My First Day in Greece

So, most of you know that I spent the last two weeks in Greece. I had an absolutely amazing time!! It was time that I needed for me to just figure some things out in my life, figure out what I want, who I am and what is important to me. Additionally, it was a time to get to know a new friend better, to explore a part of th world I had never been, learn some history and remember that there is a big wonderful world out there beyond Utah.

Just getting to Greece was an adventure in and of itself with Todd flying stand by, nearly getting kicked off of the plane before we even left Salt Lake. Then once in Atlanta he was "stuck" in first class while I, the one who payed FULL price, was priveleged to fly coach.

Day one in Greece was full of adventure. Getting off the plane and being hit in the face not only with a foreign language but with a foreign alphabet. We had to get from the airport to our hotel in a suberb of Athens called Kallithea (Cal-i-thay-a). We took the train to Kallithea, got off, and with the help of Todds GPS started walking. We walked, and walked and walked. Carrying my 36 pound backback on my back and my little pack on my front. We continued walking and were pretty sure we weren't in the right place. It actually became quite funny. We decided to take a taxi. So, we stood on the side of the road and hailed taxi after taxi. This was no easy feat. First, getting someone to stop was a challenge then, once they stopped, we would show them the address we needed to go to and, without comment or response, they would drive away. This didn't happen once but, time and time again. I was told a bit later that I need to show more cleavage if I wanted to get a taxi to stop.

Finally, after walking for ever we arrived. No, not at the hotel. We arrived at the next train station. At this point we determined that we should probably take the train to a different stop and see if that makes a difference with the GPS. So, we went to Piraeus and began the process over again. The GPS said the hotel was only 2, no, wait, 3, no wait, 6 miles away. We were having no luck with taxis so we decided to start walking. Finally, a taxi driver stopped and offered to take us to our hotel, for 28 Euros (only about $50). The drive took less than 10 minutes but, we were there! We turned on the AC (BIG mistake), took a nap and went out to dinner.

Dinner was another adventure. Todd ordered a stuffed hamburger and the waiter had to check to see if they actually served that dish. Turns out they did. Then I ordered spaghetti. Again, he had to go back to check if they served that dish and again, success! At this point we should have known that all was not right with this restaurant. Or perhaps our first sign should have been that we were the ONLY people in the restaurant. But, we stayed.

Dinner was served. The menu forgot to list that part of the stuffing in Todds burger was, in fact, human hair. Yes, that's right, hair! This was no ordinary piece of hair in the food, this was a LOOOONG ass piece of hair. I began pulling on it and it just kept coming out. I suspect it was a good 8 inches. My spaghetti had much to be desired as well. When we were finished eating, we sat there waiting for our check. The waiter sat two tables away, watching us sit and wait for our check. So, the showdown began. We were watching him watch us watch him watching us waiting for the check. He won. We finally had to motion for him to bring us the check, which he finally did. We pulled out the money and sat there again, waiting for him to come and get the money. Which he didnt and we finally went in to the other room and paid. By doing this, we were able to see the woman to whom the hair belonged. Scary!

On our walk back to the hotel we stopped in a bakery and bought baklava. Back at the hotel we each took about one bite of our baklava, determined it was too sweet and then just watched TV until we fell asleep. Well, I fell asleep, not sure how long Todd stayed awake but, I was soooo tired that I was out pretty fast.

So ends the first day in Greece. Things I learned on the first day.

1. Figure out how to get to your hotel BEFORE you realize you don't know how to get to your hotel.

2. Clevage is a powerful tool...use it if you can.

3. The GPS doesn't ALWAYS know the way.

4. Todd can find the humour in something that other people can't (walking blindly through Athens).

5. If you are the only people in a restaurant, take that as a sign and find somewhere else to eat.

6. I'm not the only dork who thinks stupid jokes to themselves such as (It's all Greek to me) when seeing Greek posters in the airport.