July 6
We got up super duper early at Sonya's house, as I think I mentioned in that other post, and went to the train station to catch the Gatwick Express to the airport. We got to the airport, checked our stuff in and went to the gate.
LONGEST TREK EVER!! I swear it took at least 15 min to walk to our gate, and we probably had to run it cuz I was sure we'd be late. Our flight to Athens was booked with Easyjet (more about them later... grr!) and they have a strange policy regarding seating. Basically it's first come, first served.... which means it's a free for all.
We got on the plane, had somewhat okay seats, and settled in. There was no entertainment, no beverages, no nothing. Talk about no frills flights!! We left London at about 7:30am (we sat on the tarmac for an hour waiting to take off) and arrived in Greece around 12:30 or so. We went through the airport, got our passports stamped and went outside to find the bus. My only and immediate thoughts upon exiting the airport was this: "holy crap, I can't understand ANYTHING in this country and it's freaking HOT here". We found the bus to take us to Syntagma Square, which I knew was close to our hotel, and got on. As the bus drove, Dave fell asleep leaving me to try to pay attention and know where we were and what was going on.
When the bus stopped, we got off the bus and tried to figure out where we were supposed to go to get to the hotel All I had was a name and an address. We looked around, all the signs were Greek. We saw a bus shelter across the street and went to look on it. It was all Greek. Finally we asked a guy, who pointed us down the street. We went down the street, which eventually ended. When it ended we didnt' know which way to go, but picked right and walked about a block and a half before running into a girl with a suitcase with a contiki brochure in her hand. Excited, I said "Are you looking for Hermes hotel!?" and she looked frightened, relieved and confused all at once. She had asked a cabbie for directions and he'd pointed her down the street. Together we walked down the street and eventually found the place. Nice place it was too!
We checked in, and upon check in we were informed that we were actually staying at a different hotel!! Not really excited about that. The guy gave us directions, told us to come back to Hermes for our meeting that night, and bid us farewell. So off Dave and I went again to find our hotel. It wasn't too far away, just around the corner basically. We dropped our stuff off and decided we were starving so we set out to find a proper Greek lunch.
We came across a cute little outdoor restaurant (most of the places are outdoor types, actually) and sat down. The server came over and was so nice. He suggested I try the moussaka and Dave had a gyro. We both had a Mythos beer (mmmm) and watched the Greek construction workers across the street install pipes into the road.
After lunch we were exhausted so we figured we'd go back to the hostel to have a nap before our meeting at 7pm. I set my alarm for 6:30 and we both passed out completely. A little while passed and I woke up and looked at my alarm. It said 7:12pm!! We panicked and ran out of our room and back to the other hotel. Thankfully we weren't the only late ones and we hadn't missed much. The meeting was basically going over how the ship worked as well as the next morning's procedures.
After the meeting we went out for our "traditional Plaka dinner" with the group. Dinner was served outdoors again, at this awesome little place. The staff brought us all kinds of treats like spanakopita (spinach and feta pastry bundles), greek sausage, fava beans (I think?), amoungst other things. We also had chicken or pork souvlaki for dinner as well as ice cream for dessert. And lots and lots of Greek wine. One of the guys in our group was greek and thus he was able to convince the people to bring us a few more bottles.
Once dinner was done there was the option to go out to the club with the group, but we opted out of that and just went home to bed. We ended up not sleeping right away, but instead watching the silliest movie on TV (Stuck on you with Matt Damon and ... someone)
Up early the next morning to board the boat.... but thats another post!
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