AirPort

I didn’t pack too much to entertain me on the flight and what little I did bring had limited battery life I didn’t want to expire before I even set foot on an airplane, especially the 11 hour flight. This meant my only entertainment would be the lone television hanging from the ceiling which showed CNN news and a few infomercials. A combination of programming that doesn’t really excite someone who had been up until two a.m. making sure they had everything packed into their only duffle bag. I placed my back-pack down and searched for something that might keep me occupied until the other members of my traveling party arrive: Eye Witness: Greece and the Mainland, not my usual choice of reading material.
When I thought of Greece before actually arriving, I could only think about the rocky shores I expected to see in Volos and myself running along the sun baked roads that twisted throughout the country side. Gyros had also been mentioned to me by my good friend, Brandon, and he described them as wrapped pork inside of a pita with cucumber sauce. To be honest, I seriously doubted I would enjoy anything with a cucumber sauce. It just sounded a little bit gross, especially for a guy like me who for the first 20 years of my life lived off of mainly eating chicken and candy. Not until recently have I begun to really go out of my way to get all of the fruits and vegetables I need a day. Besides that I didn’t know what to expect from the food except for pasta and exotic fish. One of the only things I didn’t look forward to, however, was the fact that in my book on Greece it stated that smoking was widely accepted by a majority of the people in the country. Even after reading this I still figured I would be ok with enough fresh air outside. After arriving in the Athens airport I realized that there wouldn’t be much fresh air downtown. It literally felt like a slap in the face once I stepped off of the plane and took in the aroma of smoke just inside of the customs check-in area. It isn’t so much the fact that they suck cigarettes down like coke-a-cola outside, it is the smoke that sticks to the walls and carpet on the insides of buildings that bothers me the worst.
The airport was getting crowded with just a few minutes before the gate was set to open and let all of the passengers onto the plane, which would also mean the start of my three week vacation to Greece and my first time ever leaving the United States. Brandon, Valerie, and Stephanie were sitting in the chairs across from me by now and we were all anxious to get the first initial flight to Atlanta over with. I thought I had somewhat of an idea of what I would experience, but after arriving and seeing everything to scale in person, you truly appreciate how remarkable everything in this world is.

Charles Y.