The flight to Athens was less than exciting. The plane was delayed for a mysterious reason, which caused us to have to sprint through Rome's terminal to catch our next flight. We had an hour to spare if the flight wasn't delayed. I suppose the plane was operating on Italian time. We arrived in Athens at around midnight to find our luggage wasn't there.
It's a terrible feeling, when my luggage doesn't arrive. I put in all this effort to make the plane and wait anxiously as the luggage carousal turns around, waiting for the man behind that mysterious doggie door to put the luggage onto the conveyor belt which reminds me of a centipede. I have a little hope and cross my fingers that it made it ok. Then suddenly I saw the sign that says the man has loaded every last piece of luggage on to the strange segmented conveyor belt and know it's too late. The airline's lost my luggage.
I stormed (or if you're a normal person, probably trudge) to the lost luggage counter to find a man who has no idea how to speak any language the attendant can speak trying to tell her what his hometown is (I can only assume). Finally, it's my turn to speak with the attendant, in hopes she can do something so I can at least take a shower after that little 200 yard dash through the airport in Rome. She was kindly informs me there's nothing they can do and it happens all the time.
All the time? I can't help but think, if this happens all the time, why do they still sell so many plane tickets? How is the company still in business? How jacked up are the prices to compensate for the lost business? It's strange to think that now, the norm is to expect to have your luggage lost when you fly. It's like expecting restaurants to spit in your food. I suppose I should start expecting that one as well, but I like to think I'm pretty nice to waitresses. I feel like I could punch her and that may make me feel better. Why should I have to accept such poor quality standards? I wouldn't accept a bank which lost my money, or a car with only three of its wheels. Regardless, I took the little slip she gave me with a phone number to call in case I didn't get my luggage the next day. Dan calmed me down and we got into a cab to go to the hotel.
Taxi drivers are often shady characters, but I guess the ones in Athens just top the lists. I've had taxi drivers try to take me through an extra loop or something here and there, but I haven't really had taxi drivers try and add strange fees on top of their fares. Often, they'll communicate the fees to me. Then again, the only other taxis I take are in Asian countries which I understand the language and know the area. I suppose that helps. Because I didn't trust him, I took out my GPS and he followed the "shortest route" described. That was all well and good, but when we got to the hotel, he added an extra 10 euro on for himself to the fare on the meter. The meter already was double the price because it was at night, so he couldn't use that excuse. Ok, from the airport, there was an extra 2 euros, there was another extra 2 euros for the toll. So an extra 6 euros of gravy for him. It must be a good life, being a taxi driver for tourists. You can cheat people out of their money so easily . In the end, I paid 39 euros for the taxi fare, probably still far more than I should've. He even had the audacity to yell at me for not giving him a tip. Didn't you already just give yourself a tip? And he thought I was Japanese. I suppose most Europeans look alike to me, so if all Asians look alike, I'm guilty for the same thing. Then again, China is the size of Europe, so if I'm a little guilty of thinking a lot of people look the same, it's like saying people from HK and people from Beijing look the same. They're all Chinese and you're allowed to categorize them as such, but really it's two completely different regions.
Our hotel was also a little on the sparse side. We chose it for economy, but we probably should've thought about that a little bit. They didn't even have toothbrushes to use. Also, there were no supermarkets nearby where we could pick up some of these basic things. I think I had the biggest tantrum I've had in a while that night. I just wanted this entire vacation to start out so smoothly and it all went so very wrong. Luckily for me, Dan's infinitely patient and sat through it all. Since we had nothing to do, for some reason, I thought it was a good idea to read the bible in German. If you've ever heard me read anything in German, it's pretty hilarious. I would not do well to learn German. It's a tough language to read!
The day in Athens was OK. We ended up wearing the same clothes we had a the dash through Rome in and walked around Athens. Athens, in general, is a regular people's city. There's the Acropolis, but really that's about all the tourist attractions. It's just your generic, average big city. It was like a slightly dirtier Milan... or a slightly cleaner and shorter Shanghai.
In the end, I thought Athens was good to visit, but I wouldn't want to stay there for more than a day. Definitely the islands are the best part of Greece.
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