Greece Vacation: Day 1

The first day of any vacation is rarely fun, just think about it, the first includes travel, travel and more travel. And that's what I did May 28, 2011. I decided that getting to LAX at 6:30 AM was next to impossible if you live in Rancho Cucamonga, say Day 1, sorta started Friday night checking into the LAX Marriot, which had lovely shuttles going from the hotel to the airport every half hour. The extra couple hours of sleep was worth it, especially when you realize, 20 hours of travel, plane time, airport time, ugh ... so much time just to get to my destination.

The first leg of the journey was from LAX to New York. I nice flight, United is doing this thing where you get 5 inches of extra leg room in economy. Man those 5 inches were fantastic. It changed an uncomfortable experience to something bearable.

Landing in JFK was smooth, going from one terminal to the next was simple (once we asked a flight attendant for directions.) She had just come back from Hawaii, and looked a little crispy, but really who doesn't look crispy after visiting Hawaii.

The next leg of the journey was the overnight flight from NY to Geneva. This flight was not as great, first off I was stuck in the center aisle. I am a window person. In fact I have this odd paranoa, I'm strangely afraid that if I can't watch take off and landing we're all going to plummet to our death. I can't explain it, I don't know where it comes from. But it's there. I'm not actually afraid of flying, but it's like those people that have lucky underwear, I've always watched, and if I don't I'm afraid of the consequences. Irrationality at its best.

Then, while attempting to sleep, I had a killer allergy attack. No where to go to escape, sneezing, runny nose, watery eyes, itchy throat ... It was all there, making me seriously miserable.

We finally landed in Geneva, had to go through passport control, my allergies were almost clearing up when I walked into a duty free store, perfume spritz every where ... let's just say sneezing ensued at a miserable pace.

Geneva was nice, especially since I got to brush up on the little French I remember. I could read the signs, which was enough to impress myself. Although I'm sure I would be the only person impressed with that. I ordered coffee, and relaxed, thrilled that there was only one more flight until we reached Athens.

The last flight was short, it seemed to be over almost before it started. Our bags were there when we landed (always a good feeling, you wouldn't want to buy a new wardrobe in a foreign country out of necessity) and we walked out of the airport. No passport control, no customs ... I felt like a suspicious person, in the country illegally. But what can you do. I looked around and there was a man, holding up a sign with my name on it. Our taxi was there, waiting ... so far so good.

We were loaded up into his car and carried away. At death defying speeds, or so it seemed. It really was just better not to watch the speedometer or the road. As we got off the highway, and drove around Athens, I was struck by the amount of graffitti, not what I was expecting, but there it was, on everything. I looked around as our taxi driver gave us the lay of the land, until we pulled up in front of our hotel. The Jason Inn. We had finally arrived.

Vacations Needed

So while I plan to talk about past vacations my current obsession is planning my trip to Greece. I will be going in 10 months, and spending a full two weeks in the country.

Itinerary

Classical Tour of Greece
Cruise of the Greek Isles
3 nights in Santorini
6 nights in Athens.