Airports

So, as previously mentioned, I had a nice little delay on my flight to Athens. No biggie - except there was no free internet or wireless, so that was a bit of a pain...

We got on the plane at 11.30, and took off pretty quickly. The flight itself was shite - too hot, cramped, couldnt sleep because they left the lights on, and the captain kept coming over the intercom to inform us of ... nothing important! I was grumpy face by the time we landed in Athens...

Athough this was the first time in a long while that I flew in over Athens itself; down along the coast and banked left to align with the runway. We got a great view of the glistening lights of the city, so widespread and sparkly - it looked like a lot of Christmas lights...

The stopover in Athens was made more interesting (at least!) by two people I met - the first was an American girl called Kelli, who was as confused as I was about going through the passport check - are we all going in the EU passport line? Cos noone is going in the 'All other passports' line... We ended up sitting in a cafe on their comfy couches from 5.30am - 7am, talking about travels and what she's doing in Greece - she was on her way to Corfu to work in a hostel, then her sister was coming and together they'd go to Santorini :) She's travelling around the world for 4 months, went to Stanford University and hales from California... I cant believe I met someone from such a super Uni! I didnt tell her about me going to a fake Uni, I didnt think she'd be impressed :P

We parted ways at the check-in; where I wandered shops until I got given a gate. As I wandered down towards B03, I found a place where I could charge Alan (my iPod) so I could at least have some music for the flight to Rhodes... Where I met Georgina!

She was an Aussie, and let me use her adaptor cos the charging things werent even working... We started talking, about travelling and work and relationships; it was like we were old friends just having a yarn! I had my first Spanakopita (spinach pie) and we had a cup of tea, then all of a sudden 7am turned into 9am and I had to go to my gate! We had a massive hug, became Facebook friends and she is now officially my new Greek-Aussie cousin - I would love to go see her in Melbourne; she IS the older version of me!!!!

So that was exciting... The flight to Rhodes was great, as I had three seats to myself, and had music and Angry Birds to occupy me :)

Landing in Rhodes, Martine called to let me know Savvas, Vangeli's son, would be picking me up and she would come into the city later to collect me... No worries, Savvas and I hung out on my trip to Rhodes when I was 18 - he took me to a bar called Sticky Fingers (named after a Rolling Stones album) and drove me to Prasonisi where there are crazy windsurfers...

Driving through Rhodes was pretty interesting; it is a lot more run-down than I remember. This was obviously not the 'touristic' part, but it was still sad to see how many properties were for sale, how much was rusty, how much plaster had chipped off the building facades... We spoke of the recession and Greece's current financial struggles, how hard it is for people in our age group to find work and what the options were for them... Savvas thinks that, if they can all get out of the country, they will become 'the lost generation' and this poses more problems than solutions... :(

Anyway - so now I'm at his place, about to have a nap as I am fading fast following only 2 hours of sleep. Am still very happy to be on 'my island' and am SO looking forward to seeing my favourite Aunty! YAY FOR RHODES!!!