Saturday, June 25, 2011

We're in Athens!

Well, we’re finally in Athens.  The trip over was not much fun.  Firstly, I’ve never seen such long queues for immigration and baggage screeningn in Sydney.  They were REALLY long.  Whether it was related to the process of catching up after the disruption caused by the volcanic ash cloud or not, I don’t know, but once we were finally through after nearly an hour it was a bit of a rush.  So I would advise everyone to leave PLENTY of time to get through the formalities.
It’s been a long time since I was on a long haul flight, and I’ve forgotten just how tedious it can be, especially in economy. The first leg was rather cramped (an Airbus 340) and I couldn’t get any sleep.  But the second flight was in a Boeing 777 and the seats were a bit bigger, so I managed to get some sleep.  Some, but not enough, so we arrived in Athens at 6:30 in the morning tired.  But I expected that, so that’s OK.
We decided to go for the taxi option to get to the hotel (rather than the bus or metro) as we felt that with all the luggage it would be easier.  But we were approaching the hotel I started to get a bit uneasy.  It was a very seedy area, with prostitutes on the street, even at 8 in the morning.
Anyway, we went to check in.  The room wasn’t ready, but I wouldn’t expect it to be at that time.  They gave us a cup of tea/coffee and we waited in the lobby for about half an hour while they prepared the room.  It was pretty basic.  I can just picture what the Hotel Inspectors would have said about it! But at least we could shower and freshen up.

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