The Journey Begins

Monday, December 6, 2010 I left my aunts house at 1:30 for IAH to catch a 4:15 pm flight to Athens, Greece. It was KLM and my stopover was in Amsterdam. What an amazing flight!!! If I could live on a KLM airplane I think I would :) After 9 hours of popping Benedryl to sleep I landed in Amsterdam, Holland at 8:30 am local time. The Amsterdam airport is sooooo freaking awesome its not even funny! They have kids zones, museums, showers, secret rooms for people to smoke, shopping, many many restaurants and so much more that I didn't even get to see :( My favorite part was the signs that listed the terminal names to show you how long it would take you to walk there - ha! Of course, mine said "D - 31 minutes" Really? So in Texas time that meant 1 hour - ha! I go through customs and the guys asks:

"Is Athens your final destination?"
"Yes"
"Why are you visiting?"
"I'm visiting family"
"Is your family from Greece?"
"Yes"
"I could tell you were from Greece when I saw you standing in line"

What the hell does that mean? He could "tell" - did I smell - was it the curly hair - what? it kinda irritated me :) Finally I get to my gate and they announce the gate is open. NOT! The gate to the little area we had to wait for a half an hour was open. So instead of being able to sit in the comfy chairs upstairs in the terminal I had to stand there, eating Dutch pringles (I was starving) watching all the Greeks eyeball everyone. So typical :) My favorite was this older gentleman, who I think was British, who walked through the crowd knocking into everyone with his bag and not saying excuse me. Truly, paybacks are hell, he was sitting in the front of the plane and I went through with my oversized backpack :) Bam! But at least I said excuse me ;) Another three hours to Athens and we landed. As everyone stood up to rush and get their overhead bags I noticed something -it's not just the american Greek males that have the super long pinky nail - THEY ALL DO!!! I will never understand - it's so gross looking ewe!

As the plane hit the runway and I could see the Greek country side I realized these are my roots. It was weird because I don't even think of myself as Greek. I know my lineage is Greek but I just never really embraced the culture. But as my eyes saw the land my heart felt something, something very foreign. I am at hotel Myrtos now with another american couple from Philadelphia we are going to go out for drinks in a bit and see what this Athenian suburb has to offer.

Wish me luck!

Stay posted as my journey is blogged :)