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Published: August 8th 2007
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υποδοχή στην Αθήνα, Ελλάδα
Welcome to Athens, Greece Au Revoir It is late morning and we trudge downstairs with our luggage. Goodbyes at the door with Maman and Lotus are bittersweet. She tells me that I will always have a home in Paris, and I can’t thank her enough for her hospitality, kindness, and amazing culinary abilities. She has an uncanny ability to make one feel at home, and I really did feel at home at Malesherbes. And to think, I’m usually quite afraid of dogs, but Lotus is such a sweetheart that I am sad to leave her as well. I can only imagine how hard the goodbye is for Leroy, but I know that we’ll be back. Merci, Maman, for all that you have done for us!
Charles de Gaulle and Salmon House Bett isn’t feeling backpacker-y today, so we are joining her in a cab to CDG. Her flight is a couple of hours before ours, but we figure we can hang out in the British Airways lounge and catch up on blogging. We are, by now, two weeks behind. With three cameras on hand while in Paris, there are too many pictures to sift through (Boracay, anyone?). It is raining in Paris, and while
A row in Heathrow at 21:20
Athens flight delayed to 21:20. That's right now! I dream that it is because the city is also sad to see us go, I know that a place like Paris does not weep for people like me. Once at CDG, we wait in line for Bett to check in (Have you gotten your mileage points for the trip yet, Bett? Don’t lag!) and encourage her to make elite status so she never has to wait in line again, hahaha. Then, it’s off to our terminal to check in and have lunch. Eep, it turns out our flight is a good three hours after Bettina’s, which means they won’t even let us check in until 2:45pm (it’s now 12:45pm). So we push our bags around on carts and choose Salmon House as our lunch place. Ahhh, they have foie gras, so I do get to check off the last box. It’s all I order, while Bett and Leroy go for the menú again. Before long, Bett scurries off to her terminal to check in. We wait a bit, then check in ourselves, only to find out that British Airways shares its lounge in this terminal with Air France, a Star Alliance member (not oneworld). They won’t let us into
UEFA Champions League Final
We are rooting for AC Milan and their Brasilian star Kaka the lounge despite American Airlines Platinum status, and when we ask if there’s a oneworld lounge at CDG, the woman curtly says no. We should never have believed that a major airport like CDG would not have a oneworld lounge, but we did. So we parked ourselves in a café, ordered cappuccinos and wine so we could keep the table, and read/blogged for two hours. Only later, once we had internet access, did we discover that there is an AA lounge in Terminal 2, and we were definitely nonplussed.
Trapped in Heathrow Because of the idiosyncrasies of our frequent flyer ticket, we fly to London Heathrow for a three-hour layover before taking an Iberia flight to Athens. It’s just as well, I have ₤4 in coins that I could not convert into euros. Again, the strict one hand-carry rules at Heathrow (even for passengers in transit) irritate us, but we are soon at the oneworld lounge where we can grub on free tomatos soup, salads and sandwiches. A Barcelona soccer match is on the telly, which keeps us quite entertained. I also buy some Clarks shoes, as Heathrow has a full-fledged mall inside, because I still need something comfortable to walk in (Bett, the Esprit ones I got killed my feet). Our flight to Athens is scheduled to depart at 8:55pm, but then it’s delayed to 9:20pm. At 9:20pm, there is no gate listed, and so we wander the airport and lounges before we can finally board the plane. Long story short, we didn’t take off until 11pm, meaning we didn’t arrive in Athens until 4am. We shouldn’t have bothered booking a hotel room that night, because head didn’t hit pillow until 6am. We are excited to be in Athens to celebrate the UEFA Champions League Final, even though we don’t have tickets, but there is still one major obstacle to overcome. We don’t have a place to stay for Tuesday and Wednesday (the night of the match). We figure that a city that hosted an Olympics just three years ago should have the capacity to house fans for the European soccer finals, but we have not been lucky so far. Oh how I regret not putting the payment down on an apartment I found in February; at the time, we didn’t want to pay so far in advance. Big mistake.
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bett
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poor feet....
did you get clark shoes like the ones i have?????