King Jason Athens

... we had to go through passport control and security again. Efren of course was asked to show his passport. All in all we made it, but in the future I'd be very concerned with a layover of less than 90 minutes at that airport!<br><br>The final 11 hour flight home was uneventful -- Craig slept most of the time (United Economy Plus seating helps), and Efren kept busy watching movies. We arrived back to SFO around 8pm on Saturday night. We quickly got our luggage and we ...

... that area and head to see what other options were available. I ended up scoring a couple of plastic deck chairs and finding myself a little sheltered corner on the pool deck. Not long after I had settled a group of Austrian (2 married couples) came and set up next to me and we chatted a little, and made an agreement that we would watch each others stuff if we wanted to go for a walk. <br><br>After a few hours the chairs started to get really ...

... it was funny how almost everyone else<br>went to hide under the umbrella for the supervising staff. Out of the<br>whole area, there were 12 or 15 people hiding under a 4 foot by 4<br>foot umbrella. I spent a good deal of time there, enjoying more<br>ancient ruins, before leaving and walking around the Acropolis to the<br>north side, and walking up the hill for yet another great view of<br>Athens. That was mostly it for the day, so I went back to the hostel<br>for the night ...

... some drinks as when he was in American the people were so nice to him that he wanted to return the favor. We went to his hotel, the Grand Bretagna, this was next to Parliament and one of the nices hotel in Athens. From the bar up on the top floor there was the best view of the city, the Aegean sea and the Parthenon. We wanted to go out to the balcony to take pictures but did not think that would be to classy. While there his boss saw our Turkish friend ...

... can't argue with euro beers. our hostel had a fun pub night and then we started a pub crawl. this is the best part - we had our own entourage. so as there were cats all over israel and turkey, here they have dogs. i don't think they're stray, but they're all over and seem to prefer to be outdoors wandering rather than in their respectives houses. our hostel has, or has adopted, about 6 dogs, all over whom are ...

... to my hotel which was very close; seafront although I'm on side with little view Nice promenade street along water; ritzy area; took bus short distance to Internet since none nearby; walked around upscale neighborhood of Glyfada; could have been in LA, Miami or DC w/mid-rise residential buildings, traffic and parking problems (Despite light rail), upscale coffee shops and cafes with some American companies. Went to nice large grocery store and walked back ...

... However for it's cheap price it is very satisfactory. I had to drag my suitcase upstairs to the second floor because the hostel doesn't have any elevators. My room was very homely and the room was clean and I had a view of the Parthenon from my window. After I made myself comfortable at the hostel I walked around looking for the nearest currency exchange and I found a Domino's Pizza where I could have a nice dinner. $$$ left:1,518.70 Euro's

... to sleep. 21th March Our first day in Athen. Breakfast is served from 730am onward. I must say that the breakfast in the hotel was not very sumptuous. Toast bread, cheese, ham, hard boiled egg, cereals, coffee/Tea/Juices etc. Very basic breakfast. After the breakfast, we gather at the lobby and proceed to Alpine Center (The Swiss Business School for Hotel and Tourism, Management Education in Greece) for some presentations by some professionals ...

... on the lido deck with all our new friends and had a great time. At dinner we had a cake and all the waiters and everyone else in the dining room sang! I got the Cruise Director to ring Malcolm up and stir him up...he is a real character and has a morning show every day where he rings people etc. So that was a good laugh and he sent us champagne and a signed photo of the ship. Yesterday was Athens. Unfortunately we ...

... we chickened out and got the metro back to our hotel to kill some time before our evening ferry departed. We arrived very early for the ferry, having been advised that this was the best way to nab a good seat for the overnight haul to Santorini, and lo and behold we managed to score ourselves a three-seater couch each, with a table and chair in between. We managed some fitful sleep overnight, although the frequent stops and associated announcements didn't help.