I don't wanna play! :-(

I hate having my photo taken. It feels so corny, say cheeeeeeze! And my face does weird things in photos, my eyes become Chinese, my mouth can only fake smile, it's all hideous really. I'm definitely a behind-the-scenes kinda person. I have never understood people who love having their photo taken. And then I went to Istanbul for 5 (FIVE!!!) whole days with not one, but TWO people who love having their photo taken.

People who love having their photo taken are like people who love cats.
Cat person: "And this is Mr Whiskers /(insert any dumb cat name, cats never have cool names), say heeeelllloooo!" *human waves cat's paw*
Sensible person: "Um. I don't like cats"
Cat person: *confused look* "Are you allergic?"
Sensible person: "No, I just don't like cats"
Cat person: "But he's sooooo cute!! Here, hold him"
Sensible person: "Um, no thanks"
Cat person: "But he's so lovable, just hold him and you'll see, you'll love him!"

Photo people are the same, they are convinced that if they can just get you to pose for a photo you will love it and want more taken! They will love any photo of themselves, even a bad one, it's as though they lack the self critical receptor as well as the see-things-as-they-really-are gene. Maybe my view is clouded by too much photoshop and abnormally gorgeous models.

It started from day one of our trip. Take my normal camera unwillingness and add THREE huge fever blisters to my lip (they were so big that Glykeria laughed at them on the Saturday night, and when she woke to the horror they had become on the Sunday morning she took one look at me and went to get takeaways from her parents house - we were invited for lunch but she knew better than to unleash my beastliness on the rest of Athens. True story). So I REALLY didn't want a photo of me, yet they persisted, and I perfected my hand-face-paparazzi-avoid pose. The downside of not having your photo taken is that you have to take the photos....





I have hundreds more.... :-)

Glykeria was determined to get a pic of me and took this sneaky one, yes I was feeling sorry for myself that day!


On the last day Athanasia kept hassling me about not having pics of me in Istanbul, she gave me some speech about making my parents happy, so I sighed heavily and let her take one of me while we were waiting for the tram
See? Chinese eyes and fake smile. Thank god the fever blisters had calmed down by then!

.

Arriving in Athens

Always carry coins with you.

I arrived at the airport in Athens at 05:30 and had to walk about a kilometre to Baggage Claim, dragging my 10kg hand luggage and 9kg hand bag and 7kg cat along with me (yes I know it should have been less than 7kg in total but I need my stuff!) Really going to wear comfy shoes on the next flight and wont give a shit if they dont match my nailpolish!

My luggage arrived in one piece, hallelujah! Really glad I have a silver makeup kit and bright pink suitcase, spotting them was a breeze. You need to pay 1 euro for a trolley, the smallest denomination I had was a 10 euro note and the machine doesnt accept anything bigger than 5 euro notes - and of course the foreign exchange desk wasnt open (despite the man sitting behind the counter not seeming productive at all). I hung around for about 15 minutes until a very kind lady gave me one of her coins. Always carry coins with you!

Proceeded to Customs... not a soul in sight..... I walked straight through Customs and out of the airport *note to self: smuggle drugs at 05:30am*

Leaving South Africa

So of course I hadnt packed and of course I was running late, story of my life. My mom wailed her head off - bear in mind her flight to Greece is a week after mine and she will be here for two of the four months.....

Said sad goodbyes to everyone and rushed off to get the cat, half way there Hellen asked if I had the injection for the cat.....FAAAAAARK! had to go all the way home to get it, got to the airport extremely late. Rushed to check in to find out that I had 2kg excess baggage, the cat was an extra 7kgs, rushed off to pay for it but the speedpoint kept giving a communication failure..... so between my oh-so-fabulous-life-saving friends we managed to put together R2500, R475 short. The kind man from Olympic eventually let us have a discount, the plane was ready to leave and I hadnt checked in yet!

Rushed to the boarding gates with Hellen squealing and stressing me out, kiss kiss cry cry bye bye....then the Twin got down on one knee and opened a pretty little box....'oh my god you are crazy'.....slipped the ring on my finger, perfect fit, kiss kiss cry cry.... I looked up and saw Hellen, Marianna and Denis gobsmacked.....'k i've got to go bye love you all will miss you all!'

*beep beep* *sms from Denis* 'so are you engaged?'
*beep beep* *sms from Marianna* 'oh my god Stavs thats the most beautiful thing i've ever seen! so are you engaged?'
*beep beep* *sms from Hellen* 'what the hell was that? are you engaged?*
Erm no we're not engaged, its a Twin thing, its kinda an open invitation for when and if either of us grows up and decides to be responsible - no chance of that happening so lets all take a chill pill!

for the record, i love the ring... of course i kept it!!!

enough about my play play engagement.... where were we? oh right, at the boarding gates....
"athens, athens"
"i'm coming!"
"Mam you need to run"
"I cant run with the cat!!!"
"Mam you need to run, you are the last passenger and the plane is ready for take off"
"fuck fuck fuck"
*makes a mental note to never wear pretty heels when there is even the slightest possibility that you may need to run through an airport carrying a 7kg cat*

the flight was pretty good, had 3 seats to myself cause the old man sitting next to me bolted when he saw the cat! slept most of the way and the cat behaved herself