Amazing. Usually, when you board an airplane the airline employees are very controlled and orderly in getting everyone onto the airplane. Not this flight. The attendants at the gate seemed confused and disorganized. They didn’t make announcements on the intercom. The crowd waiting to board was all standing and milling around, yet no announcements were made. The crew seemed fixated on a few people off to the side of the gate. We were already past the boarding time by about 10 minutes. Sally and I stood up and approached the gate. No one waved us away. We stepped up, scanned our own tickets at the machine and walked onto the plane. No one took notice. When we reached the plane I jokingly asked, yet really wanted to know, “This is the plane to Athens, right?” As no announcements were made. The attendant laughed and said yes. We found our seats and settled in, noticing the plane was nearly empty and we were five minutes from our scheduled take off time. It took another 15 minutes for people to filter onto the plane. It filled up. We could see the baggage handlers outside taking bags out of the plane. Really? The 30 something kid next to me in the window seat was Greek, returning home from LA where he worked in the movie industry. His accent was thick, he talked fast and with the face mask I could barely understand him. He was fun with sparkling eyes, but conversation was nearly impossible.
It was 1:00 in the afternoon, Amsterdam time. That is 3:00 in the morning Toledo time. We’d been up 23 hours. We were getting tired. The fully loaded plane finally took flight 45 minutes late. Sally fell asleep and slept the whole flight. I amused myself watching a movie I had downloaded at the airport and trying to play solitaire on my phone, but found my mental acuity was really off.
Once on the ground in Athens we passed through one check point where they wanted to see our vaccination card, then we were on our own. At this point it seemed too easy after all the other impediments.We found the metro line, paid 9 euros each and found our way to the platform. The ride to Syntagma Square took an hour.
It is always a little disorienting coming up from the underground in a new city, but the sun was setting in the west, making it easy to find our way NE toward our B&B. On the long train ride in from the airport I realized I had not contacted Athina, the owner of our AirB&B from the Athens airport to let her know we had arrived and that we were running an hour late. Once we left the airport we had no cell service, leaving us without communications. On the streets, we searched for a business that would let us log into their WiFi to contact her, but to no avail. Our AT&T service charges $10 a day for internet in an overseas country. I didn’t want to use it do to it’s outrageous price, but I knew Athina was waiting to hear from us so I flipped my phone off airplane mode and sent her a text while Sally and I stood outside Solonos 18. Within 45 seconds she opened the door and welcomed us in.
I had forgotten we had rented a full apartment with kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom. As Athina and her daughter showed us the place I was thinking, “Uh-oh, we only have the bedroom and these two have the rest of the space. It will do, but not the level of privacy we like. I was slow to realize all this space was ours. Not until they headed out the door did I fully understand we had the space to ourselves. Athina, the mom, did not speak english, so she had her late 20’s daughter with her to interpret. They were super helpful, giving us restaurant suggestions for the evening and finding a great place to get Greek SIMM cards for our phones. As they prepared to leave I again apologized for not contacting them from the airport and making them wait. They dismissed my concerns and left.
We connected to the WiFi, found a place to eat, cleaned up just a bit, and headed out the door to the “healthy” restaurant a block away. We had now been up for 30 hours and were ready to get some sleep. A nice meal and we were back for showers and bed.
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