Berlin

Tonight we are leaving Berlin for Denmark on a sleeper train, although Berlin is a really great place and we really like it, although we have only spent 2 days here.
I went to the Dr yesterday who was the stereotypical jolly fat German man. He told us a few jokes and said my foot was ok and I could walk around on it. He said he could put me in plaster if I really wanted but then he would recommend daily injections to prevent deep vein thrombosis! I didn't walk any more plaster or daily needles. He gave me a presciption for some painkillers and some sort of bloodthinner or something that prevents my foot getting all swollen up by the end of the day the way it had been. After the Dr we found a Birkenstock shop and I bought some purple sandals like this:
I can't wear my havianas thongs because I need a harder, sturdier sole while my foot is still healing, and these are pretty good. On the subject of thongs though, to those people who said that you can't backpack around europe in thongs is wrong - all the Aussies are doing it and that is how you can spot an Aussie!
Today we went on a tour of Sachenhausen Concentration Camp outside Berlin and there were 5 Aussies and 2 Kiwis - 5 in total of us were in Havianas! Once my foot is better I will be back in them, as they are much more comfortable than Birkenstocks, I really didn't expect that.

Anyway, the concentration camp was really interesting, and the tour guide was great too. We went with Insider Tours and they are great. Yesterday we did the walking tour of Berlin (yes, I am aware my foot is broken, but I'm not in Berlin everyday so I thought I should make the most of it and the Dr gave me the ok!) and we went around to checkpoint charlie, the Bradenburg Gate, Hitler's Bunker; where he committed suicide (there is a kid's playground over it now), Reichstag, some of the Wall, that is still standing and lots of other things.
The guide was fantastic and was really entertaining. That was probably better than the camp today, just because there was so much more to see and the camp has been mostly torn down and replaced with replicas of just a few things. That camp was a training camp for SS and help mainly political prisoners including Stalin's son. Hitler offered to swap him for 3 German generals that Stalin had. When Stalin refused and his son found out he committed suicide.

The food here in Berlin is also great, yummy sausages, delicious strawberry tarts (my favourite) and cakes all over the place. I really don't think it can be possible that everyone who goes backpacking in Europe loses weight.

Photos

Me getting my foot put in plaster in Santorini.

Some goats we saw in Crete, they climb around everywhere! They are jusst wandering all over the place, including the highway.

A road in Crete. To get from one side of the island to the other you have to go through the mountains, and sometimes the road looks like this! This was a MAIN road btw.

Me walking around Crete (painfully).

Chris's Babsia (Granny) in Poland.

Me resting my foot in Poland, Kiki the dog helps me.

Here are my man-granny shoes, click on the photo and you can enlarge it for a closer look. We are in the twisty forest in Poland - the trees are all like this and nobody knows why.

Me pouring a beer in Darek's pub with Mika, Darek's wife. I have had quite a few vodkas at this point!

A strawberry stand in Berlin. There are little stands shaped like strawberries all over the place and the strawberries are delicious! Chris is buying some for us. They come in a 1kg box.

The Brandenburg Gate - Berlin.

Poland

We are finished with Greece, and have spent the past 4 days in Poland, in Grifino, near Szczecin, just over the border from Germany, with some family friends of Chris.

Leaving Greece was interesting, first we got the wine we bought as gifts confiscated, since you can no longer bring any liquids with you as carry on luggage on the plane ß although they didn't tell us this until we were going through the x-ray machine to get on the plane.
Then, since I was being wheeled through the airport in a wheelchair (walking on crutches is bloody painful and slow) I got loaded onto the plane like a hippo, in a big truck. It was an experience I don't plan on repeating!

Poland was nice, much nicer than I thought it would be and it was hotter than any day in Greece. It was a heatwave for Poland and everyone was saying that the heat was ridiculous (29C)!
We met Chris's little grandma (Babsia) and some other family friends and I learnt lots of Polish. Most of time we (me especially) were forced to eat and drink - alcohol! One little old lady we visited kept saying "Eat, eat, eat!" all the time while we were at her house and them topping up my glass with vodka that some guy had brought over from Russia and she liked it because it was 50%. I had a big headache by the time we left her house.
Yesterday was our last day in Poland before we came to where we are now, Berlin. We had a bit more of a look around the town. I also drank a bottle of wine (all by myself) and then last night we went to Darek's pub (the guy we were staying with, and I had to drink more vodka, about 7-8 drinks by the time we got home at 1am. Now that we are in Berlin I feel like I won't need to eat or drink anything for a long time. We were constantly feeling full!

I have some good photos, but I can#t post them on this computer, but I will try to get them up here in the next couple of days.

My foot seems to be getting better. I ripped off that cast in Poland, it was much more painful than before I got it on, as my foot got so hot inside it and got really swollen. Darek bought my some man-granny shoes to wear and it is much better. I got some big bruises from the cast and they are just going away now. Chris snuck into the Hilton here in Berlin and got the consierge to make us an appointment with an English speaking podiatrist. He wasn't happy to learn that we weren't staying there, but C gave him a €5 tip and he cheered up. We are going to the Dr tomorrow at 10am.

Santorini

It's been shocking weather here in S for the last 2 days. When we got here it was ok, a bit cloudy though. The ferry came into the port at the bottom of the cliffs that are all over this island. They looked like 'the Cliffs of Insanity' from the port! We went up this crazy road to get up to Fira (the main town) that zig-zags all the way up the cliff.



The next day we rented a car, a convertible beatle this time, and drove around the south of the island. We were trying to get to the beach but we found a sign to Ancient Thira and so we thought we'd have a look at that. It was raining and cloudy and as we started to drive there we found that Ancient Thira was at the top of a mountain and we had to drive all the way the mountain through the clouds. It was pretty scary! Finally we reached the top, but we still had to walk up further and the wind was howling up at us from the sea below. Ancient Thira didn't turn out to be that exciting although the view down to the black beach, Kamari, below was.
This is Kamari beach, after we got down the mountain again. It looks pretty desolate - not a good advertisement for Greek beaches I have to say! We went there today though, and it was quite nice. Calm water, a teeny bit warmer than Mykonos, but the sand is scorching hot.

This afternoon we went to Oia on the north of the island to watch the sunset. It was really nice, although this picture doesn't do it justice.

My foot is getting better - although very slowly. Every day we seem to do something that prevents it healing. On Saturday when we walking up that mountain it felt pretty sore. I've taken this gorgeous picture of it so you can see how swollen up it is. It's pretty gross actually. I'm still hobbling around like a granny, but hopefully it will be ok again soon.

Tomorrow we are going on a volcano tour on the little island next to Santorini and then in the afternoon we are going to Crete. Should have some more photos coming soon.

Mykonos

Today is our last day in Mykonos, tomorrow we are off to Santorini for 4 nights. Mykonos is really nice, as is our hotel. We didn't think it would be so nice since we pretty much booked the cheapest place we could find.
Yesterday we went to the beach. The water is gorgeous turquoise colour but it is absolutely freezing. We went in, and it's ok.... once your body goes numb! It is roasting hot in the sun though so you warm up pretty fast once you get out again.

The day before we went to Super Paradise beach which is one of the famous gay beaches. I have to say I was a bit disappointed. The water was beautiful (freezing again) but the hills around it - like all of Mykonos and the islands - are rocky without any trees, just a few little bushes. There were some trendy Euros around though. They all play hitball too (wooden raquets, like table tennis raquets, and a tennis ball and hit it back and forth). One couple we were facinated with was this skinny man with a 70s style moustache who wore high cut bright aqua speedos and nothing else. He was playing with a woman who wore a blue camoflage g string and nothing else, and had a curly blond mullet. They just played hitball on the beach like it was the most normal thing in the world. I really wanted to take a picture, but there weren't many people around and it would have been a bit obvious.

We rented a little smart car to get around the island and have got the hang of driving on the right side of the road. I learnt how to drive clutchless manual too, although Chris did scream at me once saying that the engine was going to blow up and to change gears. He told me to put my foot down - so I did!

Last night I fell down some stairs at our hotel and now my left foot is all bruised and swollen and I can't walk. I can only put a teeny bit of pressure on my heel and shuffle/limp along like a snail. Because of this though we can't go into town since I'd have to walk down about a million stairs. In the pics below you can see the town - it's down the hill with all the white buildings.

Mykonos - and some pics so far

View from our hotel in Mykonos
We hired a smart car - all the cars are teeny over here. We drove to the top of a hill.

View from our hotel again, in the day time. If you ever go to Greece BRING YOUR SUNNIES! You would go bling without them, it is so bright and dazzlingly white.

Athens, view from the Acropolis.

Naked Greek man statue in Ancient Agora.

There are tortises wandering around everywhere in Athens.

Me at the Parthenon.

The changing of the guard outside Parliament in Athens.

Olympiacos

We left Athens this morning and are now in Mykonos. We were going to get the metro to the port to get the ferry but as luck would have it today, of all days, there is a metro strike, so we had to get a taxi. No problems though, a fast trip and only E.7.
It is a relief in a way to be rid of all the dust that is all over Athens. I could really appreciate how people in the Bible were always getting their feet washed, as that's all I ever wanted to do. The white/grey dust is everywhere and we had to wash our thongs with soap to get it off.

Our trip to the beach the other night was interupted by the Olympiacos Fiesta at the stadium one train stop from the beach. Olympiacos is a football club that has won a heck of a lot of championships - 35! We thought it might be a game so we got off the train to try and watch. For E.5 we got in, but it turned out to just be a fan day, although some of the most famous/popular players for Olympiacos played a game against themselves. Rivaldo was there too and the fans really loved him. The fans were going nuts with songs and chants and flares - and there wasn't even a real game!

Anyway, Mykonos seems quite good. It's really windy today, but we are going to have a look into hiring a scooter or a car now and have a look around the island. Hopefully we'll find a sheltered beach somewhere and have a swim. Paradise and Super Paradise beach sound interesting so we'll have a look at them - even though we'll probably be the only straight people there! LOL.