Pain in the neck. Oh, and Athens.

"Ouch. Ow. Ooh. Ouch."

"Ow. Ow. Ow."

"Ouch"

"Kathleen, are you OK?"

"Ummmm, (whimper, sniffle, etc) no."

And so began our first full day in Athens. At 3am. I'm awesome to travel with.

We had arrived in Athens late the previous day, after making the most of a five-hour layover in Munich. So we had a pretty low key night, walking around Plaka, eating our first bit of real Greek food, and taking in the amazing view from our hotel's rooftop bar.


And just when I thought I could claim victory over the vacation-spoiling demons, just when my upset stomach that plagued me in Munich was dissipating, yep, right about then, I woke up with some seriously intense neck pain.

I couldn't sit. I couldn't stand. I couldn't lay down. It was 3am, I was exhausted and I couldn't sleep if I tried. And I LOVE sleeping! So I whimpered. Depending on whose version of the story you believe, I either quietly winced in pain, whispering ow's and ouch's as I tried to find a comfortable position to exist in, awaking my light-sleeper of a husband OR I complained about my predicament, louder and louder, until my gem of a husband woke from his deep slumber to tend to me.

Either way, I didn't know whether to sit or stand, scream or cry, breathe deeply or hold my breath, and Alex was by my side, trying to help.

As the more lucid member of our party of two, Alex took charge, called our insurance company, fed me Advil, figured out which hospitals I could go to in Athens, put me on the phone with a nurse and hopped in a cab in the middle of the night to find Acetaminophen (Tylenol) at the nurse's suggestion. He's pretty much my knight in shining armor.

Apparently they don't have Acetaminophen in Greece, but they do have Counterpain - a BenGay-type balm that gave me the ability to sleep a few more hours.

Oh, I do love it. So when we woke up the next morning, I applied a heavy dose of Counterpain and we made our way to see the Acropolis.






After some quality sight-seeing, we needed some nourishment, so Alex and I made our way back to our lovely hotel,


and had breakfast on the rooftop


where we took in the view of the Acropolis once again.


After breakfast, it was time to check off the next item on our list - the Greek National Museum. (After applying more CounterPain, and briefly wondering - how much Counterpain is too much? Will I develop an addiction? A dependence? Will this burn my skin? And then deciding that I didn't care.)

We added a stop at the Cycladic Art Museum for good measure.


And then made our way to the ferry to Poros, where we met up with our friends Dave and Ruth, Ruth's family and other friends. Oh we had so much fun there! I nearly forgot about my neck pain! And nothing else went wrong! At least not in Poros! :)