Greece: Getting There

Our trip to Greece began VERY early in the morning... we were up at 5:00 am so we could get to the train so we could get to the L so we could get up to Chicago O'Hare.  We got there and got checked in and left Chicago at noon.  We had a couple hours over to New York and then hopped on the 9 hour flight to Athens.

I was nervous about the flight to Athens - I never sleep well on planes and I had no idea what I was in for as far as food or things to fill the time.  WELL - I was pleasantly surprised!  We flew on a Delta 747 and we were in economy, but this is what we had going for us...

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Every seat had its own little TV and we had a great list of movies or TV series to choose from!  They were complimentary for international flights, which is amazing... I honestly don't remember all the movies I watched on the way there.  I know I watched "This is 40" and then while I was trying to sleep, I watched "Pitch Perfect" and "Juno", but I can't remember if there were others that I watched on the way there.

We had pretty good food - we had a hot meal of pasta, a salad, cheese and crackers and dessert.  There was also complimentary wine and beer.  In the morning, as we were getting close to Athens, we had a egg and cheese bagel and orange juice.  They did drink service a few times and overall, we were pretty well taken care of.

I was nervous about getting there and being totally exhausted.  I tried using the sleep aid that Day/Night-Quil has developed and it did nothing for me.  I had a sleep mask and a pillow and a blanket and I just could not sleep on the plane.  SO, we got to Athens at 9:00 am, and got to the hotel around 11:00 am.  We had a quick orientation with a representative from our tour company at 1:00 pm, went up to the roof top restaurant and had lunch and then we went back to the room.

We stayed at the Athenian Callirhoe Hotel and it was nice!  It wasn't huge and it wasn't exceptionally fancy, but it was clean and the service was good and it was in a decent location.  There wasn't a lot right around the hotel, as far as restaurants go, but the restaurant at the hotel was great and we were about a 10 minute walk from the historical sites!

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The room was standard - we didn't have the tables and chairs because we had a cot for our 3rd bed.  It's kind of hard to tell in this photo, but the king bed is actually 2 twins, made as twins, which was actually nice.

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My parents were asleep at about 3:00 pm.  I was trying so hard to stay awake a little longer so I could sleep through the night.  I found out that the hotel had WiFi and my dad had his iTouch with him, so even from thousands of miles away, I was able to text and facetime with J - HOORAY!!!  After I talked to J for a while, I read my book and I watched a little TV.  At 5:30 pm, I made myself some tea and then I let myself go to sleep at 6:30 pm.

We were exhausted, but we had a great night sleep (my parents pretty much slept from 3 pm until the next day) and we were ready to see Athens the next day!!!