Amazing Race Day 2...

So as often happens with the best laid plans... they change. Where are our LBS teams?

1. Nan and Lan are safely in China with family and their son... safe to say they are out of the race to London
2. Borja and Diana found out they were overbooked on their flight home to Madrid and so have re-entered the race with a lead having flown to Rome and are on a train to Milan
3. Miwa, Zeynep and Alicia are still hanging out in Istanbul and hoping that their well timed flight on Wednesday to Milan will quickly catch them up to the other teams or put them in the lead, all very possible
4. I, Salinda, Aline, Trisha, Kelvin, Joao and Shuji ditched the train idea and booked a flight to Athens ... Shreyash and Ricardo found out at the airport they weren't booked to Barcelona and joined team 4 in first class to Athens
- Team 4 spent a lovely morning in sunny Athens wandering around the Acropolis (since it was closed) and meanandered through Platas before heading back and finding the next step...
4a. I, Salinda, Aline, Trisha are going to hang out in Athens until our flight to Rome Wednesday morning, hopefully getting us closer to London
4b. Ricardo is pulling himself out of the race and heading back to loved ones in Lisbon
4c. Kelvin and Shreyash are taking the early flight out to Rome to scope out the land for Team 4a
4d. Joao and Shuji are going to join the girls in exploring Athens until they flight out to Bologna for an adventure up
5. Ben and Mykel arrive in Athens in time for dinner with the girls before they get up early up and do a quick tour of Athens and head out for Partas on the original trip to go on the ferry
6. We believe Mamello, Sele and Vishal are in Shengan visa limbo .. an extreme detour in this race

The race is on and team 4a is crossing their fingers that they beat out the rest.. although the way things are shaping up most of us will end up meeting up again in Milan

And how was Athens?
As has become our habit, we enjoy the beginning part of they day before tearing out our hairs trying to figure out where to go from here

Athens is actually extremely easy to get around, but noticeably more expensive than Istanbul, but no second guessing ourselves. We took the metro in and dropped our stuff at our Hotel Aristotles.. the rooms are nice but the area is quite dodgy.. good thing we have all of the boys today. The weather was incredible and helped us to forget for a moment that we were in the middle of the Amazing Race LBS to London. The Acropolis was closed but that didn't stop us from admiring it from the outside and taking lots of photos. We stopped in Platas for lunch... at a very touristy spot but at least we got to enjoy the sun before taking a leisurely walk back to the hostel to plan our next step, with a little bit of shopping on the way to supplement our depleted wardrobes. After figuring out our step 2 the girls went out with Ben and Mykel for a cheap dinner of kebaps and gyros and beer. Very nice.