Our travel
into Greece was, of course, quite the adventure. My philosophy is: try to just
be flexible, don’t get mad at the workers who are trying to help.
The 1st
leg of our journey was a flight into San Francisco. Here we had a 6-hour
layover, plenty of time to eat, buy last minute items, whatever. It is in San
Francisco where, when we have time, we buy sushi a ½ bottle of wine and eat
somewhere. As that flight was an early morning, we hadn’t had any breakfast, so
we were ready for Sushi! The first proper meal of our trip.
With all of
the flight changes at the last minute, our granddaughter, Zaya’s ticket was
unlinked from ours. She was in a different loading group than ours and I knew
that wouldn’t do. As soon as the agents opened the counter in San Francisco I
was 1st in line to change that.
As it turned
out, every passenger had to go to the counter and show their covid vaccine
record or negative test results, plus show they had a proper mask. I was glad
that I was 1st so all we had to do was to get onto the plane.
After an
11-hour flight, we had a 8-hour layover in Frankfurt so we found a table where
we could just hangout for the day. It was a good chance to finish up a book
that I’d started a while ago at home but never had time to read. We also walked
and walked after sitting for so long.
The flight
from Frankfurt into Athens was on Aegean Airlines. I’d checked the site before
leaving for info on luggage and had noted that weights allowed on carry-ons
were less than the ones allowed on United. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten all
about that.
When we were
getting ready to leave Frankfurt, I threw a couple of larger books into Zaya’s
backpack and we got in line to get onto the plane. Some people got in behind
me, but I didn’t notice so I got thru to get on the plane, while Zaya got
pulled out as they thought her bag was too large. It turned out that it was a few
ounces over the limit. I was stuck at the doorway of the jetway but
fortunately, Dale had been behind Zaya so he was with her. Unfortunately, they
decided to weigh Dale’s bag and found it over the limit as well.
The Aegean
staff told Dale that he had to now check the bags to the tune of 100 euros. As
we were feeling a bit like hostages, Dale had no option but to pay. He gave
them a credit card but then the Aegean machine didn’t work. The woman tried it
over and over then the next person tried to make the machine work to read our
card but to no avail. Finally, a male staff came and tried to make it work but
still nothing. The guy turns to me, still standing in the doorway, and says “do
you have 100 euros”? I said “No, I only have US money”. The guy then louder says
“ do you have 100 euros”? Again, I said “No, I only have US money”? Then the
guy yells “do you have 100 euros”? Again, I repeated the same thing over again.
Finally, Aegean said forget it, that it was their problem with their machine
and they couldn’t keep us any longer.
We got on
our flight and 3 hours later we were in Athens.
We’d decided
to take a cab to our Airbnb. The driver was an older guy who spoke little English,
but we did discuss the fact that we had our vaccines and the weather. Then he
turned on Greek music and he sang along. We had a private mini concert!
No comments:
Post a Comment