Plane - Bus - Train

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Athens 2007 - Day 1 - The flight the bus and the boat

This was the day. I got up at 5:30 and my wife drove me to the airport where I checked in for my flights which were leading me to Madrid and from there to Athens. The plane to Madrid was REALLY old and as always when you fly Iberia on domestic flights the service was below any standard. The cheapest sandwich costed 6.50 EUR. Have never seen this anywhere else. But then in the plane from Madrid to Athens I was really surprised. I had a seat at an emergency exit and the area was huge. I had a women sitting next to me but (maybe since the garlic I ate the night before…Hail garlic!!!) she changed her seat after the start (OK, maybe she was afraid of me or I should have let my shoes on) and I suddenly had about 2 m2 of space for myself. Their was no way that my feet could reach the row before me  And we got a warm meal for free!! The service was very nice and I can only recommend Iberia for mid and long range flights.

Well the we arrived and you can believe me: it is ABSOLUTELY different if you hear in the news that there are 42 degrees Celsius and people die of heat or if you exit the plane right into this temperature. WOW. I had forgotten how that was. I met my friend Marina at the airport and now we had to get through this moloch of city to the Marina where our boats were. We took an express bus (1h) and guess what: the air condition cooled it down top maybe 28° C so we were really glad.

We finally arrived and found the ship, the crew - none of them can sail - was already on board and I checked the boat which I found to be in good condition and quite big - a Lagoon 38 if you know what that is. You will get pics in the next days.

In the evening everybody has hungry and we took a train to the town centre. See the picture how full it was inside there - you could not fall. Surprisingly nothing got stolen and we got a great meal in a nice street where we also met a greek man who was giving us some hints for sight-seeing and food. We told him we wanted to go to Akropolis now (around midnight) and he started laughing loudly - but not because of the time. He laughed because the Akropolis was on strike - HAHA. You could not go to any of those ancient attractions - they were all on strike.

When we got home to the ship it was still incredibly hot in the boat so many of us slept on deck which was on the one side a good idea. On the other a huge bunch of dogs (at least 20) was running around the harbour which made some of the crew fear and they barked the whole fucking night. So I did not have much sleep… I have no idea where they are at daytime, you can’t see any of them. Maybe it’s too hot for them. As I write this at 7 in the morning it is around 30 degrees again.

My summary on Athens however: we met yery friendly, helpful Greek people but the town is really dirty and we need to leave asap and get fresh air. So until the next time…

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Comments

[Martins]

So hot... !?! And its only June..... fuuuuu...

[Katie Barth]

lost in the translation
I wish I remembered all of that science stuff about how to convert farenheight to celcius and celcius to farenheight. I have no concept about how that works. It has been a while since I was in Europe (it was winter time), and I thought it was funny to see the temp so off from usual. In Houston, TX it is very hot right now - in the 90's every day and the humidity level makes it crazy hot! So I am sorry for your pain with the heat. I love this travel blog. It is the coolest.

[Tim]

hi bogi, i feel with you because of the heat, but i also would like to change with you and sail two weeks instead of working. stay tuned, i would like to read more :) have a nice time tim

[FloBo]

Heat is great
Hey Katie, I LOVE the heat :-) Actually I am sleeping outside on the boat and I can't remember when I last slept outside under the stars - must have been more than 25 years :-)