Day 8 - 11/10/16 (to Italy):
We were up at 8:30am to get ready for our trip to Milan, Italy! Once we'd washed, eaten, and packed, we walked across the street to drop off a package we needed to send out before hopping on the Skylink bus to East Midlands Airport for £3.10 per person.
Once inside the airport, we requested special assistance for me so I wouldn't have to struggle getting through the place and to the gate. They put me in a wheelchair, which didn't speed make getting through security faster but made getting thru the airport much quicker and easier and allowed Sean and me to skip the long boarding line for the plane and actually be the first ones on for the second time ever now! The flight was 1hr 40mins (or was supposed to be but I think they mentioned that they shaved 25 minutes off our time?). Sean got some work done in that time and I listened to some of my Spanish audio lessons. As we began descending into Milan, we could see numerous rows of mountains of different colors as well as additional hills and mountains speckled about. The furthest of these rows was covered in bright white snow (I assume in the direction of Switzerland?) while the closest ones looked green and brown.
We'd booked a rental car through a company called Firefly, which I believe is owned by Hertz, so we picked that up after landing. They gave us the choice between a little Fiat 500 or the slightly larger Fiat Panda. We went with the Panda so we'd have room to stretch out and sleep overnight.
Our first stop after leaving the airport was a McDonald's at a shopping center. There, we got two €1 burgers, a €1 frothy milkshake for Sean, and a really strong €0.90 espresso for me. They had several much more adventurous choices but we didn't try any this time.
Across from McDonald's in the shopping center was an enormous store called Iper where they had everything from groceries to makeup, pretty much like a Walmart Supercenter but maybe even bigger. We headed for the grocery section there and picked up a free sushi sample (delicious!) as well as a 1.5L orange drink, 1.5L of fizzy water, sandwich meat, bread, and weird stuff that we thought was cream cheese but ended up being brown, fermented, and not that great all for €3.37.
Then we drove to Verona, paying a €5.70 toll along the way to do so and stopping at rest area there for the night before doing any exploring. (We'd decided to explore a few other parts of Italy and save Milan for last before flying out again.) I stayed up a lot longer than Sean and was kept company by several stray cats roaming all around the parking lot. My favorite of these strays was a particularly cute, funny, fluffy, siamese one that came up and stood on its back two legs to beg. We gave it some of our weird cheese stuff. A handful of other cats wandered around near the car through the night but the siamese one was the only one I saw actually come up and touch the car, even standing up against the car with it's paw on the door to look at me as I stared at it through the window.
It was getting really cold as we tried to sleep and we hadn't had room in our bags to bring sufficient bedding but I'd brought 2 pocket-sized emergency blankets and a bag we were returning to an Italian friend who'd left it behind at a dance game tournament years ago had another blanket in so we made do. It was a cold, hard night and I barely got any broken sleep but we made do.
Day 9 - 11/11/16 (Verona & Venice!):
In the morning, the cats were long gone and replaced with peacocks roaming around and scavenging!
Now that the sun was up, we continued into Verona for some sight-seeing. We stopped briefly in the town center to get pictures and have a quick look but we spent most of our time there visiting one particular landmark: Casa di Giulietta - a Gothic-style 1300s house and museum with a stone balcony, said to have inspired Shakespeare (Romeo & Juliet). So romantic! We were still pretty sleepy when we arrived there but we woke up just enough to appreciate it together and grab a couple of cute, inexpensive souvenirs from the shop there. :)
The music on the radio as we drove around was mostly in English and was mostly stuff that was made and/or formerly popular in the US.
After seeing the Casa di Giulietta, we continued onward, making good time toward Venice, Italy but paying another €7.90 along the way.
Unsure what food prices would be like, we stopped at a grocery store called Famila. Everything seemed expensive here too but we got a few bits to tide us over. Funny, I don't remember Rome being quite this pricey..?
There aren't any streets to drive on in Venice - just walkways for foot traffic and waterways for boat traffic. Since absolutely no motorized vehicles are allowed in Venice, let alone capable of driving into it, we parked a couple of blocks from the Venezia Mestre train station in Mestre and got the train in. There were limited spaces in the parking section we found but I think it was fairly cheap to park there for the day (especially considering they were charging €30 at parking garages in Piazzole Mestre) so we left the car there, walked to the train station, and took the train to Venezia S. Lucia for €1.25/person.
Toilets were charging ~€1 to use. Even the McDonald's at the train station was charging €0.80. We held out and went on the train, where the toilets were still free of charge save the cost of a train ticket, which we had anyway.
Upon arriving at the Venezia S. Lucia train station, we walked outside and we're immediately greeted by the Grand Canal! Gondolas, boats, and pedestrians were everywhere. We were in Venice!
Shops and housing lined the walkways and waterways. Given the prices we'd encountered since landing, we were impressed to find that a lot of the souvenirs and food we passed wasn't, on average, badly priced at all! Much cheaper than the grocery stores we'd been in so far this trip, which was really kind of funny.
Not long after arriving in town, we found gelato for only €1.70 per single scoop cone. Lots of good flavors too! Sean chose Ferrero Rocher and I picked tiramisu. :)
We took our gelato for a walk as we explored all the bridges, souvenir shops, markets, alleyways, occasional statues, buildings that were leaning slightly because they'd been built on stilts in the water,.. A lot of stores we passed had masks in the window, from Mardi Gras style to extremely unconventional types, lots of clown and jester types, and even some shaped like animal heads. They ranged from basic and cheap to exquisitely intricate ones that might cost a paycheck. I probably should've done a little more research to find out but not sure the reason behind them all. A lot of them were really cool though!
We needed a mini break after awhile so we stopped in McDonald's and spent €2.50 on a machiatto and a tea. The restrooms here didn't charge for use but the line for them was out the door (door of the restroom, not the restaurant)! While sipping our drinks, we caught a glimpse of someone's beer: 7.2%! Crazy enough that buying beer in McDonald's is a thing in some countries but 7.2%?! :o
It was getting dark when we reached the fantastic, wide-open St. Mark's Square (Piazza San Marco) but we got some good pictures before the sun completely left us. There were guys there with bird seed offering to take pictures of us as we held bird seed out and got covered with hungry pigeons. We reluctantly accepted and got absolutely raped by the birds. Lol It was fun and we got some funny pics but the guy tried to charge us €10 and the pics he got us on Sean's phone were super blurry! We sent him away with €1 and moved on!
It was so cold and wet here in Venice, at least today. It'd been raining off and on our whole trip since arriving in Europe and we weren't really surprised by it but it was definitely colder and wetter here today than any other day for us so far. Accordingly, we decided to trade the walk back to the train station for a ride on a water taxi (called a vaporetto, I believe?). It was €7.50 each per person, had 15 stops back to Ferrovla (I think it was called?)/Venezia S. Lucia (where the train station was), was super slow (took somewhere between 40 mins and an hour - we could've walked faster), was jam-packed with people sardined together, wasn't very fun, was freezing cold in the outdoor bits and still pretty cold in the indoor section, and had very limited seating (though we manged to get seats after awhile). It was overpriced and not what we'd expected but it was an experience we felt we'd needed! Lol
Finally back at the station, we got the train to Venezia Mestre for another €1.25/person and walked the couple of blocks back to the car.
Then we went for a drive in search of wifi, which ended up being a pain in the ass due to some Italian regulation that prevents users from connecting to most networks without a textable Italian phone number and/or providing a credit card. Even after providing our credit card info, we really struggled to get online. We eventually worked it out at a couple of places but it took up some time tonight
We stopped at a Ristop location, which was another chain of travel centers like Autogrill. We couldn't get the wifi to work here but we used the restrooms and noticed that they had showers to use free of charge! We didn't use them tonight but good to know!
We found an Autogrill location next and used the wifi there for a bit. They had free showers there too. Guess it was a thing not to charge for travel center showers in Italy, at least in this area! One thing I was amused by but liked slightly was that they didn't have toilet seats almost anywhere. Not sure how you're supposed to poop - maybe sit on the rim? - but the ladies are expected to stand while peeing! There are even little drawings over many of the toilets in women's restrooms explaining that we're supposed to stand while peeing. Not sure if most females here carry funnels in their pockets or have just developed a skill I don't have but I didn't have my pee funnel with me and when I tried peeing in their toilets while standing I just ended up getting pee everywhere! :/
Back at the car, Sean fell asleep at 9pm. I wasn't tired so I stayed up another 4 hours typing this, getting tons of work done, social networking, and sorting out lots of things we'd want and need to do for these coming few weeks as well as after getting back to the US. Then I cuddled up with Sean and eventually got some sleep.
Day 10 - 11/12/16 (Leaning Tower of Pisa):
In the morning, we used the wifi for a bit longer before starting a 2.5 to 3 hour drive to Pisa, Italy! Things hadn't taken us as long as we'd anticipated so we had a free day and decided to go see the leaning tower! We got on the road and paid a €4.30 toll (apparently higher than usual due to sleeping in the toll area overnight), a €1.40 toll, and a €1.20 toll before getting to a Lidl grocery store to get €12.88 of food for our travels. Things were MUCH cheaper there than at the last couple of stores we'd been to.
The road to Pisa was the most rural route we'd taken in Italy but it was pretty and took us through lots of tunnels around grass and tree covered mountains. The cost we paid on the way was another €4.30 toll, €20 in the gas tank, a €13.80 toll, and another €43.90 in the gas tank. Worth it though! We arrived in Pisa and spotted the Leaning Tower within a matter of minutes. We found parking near it easily but were swarmed by aggressive, scary salespeople on the street who called us names when we refused to buy from them or give them money and hung out around our parked car making us feel uneasy about leaving it. We moved it a street over just to be safe but it was still only a short walk from there.
Then we were at the Leaning Tower of Pisa!! I'd always imagined it in the middle of a field by itself, not really near much else. Pisa itself sort of seemed that way when we arrived, actually. It wasn't an overly populated area and there wasn't much to it we felt we needed to see other than the Leaning Tower and whatever we happened to pass on the way to and from it. That was really refreshing though, actually. We just walked to the tower (which was every bit as impressive and pretty as I'd expected it to be) got lots of pics, picked up a few €1 mini Leaning Tower souvenirs for ourselves and as gifts, and meandered around the shops and part of town immediately adjacent to the Leaning Tower til it started getting dark. Then we started back north to see more of Italy!
Note: A few places we'd seen so far this trip, including Pisa, had tall walls that very much reminded me of those in the PC game Daggerfall (2nd in The Elder Scrolls series) that I used to play when I was 9 years old.
Before leaving the area, we stopped in a McDonald's and got an €.80 espresso, a €1 tea, and two €1 hamburgers. There was a funny sign on the door stating that customers weren't allowed to play Pokémon Go there. Inside, we sat down with our food and drinks and used the wifi briefly to get in touch with a friend we were meeting before getting back on the road.
A €26.20 toll, a €1.90, and 3 hours later, we were in Monza, Italy! We found parking at a spot our friend Davide Rubino had suggested called Piazza Guiseppe Cambiaghi. A few minutes later, we found Davide (or, rather, he found us)! From there, we went walking all around, just sight-seeing through town with Davide occasionally pointing out interesting or significant spots to us. We eventually found ourselves at a little bar called Borgo Caffe where Sean and I got a round of drinks for €17. Not bad considering it included 6 drink orders (2 per person including a shot of rum with a mini pear fruit drink shot chaser for each of us, a grog each for Sean and me, and a Coke for Davide)! We sat around sipping those and talking about pretty much everything but especially our native countries and languages; the differences between English, Italian, and Spanish and American and British English; and similar topics. Then we got back on our feet and explored a little more of Monza til we eventually reached the Duomo there. Apparently, to my understanding, a Duomo is like a town's big cathedral. This was Monza's. It was really pretty but Davide said it had nothing on Milan's. Guess we'd have to find out tomorrow!
It was getting late then so we made our way back to the parking. Davide had done me a huge favor and printed the Ryanair boarding pass I'd need for my next flight. (Ryanair doesn't allow check-in more than 2 days in advance without paying extra and charges non-EU passport holders extra if they don't print their boarding pass, though EU passport holders can just download their boarding passes to their phones. :/) He gave me the boarding pass, he gave us some helpful tips and directions for visiting Milan the following day, and I traded him for the old bag our mutual friend Jackson had left at that tournament Sean and I had attended 4.5 years prior. Lol (Jackson lives in Italy a bit west of Monza and, though Davide probably hadn't seen Jackson since the last time we did, we thought he might have a better chance of returning the bag.) Then we said goodbye and Sean and I headed for an Autogrill, paying a €2.10 toll along the way, to sleep in ultimate cold (now down to just emergency blankets and whatever clothes we had on).
Day 11 - 11/13/16 (Milan):
I woke up with a mean headache this morning and it took a good portion of the day for me to get back to 100%. Sean was patient with me though and I did the best I could with it in exchange.
We used WiFi in Autogrill for a bit to catch up with friends and family and get a little work done. Then I got a little more rest in the car while Sean did a bit more on his laptop.
Today was Milan day! We weren't driving in though. Instead, we paid a €0.40 toll and a €1.30 toll to get to Gessate, parked at the train station there, and took the train for €3.10 per person to town. A short while and a single transfer later, we were there. We went up the stairs. To ground level and there was the Duomo, just as spiky and awesome as promised!
As with pretty much every landmark we'd visited this trip, there were tons of pigeons here and lots of, for some reason, exclusively African people hard-selling the same items over and over. In fact, every African person we encountered was selling something - selfie sticks, toys, pictures sith pigeons, crappy bracelets. They tended to get pretty hostile when verbally refused to. The best bet seemed to be ignoring them and getting away from them ASAP. My dad had visited here once. I wondered whether he'd had any trouble with people thinking he was trying to sell them things when he was there (since he's black, though lighter skinned and differently dressed than most here).
We went walking a bit, exploring Milan, after a good look at the Duomo. A short distance later, we found the The Castle of Milan (technically Castello Sforzesco)! It was free to enter and look around so we got a filled churro and a sausage roll for €3 from a food stand in front of the castle and then went in for a look. It was too big to see all of right then but we had a peek at a lot of the various, separate, wide open areas within the castle walls and got the idea. At one point, we even had a short tea and espresso break at a little cafe there at the castle for just €2.30 total. Very cool!
Another short walk away, we found the Santa Maria Delle Grazie (church) - home of what remains of Da Vinci's painting of The Last Supper. Being a church, admission was free. Seeing the painting itself, however, was €10 per person. We did some research and found that the painting had been practically entirely destroyed due to a number of mishaps that had damaged it more and more over time. There were attempts to "restore" it but, from the opinions of many, it was very different from the original and could hardly be called Da Vinci's work anymore. I couldn't say one way or another personally but given what we'd read about it, the wait time to see it, the fee, the viewing limit of 15 minutes per group (I think that's right), the fact that we may have needed a reservation to see it (not sure if we did at this time), and the fact we weren't even allowed to take a picture of it, it wasn't worth it to us. Insteaf, we just looked around the Santa Maria Delle Grazie, getting pics and vids of the other art there, the church itself, and other things we WERE allowed photos of.
I think we'd just about had our fill of Italy then. Feeling satisfied with all we'd seen and done, we got the train back to the car. (It was supposed to be €3.10 each or something similar again but we snuck it with €1.50 per person tickets instead.)
We filled the gas tank with €37.96, paid €0.90 toll, found a grocery store called MD Discount (like Lidl), got an assortment of food for the last time in Italy this trip, and drove to the nearest Autogrill. There, we ate and watched Red Dwarf in the car before going inside to use their free shower and WiFi!
The shower was a little bit ghetto and the extent of provisions included hand soap, a sink, the shower, a rickety shower curtain, a toilet, toilet paper, and a hand dryer. No towels or other amenities. Can't complain let alone expect any more than that for free though. We were just super lucky and excited to be getting clean! We shaved and washed everything and, at the end of it all, I even gave Sean a little "help" with a heavy load we'd neglected to unleash thus far in Italy. I'd started my period less than an hour prior and unfortunately and surprisingly, I wasn't personally in the mood at the time but that should mean I'd be easy to please when we got around to it in a few more days or so!
Back at the car, we did our best to prepare for what would hopefully be our last cold car sleep this trip. We cuddled up in the back seat with our emergency blankets and closed our eyes at 11:45pm.
Note: One of the best things about Italy, in my opinion, is countless travel centers with free showers. Wish that was more common elsewhere!
Day 12 - 11/14/16 (to Greece):
Today was the day I'd complete another of my many childhood dreams: visit Athens, Greece! We'd be flying out less than 3 hours after waking up but we had a few things to take care of first.
We packed our things away, put in one last liter of gas, and started toward the airport. We paid €0.60 and €0.90 tolls on the way. The car return went smoothly. We had some last liquids to chugs before going through security and had to visit the check-in desk, as always with Ryanair due to my non-EU passport. Then we headed to our gate to board the plane.
They didn't have any special treatment for people on crutches or with any kind of disability really and didn't offer a wheelchair to get through the airport. That was perfectly fine but it did mean a long, sweaty walk to our gate and a long wait to get on the flight once there. At least I was getting a free workout! (Crutches are hard work, especially if you have no upper body strength and most of your weight on your bottom half!) I think I'd actually lost a few pounds so far this trip. I usually gain about 5 to 10 pounds during our month-long Eurotrips! I'd walked on foot, without crutches, a few days now this trip but only as a last resort when I was too exhausted or sore from crutches or knew I wouldn't be able to keep up for the people or things I needed to. It wasn't a good idea for me to be walking yet and it hurt but it was between taking a little risk or sacrificing the trip. I'd chosen the risk. Today, however, my foot needed a bit of a break.
Funny note about this airport: they had enclosed beds for people to pay to sleep in! Such a good idea.
Our 11:45am Ryanair flight from Milan to Athens was due to arrive at 3:10pm local time but actually got in 20 minutes early. We, again, got no assistance through the airport or anything but there was also no passport control or customs check really so nothing slowed us down getting on our way.
When we went to exit the airport, we were met by a lady who was waiting for us amidst the sea of sign holders and family members waiting for their travelers to arrive. Apparently, she was with the Drive SA Rent A Car rental car company we'd booked with (through AtlasChoice) and had to come to meet us just as we were exiting. Didn't see that coming! Guess it was the tiniest company ever! She was very rushed and lost patience with us quickly when we wanted to look over the car and the paperwork before signing for it. She actually got pretty rude and THREATENED to inspect the car closely when we brought it back as well because we were inspecting it and taking pictures of it. o_O She really didn't like us recording or reading what we signed. That made us pretty nervous but we took lots of videos of everything. Not a good first impression of the area though!
Out second impression wasn't a whole lot better either. I was in need of tampons so we plugged a nearby store into the GPS, tried to drive over, and got hit with a €2.80 toll right away. That wouldn't have been a huge deal but it was cash only, which we didn't yet have because we'd JUST landed, and they wouldn't let us turn around or pay by any other method. (We'd just left Italy, which was Euros as well, but thought we'd have a bit more time before having to get any more cash out!) On the bright side, the toll booth supervisor we had to speak with to sort the mess out tried very hard to speak English with us, made sure we understood what to do, and just wrote us up a paper to take to the next toll booth (or any there within 30 days) and pay there once we'd gotten some cash. She took down our details, including the rental car's info, in case we didn't pay but we got a receipt when we eventually DID pay so hopefully things will turn out fine.
Shortly after that, we made it to our first grocery store in Greece. Quite a few different things there including the two I found weirdest: skinned, otherwise whole rabbits with their eyes and tongues still intact for sale behind the meat counter (eww!) and bags which each contained a seemingly whole octopus in the freezer. We chose some less hardcore options but still sampled a bit of the local stuff! We bought €9.28 worth of groceries including some Greek yogurt that came in a clay pot and some alcoholic drink called Ouzo which Sean says Greece is known for. We ate the yogurt right away. I linda liked it, though I'm not a huge fan of yogurt and could only eat a little. Unfortunately, this store didn't sell feminine hygiene products so we continued our search.
Driving along, we spotted a herd of sheep roaming right next to road! Their owner was with them but was just letting them roam around without a fence!
We noticed right away that stray dogs were, as in Mexico, extremely prominent here. They were all pretty big too - no chihuahuas or other little ones as far as we saw. It seemed like everywhere we went, there were stray sogs roaming in search of food. Some cats too.
The next store we visited was Lidl. It wasn't far from the first store but only sold tampons - no pads. I worried that maybe women here didn't plug themselves here when it was that time of the month. We got a couple of salami sticks and a creme-filled pastry though.
Next to Lidl, we spotted a bigger store called My Market. It looked more promising as we entered and, sure enough, we found some tampons. Crazy though, in a whole aisle full of pads there were only o.b. and Tampax tampons, each with maybe 3 absorbency options and no fancy extras. Tampax was the cheaper of the two as well!
At the ATM outside the store, we got some cash out so we wouldn't have any further toll struggles.
We'd started seeing persimmons on every trip now - be it in California, England, Italy, Greece. They weren't always a good price but at least the struggle to find my favorite fruit now seemed to be over!
Our next line of business to handle now that foods, beverages, and woman-plugs had been sorted was work. We drove to a fancy McDonald's nearby in an equally fancy shopping center, got tea and regular coffee (not Greek coffee just yet, though they had it!), and used the wifi briefly til Sean's laptop died. (No outlets at this McDonald's.)
Back at the car, we encountered more stray dogs roaming and fed them some meat we had left over from Italy.
We figured most historical sites in Athens would be closed and/or too hard to see, being evening and dark out, so we came up with another plan. We'd read that the Temple of Poseidon was built around 440 BC, sometime after the first one was destroyed. We started down to see it then, 47 miles southeast of Athens at the tip of the land at Cape Sounion, about a 1 hour drive away from where we were. We had one €2.80 toll (plus the prior €2.80 toll we owed) to pay on the way down but other than that we only had to pay gas to get there. Would've been pretty irritating for there to be any further tolls, actually, considering the condition of the roads that followed. Not all of the route was paved or maintained, there were sections with countless potholes, the route wound randomly through communities and down tiny back roads, much of the way was pitch black other than our headlights, we didn't see one single car besides ours for maybe 45 minutes and most of the way ran around mountains and through a light forest with fairly short trees. Not sure if our GPS just hated us or whether that was actually the best route but we eventually spotted the Temple of Poseidon and, after arriving, many more people as well. Despite being night and the site being closed til 9:30am the following morning, it was busy with people just hanging around or hopping the fence to go and see it anyway. We didn't join them since we'd be staying overnight to get a much better morning view. We did take in some fantastic views of the supermoon that was tonight though! Pretty cool to be viewing the supermoon from the Temple of Poseidon!
Near the parking for the Temple of Poseidon were a couple of buildings including a restaurant with outdoor seating. Everything was closed at the time but the outdoor seating was accessible and offered a great night time view of the temple, which was lit up at night. We got out our Ouzo and orange drink we'd bought and enjoyed the view!
Then we went to the car, got a little work done, and eventually just went to sleep to wait it out til morning.
Day 13 - 11/15/16 (Temple of Poseidon & 1st day in Athens (with Obama :p)):
It was much quieter when we woke up in the morning! In fact, we were the only car there for awhile. Other people slowly started showing up again but it didn't get as crazy busy as it had been the night before, at least while we were still there. We thought we might have figured out why as well: during the day, when the site is open, there's a €4 per person fee to get in. Still, the views of the temple as well as the other archaeological sites, water, and landscape which surround it make it easily worth the €4! It as the perfect spot for the Temple of Poseidon, on the edge of the land overlooking the vast body of water which surrounded it and went on as far as the eye could see in some directions. We went in, took TONS OF pics, and soaked in the view for the longest time. We checked out some of the other archaeological sites there and had a look in the souvenir shop adjacent to the restaurant we'd been hanging around outside of the night prior. We walked down the hill there a little and visited The Sanctuary of Athena at Sounion, or what very little remained of it. It wasn't nearly as spectacular in location or remains but we were glad to see it, especially considering Athena is my favorite character from Greek mythology.
Being so near Poseidon's temple, it only seemed appropriate that we visit the water so we drove down the road a little next, found parking close to the water in front of a motel, walked down, and waded around in it nearly up to our knees. It was nice and clear, a little cold but we got used to it. Seemed pretty crazy playing around in water while staring up at Poseidon's temple! We found a couple of different crabs in the water there including a little hermit crab that came out of his shell a bit to see what was going on when I accidentally picked him up (thinking it was just an empty shell).
We started back to Athens after that, only stopping briefly to feed some old meet to a few stray dogs we passed.
At Paiania-Kantza (using closest translations from Greek for the purpose of this blog btw), one train stop closer to Athens than the airport, we parked and got a couple of €1.40/person tickets good for riding anywhere for up to 1.5hrs. We had one transfer but soon enough we were getting off at Monistiraki, right by the big "flea market" area of never-ending souvenir shops and restaurants down every nearby street! We were in Athens!! We walked around the shops and saw SO many things we wanted to buy - more than in any city I think we'd visited before - but didn't buy anything just yet. We got a feel for our options and prices first and figured, for some of the souvenirs, maybe it was worth seeing the sights they represented first.
I was very surprised to see both dogs and cats roaming freely even throughout the town center. Some people even left food and water out for them. Some shop owners even let them roam in and out of their shops and pet them when they stopped by! Not sure why but some of the stray dogs had collars with several tags hanging from them. They weren't anyone's pets and all of the tags seemed to be in the same style. Maybe a sort of tracking system?
It was weird and a little unfortunate for us as tourists today but a lot of things were actually closed today because, coincidentally, President Obama was visiting Athens at the same time. Everyone was talking about it. Shop owners kept telling us that the city was less busy because of all the road and other closures due to the visit of "my" (the USA's) president (technically the former or soon-to-be former American president, as Trump was just elected). Walking around, it was true! Tram lines had stopped, major and minor roads were all blocked off, tour companies and other businesses that typically conducted business in the affected area were temporarily shut down, there were cops absolutely everywhere we went.. It was a kind of amusing coincidence that the very first day we ever spent in Athens was so affected by a visit from the president of my country.
We were getting hungry after walking for a bit so we got a one beef and one pork souvlaki (basically a gyro/kebab) for €2.20 each and shared. Both were really good and cheap too!
McDonald's was next to the souvlaki shop so we got a tea for €1 and a Greek coffee for €1.50 there to wash the food down. The coffee was probably the most un-coffee-like coffee I'd tasted but I really liked it! Apparently, Greek coffee has the grounds left in it. Weird but it worked!
Note: Where many other countries would use concrete or other materials, marble is commonly used here! Many of the sidewalks, stairs, and random structures here are made of marble!
Just after McDonald's, we walked through Syntagma Square to the Old Royal Palace (most likely where Obama was at the time). There were 2 unmoving guards standing out front, who we assumed stood motionless there all the time except during shift changes (changing of the guard), but there were many other guards and officers in other uniforms - including huge numbers of police officers - watching the place and all nearby areas.
Next to the Old Royal Palace, part of the National Gardens was closed off for Obama's visit. We got to walk through a section of it though.
There were a several American flags up for Obama next to numerous Greek flags at the Zappeion building, located right by the Old Royal Palace and National Gardens.
Also in the area was the Archaeological Site of Olympian. It was closed when we arrived but we could see it through the gate and got an even better view of it from a distance a bit later.
Just down the street from there was the Panathenaic Stadium. Some fun facts about the stadium: It's used for several events and athletics in Athens, it was the home of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, it's the only stadium in the world constructed entirely by marble, it was reconstructed from remains of an ancient Greek stadium, it's the location where the Olympic flame handover ceremony takes places before each Olympic Games, and the Harvard Stadium in Massachusetts is the only one in the world shaped like it. Probably the most awe-inspiring thing we'd seen in Athens today and almost as cool, in my opinion, as the Temple of Poseidon but we still had a long way to go!
We did more shopping and window shopping then and even bought a few really cool things including some pervertedly funny playing cards, a couple of vases as gifts, and a super romantic statue of a nude man and woman embracing each other. The last of these was, possibly sadly, the thing I'd been looking forward to shopping for most since we'd first started planning our visit. Now, it was finally mine and for just €6! (The other 3 items were all just €2 each as well. Not bad at all!)
At a cafe we spotted amidst the shops, we stopped and got a piece of baklava, a piece of some gingerbready cake thing, a tea for €1.10, and a Greek coffee for €1.30. ~€3.60 total and the pastries were really good!! I got way more coffee than at McDonald's too and it was cheaper as well! If I'm honest, I liked the McDonald's one slightly better but glad to try both!
Shortly after the cafe visit, I spotted chairs with fish tanks at the feet of them! It was called fish spa treatment and the little fish in the tanks would, supposedly, clean a person's feet by eating the dead skin and/or whatever else off of them. Strange but Sean said he'd seen it somewhere before!
I'd been wanting to visit Athens since I got into Greek mythology in 6th grade, I believe it was. I couldn't completely speak for the place itself yet but I had a feeling I wouldn't be disappointed. I was liking what iwo saw so far, though I never could've imagined what it'd be like. As for the people, however, that was a different story. Most of it was just their mannerisms and way of speaking. Their tone of voice often sounded aggressive but they also seemed very hot heated, snapping at others easily. We'd read this was often the case, just due to culture, I suppose. We met a lot of nice people too. The biggest issue we had, however, was with the pushy salespeople. We just wanted to shop in peace or sometimes just to walk down the street in peace but they were constantly bombarding us and talking at us, trying to get us into their restaurants or shops and then following us all around and talking to us about every product we passed once they did. I understand that's just the way here but it was really overwhelming and made shopping difficult. Still, it was completely worth it just to be here, see what we saw, and enjoy what we enjoyed.
The shops and a lot of other things that hadn't already closed earlier closed at 8pm so we didn't stay too much longer after that before heading to the Monistiraki train station to get back to the car.
We found two cool things when we got back to the station:
1. It was possible to use restroom at the train station, or at least here and now, for free by knocking on the station master's door and asking. The restroom was behind an unmarked door next to the station master's room.
2. There was an archaeological site in the train station on ground floor! It was open and on display so we had a look. Apparently, it'd been discovered when they built the station.
Another €1.40 per person each later, we were back at the car.
We had a lot of work we needed to catch up on so we drove to the McDonald's we'd driven to the night prior, got a couple of cheeseburgers, and used the wifi there to knock a chunk out. We stayed in range of the wifi til long after they'd closed.
For some reason, our GPS didn't have the greatest maps for the area. It usually got us to or near where we were trying to go but took us down a lot of terrible roads, sometimes dirt roads that were barely or even questionably even roads. A couple of times, it even dead ended us in someone's field! We always worked it out in the end though.
We tried to get to a rest area we'd previously spotted to sleep for the night. We tried all the side roads but soon discovered conclusively that there was no way to reach it toll free. We finally gave in, got on the freeway, and paid the €2.80. Just before 2am, we closed our eyes to try and sleep.
Day 14 - 11/16/16 (big Athens day):
We were reluctantly up again at 6:15am after 4 to 4.5 hours of sleep. We got ready and then drove just down the street a minute to the same train station we'd parked at the day prior to catch the train back to Monistiraki in Athens (€1.40 per person again).
Just off the train, shops were starting to open. We got two bready rings from one stand for €0.80 total.
We tried to go to the Acropolis but soon found that it was closed for the day. Apparently, Obama was still in town, visiting Athens the exact same days as us. Accordingly, many of the most significant sights in town were closed down just for him. :/ Oh well. We made the most of it!
The good news was that many spectacular sights were perfectly visible from a distance and we got to enjoy the best views of them from outside fenced off areas and closed down roads completely free of charge! We didn't see everything close up but we saw a greater variety of things than we otherwise would have and most things looked best from a distance anyway since they were so big and wouldn't have even fit in the camera's view otherwise. Some such things we saw included: Ancient Agora, Library of Hadrian, Roman Agora, Library of Pantainos, Sanctuary of Zeus (St. Marina), The Temple of Hephaestus, the Stoa of Attalos.
After wandering for a bit, we found ourselves in a shopping shopping area that seemed more geared towards locals than the main touristy bit. It was definitely more flea-market-like than the rest! So many miscellaneous, random, second-hand trinkets. At one shop, we sifted through a jumble of various coins from around the world and chose 6, including some Athens Olympics ones, for €2 total. I think it was a good deal considering we saw the same coins for €20 each at Monistiraki Square not long after.
Back towards Monistiraki Square, where the flea-market-like shops began to meet the touristy ones, we browsed a little more and picked up an Athena fridge magnet that came with a bar of soap for €1. I didn't care about the soap really but I had to get at least one Athena souvenir, as she was always my favorite of the gods and goddesses, and I didn't mind getting a freebie with it!
Everywhere we went in Athens, we seemed to encounter unexpected archaeological sites! It would've been my childhood dream come true! (I used to think I wanted to be an archaeologist and, of course, I was so into Greek mythology.)
I think the next noteworthy thing we encountered near Monistiraki Square was the east side of the Ancient Agora and the Stoa of Attalos.
At an Everest coffee shop (apparently a chain) location there at Monistiraki Square, we got Greek coffee for €1.30 and tea €1.10.
Note: WiFi and free public restrooms seemed to be relatively easy to find and use in Athens, especially compared to Italian cities and several other places we'd visited.
Still at Monistiraki Square, we saw three open top bus tour companies. I don't recall ever taking an open top bus tour before but Sean had done a couple in other cities. We compared the three companies and found that they all seemed pretty much exactly the same, even following the same route around town and all running at 30 minute intervals throughout the day til evening. The bus idea seemed like the best way to see as much as possible since so much was closed, it was impossible to get close-up looks at so many places accordingly, and our flight out was the following day. We went with the cheapest of the three companies, Sights of Athens, for €16 per person. The ticket included a free second day of use (though we wouldn't be around for it), free on-board wifi (though we were too busy sight-seeing to use it), and an audio guide as we drove around. It was the perfect, quick way to see and learn about the town! We saw so much from it too! In addition to all the markets and other aspects that make up a city, we saw a lot of the most significant landmarks in town, some right away and some when we got back on later. We'd already done quite a bit of exploring on food prior no not all of the sights were new to us but the audio guide offered us a lot of new information as well as better, different, higher views of each place and many of the things we saw were things we hadn't yet made it to.
We got off the bus for the first time when we got to the Old Royal Palace. We'd already seen the palace but this time we arrived just before the Changing of the Guard so we hopped off, snapped pics with the guards, and watched the hourly ceremony! It was weird and seemed frivolous and forced to me, like the choreographer didn't know what to do but needed to make a spectacle to give something to look at. Nevertheless, it was great getting to see it and we got some amazing pictures and videos from it!
Though it was quite a daunting walk, we were about as close to our next destination as the bus would get us so we walked from there, passing and stopping briefly for a look in the front section of a War Museum on the way. Then we walked up long, uphill, streets (like in San Francisco) to Mount Lycabettus. We'd read that Mount Lycabettus was supposedly made by Athena who'd accidentally dropped it where it now sits on her way to deliver it to the Acropolis. The top of Mount Lycabettus offers an incredible, 360 degree view of Athens from way up high. Even after walking up the streets to begin our mountain trek, we were still faced with a long route up by underground train through the mountain (€7.50 round trip or €5 one way) or by foot (stairs and/or walkways). We opted for some exercise and hiked up the stairs and walkways. A little later, we reached the top and enjoyed probably the best, most complete view of Athens possible without without a plane! White buildings extended in every direction to the edge of the land and the sun came and went through the clouds over the land and water. It was a bit windy but the weather was nice and we stayed up there a good while taking it all in before heading down again!
Walking back towards the nearest stop to get on our bus again, we spotted a TGI Friday's. I think that, McDonald's, and Starbucks were more or less the extent of the comforts from home for an American in Athens.
Back on our bus, we resumed our sight-seeing tour. We saw and re-saw the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the National Library, National Archaeological Museum, statues of Athena and Zeus and others, Omonia Square, Karaiskaki Square.. so many places! Syntagma Square being the first and last stops of the bus tour, we had to switch buses each time we reached it. There was a 10 minute changeover time there so we made a quick stop in another Everest cafe there and got hot tea and a Nescafe frappe for €1.10 each. The Nescafe frappe actually ended up being an amazing, frothy, iced coffee drink - definitely the best drink I'd had so far this trip! We took our drinks back on board the bus and rode around sipping them awhile longer.
The bus route had been temporarily altered due to the road closures on behalf of Obama so there were certain stops around the Acropolis we couldn't reach by bus earlier in the day. They started opening the roads again in the evening but, for the most part, the sites still remained closed for the day. We got off at the Acropolis Museum, for example, across from the South Slope of Acropolis - Theater of Dionysos. While it seemed the museum might have opened very briefly during the day, everything was closed an inaccessible when we arrived. Having seen all we could by bus tour then, we decided to take the rest of Athens on by foot.
Just down the road from the museum, we reached the markets again and bought me some sexy, ceramic coasters with pictures of Greek lovers sexing it up engraved on the coasters and molded into the coaster holder. Fancy, x-rated coasters! Doesn't get much better than that! Only thing better was not having to pay full price. I didn't want to pay €9.50 for them so I asked if they'd take €8 and they did. :)
Walking up a street adjacent to the side of the south slope of Acropolis, we found ourselves roaming through crazy, semi-ghetto-looking neighborhoods of the most unique housing, winding around up to the Acropolis, separated from one another by graffiti-ridden alleyways. The views of the city from there made any shortcomings of the homes and routes to them seem irrelevant. As we watched the sun set, we discovered a lookout near the Acropolis looking over Athens and watched as the city lights began illuminating. Eventually, we reached the gate to the Acropolis as walked much of the perimeter. Along it, there were stairs leading up some huge rock that offered yet another unexpected lookout point from which we admired night views of both Athens and the Parthenon. That was as close as we would get to the Acropolis and Parthenon but we didn't have to spend a penny for the view and, while I wish we could've gone in a few key places such as those, I don't think I would've traded any paid sights for the free viewpoints we'd enjoyed today! Wouldn't have had time for more either.
Shopping near Monastiraki one last time, we picked up an Athens shot glass with a few of the god (including Athena!) on the front for €1. Then we got a big, rectangular, expensive, delicious slice of pizza with lots of feta cheese, olives, and peppers on for €3.82 at Cafe Veniti to share.
We were finally about done then but I had one last thing to take care of before leaving Athens: Ryanair's annoying boarding pass thing. I used Monastiraki Square's free wifi to look up "internet cafe" on Google maps. While the closest result it gave me was most definitely NOT an internet cafe, it was extremely close and it worked! The place:
Hotel Fivos
23 Athinas St
Monastiraki
105 54 Athens
Coming out of Monistiraki's train station, Hotel Fivos was to the left on the same street, just a few doors down on the same side as the station and adjacent gift shop. They confirmed that they would be able to print whatever I needed for €0.50 (per page, I assume). They had free wifi there so we emailed them the boarding pass to print, though they could've printed it from a usb or perhaps other method as well. So easy and convenient! Definitely worth remembering for any American or other non-EU passport holder flying from Athens on Ryanair or any other airline that requires that we print our boarding passes in advance!
We paid the €1.40 each and got the train back to the car for the last time this trip. Then we drove to the same McDonald's for the last time this trip, used their wifi one last time, and got a €1 chocolate milkshake each. We paid the €2.80 toll to get to the rest area one last time and then watched Red Dwarf, ate, and got some sleep.
Day 15 - 11/17/16 (Marathon & back to UK):
We were up at 8:30am today to take advantage of the last of our time in Greece. In the rest area, we bought a piece of handmade spinach and cheese pie to share from their cafe for €2.20. It was the best anyone could imagine such a thing tasting and I wished I was hungrier so I could buy more!
For our last several hours, we decided to make the short drive to Marathon, Greece (where the modern running marathon originated). We put €20 gas in the car at €1.37 per liter, which was kind of an average price. (Italy had been about €1.45 per liter on average.) Maybe a little under 40 minutes later, we were in Marathon!
We'd looked up a couple of noteworthy places to see in Marathon. Of these, the first we visited was the Museum of Marathon Road Race (or Marathon Run Museum, I believe it's called on Google).
Museum of Marathon Road Race
Marathon Ave & 25th March
190 07 Marathon
Attiki -Greece
Museum admission was only €2 per person so we paid and went for a look around. There were numerous rooms filled with trophies, medals, gear some of the best athletes wore in their races, Olympic torches, photos, walls filled with Olympic marathon and other race and running information, and tons of other running memorabilia inside! Definitely a must-see for the avid running enthusiast!
We didn't exactly know the location of our next destination so we drove around Marathon and even wound up driving up a hill with a view of town at one point before we figured it out. We eventually made it though! The place: the Tumulus of the Athenian Warriors, where Athenians were buried after being killed in the battle against the Persians.
The story and significance of this large dirt mound and the beginnings of the modern day marathon:
"A force of 7,000 Athenians and Plataeans defeated 20,000 Persians. The Greeks lost 192 men and the Persians 7,000. The Persians then fled in disarray on their ships and their invasion of Greece was broken. The cremated remains of the Athenians were buried under this mound and a stele was erected in their memory but appears to have been taken to a museum, probably the one in Athens.
The Greeks then sent Pheidippides on a 42 Km run to Athens to announce the victory, but the hapless hero died of exhaustion soon after fulfilling his mission. [From this eventually stemmed the marathon.]
Pausanias wrote: 'On the plain is the grave of the Athenians, and upon it are slabs giving the names of the killed according to their tribes'
The site should be seen in conjunction with Trophy of the Athenians and Tumulus of the Plataeans nearby." -credit: http://m.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=15083 (We did not have time for the Trophy of the Athenians and Tumulus of the Plataeans toay, however.)
The Tumulus of the Athenians burial site was a large dirt mound or hill with the remains of the dead within. Admission to see it was €6 and wasn't worth it for us at the time as we really needed to start heading back towards the airport then but we soon found that we could see it quite well without paying from just beyond the fence that surrounded the grassy area it sat on. :)
Headed back to the airport, we had to put another €8 of gas in the car before returning it, fortunately complication-free. We got my Ryanair boarding pass stamp from the check-in desk after that and then had some time to spare. We used it to finally get the Greek Mac we'd seen at McDonald's for €3.80 (€3.55 outside the airport though) and buy our last tea and frappe in Greece for €1.30 each at a place called Flocafe next door at. Flocafe managed to make buying drinks into the most complicated thing ever and somehow messed up both of our drink orders completely (and no, not due to a language barrier) but we sorted it out. As for the Greek Mac, it wasn't really worth the price and was pretty much just two burger patties, lettuce, tomato, and yogurt dressing on naan bread, I think it's called. It wasn't bad at all but it wasn't significantly different in taste from any typical burger served at McDonald's either.
Bellies full, we made our way through security with ease. Boarding was another story, however, as Ryanair seems to have a way of making things hard for everyone. This time, they tried to make every passenger check his/her carry-on as they claimed they didn't have enough overhead room and couldn't fit much of anything beyond personal items in the cabin. They even tried to force me to check my crutches and get on the plane without them! I managed to get them in the cabin with me, of course, and many of us managed to bring our carry-ons on with us as well. Anyway, we were in the air and out of there soon enough!
It'd been much cheaper for Sean and me to fly back to Stansted airport and get buses back up north than to fly into East Midlands so we went with the cost effective option, arriving at Stansted a little after 6pm. The flight was actually about 12 to 15 minutes late landing and, as I'm now accustomed to at Stansted, we got stuck in one of Stansted's notorious non-UK passport lines for maybe around 40 minutes. That's AFTER making record time TO the line, beating almost everyone else from our flight to the line by ultra-hobbling on my fucked up foot. There weren't many people ahead of us but there was only one person handling our line as nearly all other staff members were handling the horrendously massive EU passport holders' line.
Once we were finally past passport control, we had to really hightail it to get our EasyBus to Victoria Station to get our Megabus to Loughborough. The bus stop wasn't far from passport control at all and we were supposed to have 1 hour and 5 minutes after landing to get there. Should've been plenty of time, had the flight not been late and passport control not been unacceptably slow, but we'd anticipated the second of these inconveniences and hoped for the best with the first. There wasn't really much else we could've done. We would've booked later buses but there actually weren't any later ones that connected that night. Additionally, we'd be getting off our Megabus in Loughborough after midnight as it was and would still have to get an Uber back to Thringstone from there afterward. The only other option would've been to book a hotel in London for the night. Considering the price of that option, the fact our flight was due to land at Stansted at 5:55pm, and the fact that Thringstone was only maybe 115 miles (give or take) from there, that just seemed ridiculous.
So we got to our bus with a few minutes to spare just to discover we'd been sold tickets for a service that didn't exist! EasyBus had partnered with other bus services and had sold us tickets at £3.90 for 2 people with a company that didn't even go to the place we were trying to go at that time. They had a different bus there nearly an hour later but we'd miss our connection if we waited for it. They had a bus exactly at our scheduled time but it didn't go anywhere near our destination. Unfortunately, the second of these was our only realistic option. We took the bus to Stratford, as our only two choices from it were that or Liverpool St and we'd need an underground for the same price from either. (Underground would be faster than bus so switching sooner than later was preferable.) Then, we used Sean's bank card for some touchless entry thing that made the underground fee £2.40 instead of £4.90. If I'm honest though, I didn't bother paying. I just followed Sean through the gate. I didn't want to be a dirty criminal but we shouldn't have had to pay ANYTHING extra, let alone put the extra effort in, after we'd already booked our travel months in advance! Second of all, none of my cards had the touch-free feature and I didn't think it was very fair for me to have to pay double just because my bank didn't provide me with that feature. Anyway, we got the underground from Stratford to Oxford Circus, transferred, and took it two more stops to Victoria.
At Victoria Train Station, we tried to use the toilets in two different spots but both charged. Again, I was opposed to this because I felt that 1. Basic human needs shouldn't be denied on the premise of finances. 2. Taxpayer dollars should be used towards things like public toilets before being used for things like abstract art to decorate the city. 3. Tourists bring cities lots of revenue and should at least be entitled to relieve themselves, especially after spending tons if money on expensive city cuisine, without paying. If nothing else, they should be made exempt from toilet fees by presenting a receipt showing they've made a purchase (or some feasible variation of that idea) in the same building or vicinity. Taxpayers should at least be made exempt (by way of waived fee or even obtainable refund) by presenting some proof of their status as a taxpayer. This wasn't just London, of course, and I'm only ranting about it now because this was the last straw before I became absolutely fed up with having to sacrifice the health of my body and worry about a blood-stained crotch if I either did not have or did not choose to spend the money on a quick pee and tampon change. On this occasion, I'd skipped out on my subway fare and had not, in that instance, contributed to the economy but had I not been bombarded by incessant, unfair charges I would've happily paid a fair amount for such a service. Regardless, I'd spent tons of money on local travel already, which also goes into the economy, and I'd spent loads of money in London on other occasions as well, many times without a single restroom break in the process. Also, if their damn airport's passport control had taken and reasonable amount of time, I could've used the restroom in the airport when I originally needed to go rather than holding it til I ended up in the middle of the city where there was a fee for it. I refused to pay for a restroom here though. I remembered there were freely accessible restrooms in a pub right by Victoria Coach Station so, after picking up a few treats at Sainsbury's on the way over, Sean and I stopped in there to empty out bladders.
Annoyingly, our Megabus ended up being half an hour late. This was infuriating because we COULD'VE waited for the later EasyBus service and skipped the hassle and underground fee altogether had we known that that would've been the case. Instead, we ended up waiting in the cold station for the longest time til our Megabus was finally ready to start talking us north. Funny how being moments late can cost people tons of money and cause tons of hassle but when a company is late and/or wastes people's time they can just say "oops, sorry!", at best, and go about their business as normal.
So many annoying things about traveling! Of course, these are just rants about things I didn't let taint our incredible trip at all but they're a bit of food for thought that someone might find important to address one of these days.
At 10pm, we were, at last, on our way. We got on our two-story Megabus and sat at the very front of the upper story so we had the best view from the bus' big front window there. It was a bit cold, mostly because we were sitting by the big window, but it was worth it! The bus was pretty empty, cozy, and spacious! It wound up being 44 minutes late getting us to our destination and Loughborough University, however. We didn't arrive there til 12:49am! We wouldn't have minded save for the struggle that followed.
We'd initially planned to leave Sean's dad's car at Sean's dad's house there in Loughborough prior to flying to Milan so it'd be there when we got back to Loughborough tonight. We'd forgotten, however, and left the car in Thringstone so our next plan had been to get an Uber back. When we'd checked, there seemed to be plenty of drivers available to take us back. It hadn't been that late at night when we'd checked though and, unfortunately, it turned out there weren't any available drivers there this time of night. We tried EVERYTHING but no luck. Uber was out, Loughborough doesn't have Lyft, no buses were running that late, no taxis were passing us by.. We'd just managed to sort out a prepaid phone plan for one of our phones before flying to Milan so we used some of our prepaid credit to research, download a taxi app called Hail that didn't work out because apparently Loughborough was too remote and it didn't offer service there, and call every cab company in town. Almost every cab company was either closed or not answering their phone but we finally got a response! Additionally, our phone died as we were calling around. There was a little battery left on an external battery pack we'd brought though so we managed to get the phone back on. It was 39.2 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) out and we were several underdressed. Out of ideas and feeling hopeless, we almost opted to walk the 8 miles with all our luggage in the freezing cold middle of the night through practically the middle of nowhere, broken foot and all. It likely would've taken us around 3 hours to make the walk and we wouldn't have gotten "home" til 4am. The only cab company left on the list, called ABC Ace Taxis (or something similar), picked their phone up while we still had a little battery left an offered to come and rescue us. It cost us £21, which was quite a bit for the short drive, but the driver picked us up within minutes of getting our call and was really friendly! In hindsight, with all the mishaps and extra expenses we ended up with, we would've been SO MUCH better off if we'd either left the car in Loughborough as initially planned or even paid a little extra towards bus fare and gotten a National Express bus directly from Stansted back. We couldn't have predicted everything that went wrong, of course, but it was definitely a painful learning experience.
When we reached Sean's mom's place at last, it was 2:12am. She got up to spend a little time with us and see how our trip had gone. She made us tea and coffee and fed us a yummy vegetarian curry dish she'd made for us! We gave her the souvenirs we'd brought her and told her all about the trip. Then we sorted the rest of the things we'd brought back, took a couple of pics of the things we'd picked up for ourselves, relaxed a little, and headed to bed at some point between 4 and 5am! There, we cuddled up with a movie and Sean finally rewarded my incredible patience with a long awaited sausage surprise! We'd made it!! ^_^
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