Long Layovers

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Five years ago (almost to the exact day), I was in Paris with five hours between flights. It was meant to be four days, but a series of unfortunate events made me miss two different flights out of Dublin. By the time I made it to the City of Lights, I was already scheduled to leave for Lisbon. It was midnight and -5ºC outside, but it was Paris. I caught the bus into the city and found it sleeping. I hid my backpack in a bush and pranced down the deserted Champs-Élysées, under the Arc de Triomphe and through the frozen gardens of the Louvre. The only other person I saw was a bum who followed me for a few blocks, yelling in French. Cold and a bit scared, I returned to the airport, thankful for the unique experience.

When I found myself unexpectedly in Athens with another long layover, I jumped at the opportunity of reliving my Parisian adventure in warmer weather. I was admittedly tired of Roman ruins, but I thought I’d give their Greek forebears a chance – they were guaranteed to be more stimulating than sitting in the airport in any case. I got on the subway and watched as the name of each destination scrolled across a screen in Greek. I hadn’t seen Greek letters since Calculus and they brought back unpleasant memories of long equations, derivations and inverse tangents.

I got out at the Monastiraki stop and was immediately confronted by columns. I don’t know if it was the newness of seeing the ruins artificially illuminated or the unanticipated thrill of being in Athens, but I found myself wishing I had more time to walk through the columns I’d found so offending only a month before. As it was, I only had time for a quick, uneventful stroll around the Acropolis and ancient Agora before heading back to the airport.

After the no frills Turkish airline I’d been flying, Aegean Airlines was like a breath of fresh air. They greet you at the gate with mints and offer a complimentary meal on every flight – even if it’s only an hour long and takes off at 10:30pm. They also have an interesting choice of uniforms (sleeveless smocks), background music (Christmas songs a week too late and on a plane filled with Jews), and flight path (big, swooping turns instead of a straight line). Still, I’ll fly with them again if I ever find myself in the area – and the way things are going, I just might.

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