FINALLY!!!!! I have been waiting a year and nine months to be back in Greece. Fuck it feels good to be back. Don't let me leave!!!!!
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Wednesday 10 August 2011
Welcome to Greece!
FINALLY!!!!! I have been waiting a year and nine months to be back in Greece. Fuck it feels good to be back. Don't let me leave!!!!!
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Monday 8 August 2011
The road to Greece
Olympic Airways always had a terrible reputation in South Africa. The staff were extremely rude and unfriendly. We bitched and moaned about them. But we didn't stop flying with them because they had a direct flight to Athens - you left Johannesburg in the evening and by early morning you were ready to order your first greek coffee. In 2009 Olympic Airways stopped their direct flight to JNB, and we never stopped bitching and moaning.
No other airline offers a direct flight to Athens. I decided to fly with Qatar because they had one of the shortest layover times (of course I booked at the last minute and all the short layovers were fully booked, lesson learned). We left home at 6pm on the Saturday evening and only finally arrived in Athens the Sunday evening just before 6pm, a 24 hour trip, exhausting, bring back Olympic!
Qatar Airlines far exceeded my expectations. The service was amazing, the seats are huge with lots of legroom, the plane was massive with all of the latest state-of-the-art features. Each seat has an entertainment station with endless options of music, tv series, movies, documentaries, news channels, games and much more - there is even a language learning facility!
Not only do you get great in flight entertainment but you get a complimentary little bag with a bunch of goodies inside
Eye/Sleeping mask (wtf are those things actually called?), socks, earplugs (very useful in case of singing girls and squeally babies), and a toothbrush with toothpaste. No I didn't need any of those things but I am a sucker for free things! I am impressed to no end, cheap date I am.
Our flight was at 10pm and I was starving, my biggest concern was that I would fall asleep before the food service. Not on Qatar's watch!
I slapped the 'Please wake me for the food service' sticker on my seat faster than bullshit spews out of Juju's mouth.
The flight was great overall and we arrived in Doha around 7am.
Welcome to Doha!
Doha International Airport has got to be the busiest airport in the world. Every two minutes a flight took off, but bizarrely enough only Qatar Airlines was flying, we didn't see any other international airlines, weird. Apart from watching planes take off you can make use of the airport's free wifi, check into their fancy Oryx Lounge, or head to the canteen for breakfast
That's what a 14 euro breakfast looks like...gulp... oh and the chips are standard no matter what your order, at 7am,weird.
My experience with Qatar Airlines was so fabulous, I will always fly with them from now on. My uncle was equally impressed, he couldn't believe we paid so little for such a great flight, his final conclusion is that the airline gets free petrol from the government!
Bye bye Olympic, Qatar please give us a direct flight!!
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No other airline offers a direct flight to Athens. I decided to fly with Qatar because they had one of the shortest layover times (of course I booked at the last minute and all the short layovers were fully booked, lesson learned). We left home at 6pm on the Saturday evening and only finally arrived in Athens the Sunday evening just before 6pm, a 24 hour trip, exhausting, bring back Olympic!
Qatar Airlines far exceeded my expectations. The service was amazing, the seats are huge with lots of legroom, the plane was massive with all of the latest state-of-the-art features. Each seat has an entertainment station with endless options of music, tv series, movies, documentaries, news channels, games and much more - there is even a language learning facility!
Not only do you get great in flight entertainment but you get a complimentary little bag with a bunch of goodies inside
Eye/Sleeping mask (wtf are those things actually called?), socks, earplugs (very useful in case of singing girls and squeally babies), and a toothbrush with toothpaste. No I didn't need any of those things but I am a sucker for free things! I am impressed to no end, cheap date I am.
Our flight was at 10pm and I was starving, my biggest concern was that I would fall asleep before the food service. Not on Qatar's watch!
I slapped the 'Please wake me for the food service' sticker on my seat faster than bullshit spews out of Juju's mouth.
The flight was great overall and we arrived in Doha around 7am.
Welcome to Doha!
Doha International Airport has got to be the busiest airport in the world. Every two minutes a flight took off, but bizarrely enough only Qatar Airlines was flying, we didn't see any other international airlines, weird. Apart from watching planes take off you can make use of the airport's free wifi, check into their fancy Oryx Lounge, or head to the canteen for breakfast
That's what a 14 euro breakfast looks like...gulp... oh and the chips are standard no matter what your order, at 7am,weird.
My experience with Qatar Airlines was so fabulous, I will always fly with them from now on. My uncle was equally impressed, he couldn't believe we paid so little for such a great flight, his final conclusion is that the airline gets free petrol from the government!
Bye bye Olympic, Qatar please give us a direct flight!!
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Saturday 23 July 2011
Oumense, vroumense...
Dino, Goomy and I are flying to Athens via Qatar. It's an 8 hour flight. We had a state of the art airplane and were super impressed with the nifty gadgets provided for our onboard entertainment.
The first 3 hours were spent being fed and wearing off the initial excitement of over 300 movies, songs, sitcoms, audiobooks, games etc to choose from. I could hear a cellphone ringing faintly, harmapalarma! But an airhostess with supersonic hearing never leapt out of the shadows to reprimand the culprit. The cellphone kept ringing.
It was only around 3am (once the masses had started sleeping and the cabin was quiet) that I was able to pinpoint the culprit. It was a double discovery, Dino and I glared at each other at the exact same second...
"Oh my god"
"Is that?"
"Is she?"
"Oh my god she is!"
Together now: "SHE'S SINGING!!!!"
The chick sitting in front of us was getting her money's worth out of the audio options. Every time she got to the chorus, of each song, she would sing. Loudly (I heard her through my earphones that were set to almost max volume). At 3am. While everyone else was sleeping. The guy sitting next to her is making a voodoo doll of her and sticking needles in it's beady eyes. I would.
WANTED: for disturbing the peace:
.
The first 3 hours were spent being fed and wearing off the initial excitement of over 300 movies, songs, sitcoms, audiobooks, games etc to choose from. I could hear a cellphone ringing faintly, harmapalarma! But an airhostess with supersonic hearing never leapt out of the shadows to reprimand the culprit. The cellphone kept ringing.
It was only around 3am (once the masses had started sleeping and the cabin was quiet) that I was able to pinpoint the culprit. It was a double discovery, Dino and I glared at each other at the exact same second...
"Oh my god"
"Is that?"
"Is she?"
"Oh my god she is!"
Together now: "SHE'S SINGING!!!!"
The chick sitting in front of us was getting her money's worth out of the audio options. Every time she got to the chorus, of each song, she would sing. Loudly (I heard her through my earphones that were set to almost max volume). At 3am. While everyone else was sleeping. The guy sitting next to her is making a voodoo doll of her and sticking needles in it's beady eyes. I would.
WANTED: for disturbing the peace:
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Tuesday 25 January 2011
A dream come true
Let's leave Istanbul for a second and pop over to Greece for just another split second, I swear I'll have more Istanbul posts up soon. This is a worthy deviation.
Remember I raved about Dreamy Skin? Well reading the post again I see I didnt exactly rave about it, I definitely downplayed how amazing Dreamy Skin shower gel is! I was all nonchalant about it, who was I kidding?? The smell is to die for, and it really does make your skin feel, well, dreamy.
Of course being on the bottom of the world means that we South Africans don't have access to little luxuries that are deemed basic necessities by the rest of the civilised world. I knew Dreamy Skin wouldn't be available here. But then about 3 months ago I found a night cream from the Dreamy Skin range, if I could cartwheel I would have done one-handed cartwheels all the way down that aisle!
At night I slather a dreamy blob all over my face. The second the smell hits my nose I am back in Greece getting ready for a day drenched in summery sunlight or a night massaged by the sounds of party animals getting their Greek groove on. And then I open my eyes and I'm back in this work-obsessed, live-to-work cuntry of ours (nope it's not a spelling mistake).
Today is the best day, ever! Today I found Dreamy Skin shower gel, right here in South Africa! There is a God and he believes this princess needs pampering!
The shower gel is a fraction of the cost, and quadruple the size of the night cream, so no need to use sparingly. Tonight I am gonna lather up a storm, I am going to lather up hurricanes and lightning, very very frightening (you know where I'm going with this right?) I am even tempted to wash my car with Dreamy Skin!
If there was a Guiness World Record Prize for product most effective at smell association, Dreamy Skin would win, every year. I smell it and it's as if somehow, somewhere, some clever little scientist managed to capture all my emotions and memories of summer 2009 and squeeze them into this pretty purple bottle. I smell it and I feel like one of those people in the movies who suddenly wakes to find themselves in a bathroom on the opposite side of the world at a previous time. I smell it and I am staring in the bathroom mirror at 25 Argostoliou in Galatsi and it's the summer of 2009. I smell it and wonder why I'm not back in Greece yet *googles flight prices*
.
Remember I raved about Dreamy Skin? Well reading the post again I see I didnt exactly rave about it, I definitely downplayed how amazing Dreamy Skin shower gel is! I was all nonchalant about it, who was I kidding?? The smell is to die for, and it really does make your skin feel, well, dreamy.
Of course being on the bottom of the world means that we South Africans don't have access to little luxuries that are deemed basic necessities by the rest of the civilised world. I knew Dreamy Skin wouldn't be available here. But then about 3 months ago I found a night cream from the Dreamy Skin range, if I could cartwheel I would have done one-handed cartwheels all the way down that aisle!
At night I slather a dreamy blob all over my face. The second the smell hits my nose I am back in Greece getting ready for a day drenched in summery sunlight or a night massaged by the sounds of party animals getting their Greek groove on. And then I open my eyes and I'm back in this work-obsessed, live-to-work cuntry of ours (nope it's not a spelling mistake).
Today is the best day, ever! Today I found Dreamy Skin shower gel, right here in South Africa! There is a God and he believes this princess needs pampering!
The shower gel is a fraction of the cost, and quadruple the size of the night cream, so no need to use sparingly. Tonight I am gonna lather up a storm, I am going to lather up hurricanes and lightning, very very frightening (you know where I'm going with this right?) I am even tempted to wash my car with Dreamy Skin!
If there was a Guiness World Record Prize for product most effective at smell association, Dreamy Skin would win, every year. I smell it and it's as if somehow, somewhere, some clever little scientist managed to capture all my emotions and memories of summer 2009 and squeeze them into this pretty purple bottle. I smell it and I feel like one of those people in the movies who suddenly wakes to find themselves in a bathroom on the opposite side of the world at a previous time. I smell it and I am staring in the bathroom mirror at 25 Argostoliou in Galatsi and it's the summer of 2009. I smell it and wonder why I'm not back in Greece yet *googles flight prices*
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Wednesday 19 January 2011
Behind every good man is a woman in a hut
Our tour guide Hassan took us for lunch and insisted we try Gözleme - "a savoury traditional Turkish hand made and hand rolled pastry. Fresh pastry is rolled out, filled and sealed, then cooked over a griddle" - according to Wikibooks Cookbook (those Wiki guys have thought of everything haven't they!). We decided on the cheese and the potato, you get different combinations such as spinach and feta, but even our plain choices were delicious. We restrained ourselves from seconds and thirds only because Hassan insisted on treating us, next time we're going alone and hungry!
So how exactly do they make Gözleme?
Take two sprinkles of women and place them in a hut
Set them to work, kneading and leavening the dough
Open a little window so that the women can pass the dough to the man
Ask for your flavour and watch the man cook your request!
(I got this pic off www.herdaily.com)
What you can't see clearly from these pics is that the floor that the ladies are sitting on is at waist level, so they literally have to climb into the hut, reminds me of caged birds!
DISCLAIMER: I have no clue how to cook, so the terminology used here may not be actual cooking words.
.
So how exactly do they make Gözleme?
Take two sprinkles of women and place them in a hut
Set them to work, kneading and leavening the dough
Open a little window so that the women can pass the dough to the man
Ask for your flavour and watch the man cook your request!
(I got this pic off www.herdaily.com)What you can't see clearly from these pics is that the floor that the ladies are sitting on is at waist level, so they literally have to climb into the hut, reminds me of caged birds!
DISCLAIMER: I have no clue how to cook, so the terminology used here may not be actual cooking words.
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