Transition Day, Expect the Unexpected, Day 26
Start
On the morning of our departure we are served our breakfast by our another new older Italian woman. No cold milk for the cereal. No toastah policy applies. We do a final pack and check the weight of our main luggage using a device given to Sue by her good friend Gail. Clearly under the Aegean Airline limit of 23kg for each of us. We have to be out of our hotel by 10, so we have around three and a half hours to do a final cruise around Roma before zipping off. We stowe our luggage in our hotel in an little area set aside for this purpose, complete with bathroom. Very thoughtful. The retail therapy dynamic kicks in again and I submit to my desire to pick up yet another pair of desert boots. Shop shut. Are you kidding? Next trip. Nothing like a pair of of European desert boots man. Another coffee? Why not? I think those two words sum up our day to day trip mantra. Indeed, why not dude? Back to our hotel and before we know it we are on our way to Fiumicino Airport. We suss out the airport and settle in for a bit of a wait, consistent with our “get to the airport early” approach of this trip. Great bookshop. Might pick up that copy of Classic Rock. A mega edition. Oh no, its in Italian. We grab a coffee and kick back.
Middle
Time to go down to the boarding gate area. Through customs and (as it transpired) into a travel black hole. As I indicated on FB on someone else’s post, with travel it appears you’ve got to literally expect the unexpected. Really expect the unexpected. We are scheduled to fly to Athens at 5:40pm, but it ain’t happening on the board. We are stuck in terminal 3. In comes a massive thunderstorm. Apparently our plane has landed but at another airport. It was circling our airport for a while. We are encouraged to use our boarding passes to get some food. Not alot on the menu that I feel like at the moment. The thunderstorm appears to be clearing. But hey, what about our connection to Santorini? We are not going to make it. The island doesn’t know what is going on with its most valued VIPs? The hours pass by. The departure screens don’t have any info on our flight. Aegean Airline staff cannot answer any questions or provide any information. I strike up a conversation with an older man called Francis who actually lives on the Greek Island of Poros (appropriate name for a Greek Island given the battering they have received by the GFC). Francis is Scottish, has lived in Canada for a long time, and now calls Greece his home. He now works as an Art Historian and has just come off a cruise with his partner Pamela, an artist/ author, where they were both employed freelance to talk about their respective areas. Francis puts the whole contemporary Greek Economic Tragedy into perspective, whilst partner Pam shows us some of her art work, and indicates how she got to be living now on a Greek Island with a former Art Historian Professor. Apparently she stopped by the Greek Isles on her way to Heathrow. She was stranded for 3 days transport wise and never went to Heathrow. A really interesting couple. Pamela has just self published a piece of fiction called Greekscapes. Not bad at 66. We get to know some other people, as we all wait for the departure info.
pamela rogers book
http://www.pamelajanerogers.com
End
Finally at about 10pm we get the update. We will go to Athens at 10:50pm. On to a bus and on to the plane. I talk to a woman sitting next to me from Melbourne. Just taken the package at Vic Roads. Just been around Europe on a similar path to ourselves. Its her time she says. Finally we are airborne. Off we go to Athens. We get to Athens at about 1:30am and immediately get new boarding passes. We opt for a 5:15am flight to Santorini, knock back a hotel stay for the early hours and check in our luggage. More waiting time. At 4:45 we board our flight and whammo we are going to Santorini. As we come into Santorini the sun rises and we get a great look at the housing, the colours and the distinctive light. Touch down. Big day.
our plane just landed
view 1
gazlington 