It's All Greek To Me

(Phew -- thank goodness I got that headline out of the way early. Now there's no pressure to use it again. To be fair to me, it's not like there are a ton of easy Greek references. I'm not doing a post on Greece's GDP, so I don't have to write the headline, "How Much Does A Grecian Urn?" I will figure some out -- after all, who loves you baby?)

After walking a good mile through the Athens airport to get to the baggage claim, there was no repeat of Italy 2007 and our bags came around to us on the carousel. They were so excited to see us their tails were wagging, they jumped off the belt, and licked us. (When you travel, your luggage is like your dog. Usually there is unconditional love between you and your luggage, but sometimes there is the luggage equivalent of the dog vomiting in the house. Bad luggage! Bad, bad luggage!).

But I digress. The oddest parts of the relatively uneventful (and sleepless) trip was yet to come. We walked through the luggage exit, fully expecting to have to get into a line for one more immigration stamp for our passports, but nope -- it was a maelstrom of families and drivers waiting for their clients and/or loved ones (whoops, order got reversed). The European Union is on the brink of being one big happy family (with the exception of the brooding French, of course), so the immigration line in Germany was enough.

Our travel agent had arranged a driver and a small bus to take us from the airport to the hotel. Turns out it was a small driver and a bus. There were 48 passenger seats (plus a driver seat!) for the five of us (plus the driver). Our carbon footprint upon coming to Greece was the equivalent of Al Gore's mansion for a day. We felt really badly for the planet (just as Gore does every time he takes a private jet somewhere). Political cheap shots aside, it was really weird. I felt like the Partridge Family (well, hopefully none of the girls is auditioning for the part of Danny Bonaduce!).

After a decent length drive from the airport to the Central part of Athens, the bus stopped, and the driver pulled our bags. There was no hotel in sight. I asked, "where's the hotel." He replied -- "go up, turn right, and go down a few blocks." I felt like the wife in one of the later scenes in Goodfellas where DeNiro (notice his first name is unneeded) offers her free dresses and go "just down and in there." She fears getting whacked, so she doesn't go.

We did follow his directions, and after about four blocks we found the hotel. We didn't get whacked (in case you were worried after the last paragraph).