Everything started smoothly, as half of our group traveled from Philly to London with an hour layover before departing for Greece at 8am Thursday morning.  First of all, things that make a great flight are: an inflight move that make you forget you’re flying, and a flight tracker so that you can see how far the plane drops in sudden, unexpected turbulence.  A moonlit ocean on a crystal clear sky isn’t bad either, or witnessing daybreak on the horizon over London.  The sky was so captivating, no one really minded that we had circled over London 5, maybe 6 times before landing..which then led us to land 15 minutes before our flight to Athens left.  An hour layover across the pond turned into a jolley four hour sit for tea and crumpets at London Heathrow’s finest English dining facility at the expense of British Airway’s “sorry-for-flying-in-circles-causing-you-to-miss-your-flight-by-a-matter-of-minutes” vouchers.  We finally made it to Athens, and saw yesterday’s fresh snowfall on the highest mountain peaks during our descent into the city. 

 We then packed into taxis and took directions to places we couldn’t even pronounce, or that the taxi drivers had heard of.  Started to feel like I signed up for the Amazing race.  Speaking of racing, the taxi ride was an adventure in itself.  Lane markers are optional, more of loose suggestions in Athens, and when Americans would tap the breaks to adjust to traffic, Athenians find it more appropriate to lay on their horn and flood the car in front of them with highbeams until they moved.  Had myself asking, what am I doing here?  

Dinner of PSU’s treat helped answer that question as we got our first taste of authentic cuisine.  

Well, all aboard the Athens blog, its definitely going to be a ride filled with close calls, as we weave in an out of Athenian life in the fast lane. (just kidding, every lane’s the fast lane)