Well, what a few days! On Friday, I left my hotel in Athens in the morning to go to the airport. When I arrived, I couldn’t see my flight to Samos on the departures board, and sure enough, the flight was cancelled. They offered to put me on the standby list for the 6:30 flight, but that was doubtful as the flight was already overbooked by 2. It was no good anyway, as the ferry from Samos left at 5:00. So, after talking with my travel agent back in Australia, I booked a flight for 5:30am the next day, in case [View Full Entry]

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On Sunday morning I woke early and headed down for breakfast at 6 o’clock. Expecting the breakfast room to be empty at that hour, I was quite surprised to find a large group of French eating. Later on, as I waited outside my hotel the same group came out to wait for something, presumably a tour. They left and I waited for my ride. They were 20 minutes late so I had begun worrying whether I had made a mistake or they had forgotten me. Eventually they arrived. After picking up more people at other hotels we headed down to Piraeus, [View Full Entry]

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Monday, and another early start. I was to be picked up 40 minutes later than Sunday, but as I had to pack everything, I was awake at the same time. This time, however, I had the breakfast room to myself and the tour company picked me up right on time. We continued on picking people up from various hotels, and I was a little worried as some of them had no luggage at all. What are they going to do for clothes for 4 days, I wondered. The mystery was solved when the bus pulled up and some of us were [View Full Entry]

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I’m back in Athens now, so you will get 3 entries at once. Now, when I last wrote we had arrived at the hotel at Delphi. Dinner was at a hotel down the road and once again consisted of meat and rice. Not exactly the best example of Greek cuisine. The next morning we boarded the bus and headed to the nearby ruins. In ancient days this was a very holy site. The biggest draw for the site is the ancient oracle of Delphi. What I did not realise, however, was that they also held games here like the Olympics. They [View Full Entry]

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I’m in Athens…. No thanks to Olympic Airways. I woke up on Thursday thinking I would be having a nice leisurely day where all I had to do was head out to the airport, catch a flight to Athens and check into my hotel there. That’s what happened, but I thought it wouldn’t when I received a fax from my travel agent underneath my hotel door. Turns out Olympic was having a local strike (really local, only Thessaloniki as far as I can tell) and my flight was cancelled. After a minor panic and then some anger directed their way, I [View Full Entry]

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On Tuesday I headed out to Vergina. Lonely Planet claims you can do Pella and Vergina in one day, and perhaps you can, but you would need to get an early start and have a copy of the bus timetables. I had neither. I headed off to the bus station, bought a ticket and went to find the bus. Looking for bus number 9, I was unable to find it. Then a helpful fellow told me that 9 was, in fact, my seat number. After asking a couple more people, I found my bus; we boarded and headed out to Veria. [View Full Entry]

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Here I am in Thessaloniki, Greece. The flight went well. I watched Charlie Wilson’s War (great film, despite starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. Tom Hanks is one of those actors though - you may not like him, but some of his films are fantastic) and Jumpers (very ordinary, which was not a surprise as it starred the young Darth Vader, whatever his name is) plus a whole bunch of doco’s. Tried to get some sleep, but just as I dozed off I seemed to always be awakened by someone walking past and kicking me, or the guy next to me [View Full Entry]

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Hello from Changi airport. I have a few hours to kill, so I thought I would take the airport up on its offer of free wireless internet. Signing up wasn't as simple as it could be, but I got there eventually. Flight here went smoothly. Had a good seat with an empty seat between me and the other passenger. In-flight entertainment is super on Singapore Airlines. When I wasn't reading my book (The Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook - good stuff!) I watched a couple of movies. The great thing about the movies is they are on demand [View Full Entry]

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With a month and a half to go until I fly out, I am most relieved to have everything booked for the trip..... well, almost everything. The ferry's in Scandinavia were beyond my travel agent's abilities to book. Essentially I took that to mean "we don't get any commission on that". I'll book them myself. On my first trip to Europe, I took advice to not lock down my plans too much as I will want flexibility once I'm over there. Considering the extra stress involved, I decided I was going to have everything planned out this time. It may not [View Full Entry]

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