My Travels - Part 1A, continued -- The Athens Airport Tale

A continuation of yesterday's post.

From my notes and memories:

"Mizzes!  Mizzes!  That flight is booked.  There is no room.  No, Mizzes, you cannot get on.  You will have to take another flight. You are too late for boarding. Your seat is taken by another."  So said the unyielding agent at the ticket counter at Olympic Airlines.

Panic!  Son-in-law was expecting me at 8:30.  I wouldn't be there!  I realized, after a search of all my purse pockets, that I had left his work telephone number at home.  I had given it to my business partner; I had given it to my son; I told my elder daughter where to find my telephone book in my office -- and then I had come off without it!  Panic, again!

I made my way across the terminal lobby to the OTE (Telephone service), thankful that I had obtained about $100 worth of drachmas from my bank before starting on this trip, and called my daughter-in-law in Arkansas. "Sorry." My son had the number in his wallet. I called my work partner; his wife answered and looked for the card I had given him with no results. "He must have it with him."  Oh, dear! 

When I explained my dilemma to the nice man at the OTE counter, he looked up the number to call Souda Bay Naval Base on Crete, the only number he had for a U.S. military installation on the island.  I reached them; fortunately the operator spoke English,  and when I had made clear the reason for my call, quickly gave me the number of the Iraklion Air Station.  After a bit of delay, I was connected with my son-in-law's shop. I spoke to one of his co-workers who said he would call my son-in-law's beeper and let him know I would not arrive until 11:15.

That done, I felt better, but my mouth was so dry from nerves I could hardly speak.  I bought a carton of grapefruit juice with some of my remaining drachmas and sat down to drink it while "G" went in search of restrooms and to make some phone calls of her own. 

As I was sitting, trying to calm my nerves and allow my blood pressure to return to normal, I was joined by a Greek Woman and her three children.  The mother, who introduced herself as Eleni, tried valiantly to carry on a conversation with me, and although I had a Greek Phrase Dictionary, she faced a losing battle.  She introduced me to her children  --

 Mario Angelo, Manuela, and Christina. What name goes with what child I no longer remember.

I use this photo and their names only because I know they don't look like this anymore.

Eleni chattered, I picked up a word or two and would try to make what I hoped was an appropriate response, which would send her off into a torrent of Greek which I didn't understand at all.  When I indicated that I could not understand, mainly by shaking my head and making a sad face, the two older children, who appeared to be about 5 and perhaps 8 or 9 years old, would come near me and start repeating what their mother had said, very carefully, but not very slowly, begging me with their eyes to understand.  Although I could tell they were disappointed that I could not speak more than a few Greek words, the gift of some chewing gum from my purse (with the prior approval of their mother) seemed to please them.

This slightly nerve-wracking exchange went on for about 20 minutes, then I looked up the words for "it's been nice to meet you" and "goodbye" and fled to get my boarding pass for the 10:25 p.m. flight. 

Having been distracted, I had not noticed that I could no longer see "G" anywhere, so I went into a bar and ordered a Greek Coffee to try to stay awake.  She eventually saw me standing there sipping the thick coffee (I called it 'mud' in my notes, but that's not nice; I learned that you don't ever want to reach the bottom of a cup of Greek Coffee) and we went on out to the departure gate to wait it out.

The flight from Athens to Heraklion is only about 50 minutes, about the same distance as Little Rock to Dallas, so I estimate it's about 200 miles or so. (I just looked it up; it's 209 miles). The plane, a 737, is bigger than the one we flew in from Frankfurt to Athens. It's nearly full -- mostly of Greeks.

The cabin attendant dimmed the cabin lights in preparation for landing, so it looks like the first half of this long journey is almost over.  It has been an experience."

Someday I will, perhaps, write more about my visit to Crete.  I suspect that reading about someone else's vacation is a bit like watching your neighbor's interminable slide show. I don't want to drive you away.

Tomorrow is also a day.

My Travels - Part 1AMore Sea Photos and The Athens Airport Tale

Rocky Coast from Shore Level

I'll soon run out of photos of the seas surrounding Crete, but if you can bear with me through two more (can you tell that I loved looking at the sea?),  I'll tell you the story of the delay at the Athens Airport that I mentioned yesterday.

Shoreline from a Higher Elevation

 

Shoreline From An Even Higher Elevation

The Delay at Athens

Although I wrote in my last post that I didn't keep a journal of this trip, that's only partly true.  In digging through some other boxes this afternoon, I discovered that I had made some notes on a lined yellow pad, at least for the first few days.  They were in an envelope with the postcards I bought.  With all the activities I became involved in, I soon had neither time nor energy to keep writing.  Shame on me; I wish I had taken the time to make even a few entries.

I'm going to start this tale with our arrival from the U.S. at the Frankfurt, Germany, air terminal. Looking back at it, things started going downhill from that point.

From my notes:

"Frankfurt airport is a mess.  Huge, and strung out everywhere. We were about fifteen minutes late arriving,  had to take a bus to a different terminal and stand in line for an X-ray check of our luggage. Then we were directed to the wrong gate -- that plane was going to Vienna. We hauled ourselves back up the stairs to the correct gate, went through the luggage X-ray again and through Security for passport check.  All OK  there. We boarded a bus at that gate and were ferried across the huge taxi/runway and hanger area to our plane.  Got all settled in, on time.  We were due to leave at 1:00 p.m. Frankfurt time. Then, the captain shut down the engines and we sat until 1:45, waiting for two other planes' passengers to arrive and board.  Must have been some V.I.P.'s.

The flight to Athens was uneventful, but we were put in a holding pattern for over 15 minutes before we could land -- in the rain.  We were met by another bus and taken to the terminal building, where we went through Immigration Control (with some hassle), then waited and waited and waited for the luggage to come up.  When it arrived 30 minutes later, we had to go through Customs.  No problems.

[Note: On the flight from Frankfurt to Athens, I was seated next to a young woman, "G," who was a nurse at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C.  She was vacationing in Crete for a week, and we mutually agreed that we would stay together until we got there.]

"G" and I got through Customs and went outside to get a taxi to take us to the Olympic Airlines terminal, some miles away.  There was a seemingly interminable line of people waiting for taxis, and we had only about 30 minutes at that point to catch our 7:15 p.m. flight to Heraklion, Crete.  "G" conned a couple at the front of the line into letting us have the next taxi and off we went all the way across Athens -- at breakneck speed -- only to find, when we arrived at the Olympic Airlines ticket counter that...

...we would not be allowed to board!

To be continued. Tomorrow is also a day.