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*

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Things I am loving about Greece

- The shoes here are to die for!!! I popped into Bershka and Zara quickly the other day; the shoes were calling my name and begging to come home with me! Its times like this I wish I had a husband to fight with….
Me:”You’re sleeping on the couch!”
*door slams*
*door opens*
Me: “I hate you!”
*door slams*
*door opens*
Me: “My mother was right about you!”
*door slams*
*two days of silent treatment pass*
Him:”Baby I was wrong, I’m sorry, how can I make it up to you?”
Me:” Weeeeeeeeell we could always go past Bershka and see if they have any new shoes, and then maybe past Zara too”
- I am far from domesticated. I have learnt (on more than one occasion) that washing reds and whites together equals a lot of pink socks. Greece has a wonderful, marvelous, miraculous product called Colour Catcher – it’s a piece of paper that you put in the washing machine with your clothes, it somehow catches the colour, no more sorting clothes before washing them… I told you it’s wonderful, marvelous, miraculous! *makes a note to re-steal the red Captain Morgan t-shirt from Tyrone’s house*. And the washing powder smells so divine…….I swear I have been going out and not just doing laundry!
- I love free stuff. And glitter. If you covered a piece of poo in glitter I would buy it. If you covered a piece of poo in glitter and gave it to me for free I would be your best friend forever! The supermarkets here give you something free every time you buy something; one trip to the supermarket got me a shampoo (plus free conditioner), shower gel (plus free face wipes), magazine (plus free beach bag). The free stuff isn’t just small samples, full sizes people! ……..I swear I have been going out and not just doing laundry and grocery shopping!
- Johnson & Johnson (what do you mean its called Johnson’s now?) has the best shower gel in the world, its called Dreamy Skin, and it really makes your skin, well, dreamy
- Dove shampoo. It smells just like Dove soap and makes your hair look and feel like the girls hair in the Organics Good Hair Day ad
- Vanilla Happy Hippos. They are made by Kinder; chocolate and wafer shaped like hippos. They make me happy *swears she can feel her ass growing*
 Movie Moment: - “Luben, you need to be appy, like ze ippo”
“My name, is RUBEN not Luben, I’m going to kill you!!!!!”
- The Periptero (garage shop on steroids). You will find a periptero on pretty much every corner; from any periptero you can see at least another three. Its basically a small wendy house with a person sitting inside it, the outside (all four sides) is covered in rows of bubble gum, sweets, magazines, ice cream fridges, coodrink fridges, airtime etc etc. They are open 24 hours a day and its completely safe to walk to one at any time of the night to get that strawberry milkshake you are craving (I’m sure I could convince the shoe-buying husband to go while I keep the bed warm). The amazing part is that the person sitting inside cannot see the outside at all and yet no one steals anything!


- Internet access is super cheap. 50 Euros (approx R570) a month for unlimited internet access, and the Greeks think that is expensive!
The mobile phone packages are also brilliant. For 5 Euro (approx R57) a month you get 600 free minutes to talk to friends on the same package. For prepaid users if you run out of airtime you can still recharge your account via sms and the amount gets deducted from the next voucher you buy, you can never run out of airtime!
- Public transport is fairly cheap, easily accessible and readily available. A ticket costs 1 Euro, is valid for all means of public transport (bus, trolley, tram, metro) and is valid for an hour and a half. For example, you can take a bus to from Galatsi to Syntagma (about 30 mins) then take the metro from Syntagma to Glyfada (about 10 mins), say hi and bye then go back the way you came, the ticket is valid for the last leg of your trip even if you exceed the hour and a half, you just need to punch it again before the time is up – and you can do all that with one ticket.