Hot food and 5 kg more baggage

When I go to change my hard-earned Swedish Crowns into Drachmas, the bank guy says they have a special offer on Greek coins - it seems they've collected a great bucket-full of them from all different places, including staff coming back from holiday - and the exchange-rate is such that I get 40% more Drachmas for my Crowns if I do it that way...

I'm a bit doubtful, but in the end I go for it, though they add another 5 kg to my already slightly-too-heavy bag ... Fortunately they don't weigh it before letting us on the plane, because Lufthansa announce very menacingly that they have a new rule of max 8 kg hand-baggage ...

I made four Lufthansa flights last winter, and didn't enjoy any of them - surly cabin attendants, squashed-up space - but this time both flights are just fine, Stockholm-Frankfurt we get hot wholemeal rolls, and Frankfurt-Athens is a nearly-empty Airbus with a delicious and very welcome hot meal :-) We have clear sky as we fly over the Alps, though the promised view of the Adriatic Sea doesn't materialise.

I'm so pleased with the atmosphere on board that I ask for a feedback form to write about it; and they're so pleased with what I've written that they give me a little bottle of wine and a plastic kit to glue together to make a Lufthansa aeroplane ... No glue, though ...

Athens airport is, of course, like any other; but the various people who help me convert my 5 kg of coins into a few grams of paper are lots of fun, and it feels good to have arrived somewhere new ... I'm especially pleased with myself because I remember to change into drachmas my little fistful of Dollars, DeutschMarks and Belgian Francs, just a few weeks before they cease to have any value. Somehow the passing of the Belgian Franc doesn't seem like an earth-shattering event, but I find it hard to envision a world without DMs ...

The bus to the harbour leaves within ten minutes, which is great, but the journey is horrible, 90 minutes of slow traffic; it's called 'express', but that doesn't mean it goes quick, just that it doesn't stop to pick up passengers on every street corner ... Great to come to a new country to experience new things - the bus is a Volvo, from about 1990, you don't get anything as quaint as that at home ...