This will be my last blog FROM abroad, but not my last blog ABOUT abroad. Right now we are sitting in the Roman Airport once again awaiting our Easy Jet plane to take us to Palermo which is our final destination in Europe. We are spending one night there since we have an 18 hour layover and considering we spent last night on a ferry. We desperately need sleep, so we are going to spend $100 for a bed tonight. Crazy! You may be wondering how we made it to this point after reading my facebook statuses about the Greek strikes. This blog will be dedicated to describing the last awful 30 hours of traveling in Europe.
At this point, Jared and I are pretty fed up with all of the Greek workers and their crazy and violent strikes. Not sure if you have seen anything on the news, but Athens has been a pretty crazy place this week and the last few weeks. If you read our blog earlier, we were without internet because the electric and internet companies in the city went on strike a few weeks ago. This time, the strike effected us in a more serious way because the port in Athens closed because all of the workers went on strike yesterday (Tuesday, 28th) which was the day we had purchased our ferry tickets for in order to catch our early flight today.
We woke up yesterday all ready to go and we went downstairs to talk to the hotel management about getting a taxi to the port and she responded with “but no ships are leaving from the port today,” which would have been nice to know previously, but I think they are all so used to it that it is nothing out of the ordinary and it is to be expected so it wasn’t really big news. We immediately had a “what are we going to do?!” moment and I was a little panicky. She called the port for us to verify that it was true, and then confirmed that it was. She recommended that we go to the travel agency asap and see if there were any overnight ferries with the companies that weren’t on strike because starting tomorrow Athens would allow boats in so if we got an overnight ferry the boat wouldn’t technically arrive until the next day when the strike had ended. We went to the agency, and there was an alternative company, but the ferry ride was 12 hours long, and would get us to Athens at 6 AM and we had a flight leaving at 10 AM. We were worried that the ferry would run late or that we would have trouble getting to the airport on time, but we bought the tickets and wished for the best.
The 12 hour ride was surprisingly quick, probably because I slept for 6 hours! It was crazy though because we were sitting on the boat, watching TV when the news came on showing video of the day in Athens and we got a glimpse of what we would be arriving to. The streets were full of protesters and burning dumpsters. People were breaking down building walls with sledgehammers and spray-painting buildings. We were warned that some of the transportation companies (taxis, buses, metro) had been on strike this week and we might have a hard time getting to the airport. We arrived in Athens to a really calm morning and all of the taxis were running. We didn’t want to take one though because of the expensiveness (50 euro to the airport from the port) so we decided to walk a little ways to the metro. Of course, they were on strike… so we had to catch a taxi anyway. Luckily, we met two ladies from Korea who were also going to the airport so we shared a taxi and cut the price in half!
When we arrived at the airport we had a couple of hours to kill before the flight because everything went so smoothly. We could breathe! We sipped on coffee (mine was decaf) and munched on some sandwiches and played cards. It was awesome… until we noticed that the TVs with the flight times and info had all flights listed and then beside them in bright red letters was “CANCELED” over and over again. Ours was included in that list. Turns out, the airport workers decided to go on strike as well. At this point, we are LOVING Athens. Love it! I immediately went to the information desk to find out that our flight was indeed canceled, and that it was rescheduled for 1 o’clock when the strike would be over. We had a connecting flight in Palermo from Rome, so we were wondering if we would make that connection given the delay, but luckily, we are here in Rome and have plenty of time to catch it, which is what I have to do now… so I am taking a pause.
…Okay, now I’m in Palermo. The flight was quick and 20 minutes ahead of schedule! Jared and I arrived, got our baggage, and quickly found the taxis. Turns out, even though the hotel is not even 10 miles away, the standard fee is 35 euro to get to it. Our 80 euro hotel just turned into a 150 euro hotel after the two taxis… that’s $225.00 for a bed for one evening. There is no bus that runs this direction. It’s strange too, because this is one of the cheapest hotels we could find on the Italian island thanks to booking.com. We’re so ready for this trip to be over. At least breakfast is included. Anyway, we arrived at the hotel to realize we are so out of place. It is beautiful with a huge garden area and a beautiful pool. It is directly beside the ocean with the most awesome view of the sunset. Everyone staying here is rich, we’re sure… and we’re the youngest people in this place. Probably everyone here is retired and wearing fancy clothing. Jared and I have to ask reception lots of questions because we aren’t used to a place this nice and they give us weird looks. All of this is bearable because tomorrow we get to wake up, eat a huge breakfast (yes, we will take advantage of it), and then pay 35 more euro, and then FINALLY fly back into the USA where the currency doesn’t force us into debt and where we can be pretty confident that a strike isn’t going to cause us to miss our flight or cause our flight to be cancelled.
I am so tired right now that I might not be making sense, but Jared went on a walk to find food since the restaurant here closes at 9 and we missed dinner because we got in late, and I am sitting in the lobby utilizing the internet, supposedly, but it isn’t working, so I am instead locked out of the room since Jared took the key. I am passing my time by finishing this blog somewhat lazily because I am running on 6 hours of sleep, which is just not enough for the pregnant. Also, Jared just walked in the door carrying some brick oven pizza! I thought I would never have it again… gotta go... :)
No comments:
Post a Comment