32 Hours of Travel Adventure

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Our travel into Greece was, of course, quite the adventure. My philosophy is: try to just be flexible, don’t get mad at the workers who are trying to help.

The 1^st leg of our journey was a flight into San Francisco. Here we had a 6-hour layover, plenty of time to eat, buy last minute items, whatever. It is in San Francisco where, when we have time, we buy sushi a ½ bottle of wine and eat somewhere. As that flight was an early morning, we hadn’t had any breakfast, so we were ready for Sushi! The first proper meal of our trip.

With all of the flight changes at the last minute, our granddaughter, Zaya’s ticket was unlinked from ours. She was in a different loading group than ours and I knew that wouldn’t do. As soon as the agents opened the counter in San Francisco I was 1^st in line to change that.

As it turned out, every passenger had to go to the counter and show their covid vaccine record or negative test results, plus show they had a proper mask. I was glad that I was 1^st so all we had to do was to get onto the plane.

After an 11-hour flight, we had a 8-hour layover in Frankfurt so we found a table where we could just hangout for the day. It was a good chance to finish up a book that I’d started a while ago at home but never had time to read. We also walked and walked after sitting for so long.

The flight from Frankfurt into Athens was on Aegean Airlines. I’d checked the site before leaving for info on luggage and had noted that weights allowed on carry-ons were less than the ones allowed on United. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten all about that.

When we were getting ready to leave Frankfurt, I threw a couple of larger books into Zaya’s backpack and we got in line to get onto the plane. Some people got in behind me, but I didn’t notice so I got thru to get on the plane, while Zaya got pulled out as they thought her bag was too large. It turned out that it was a few ounces over the limit. I was stuck at the doorway of the jetway but fortunately, Dale had been behind Zaya so he was with her. Unfortunately, they decided to weigh Dale’s bag and found it over the limit as well.

The Aegean staff told Dale that he had to now check the bags to the tune of 100 euros. As we were feeling a bit like hostages, Dale had no option but to pay. He gave them a credit card but then the Aegean machine didn’t work. The woman tried it over and over then the next person tried to make the machine work to read our card but to no avail. Finally, a male staff came and tried to make it work but still nothing. The guy turns to me, still standing in the doorway, and says “do you have 100 euros”? I said “No, I only have US money”. The guy then louder says “ do you have 100 euros”? Again, I said “No, I only have US money”? Then the guy yells “do you have 100 euros”? Again, I repeated the same thing over again. Finally, Aegean said forget it, that it was their problem with their machine and they couldn’t keep us any longer.

We got on our flight and 3 hours later we were in Athens.

We’d decided to take a cab to our Airbnb. The driver was an older guy who spoke little English, but we did discuss the fact that we had our vaccines and the weather. Then he turned on Greek music and he sang along. We had a private mini concert!

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Photos

German Lunch
Sausages, Potato Salad, Beet Salad in Frankfurt

Leftovers in Greece
Leftover German food at our Airbnb in Athens