Going to Ελλάδα (Greece)

(We just made two posts so if you'd like to read them in order go down to the other one first!)

We went to bed around 4:00 last night and woke up at 8:00 to get ready and head to the airport to go to Athens. We spent most of the night talking to the man at the front desk of the hostel to see if we could store our extra luggage there. He kept saying that it was probably going to happen, and then that he was 99.99% sure, on and on, and that he had to wait for his boss to come in. It turns out that the wrong boss came in and we would have to wait until morning. He said he would leave a note for the next man who worked the front desk to talk to the boss when he came in. So anyway, at 8:00 in the morning, we woke up and got ready. Brad went and talked to the front desk man, and of course he had not received a note, and he quickly told us that we couldn’t leave our things in the hostel storage while we were gone.

After that, we frantically brought our equipaje (luggage) with us to the metro to go to the airport. Brad informed me that he heard that it takes about an hour to get there…I panicked, since I had planned for a 30 minute commute without extra luggage to lock in the airport. After I freaked a little, we decided to get a taxi. (When we left the airport from Madrid, we got stuck with two taxis because we couldn’t fit all of our things into the trunk of the taxi, so Nathan hid until we actually got a taxi and then popped out to come with.) Brad flagged down a taxi and we rushed up to him to load the car. He was surprised by how much stuff we had but we convinced him to let us put our bags in the front seat and on our laps.

Once we were in the taxi, we made conversation with Miguel…..

(Brad's interjection)

So, there we were. Stuck at our stupid hostel with all of our bags because someone lied to us about storage and bosses and weightlifters. He had told us as long as we weren’t hiding bags of cocaine or Saddam Hussein that we would be fine.. he lied. We ate our free breakfast (Ken: Specifically we had a choice between a croissant or Donut or cornflakes, coffee or Hot Chocolate, and Orange Juice. That means there are 6 breakfast options. 12 if you include juice or no juice. We all went with the Croissant/Hot Chocolate/ O.J. option.).

Our plan was to take the metro to the airport, put our bags in la cosigna (baggage storage) and get to our flight by 11:30. It was 9:00am. It takes 1 hour to get to airport by metro. At this time Brooke started kind of “freaking out”, kind of a strong word.. but yeah. I believe the phrase “We don’t have enough time” came into play. And that’s when my upbringing kicked in… so thanks parents for making me freak out about being late to the airport and missing my flight.. which has never happened before. Somehow I got in my mind that that we were going to be late and get screwed over and blah blah.. so I think I thought that our flight left at 10:30 by the time we left the hostel. Or maybe I just thought it was an hour later… either way I thought we only left ourselves one and a half hours. So we started kind of worrying, and decided to flag down a taxi by the metro stop rather than go into that unknown underground abyss. I am very skeptical of Spanish Taxi drivers, no offense to anyone who reads this blog and happens to drive taxis in Spain. We were about to give up hope and just take the metro when all of a sudden, like an angel from the heavens, drove up our dear friend Michealangelo. In English: Michael the Angel. He was awesome. He loaded up our stuff.. yeah, all three of us actually can fit in one taxi, go figure. He was really friendly and helpful, spoke with us a bit. I even trusted him enough to discuss tips with him and what would be normal tipping amounts for, say, restaurants… or taxis.. Needless to say we tipped him, for possibly saving our lives. At that time we went in the airport, found La Cosigna, stored our bags (Brooke checked in and checked our one big backpack, it’s Northface by the way. Quality. Represent.) And then me and Nathan rushed up to check in, had a little trouble with the machines so we went to real life people who got us our tickets. Then I actually had the time of the flight in front of me, and found out our flight was at 11:30am and it was only like 10am… Again, thanks parents who influenced me in making me worry about this. You know who you are. (Ed: Brooke, the metro would have taken an extra hour.. we actually would have been late.) But now I know to trust our instincts. (end brad)

We made it to the airport (side note: Madrid Barajas Airport is the nicest airport ever. It is even better than the light up tunnel in Chicago O’hare) and spent some time wandering around, checking out the shops, and then we went to our gate. We found the first drinking fountain since Philadelphia, and promptly filled up our bottles. Then we boarded the plane to Atenas (Athens). I immediately fell asleep and since the plane was fairly empty, Brad moved to his own row in the back once we were in the air. I woke up to some delicious Kosher airplane food, which consisted of crackers, orange juice, applesauce, and they came around with fresh bread. I was impressed by the service. After we ate, we immediately fell back asleep for until the announcement came that we were starting our dissent into Athens. Nathan and I were really out of it, but Brad said that the islands were absolutely beautiful from the plane. I guess we will see pretty soon…

Once we got our bags, I was disappointed to find that I didn’t get a stamp in my passport because we didn’t leave the European Union. Lame huh! Nonetheless, my spirits quickly lifted when we were met by George, a Holiday Tours representative with our flight information and itinerary for the next week. He showed us all of our documents and answered questions. I was very impressed by him, and thankful that the tour we booked was in fact not a scam… (Brad comment: I think we all were.)

So now we are waiting at the gate to head to Santorini tonight. I am personally so excited to see the Island and spend time in a sunnier climate. As Nathan tells me, “the rain in Spain falls on the plain,” i.e. Madrid, so I am ready to get to the sun. Brad and I are typing now, and there was a small child talking really loudly. I made the comment that the kid sounds like he is speaking gibberish but it is probably Greek, but then Brad confirmed that it was gibberish…Weird.

It is time to go wait to board the plane.

Αντίο (Goodbye in Greek),

Nathan, Brad, and Brooke

P.S. Get ready for Gorgeous pictures of Santorini, and…
THE HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS TOUR-Archimedes, here I come!