Follow Us Two: In Europe and the UK: Day 51 to 53

We arrived in Athens at 7:30am, after waking up at 5am to catch our flight. We looked like zombies with huge back packs trying to catch the metro train to our hotel. Being the trustworthy South Africans that we are, we bought our metro tickets and then regretted buying them. There is no system or person checking for tickets, and it seems locals don't even purchase tickets. At least we contributed a bit to the money problem in Greece, but no wonder why they financially struggling so much? We couldn't check into our hotel room yet, so we stored our luggage and then went off to see the 'little' Athens city. Hence, it is rumored that Heathrow Airport is bigger than the touristy part of Athens. The city still looked dauntingly big to us!

For some reason, Bruce had lost track of a day and had it in his head that we had to see all of the attractions in one day. This was the reason why we were not allowed to stop for one minutes rest! He steered us straight to the Acropolis, Hadrians Gate, and the first modern Olympic Stadium without any breakfast. This was very abnormal!

Being too hungry to protest, we jumped on the Metro and traveled straight to the beautiful and famous Acropolis. It was extremely imposing and blew us away with its steep walk to the top and breathtaking views of Athens. Being students, we got to see all of the Acropolis for half the price - 6€ each.

Once we had taken in the scenery of Athens, some sense prevailed and we decided we would head down into the Plaka area and get something to eat. It was now 2pm and we were both a little grumpy and faint. Greek cuisine and especially the restaurants in Plaka had been highly recommended to us. We had decided to treat ourselves, but came up rather disappointed with this one. We each ordered a homemade pie, one cheese pie and one beef pie. Possibly it was the South African inside us that pictured a massive pot pie for the price of 5 Euros each? On arrival, we found out that these specific Greek homemade pies were actually just massive slices of feta cheese blocks, with a thin pastry piece on top. It was at this point that I was able to explain to Bruce that we still had another day in Athens, and did not have to cover the whole city in one morning or day. After this realization, we decided to head back to our hotel and check in, as well as rest before the big adventure to the two Olympic Stadiums. We were shown to room 605, the only room in the hotel which has a night view of the lit up Acropolis.

Athens is the cradle of modern day Olympic Games and we were very excited to take the journey from the first Modern Olympic Games in 1896, through to 2004. After a few hundred meter sprints and a stroll past Hadrian's Gate, past the national gardens, we were excited to have seen the Olympic Games history. Bruce also being the sports freak that he is, it was like talking a child to Toys R Us.

We started off with the first modern day Olympic Stadium known as Panathinaiko. We also felt very humble and proud to come across a video of Nelson Mandela, as he is the symbol of one of the Olympic Values. We got to see all the torches from all the past Olympics, we sat in the king and queens thrones, and we even stood on the podium. Bruce obviously standing on first place, allowing me to only chose second or third. I chose second.

We are not sure if it is the current Greek situation, but Athens does seem rather run down in areas. We were reminded that it is 2000 years old, and so a bit of wear and tear is bound to occur? We tried a MC GREEK from Mc Donald's, we had a drink at Hard Rock Cafe, we adventured into the second best open air cinema in the world, and we strolled through the flea market in Plaka.

On our final day in Athens, we had to complete our Olympic tour and run a 100m sprint in the most recent stadium in Athens - which hosted the 2004 Olympics. The train trip out to the stadium is a very humid 45minutes. When we stepped out onto the platform it was as if we were the last people on earth! The Olympic park stood in front of us deserted, and we felt as if we were on one of Will Smiths last man on earth film sets. Most of the grass is overgrown and the walls are covered with graffiti. Even in this condition it was still a awe inspiring venue, and especially great considering we were able to explore the entire complex for free! It seems to be open to the public as we did come across swimmers in the pool.

After the 100m dash that Bruce ran on the tracks (and I lazily photographed), we raced back to the hotel and onto the airport to catch a short flight to Corfu Island. From Corfu, we would start our Balkan explorations which will take us all the way to Croatia.

Goodbye Greece! Pity we ran out of time, we'll be back for Santorini one day.