Our flight left on August 18th very early in the morning, about 1:30 a.m., so naturally we had to be at the airport at 9:30 p.m. the night before à la Andrew Baldock/George Huxtable style (Elsie remember….”Everyone is at the airport! It’s a Wednesday!“). We had an ungodly number of connections and there were multiple points where I thought I was going to die at the airport and never see the outside world again. A couple times I pressed my face up against the airport windows like I imagine jail inmates do. We flew from Fairbanks, Alaska to Seattle, Washington, to Paris, France, and then to Athens, Greece. It took us over 24 hours to get to our final destination.
The flight from Seattle to Paris was the longest – about 16 hours. I watched like 39482098203842 movies including Bears (twice), Cool Runnings, We’re the Millers, some television show about killer crocodiles, and 300: Rise of an Empire. Andy watched Taken and Taken 2. Apparently getting kidnapped in Europe wasn’t on his list of travel concerns.
I was secretly super excited about getting to spend time in the Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris so I could throw around some French words and see how much I remembered. I made Andy find a cafe and pick something from the menu so I could order it for him. He selected a beer (Je voudrais une bière) and I selected a coffee (Je voudrais un café). When I ordered, the waitress understood me and didn’t look at me weird so I considered that a success.
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| I made Andy take a picture with his beer. He said it tasted better because I ordered it for him in French. |
The French escapade was short lived, however, as we boarded yet another flight from Paris to Athens. We were crammed into a small shuttle bus with buzzing and chatty French people. At one point I overheard a French lady tell her husband she liked my handbag. It was a genuine compliment as she didn’t know I could understand her. At least she didn’t call me ugly.
We finally made it to Athens. Both Andy and I had crazy headaches and no sense of time. I kept asking Andy what day it was until he himself was unsure. While, in my opinion, the Athens airport was disorganized and strangely constructed, it was very efficient. We only waited about 5 minutes for our luggage. The entire 5 minutes I had convinced myself my luggage was lost and I was going to die in the airport.
We finally got our luggage and made our way outside to find a taxi. In the United States, taxi and limo services are not allowed to solicit at the airports, but not so in Greece. Our luggage and confused looks served as excellent sandwich boards that read “WE ARE TOURISTS” so every taxi cab driver was all up in our grill from the minute we walked out of the airport. We politely said “no” to two of them until we were forced to essentially barrel through them like bowling pins. I started judging people based on the color of their car…”It’s not yellow! Move, move, move!” Eventually we located affordable fixed price taxi cabs that lined up in order like in the United States and grabbed the first one in line. We ended up in a cab with a delightful Greek man named Costas who ran his cab with his son. We gave him directions to our hotel, about a half hour away from the airport. We chatted with him the entire drive there. At one point he asked us where we were from and when we said the United States he replied “I love the United States. Anyone who doesn’t is lazy, stupid, or an idiot.” Well said Costas, well said.
Our new friend Costas also served as an eye-opener into the unique Athen’s driving style. As expected, the city had lanes but unexpectedly, everyone ignored them. They made up lanes and merged between these phantom lanes sans blinkers with a brazen sense of confidence reserved only for nascar drivers. In between tidbits about the Greek economy and lamenting about his adult son’s inability to cook Greek food, Costas was zipping in and out of other lanes (both actual ones and ones he made up), zooming around motorcyclists, and honking at red lights. At one point he ran a stop sign….”We’re fine, no one was there,” he comforted.
In Costas’s defense, he got us to our hotel safety and timely and only charged us €40. We had decided to splurge a bit in Athens and stayed at Hotel Grand Bretagne, one of the nicest hotels in Greece. It boasted a huge spa (more on that later), and a world famous restaurant called The Roof Terrace Restaurant with award winning views of the Acropolis.
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| Hotel lobby |
Our room was just beautiful. We had a cute view of the garden area in the middle of the hotel, and a big beautiful bathroom. I took the best bath of my life in that bathroom.
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| Andy in the hallway |
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| The bed. Oh and yeah, Andy wore his suit on the plane so he wouldn’t wrinkle it. |
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| The bathtub of my dreams. |
Andy had made us reservations at the Rooftop restaurant prior to our departure, so after my delightful bath, I got ready and we headed up to the restaurant. It was incredibly beautiful. It sat perched atop the hotel with large tables all positioned with great views of the Acropolis and of Athens. The service was excellent and the food even better.
As the night progressed, the sun began to set and illuminated the sky with a beautiful orange glow. The Greek government put in lights to shine on the Acropolis as it gets dark and it was magnificent to watch the sun go down and the Acropolis lights go on.
The food at the Rooftop Terrace Restaurant was delicious and top rate. We ordered ceviche and clams for an appetizer; I had baked chicken for dinner and Andy had a filet. We had a romantic bottle of wine and ate the night away.
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| Ceviche. |
At the end of the night we ordered dessert and coffee. With our dessert came this clear drink in tiny wine glasses on a small plate. This drink would end up becoming a huge staple in many of our dishes and a popular drink at the Mountain Refuges up to Mount Olympus. It was called Tsipouro. It tasted like flavorful vodka. It was harsh and burning but you warmed up to it quickly. More on Tsipouro later!
By this point we were both falling asleep at the table, so we paid our check and wandered back to our beautiful hotel room. During our Honeymoon, we made a habit each night to remind each other how blessed and fortunate we were to be able to take this trip and see such a beautiful place. We did our “reminding” and quickly fell asleep; it was a successful first day, but the real adventuring was to begin the next day!