I woke up this morning feeling excited, sad and nauseous all at the same time. The plan today is to catch the flight to Melbourne, then hook up with the Olympic flight to Athens.

The plane is coasting along the runway, about to take off. I put the provided headphones on and playing is Waiting For The Sun by Powderfinger. Good old Ansett. The trip begins.

Sunday 2 September 2001, 8.36am Bangkok time, 9hrs 22mins to Athens

We finally arrive in Bangkok after being leaving Melbourne 3 hours late and my back is killing me already! Bangkok is humid. 30 degrees on the ground. The airport covered in duty free shops held my main interest - the smoking room! I went in there, to this tiny compartmentalised room where ten people were standing around smoking. I swear it was like this thick fog which took up the entire room, making my eyes water. I crammed a few in, but all too soon it was time to leave.

According to the flight monitor, we just passed Tavoy which is to the west of Bangkok. We're moving along at a speed of about 892 km/hr which sounds fast but doesn't feel it. I'm not sure I can survive the 9.5 hours to Athens! (Or Athina, as the locals call it.) Might go see what the movie is..

Writing this journal on Lycavittos Hill, Athens

Monday 3 September, 2001 (Lycavittos Hill, Athens)

We came. We saw. We hiked.

Today is technically our second "day" in Athens, but when we got in yesterday, we were so tired we went for a token walk and then went to bed for token naps. However, someone (i.e me) didn't get up at the alarm and so we didn't get up til 5am this morning.

The positive side to this is that we were down at breakfast at 9.30. Breakfast was a little weird, they had the usual cornflakes and coffee, but they also had bread rolls with jam and butter. They also had this sweet bread and huge vats of yogurt which I tried, but mostly I stuck to the coffee.

After breakfast we headed back to our room and packed ourselves up for the hike to the Acropolis. We didn't exactly know how to get there, but considering that there is not that many MASSIVE LANDMARKS in town, we figured it would be a safe bet to just head for the hill. Lucky we took a map.

Our hotel is located in the Plaka district - a large section of Athens that covers several blocks with miles and miles of side streets and alleyways. Some are so small even one car could not fit through. The scary thing is these alleys all have shops up and down them, all selling similar items. And periodically, Mark yanked me back from the road to avoid these scooters that people seem to ride everywhere, without thought nor care for pedestrians.

Navigating these mazes even with a map is almost impossible. The whole of Athens can be like that. We got lost a few times looking for the Acropolis but eventually got there. The Acropolis is a very imposing building whacked up on a huge hill which dominates central Athens. After climbing several much smaller hills, we made it to "base camp".

Here you could buy tickets to the Acropolis (2000 GRD, AUD$10) as well as the most expensive bottles of water on earth (800 GRD, AUD$4). There was a smaller hill overlooking the city which was free to climb (if you dared to try the slippery marble rock face) and it had an impressive 360 degree view of the city. We climbed up there and found the view spectacular. We filmed it a bit, took some still shots and took the slippery climb back down.

We then bought some water and climbed the hill to the Acropolis. We wandered about a fair bit and got pretty dusty in the process. At the top of the Acropolis, what seemed like thousands of people swarmed about in the midday sun. It was a fairly hot day and the top had no trees or shade. We filmed for a bit, and again the view was breathtaking. You could see right out to the seaside suburb of Glyfyda.

Anyway, we wandered down around 12ish and somehow we ended up lost, wandering Greek back alleys. We bought some film for the camera, a cigarette lighter and 2 bottles of water from this little roadside vendor caravan type thing. The lady inside served us with a smile, a cloud of cigarette smoke and a tabby cat stretched across the cash register. Greeks are cool.

The fantastic Acropolis, Athens

We continued on our way and made it to Monastiraki Square to try some of the famous gyros. We found McDonalds and filmed their menu, and then moved on to find some real food. There were several gyro places on the square, so we picked one at random and sat down for a feast. After downing a gyro and a coke each, we decided to go back to the hotel. The problem was that we were in Monastiraki Square, and our hotel was closer to Syntagma Square. We still had our bus tickets from the airport which were still valid from the day before.

We went to the train station and the ticket seller guy didn't speak much English and we understood no Greek. With lots of hand movements and talking slowly but loudly ("SYN-tag-MA SQ-uare!") he seemed to get what we were saying and pointed to the platform. We walked down there but it didn't seem right. Mark checks the maps around the place, and sure enough, Syntagma Square didn't seem to be anywhere on the train line! We decided to walk the distance back to the hotel, and groaning loudly we checked the map we'd taken to carrying around. It was then we noticed that a street on Monastiraki (Mitropoleos) lead right up to our hotel, and it really wasn't that far. We started walking for about 2 blocks, before we got to our hotel and sat down in relief. It was so weird, but we were glad to back.

Once back at the hotel room, we had a bit of a rest and then decided to try the hike to Lycavittos Hill, which didn't look that hard on the map.

Well, yet again we underestimated the walk. The distance wasn't so bad - I could handle that.. but the walk was mostly uphill - and in some cases some really extreme uphill grades.