Arrival in Santorini

We arrived home from an amazing week in Greece on Sunday night. We spent 7 nights split between Santorini, Paros and Athens. 

We left for Greece at 4.00 a.m. last Sunday. Our flight was leaving from Gatwick Airport at 8.00 a.m., and the underground doesn't start until 6.30 a.m. on a Sunday, so we had to get up super early to get the night bus to Victoria Station, and then a train to the airport. 

We went to bed quite early to make up for such an early start, but both of us ended up with insomnia. I think Bradley managed to get a few hours sleep, but I lay awake all night, which just made my anxiety about flying even worse! The doctor gave me anxiety pills to take before my flight, since my fear of flying seems to be getting worse the more I fly. 

So we arrived at the airport pretty shattered after practically no sleep. Our flight was delayed by an hour due to an air traffic controllers strike in Greece that was supposed to be happening, but was cancelled. So we were lucky to get there at all, I didn't mind that we were delayed. The pills made me pretty mellow... We flew directly into Santorini, which was fantastic. Most flights you have to transfer from Athens, so we cut out heaps of time by flying directly.

View from the plane.. I think this is Croatia

Lovely end to the last Bank Holiday until Christmas...

Last Monday was the last Bank Holiday until Christmas... I really don't know where 2011 has gone, it has gone by so fast it's insane. In a couple of weeks, we will have been in the UK for a year!

The weather has very quickly gone from quite warm and sometimes sunny (apparently this is the worst Summer they've had in years. Of course.), to very cold and very rainy. I have been wearing tights and boots this week to work, and I had to physically fight with my umbrella on Tuesday because we had gale force winds.

So I suppose it's back to Winter again, hopefully we'll have another burst of nice weather before the cold weather really sets in, but I don't have my hopes up. At least we'll have a lovely week of sun in Greece in 2 weeks!

Sunday Art Trail

Last Sunday we went for a walk around East London on a bit of a street art tour. There is so much street art around parts of East London, like Shoreditch and Brick Lane, it's just everywhere and it's amazing.

There are official tours that you can do, but we keep forgetting, it would be good to see the best pieces, but I think they're all pretty amazing!

A Return to Portobello Road

It was long weekend last weekend. The last bank holiday before Christmas. We had to get out of the house and do something, because all this trying to save money is driving me crazy. We had to do something different this weekend than just visiting the local Farmer's Market and wandering around Chiswick/Hammersmith/Barnes... (insert other local suburb at your leisure..)

We got up very early for a Saturday to go to Portobello Road markets. We had to get there early, because it gets insanely busy after about 10.00 a.m. and there are just too many tourists to bother going.

We decided to go because we heard The Travel Bookshop, made famous in Notting Hill, was closing down :(

So everything was half price. But all the good travel books were gone, so we didn't buy anything, but it was still worth a visit. If only to hear the shop owners yelling at tourists to stop filming and taking photos inside!

I took my photos safely outside... out of yelling distance.