Air Travel

We slept in until 11:30am ... it was lovely since we had a late night & Meredith couldn't sleep. We went down to the hotel bar for an OJ and toasted sandwich. Then we purchased 3hrs of internel time at the hotel since the price was reasonable - checked email, updated our blog, and tried to upload photos but we ran out of time!
At 4ish we left the hotel going to the Metro & we waited for the 4:30pm train to the airport.
We checked in & went through the airport looking at shops then grabbing a quick bite to eat at Maccas - watching planes land and take off. Afterwards we headed to passport control & security - Will getting frisked again. Then into our gate where we lounged for approx 90mins as our flight was delayed. While waiting we were entertained by a very energetic tubby little toddler who had everyone's attention. We boarded at 7:15pm - taking off at 8ish (the flight had 35-40ppl max) we landed at 9:20 with the 2 hour backwards time difference.
Once we landed we went through passport control again where they asked lots of questions - Will got chastised for letting Meredith go to a different counter, while she was chastised for not keeping an eye on her man! We got on the Underground which brought us into Earl's Court & we walked a few blocks to the Ibis. Once settling into the room we went & found dinner - though proved difficult being 11:45pm - though we came past a KFC which was open. We had dinner (no chicken salt on the chips! and they have baked beans instead of pototo & gravy) then passed a shop buying chocolate then headed back to the Ibis where we jumped on the net for 20 minutes(1 pound each). Then off to bed which was nice & soft compared to the night before.

We woke up to yet another good breakfast - but nothing beats that bacon at the B&B (Fairfield Windermere). Checked out at 9am, refueling the car and dropping back at Avis. Shuttle bus to Heathrow Terminal 2 where we were making extraordinarily good time! We couldn't see the checkin counter for our flight anywhere - a quick enquiry at the Olympic Airlines sales desk showed that our flight had been cancelled due to a strike. Thankfully we had been changed to a later flight, so the only real difference was spending an extra 4 hours sitting in the departure lounge. They did give us 8 pounds each in vouchers for the inconvenience though. Through security this time Will forgot to remove his phone and wallet - he set the detector off which resulted in him getting frisked - making the score even!
Checked email & facebook for 20 minutes (2 pounds each), got lunch on our vouchers (Meredith - chicken ceaser salad, Will - ham & mozarella panini) and called our Mum's to say Happy Mothers Day! We sat in the lounge waiting, waiting for a gate - then suddenly we heard last call for OA270 at Gate 10! Can't say we heard the first call! Anyhow we were delayed and waiting on passengers & didn't take off until 5pm. We reached Athens at 10:05pm (3hr flight with 2hr time difference).
From the airport we caught a bus as it stopped at Constitution Square - well the Greek don't use the English name, it is known as Syntagma Square - so that barrier caused some havoc for us, so we got the X95 bus in town which was quite fast! Then the town map we had didn't have the street laneway marked on it where the hotel was, so it wasn't very helpful! We had a local guy give us a rough guide where to go from his own map. Finally in bed at 1am!

Took the shuttle from the Ibis to Sydney Airport's international terminal. Met up with Andrew, Brad, and Matthew, and their driver Kate in the departures area. Had lunch, saw the boys fly off to Egypt. Waited around until our flight and sent a few last-minute text messages.