrangements on a plane. While we grabbed our luggage and walked out, there was nobody to check our passports or even a customs to go through! It was all very odd. We ate some lunch at a some deli place in the airport and then found a taxi to take us to our hotel. This was the stressful part because we were afraid that the taxi driver wouldn't speak English. But our driver spoke fairly good English, knew exactly where our hotel was, and even turned on English speaking music for us on the radio on the drive. The taxi cost about 40 euros total but it was about 13 between each of us. At the President's Hotel, there was a bellboy who took our luggage up to our rooms and unloaded them for us. We were on floor 15 and our room was pretty sweet. We had a really good view of the city but to tell you the truth, the city is not that pretty. It is very dirty and graffiti is everywhere. We rested for a bit and then headed on downstairs to lounge area to meet our tour guide from Contiki and the rest of the group. We were expecting a huge group but apparently there was going to be only 7 of us. Our Contiki guide was Paola and she was from Colombia. She was the best and most fun tour guide I have ever had. She was always smiling and very helpful and she was also very young as well. Beth was 19 and from Boston but studying in London at the time. Then there were the 3 Australian boys who were working in London at the time as well. Dave and Nathan were 23 and Ian was 25. The only reason they came on this trip was to drink. We went out to eat as a group that night to a restaurant that night underneath the Acropolis that was lit up. We had all of the traditional Greek foods. We started with red wine to drink (which wasn't too bad, so either Im getting used to the taste of wine or it was good wine) and had Greek salad, spinach/cheese pasties, bread with a good paste to put on it, beans, and cooked zucchini. Then we had our main dish which consisted of chicken, rice, potatoes, and vegetables and to finish the meal we had a certain type of ice cream that was pretty good. Throughout the meal they had music playing and people in costumes would come in at random times and do some of the Greek dancing. Everyone in the place would start clapping at different times and yell Opa throughout the evening. I had the most fun that evening and the food was delicious! I know that the cooked zucchini sounds disgusting but actually it was incredibly good! We got back to the hotel and went to bed.

We woke up the next morning and packed up our stuff, had breakfast downstairs, and checked out of the hotel. A bus came to pick us up at 11:45 and we were on our way to the port to get on our cruise ship! We had to wait an awfully long time to get our passports checked and stamped before we handed them over to the cruise ship for them to keep on our cruise for safe keeping. It was very nice because we didn't have to worry about our passports for 7 days. We checked our luggage in and then loaded on a bus to take us to our ship. Our ship was called the Cristal and once we boarded, there were people everywhere that wanted to help! A worker from the ship took the card that had my room number on it and led us in the elevator and took us up to our room on deck 7 while another guy brought up our luggage. We went to the lunch buffet right away to get some lunch before it closed and then went back to our room to unpack. We were in a small room (no porthole) for four people (it was only the 3 of us though) and a small bathroom attached to it. Teresa and Mel got the bottom bunks and I got the top bed that folds down from the wall. Once everyone was on the cruise ship, we had a safety drill that required us to put on our lifejackets and proceed to our designated places. Our place was deck 5 and we had to get in two lines with the women and children in the front. Then a worker came by and checked each one of our lifejackets to make sure they were secure and tight enough. Apparently I didn't have mine on tight enough because he had to tighten it. The entire time this was going on I kept thinking Titanic, Titanic, Titanic. The drill was over after a short period of time and we went up to deck 9 to meet with Paola and talk about our day trips. We had dinner reservations at one of the restaurants with the Contiki group that night. It was the most fancy place ever! I dressed up in a skirt that night and when we arrived there were waiters and servers everywhere with the white towel draped over their arm ready to serve. We got the most fun and the best waiter ever. His name was Pipit and he took care of us the entire cruise making sure we ate enough. They folded the napkins in our laps and there was so much silverware in front of me, it was a little intimidating. I had chicken Parmesan and a chocolate pastry dessert. After dinner we went to the Metropolitan Lounge to watch a show they were putting on that evening: the songs of Mama Mia. At the end, the dancers from the show went through the audience and picked a whole bunch of people to dance to the last song. They picked Teresa but she wouldn't let us let her go up there alone, so she dragged us with her to dance. We headed up to the disco lounge on deck 10 after the show and met up with the rest of the group. We hung out with them for a bit before heading down to our room and hitting the sack. We were due to arrive in Istanbul in the afternoon the next day.