Greek Cruise Day 1...

Day One – Wednesday

(Ok, it really started on Tuesday, so call it Day .5 and then Day One…)

Everything started out great. Harrisburg International Airport is absolutely my favorite place to fly out of. In fact, I have (lately) and always will do everything I can to use it as a starting point for any air travel. Arrived at 10:50, and by 11:05 had our check-on bags processed, boarding passes in hand, and processed through security. Fifteen minutes… doesn’t get much better than that. US Airways flight left on time to Philadelphia (cramped puddle jumper, but I don’t complain considering it took 15 Minutes to be ready to board. Compared to a hateful hour-plus drive to Philadelphia Airport, and god knows how long in a painful security check-through line, I can take 45 minutes of a loud and cramped plane.

Got to Philadelphia on time, and had two hours until the flight to Athens. Flight was at 4:19, and we got to the terminal around 3:30, figuring that everything was well with the world… Board had our flight on time, and incoming flight had just landed. About 4, the board changed to a delay, 5:30. At 5, changed to 6:30. At 6, changed to 7:00. Apparently they had to change a tire… Whatever, as long as the wheels don’t fall off in flight, but we finally boarded around 7:15, three hours late, and that would put us in Athens around noon the next day.

Flight was bearable, but barely… 9.5 hours in coach with the seats in front all the way back is pretty much as bad as it gets… The three movies they played were horrible, food was typical airline food (i.e. terrible) but I had my iPad and some audiobooks on my phone to make it bearable to pass the time. Got a few hours sleep in there somewhere, but not much more. Note to self… next time spend whatever to upgrade to business class… Considering how much more room there is, it has to be worth it.

Landed in at the Athens airport around noon their time (which is 7 hours ahead, so around 5 in the morning EST…) and got off and amazingly went through customs in about 10 minutes. I’m not sure that they really care who comes in to Greece… Both Ann and I showed our passports, the guy looks at them, smiles, and stamps and smiles again… That’s it… Walked over to the luggage area and was greeted by a nice local guy sent by SPI (travel agent for Cooper for the trip…) to pick us up at the airport.

• Side note: Forgot to mention that while waiting at PHL airport during all of the delays, at about 5:15 or so, after the first delay, I got a call from SPI that they were monitoring our delay, and also informed us of the taxi strike in Athens, and that they would have someone there to pick us up and take us to the hotel… That made things so much easier and painless, and made the start of the trip much, much better than it could have been.
  Took about 40 minutes or so to get to the Athens Hilton, but it was a nice trip through the country to Athens. Got checked in to the hotel around 3:00 or so (very nice room, although it should be for close to $350 a night…) and pretty much crashed for a few hours, exhausted from the long day.

About 5:30 or so we went up to the complimentary suite to get a bit to eat. Met up with Mike and Robin and they told us where they went when they walked around during the day. We decided to go for a short walk (which turned out to be a long walk…) but did get to see a few things that were interesting.

Walking toward the Acropolis, we sort of went down the wrong road, which turned out to be okay since we walked by the Panathinaikon Stadium, the location of the first modern Olympics way back in 18-something… Then we walked by Hadrian’s Arch and the Temple of Olympian Zeus… Then we finally found the place we were looking for, a bunch of street shops and restaurants winding around the area below the Acropolis. Shopped for a bit, and then got coerced by a waiter to sit down and get something to eat. Ann got some great bread with a spread that was delicious, and I got a tuna salad that either had tuna that I couldn’t recognize, or he got it wrong and I got something else… In any case it was good, and a glass of local wine topped off a nice meal outside in the street on a warm but pleasant night. Back to the hotel around 11 or so, and a short walk that turned out to be about 4 hours long ended the first full day…