Here begins the first day of our new life.

We arrived at Athens airport, feeling the worse for wear, a little ahead of schedule, at about 4:10am local time, a flight of about 3 hours 15 minutes. It was pleasantly warm. We asked a young Greek girl, who turned out to be Cypriot, the way to Athens main bus station. She invited us follow her and share her trolley as she also intended taking a bus from the airport into the city to the main bus station. It was only after we purchased our bus tickets that we found the next bus would be over an hour. This meant we would miss our 6am connection to Kalamata. Our young friend suggested that we all share a taxi and asked for a refund on our bus tickets; fat chance! First of many nice surprises, "no problem" with the refund. We quickly found a taxi and the three of us continued our journey together; it took about 35-40 minutes and cost us 20 euros.

Athens bus station was very busy even at this early hour; we parted company with our friend and went to buy our tickets at the kiosk. Again the tickets were very reasonable costing €15.10 each for a journey, which took about 4 hours 40 minutes, including a "comfort" stop as the Americans say.

We arrived at Kalamata bus station at 10:40am and were a little disappointed to learn that the next bus to Stoupa would be a 1:15pm, by now we were very, very tired. Always ready to turn a disappointment to our advantage we crossed the road and had coffee and a snack, enjoying the world of Greece passing us by. While we sat drinking our coffee two passing dogs spotted us and decided we looked like potential dog owners. One a Diefenbaker look-alike - the dog who 'starred' in Due North - almost a Husky with cold piecing icy blue eyes, the other with an ancestry connected to a brand of beans. Two of the friendliest, smelliest canines you could meet curled up at our feet in an effort to be adopted.

There was a tremendous bang, the sky grew dark and the rain began to fall. When you have a thunderstorm in Greece the rain is heavier, the lightning more frequent, and the thunder louder than any you experience in England. We then thought we had found a car paintwork-testing site! Someone had parked his or her car just outside the bus station shelter where the enormous tin roof dipped in a 'v'. The result was water from many square meters of roof being funnelled into a waterfall that fell directly on the roof of the car. When the rain finally stopped and we crossed the road back to the bus station, the car roof looked as though it had been beaten in places with a hammer!

Laine managed using her limited knowledge of the Greek language to get the bus station staff to agree which bus would take us to Stoupa. The last leg of our journey took just over an hour and cost us only €2.30 each. It continued raining throughout our journey, which made it impossible to take in the magnificent views as the windows of the bus were covered in condensation.

On reaching Stoupa we alighted from the bus and struggled, tired and weary with our over weight luggage up the lane to our new home. Until May next year we have the use of a holiday apartment, the door was already open, as were the rooms within the house, linen on beds all cleaned and ready for our use. We threw down our bags grabbed our waterproofs and set off to find Vaggelis to thank him for all the help he had given us. We continued on to our friends to catch up on local news before setting off to the supermarket, to grab something to fill our empty stomachs, before retiring for the night.

Finally, the end of the first day of the rest of our lives
OR
How to get from England to Stoupa for just £40.50 each.