Schwer Log

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# trip to athens
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05/31/03 – 06/01/03

our trip to athens was quite a long one. by the end we were up for over 24 hours straight, and had not seen a dark sky the whole time.

it began with a long line at check-in, followed by an even longer line for security, in all it took us almost two hours to get through it all. then we were on the plane, and it is a packed flight, which means for 10 hours we were stuck in the same seats without very much room to move. also this flight flew close enough to the pole that we completely missed any night sky.

we then landed in frankfurt where we had a three hour lay-over. we passed the time by exploring the airport and flipping through magazines we can’t read (’cause there in german…). we did have a bit of luck in that before hand i had found out that frankfurt airport was testing out using a wireless hotspot, so we headed over to gate A26, and we were able to send out a few messages, and check our email a bit. unfortunately i left my power outlet plug converter in one of the bags we checked in so the fun only lasted as long as my battery, which is about an hour.

the one bummer about frankfurt airport was that when we went through passport control the guy must have seen my old vienna stamp, and thought it was the frankfurt stamp (they look very a like) so he just handed it back to me. i didn’t notice but angela did, and she later mentioned it. it’s no big deal, but when you are on travel it is nice to look back at the stamps you’ve collected in your passport, i’ll make sure he stamps it on the way back. there also wasn’t anyone stamping things when we arrived in greece. also no customs the whole way which was nice.

another line got us out of frankfurt, and this time the plane wasn’t so packed, but it was another three hours of flying time. the one good thing about all that travel time was that it gave us a good deal of time to learn a bit of greek, which is not an easy language. i took pictures of the meals we got on that flight [ 1 , 2 ] (i forgot to on the other flight), so i can send them into airlinemeals.net .

after we landed we had been awake for over 24 hours, and we were very tired. getting our bags took forever. we only got one bag off of the carousel, the other we had to go claim as lost, that is until it magically showed up. there were about ten other people waiting in the lost baggage claim too, i can’t say whether that is just coincidence or a pattern.

we then bought a ticket for the bus, and waited not too long. all the travel guides said that the airport taxis are a difficult mode of transportation. they are hard to catch, and their meters rarely work, or if they do, they have been tampered with. so it is adviseable to come to an agreement on the trip price before hand. i was in no mood to deal with any of that so we opted for the bus.

the bus was cheap and efficient, although i noticed if you wanted to go anywhere besides the default Syntagma stop you had to know where you were going, because the driver never mentioned any stops.

we finally arrived at our bus stop, and again we could have taken a cab, but the same warnings that apply to airport taxis apply to the in city taxis. so we headed toward the metro. the metro is athens’ version of ‘the tube’ in london, or the u-bahn in vienna. we got lucky in that the way we started to go when we got off the bus was the right one to get to the metro stop. after we had found the metro my experience in the london underground and the vienna u-bahn helped greatly as i was able to navigate the subterranean maze with ease. another nice thing about taking the bus from the airport is the ticket you buy, (and must validate in the little red box on the bus) also serves as your ticket on all other public transportation for 24 hours.

once we popped out of the metro we were rather disoriented, and it took us a bit to figure out where on the map we were. once we did so we forged off, our rolling luggage in tow. let me take this time to note that all of athens that we have seen so far seems to be in a state of repair. i’m guessing this is in sight of the 2004 olympic games that are to be held here. this however makes dragging luggage through the streets, and there foot deep pot-holes a bit difficult.

we then navigated the streets to our hotel. navigating those streets had me wondering whether we should have taken a cab. it was also sunday, which seems to be a pretty busy time down in the Plaka district, not a good time to be wondering around with your bags looking for your hotel, as the streets are crowded. we found our hotel, thanks very much to my excellent navigation skills…

once we checked in we had more trouble. i had requested a third floor room with a garden veranda, and had also brought with me the email confirmation about this. what we got when we got there was a first floor room, without a garden veranda.

seeing my wife disapointed on our honeymoon was too much. i went down there with the email confirmation and showed him that we should have been in a different room. he was very kind, but said he couldn’t do anything for me, as all the rooms were booked. he did however suggest i talk to his ‘colleague’ tomorrow, and maybe he can do something about it.

we then ate at a nice restaurant called hermion. my spaghetti bolognese tasted like it had cardamom in it, which was interesting. angela’s potatoes were very good, they seem to do potatoes well. i had a nice glass of wine with dinner which successfully knocked me out for the night. needless to say with a full belly and no sleep for 24 hours we slept well that night.
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