We left Brussels on Monday morning after our 2 ½ month stay
there to head to Trikala, Greece. Thanks to Maija Besky for picking us up and
driving us to the airport. We left home at 9:00AM and arrived at the airport
quickly despite busy traffic time. Clear sailing through check in and security
but once we got through security we found out our 12:00 flight had been delayed
to 1:00, then 2:00, then 3:00 then 5:00 and finally 7:45. The plane was
apparently held up in Strasbourg, France for uncertain reasons. The only
consolation was that we were given vouchers for 2 free flights. Then after boarding, there was a man on the
plane who was sick (throwing up sick!) and of course he was seated right in
front of us. There was a delay until airport staff came to remove him from the
plane and for other staff to come in and clean.
So our 4:30pm Athens arrival turned into a midnight Athens
arrival. (The second time we have flown into Athens at midnight this year!). We
had planned to try to find a hotel to stay the night and then get the car from
Petros’ wife in the morning but of course more complications – wee missed the
last airport train of the night which went at midnight and there was a general
transit strike scheduled for the next day.
So we decided the best course of action was to take a taxi to get the
car and head for Trikala and drive during the night (at least there was little
traffic). The taxi took us to almost the right address but not the right street
so Stephen had to walk to meet Maria and get the car. I think we finally headed
out of Athens at about 2:00am. The 4.5 hour drive to Trikala was quite smooth
but when we got there Stephen’s Greek sim card had run out of credit and we
couldn’t call Petros to let him know we arrived and Stephen didn’t want to go
knocking on unknown apartment doors. Finally about 8AM we met up with Petros
and got into the apartment.
Despite all that we can be thankful that Zachary and Jacob
were incredibly patient and got some sleep on the way. At the airport, we met a
young man named Rico from Holland and spent a good amount of time chatting
about travel, bicycle design, cycling in general, watches, computers and he
loaded up Stephen’s hard drives with some Greek audio lessons and movies. Also,
the apartment here is really nice – it is large, new and very homey. It even
has 2 large balconies, which the boys liked and it has a view of the Pindos
Mountain Range – the peaks are snow covered right now. It is very cold here
today (-1C) but hopefully it will warm up soon.
Wow. Your travel blog is my worst nightmare! I absolutely HATE the "travel" part of a trip. When is science going to perfect teleportation? Alternatives to fossil fuels be dammed - I want to be beamed to my next holiday destination!! The puking would have done me in for sure. Could have been worse though - you could have been on an Italian cruise ship:-)
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