Day 1: Arrival

So we made it!

We had a very easy travel schedule from Nashville to Atlanta (making it in less time than scheduled), and then from Atlanta to New York (JFK). No problems. Everyone on top of their game. Then we boarded the plane in New York...and had to sit there for about 2 1/2 hours...thunderstorms had closed down take offs. We finally made it up in the air...smooth take off and very smooth landing in Athens. The pilot took about an hour off our flight and we made it to Athens around 11:20am this morning.

About 2/3 of our crew managed to get some good sleep on the flight. Marshall and Syd were stuck in front of a set of twins about a year old...that kicked their seat, cried, kicked the seat..cried..screamed...etc. NOT a good way to spend a 9 hour flight. They were real troopers though and made it through the rest of today chugging along. After the inflight dinner I had my Ambien (sp?) and one Unisome....and was off to la la land very fast! I think I was awake for about 8 minutes and then CRASH. I didn't wake up until we had one hour left in the flight and they were serving a small breakfast...and a couple of baby cries helped wake me up (God love Syd and Marshall).

We land and meet our tour director, Shemy. Everyone grabs their luggage and we hit the ATM machines. Marshall and Mike Patton couldn't get their ATM cards to work at any of the ATMs in the airport. So they are going to try somewhere else later. Everyone else that used the ATMs there didn't have any problems.

We arrived at our hotel to check in and freshen up for about an hour. We then took a walk down to a small area that had different places to eat and grabbed some lunch at a great place called ZAXOE. We loved it. I had some sort of Greek chicken wrap. It was GREAT! Most everyone loved their food. The service was great the people were very nice. (images right & above right)

Then a short walk down to the beach. Most of the group decided to go to a pay beach (7 euro) and hang out for a couple of hours. Andrea Hittle wanted to just hang out at the public beach, so I accompanied her so she wouldn't be alone. She hung out on the beach while I walked around taking pictures (photo below). I must say, the little time I've been here, the difference between Greece and China is striking. I just can feel that Greece is certainly on the decline....empty buildings, closed businesses, etc...just a general feel of "run down" is all around. It could be just the area we are in, but I doubt it. Whereas China was busy busy busy and just felt to be growing growing growing.

Our hotel is clean...quaint is the best word. No major complaints. It has an interesting exterior (image right) to it...that has stained glass windows worked into it, that are at the end of each floor's hallway.(image left) It was nice to have some relaxing time today, before we hit the ground running tomorrow hitting tour site central!
The dinner at the hotel was rough...so we are going to try something else tomorrow night. After dinner we all took off to find some ice cream/gelato (sp?) and just took in the coolness of the night. The weather is amazing...the breeze off the water as we sit at an outdoor cafe...amazing. (The kids were in the hotel with a few of the adults, while another few of the adults hung out with some of the kids down the street taking in the vibe of the street...good stuff).