Alarm goes off at 6:00 AM. We leave for the airport at 8:00 AM to catch our flight to Athens. For one last hoo-rah, we decided to snag a chocolate croissant from our favorite bakery. Normally, nothing special would have happened here. We would have grabbed our croissant and been on our merry little way to the taxi stop. However, nothing “normal” seems to happen when we are involved. As we walk in the bakery, Valentino (a person, not the designer) meets us with a VERY warm, a little too warm for our taste, welcome. Valentino is exactly the way you would think a young Italian man would react to three young American girls. One would have thought we were long-lost loves, separated by war, seeing each other for the first time in decades. But no. We were strangers. He not only hugged, and I mean huuuuged us, but also kissed us, squeezed us and wanted pictures with us. He actually wanted to kiss on the lips and also gave Haley his number! It was a tough goodbye for Valentino as he gave us one last Italian farewell, kissing each of us on the cheek and trying whisper sweet nothings in Haley’s ear and plead for just one kiss. Um, NO. Sorry Valentino. You and your three front teeth are not my type! As we check into our flight, barely passing the luggage weight limit, we find that there is a STRIKE in Athens so our flight has been delayed for one hour. Not a huge deal until we got on our plane (via a bus - interesting by the way) and it was again delayed for yet another hour. By now, anytime we get a chance to sit, we basically fall asleep. Shortly after we take off for Athens, the flight crew bring by a meal. A meal for a two-hour flight people! Hello, America, why don’t we do this?? Peanuts?...no thank you American Airlines. We were pretty pumped about this meal…until we saw it. People, this thing consisted of noodles, random brown round shaped balls, and this sorry excuse for “chicken.” However, this sadly wasn’t the most disappointing element on the plate. The worst, by far, was this thing that looked like some two-year old shot it in a diaper. Ashley was talked into trying it and after about 2 seconds in her mouth, she had to spit it out. Appalling. The airport we landed in Athens was a good indication of how communicating in this country was going to go. FAIL. Not only is it not a Latin language (related to Spanish, Italian & French), they also don’t use the Alphabet. Hmmm… I mean, I know we were in a sorority and all, but who really remembers the Greek Alphabet or what sounds they make? Collectively, we knew the letters Chi, Omega, Gamma, Phi, and Beta. This could be a problem. Additionally, as opposed to Italy were most people spoke a little bit of English, hardly anyone in Athens speaks English. We couldn’t even guess because their words sound something like this, “kinthindonenissis.” What? Exactly. So, because of this strike that is going on in Athens, no public transportation was available to take us from the airport to the city. We step outside to find a long line of patrons waiting for taxis. At least 200 people long! Luck was on our side and we wound up sharing the cab with a lady from New York who had a map, was heading to the same neighborhood as us, and also was mildly successful in communicating with our cab driver. I’ll take time skip the part where our cab driver tried to find our hostel. Let’s just say, we got there. Later that night we met up with our fourth friend, Michelle, grabbed a bite to eat, watched a dog sing along with a man and a trumpet, ate dessert on a rooftop that overlooked Athens, and called it a night.
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