Greece: We Arrive!

Our trip to Greece was my first time abroad, which was both exciting and fear inducing for me.  I consider myself to be a pretty good flyer, but the twelve hour flight from Philadelphia to Athens was far longer than any flight I have ever taken.  I think the flight to Puerto Rico was the longest I had taken before this trip, and it was a meager five hours (about half of which was waiting to take off in Atlanta).

Before I could take the longest flight of my life, I had to take the shortest flight of my life from DC to Philly.  Seriously, the flight was like twenty five minutes.  The plane was so small, we had to board by using the steps.  The only time I had seen planes being boarded by their steps is on tv, so this made me feel  like a very important dignitary.  It doesn't take much to make me feel important, clearly.

My fellow dignitaries boarding...very slowly

After our ridiculously short flight to Philly, we boarded the plane for Athens, full of excitement and anticipation!  We took some obligatory taking off on vacation photos on the plane.

I don't even care that the girl behind me is clearly laughing at me.

And, off we went on our ridiculously long flight to Athens.  The flight was overnight and we were set to arrive in Athens about 9 am local time.  Brian and I planned to sleep during the flight as long as we possibly could so our first day in Greece wouldn't be a complete loss.  Unfortunately for us, where the girls behind me in the picture are standing are where all of the children (including a baby) on the flight were located.  Lucky us.  Not.    

These children did not want to sleep.  And, being children of this era, they had every electronic device known to man to keep them occupied (and keep me awake) during the entire flight.  I tried my best to drown them out with a playlist of instrumental music I appropriately titled "Muzzle the Children", but it didn't work.  Add in an hour of heavy turbulence, and I was more than ready to depart that @$%#$^ plane when we got to Athens.  

We weren't quite done with planes though, as we opted to fly directly from Athens to the island of Santorini.  I'll talk more about Santorini in my next post, but this is the island I (and most everyone else) thinks of when they think of Greece, so it was my number one spot to visit.  Luckily, the flight to Santorini was short (40 minutes maybe) and we were treated to some absolutely gorgeous views of the island on our way in.

Check out that path down the cliff!

We landed, hurried through customs, and proceeded to wait for the local bus to take us to Fira, the island's capital and our home for the next three nights.  

Brian wouldn't stop so I could get a decent picture, but this is the entrance to our hotel

After checking into the hotel, food was our first priority.  Luckily, our hotel was in the center of Fira and food options were plentiful.  We stopped at the first place that looked decent (which means their decor was mostly green).

Great decor, even better view

Fried cheese in phyllo dough

Tomatokeftedes, a Santorini specialty of fried tomato balls

All the fried food immediately made us sleepy, so despite our grand plan to 'make the most' of our first day, we napped until it was almost time for dinner.  We walked around the village for a bit hoping to catch the sunset, but the haze and clouds made for less than ideal conditions.

Fira, our hotel is in there somewhere

The clouds looked as if they could open up at any moment, so we sought refuge at restaurant that claimed to be 'where the locals' eat.  We ate like locals, ordering a Greek Salad, moussaka, and baked feta (I ate a lot of cheese on this trip.  A lot.)

Nom.

Apparently, we were looking a little haggard from our travels, so we were given some frozen limoncello as a pick-me-up.

We hurried back to the hotel (it got cold!), emailed our families that we made it safely, and passed out.  It was a long day of traveling, but we were ready to start exploring the next day!

Who wants to come eat some baked feta with me?  mmmm.....

Up next, we explore more of Santorini!