First real day in Athens. We will have some time to look around and get our bearings before meeting up with Anne's sister Jane who is coming over from London to spend some time with us. While getting our bearings we were looking for a laundromat and also a sports bar so we can see tonight's ABs vs South Africa rugby game. The area our apartment is in (Plaka) is as good as we had thought it should be based on Anne's research. Lots of restaurants, cafes, shops etc and walking distance to most places we want to visit.

A quick breakfast and it was off to find the laundromat without success. We found some but they were all closed. Having said that none of them were the self service variety which is what we wanted. Then we set of for the metro where Jane would be arriving from the airport. This was located at Syntagma Square right opposite the Parliament buildings - the area where some of the protests had been held earlier in the year. We had time to pop over to the Parliament buildings and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier where a couple of guards (Evzones) were literally 'strutting their stuff' with a type of goose-step in their Macedonian winter uniform. They have a formal ceremony that they perform every so often in their one hour stint to stretch the muscles we presume. The guards are changed every hour with a formal process and in between people are allowed to have their pictures taken with them as long as they do not touch them or make any gestures (such as saluting etc).

There are 3 metro exits around the square so we had to keep our eye on all of them. She eventually emerged and we set off to the apartment. After catching up with Jane and researching where we could watch the match we set off to find the Athens Sports Bar. This was the closest bar which guaranteed the game would be on and we found, from their website, that there was a laundromat next door. The game had a good result for us Kiwis but it was stressful for the last 10 minutes. We might be back tomorrow for the Australia/Argentina game.

Back to the apartment with the Acropolis and Parthenon all lit up on our left. We will get up there in a few days time.