This morning we wake up early at 5am ready to catch our flights home. We have a 7am flight from Crete to Athens then a noon flight from Athens to Newark. We find the airport in the dark, drop off our rental car with the parking lot attendant (no mention of the scratches on the Accent) and are sitting at the gate with plenty of time thinking how happy we are we didn't get lost. Then, the Greek insanity began.
At around 6:45am, there is announcement informing us that our flight is delayed. No reasons given but we hear a bit later that there is low visibility. We don't worry because we have a 4 hour layover in Athens, plenty of time to deal with delays. How naïve we were. Around 7:30, the locals get restless. There is some yelling, in Greek of course. Gate attendants shrug and say they have no information (demonstrating the universal nonverbal sign for cluelessness). More yelling in Greek. Note - no yelling or information in English. We then discover, through a fellow traveler who speaks a little English, that the plane is out of fuel and still in Athens but is coming to Crete by 8:30. 8:30 comes. No plane. 8:45. No plane. Around 9:00 there is still no plane and the Greeks are furious. There is screaming, yelling and desperation but no one knows anything. We sit at the gate, helpless because no one is saying anything in English.
Then, our second saint of the trip appears, Poppy (saint one being the taverna operator / boat owner from Sweet Water Beach). Poppy is Greek and lives in Athens but studied in the States and speaks flawless English. She takes great pity on us and starts translating while still shouting in Greek at the airline employees (a real multitasker). She is fiery and we love her. We learn the flight hasn't left Athens yet. More screaming. Now we are nervous. There are people on a 10:45 flight from Athens to JFK that they are sure to miss. The airline just shrugs and repeatedly suggests we just wait and fly tomorrow. We learn that many of the Americans flying from Crete are military personnel who are on leave for just a short time and are losing precious days with their families. The airline just shrugs and we wait. We hate them and start imagining stealing a plane ourselves to fly the 35 minute flight.
Finally, the plane arrives at 9:45 and we start to board. It will be tight but there is a chance for us to make our noon flight. But of course, Aegean Airlines completely ruins that chance because they decide to handwritten vouchers for a free flight for each passenger due to the lateness of the flight making the plane EVEN LATER. Amazing. But it gets better. We get on the flight, are ready to depart, when we hear more commotion in Greek. People get up to leave the plane. Poppy comes over and explains they boarded people on the WRONG FLIGHT so there are not enough seats. We couldn't make this up.
We finally take off and arrive in Athens at 11:45. Seth goes to get our bags and Poppy and Jamie race to the Continental counter only to see it empty and the sign saying the gate is closed. We missed our flight. Poetic justice for a day of frustration that seemingly cannot get worse. But it does.
A representative at the Continental informed Jamie that because Aegean Airlines is the cause of us missing the Continental flight, Aegean will need to rebook us. While this makes sense to us, this logic is lost on Aegean, as its representatives and Poppy got into a screaming match at the Aegean ticket counter. Aegean essentially says that because our final destination (according to Aegean) was Athens, and they have no record of our transatlantic Continental flight, their job is done. Of course this logic conveniently neglects the fact that the Aegean flight was 4+ hours late, which caused us to miss our Continental flight and Jamie was assured by an Aegean representative in Crete that the Continental flight was being held for us on account of Aegean's tardiness (a lie, one of many we hear). After much screaming (and near Greek violence), Poppy convinced the Aegean representatives to put us up in a hotel for the night (a Holiday Inn), rebook us on the same flight for the following day and pay for our transfers and food. Two lessons learned: (1) Poppy rules and (2) Aegean Airlines stinks.
Defeated we leave and head to the hotel, exhausted due to only 4 hours of sleep and starving due to no food. We end up in the taxi line (after waiting for the hotel shuttle bus for more than an hour) and discover that the other Americans on the Aegean flight are in the same boat as us, all headed to the Holiday Inn and rebooked on flights to the US tomorrow. After a harrowing cab ride where we are convinced we are going to the wrong hotel, we arrive and are surprised to find that the Holiday Inn is actually nice. Unfortunately it is in the middle of nowhere, so we find ourselves stuck in the hotel. We explore a bit, find computers where Seth sees his 800 plus work emails for the first time and grab lunch. At this time, we officially meet our new friend Shannon and the day starts to take a better turn.
Shannon is an officer in the Navy heading home to her family in Florida after being away for the past three months. She is super cool and we become fast friends (she looks a little like Jamie's friend Mary Ann which makes her instantly fabulous). During our time at the Holiday Inn we share all of our meals and some necessary drinks with Shannon and have a great time chatting. Dinner deserves its own separate mention as it consisted of a buffet which included greek salad, egg rolls and spaghetti (Jamie managed to have that unholy trinity on her same buffet plate -eww!). We also meet the other people staying in the hotel and find out they are also in the Navy. We get the coolest crash course ever about the Navy and learn all about their lives and the places they go. As much as our delay was frustrating, we feel lucky to have met such great people and are sure we will stay in touch with Shannon.
No comments:
Post a Comment