Mission Control The Woodheads Have Landed

Our first day in Greece has ended. Stamatis dropped us back off at our hotel about 30 minutes ago at about 12:30 AM (May 23rd). Here is a brief recap.

At 4:45 PM last evening, we took off from the Atlanta airport aboard the Delta jumbo jet. I must tell you, Business Class, which is actually 1st class when you are on a transatlantic flight, is quite the bomb. We enjoyed wonderful spacious seats, gourmet style meals and quite a lot of attention from the well-trained attendants. Our seats reclined almost fully and the leg supports came up so they were nearly bed like (pretty nice on a 10 hour flight). We each had our own TV monitor allowing us to view current on demand movies, documentaries, and TV shows. We could also listen to a variety of music or even play some video games. On another Monitor on the cabin bulkhead displayed a constant update showing our planes location altitude, distance, ground speed, etc. I really cannot say enough about how terrific our experience was. Oh yeah, poor Phyllis lost the last 7 hours of her birthday. At 5:05 PM, the pilot advised us all to reset our watches for Athens time, 12:05 AM, May 22.

At 10:30 AM, we arrived about 15 minutes early to the gate in the Athens Airport. By about 11:15 AM we had passed through customs, immigration and picked up our bags. As we walked out of the containment area, my old friend Stamatis immediately greeted us. We followed up with warm hugs and introductions. Helping us with our bags, Stamatis took us to his car and carried us to the hotel he had arranged for us, Park Hotel.

We checked in, carried our bags to our room, and hurried off to a nearby square Eeyeea Paraskavie (Saint Paraskavie, we’ll worry about spelling later). There we had had some delicious fruit smoothies and lunch. We spent about three hours chatting and catching up. About 3:00 PM Stamatis dropped us off at the hotel and we each caught a catnap. At 7:30 PM Stamatis picked us back up and we headed down town to central Athens and an area called Plaka. To get there we took the new Metro, which is excellent. Tomorrow Athens is the host for a big football (soccer) championship between Liverpool England and Italy. We walked through a huge crowd of Liverpool fans who were well into the party mood. We managed to make it through there just before they began pouring beer on each other. During our walk through this very charming area we could see wonderful glimpses of the Acropolis high above us. Since they do a very good job of lighting it I attempted a picture or two. About 9:45 PM, we sat down at taverna Stamatis recommended and had a very nice dinner. Dinner was very pleasant in spite of about eight thoroughly drunk and obnoxious Liverpool fans sitting next to us for about the first 45 minutes. After dinner we made our way back to the square we visited for lunch and had some delicious deserts. For the next part it’s important to mention that we dined outside at each of these places, because at 12:00 AM they turned out the lights and closed. About 10 Minutes later our waiter brought us some water and collected for the deserts. It was time to get some sleep. Back at the Plaka I can assure you the night life was in full swing. Greeks and apparently obnoxious Liverpool football fans love to party! Well that’s about it got to catch some shut-eye.