la v and jak travel the world

Day 1- Good Friday

Yassas from Greece! We finally made it over here to the land of ancient philosophers, classical architecture and the pythagoream theorem. But we're actually here to do a little island hopping. The trip started with Jay and Emily dropping me off at SFO to meet Jack, who was flying down from Seattle. No sign of him yet when I got to the terminal, so I got in line at British Airways, and waited my turn. Just as I was called to the desk, Jack appeared in the nick of time, so we were able to get seats together for our 10 hour flight to London Heathrow, where we would have an hour and a half layover before connecting onwards to Athens.

The first half of the flight was comfortable, despite the fact that my seat was in the middle of the middle, no one sat on the other side of me so it was quite spacious. Just as we were nearing our 4th hour on the flight, the captain announced that we would be making an emergency landing because a passenger on board was seriously ill and required immediate medical attention. We never found out what actually happened, but our plane was delayed 2 hours in Winnipeg due to the incident, and we missed our connection.

No problem; when we got to Heathrow, British Airways had already confirmed us on the next flight to Athens that evening, which was really great because we had to catch a ferry the next morning at 7:45 AM! The flight didn't leave until 8:55pm, and since it was only 2 in the afternoon, what to do? We wandered through the duty free shops reeking of men's cologne, wound our way past harried travelers amidst the extraordinary number of men's clothiers selling pressed pink striped button down shirts, and stumbled upon... an urban oasis.

Ok, so it was actually called Urban Retreat Day Spa. Heck, why not? We were already groggy and tired and a little stressed from missing our connection, a little R & R wouldn't hurt. Gotta keep the skin moisturized, right? Since we didn't know the dollar to british pound conversion rate, we only had a vague idea of how much the services actually cost, which is probably better anyways. I signed up for "The Long Haul," a massage and an express facial, while Jack got "The Short Haul," a 30 minute back rub and express facial, plus a haircut. Since we were both getting services, we were able to hang out in the spa lounge the entire afternoon, taking advantage of the peaceful atmosphere and intense massage chairs, above the hum and din of one of the world's busiest airports.

By 6pm, we were ready for dinner and since we were given a pair of 10 BP vouchers to an airport eatery courtesy of British Airways for our inconvenience, we made our way over to Est Cafe, and had a light Italian supper of thin crust pizza margherite and spaghetti and meatballs, washed down by european beer. We had plenty of time to catch our flight by which time the excitement of travel was overcome by the exhaustion of travel and I conked out for a good 2 hours, awaking only to eat the strange meal of meat and tomatoes that appeared before me.

We arrived in Athens at 2:45 AM on April 6, where we breezed through customs and baggage claim in a good 8 minutes, and were promptly met by a representative of Fantasy Travel, the agency that booked our hotels, transportation, and transfers. Emily and Jason had arrived about an hour before us and were already resting at the Hotel Herodian, our home in old town Athens, a stones throw from the Acropolis. For some reason we were wide awake when we got to the hotel, and only slept about an hour and a half before our wake up call rang, allowing us a half hour's time to pack up and check out before breakfast. And as we were checking out, who should stroll happily into the lobby after their early morning walk around block, than Emily and Jason! Together at last!

We voraciously devoured a delicious breakfast (included with the hotel) of eggs, really thick Greek yogurt drizzled with honey, fruit, loukamades (round pieces of deep fried dough drizzled in honey) and assorted breakfast cheeses and breads. At exactly 7:45 AM, our ferry port transfer picked us up and dropped us off at our gigantic ferry, it seriously looks like the Borg, (we're being assimilated... ahh!) and now we are en route to Mykonos for Easter!

The entire ride is about 4 hours. The first hour blew by as we taught Jay and Emily how to play Eygptian Rat Screw (a fun filled card game that has nothing to do with Eygpt, rats or screwing). Jason won both games... beginner's luck. We have about 2 hours left and all four of us are falling into a slightly hazy drowsiness. Looking forward to SLEEPING!