Its all Greek to me

It is always a weird feeling when you have woken up in a country that spoke english and than travelled to one that does not... This mouring, which seems like eons ago, me and Danielle got up at the un godly hour of 5 am to go navigate the London tube system to the Heathrow airport. This after the previous days experiance was completed with little trouble. Despite our knowledge of the route we were constantily parianoid that there would be some mechanical malfunction that would render us unable to catch our 8:20 flight.

When one takes the tube towards Heathrow, or away, you become aware that there are not only many terminals but many metro stops to the said terminals. So on our way there we realised we had no idea which of the three stops/terminal choices was the right one for us. We figured to go for the stop with the most stations, alas for us this was not the right stop. Yet thank god for reliable public transit, after getting off the train, we had to only wait 5 min for the next one to wisk us to our destination. We were to fly out of terminal 5, where british airways did there european flights. With some rushing and hastling with the automated ticket machines we went to drop off our bags. Unfortunatly my backpack was deemed to be too "strapy" for the normal conveyor belt. Yet Danielle's equally unweilding and "strapy" bag was taken without a bat of an eye. So this lady directed me to send my bag in the vague direction of the Massive Heatrhow airport with the tilt of her head... So after asking several people and being directed around and much stress, I along with Danielle found the oversized baggage deposit.

The sheer inmensity of Heathrow was hard to grasp, but having visited 2 of the 5 terminals, and the 5th one where our fight was to depart at was collossal. However, despite the immenisty of this airport our flight was to depart at ANOTHER terminal... So we hurried along following the directions, and automated ques to our assigned gate. We were at the B section which required another train ride that could only be accessed by this terminal. Once we got there with 30 min to spare we bought, and gulped down the one of the most expencive and pretentious breakfasts I have ever had. The problem we had had earlier with the automated machines was that the plane we were taking was at full capacity which meant that me and danielle were unable to sit together... Once again we did surive and both managed to get some shut eye along the trip.

When we arrived in Athens, we immediatley knew we were no longer in kansas, or the western world as we knew it. Sure the airport is brand new, but it still exudes this distinctly greasy vibe which told us we were in Greece. Once at the airport we realised our big hickup. We had no directions to the hostel. *sigh* On our reservation there was a phone number to call for directions, well all the pay phones in the Airport were credit card only, which my credit card, nor danielle's worked at. Than there was a booth for free internet but it was not partularly helpful because we could only get driving directions which we had no use for. Danielle than had the brilliant idea of asking someone... Despite my foot dragging this was actually not only a good idea but a very helpful one. At at information desk we were given a free metro map and directions to the station to get off at. We than marched off to the train station, purchused our tickets than got on the train. While waiting and amusing ourselves before the train left, we read the signs in the train. One explained there was a large fine for those who did not validate our tickets. We looked at our tickets, they did not appear to be validated. Yet we just bought them, the Greek man across from us point up to direct us to where we could validate the said tickets. We figured this out at 5 to 4, and the train left at 4. So we ran up the stairs, punched in our tickets and than ran down the stairs frantically, to find our seats were taken *sigh*. Well it was a long train and we found some other seats, not as good but did the job nonetheless. Transfering and finding our station proved to be actually quite simple even in the crowded masses of greeks. However once we got off the metro closest to our hostel we were absolutely clueless were to go.

The ticket lady had no idea, and to make matter worse the address was in english(ish) while all the maps and street signs were in proper cyrllic greek... The ticket lady did try to translate the english versions back into greece which seemed to give us a destination on the map within the metro. So we were all excited that we had found the hostel all on our own and we charged down a street with enthusiasm. Danielle had asked if i knew where i was going which i replied with of course i do... 4 or 5 blocks later of walking we had no idea where we were. Back to the train station we went, reoritated ourselves then went to the address. When we got there there was no hostel, for that matter the street numbers didnt match up either. Danielle once again said we should ask somone, and i responded with similar responce and Danielle had predicable success. Our informant had pointed us almost back to the metro station. After almost 2 hours of gruelling walking we actually found our hostel. With a hot shower, of dubious quality, some good food from the local bakery and grocier store, a beer, we are now comfortable and ready to take on Athens.

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