SOCCER FEVER IN ATHENS!

Day 83
Athens, Greece

We arrived by train and just when i was thinking there was so much BLACK around...on the train, in the streets, on the elderly greek ladies..everywhere in Greece...THEN, we arrive in Athens..

AND IT IS RED!!

And it's red because it's LIVERPOOL FEVER! No kidding, as we got off the train all we saw was liverpool flags, scarves, liverpool shirts (red) Liverpool madness.

It's the grand final of the UEFA Champions final here at Olympic stadium in Athens, Greece. AC MILAN vs Liverpool. It's madness.

"Bring Maddy Home" banners everywhere...(she was the little girl who went missing in Portugal on May 3rd and who now has a world wide search on for her...) Is that search extending to Australia? It's been big news here in Europe since she went missing and the Daily Mail and Daily Express has news about her each day.

Anyway, this soccer madness really affected us..because, all rooms were booked OUT!

We searched high and low in the pouring rain for accomodation and do you think we could get in anywhere? Just when we were about to give up and leave Athens for a place out of here...the lady at the reception of one of the hotels we were making enquiries at started helping us...ringing around at other places, to no avail...

THEN...her father, (obviously the one who wears the pants!) a really gorgeous greek man said (to his daughters abhorrance) we could use his old mother's apartment if we wanted to. She was 97! Nanna has gone to Meteora (which is why we think he took a liking to us because we'd just said we'd come from there!)

So! Here we are..in Nanna's apartment!!!! Just for one night. As an emergency measure. Talk about Greek generosity.

Tomorrow night we're off to another hotel as they said they were still fully booked and we were able to get into another place for the following nights...

But how was that!! SHould see the place...........toilet doesn't quite work .. there's a bucket that flushes it.. poor granny.. but at least we have a place to sleep!

And dinner tonight was so YUMMY!

Chicken, greek salad (fetta on top), homemade fries,

Sound familiar...we enjoy this meal so much, we keep ordering it. Tomorrow, time to try other greek food..like souvlaki and oops i forgot the name..but another popular greek dish anyway. We've tried Halva..ohlala...and i do have to say, Greek coffee..well it's not quite the same as the Italian espresso i'm afraid to say.

The guy at the restaurant we went to, сalled, 'φιλσψα' generously gave us a plate of antipasta..AFER our meal..i'm sure because we ordered ouzo! But...anchovies and anchovie flavoured potato just didn't really go down well....when dessert was really all we wanted..but we were very grateful of the hospitality.

People in Europe have been extremely hospitable to us. Must be our Euro look do you think? NOt sure..but they are! And we're not complaining!

We had a drama today trying to organise trips to the islands..but there's a holiday on the 28th, a Greek National day, so we're not sure if we can make it to Santorini or Mykonos..but we may come back. It's a great place for a 'holiday'! You know, that holiday from travelling that i was talking about...a week or two in the greek islands..oh yes :-)

We're still trying to get to Lesvos (home of George) but have to wait and see if we can extend our flight to Turkey. We want to go to Lemnos (where Grandpops served in WW1) which is near Lesvos. We'll see what happens...we need MORE TIME HERE!!!

Go Italy in the grandfinal!!!

And go DOCKERS! :-)

xxx

ps Greg says, "Go Eagles!!!" .......................