7 March 2010 (Sunday) - Travel to GREECE

Our Greece adventure begins!

Conrad and I were at the airport very early this morning to fly from Memphis to JFK in New York. Here’s Conrad trying to check us in:

The kiosk machine wouldn’t recognize my passport.

While Conrad worked on my passport, I stood there with our carry-on stuff—(left to right) the bottom of my all-weather coat that’s been to Europe twice so far (and is about to go on its last European adventure), my striped scarf (which I "haggled" for in Paris, only to end up paying full price), my carry-on luggage (my big bag was already checked), my backpack/sling thing, and the only two things Conrad took—his messenger bag and his little, bitsy luggage:

After we got checked in, I treated us to some Starbucks:

Conrad! I’m over here! Look at the camera, Conrad! Oh, never mind.

One thing you can say about Conrad is that caffeine does not keep him awake. Here he is moments after boarding the Memphis-to-New York flight:

(I took many such photos on our flights, as well as on our tour buses. This kid seriously needs to get more sleep.)

View from the plane during the Memphis-to-New York flight:

We ate lunch in the airport in New York while waiting for our flight to Greece. I asked for some extra napkins with my food. The woman behind the counter yelled, “You want more catsup??”

Me: “No, I want napkins.”

Woman behind counter: “WHAT? You want MORE catsup??”

Me: “No, I want napkins.”

We repeated this conversation several times, with her scooping up handfuls of catsup each time and putting them on my tray. I finally gave up and took the catsup. Me with a sample pak:

My camera is out because (much to Conrad's embarrassment), I was taking photos of a body builder. He was HUGE! (I astutely recognized him as a body builder because across the back of his shirt, it said BODY BUILDER.) He had two trays of food, mostly salads, just for himself. He'd eat a salad, open a black canvas bag, pull out medicine bottles, pour a bunch of pills in his hand, and throw them in his mouth.

Then we were off to Athens! The flight was about 10 hours long. The plane was ridiculously small and antiquated. We didn’t even have individual TV/movie screens. We had NO leg room. (If *I* get leg cramps, you know there is no leg room!)

Here we are over the ocean, not my favorite place to be:

This was about the exact point in our flight when I was struck with acute bronchitis, which lasted throughout the trip.

At one point while we were flying, the captain told us to remain in our seats and fasten our seatbelts because "there are some folks up ahead of us that we are trying to avoid running into.” What?? Was it like people going to heaven??? I don’t think we hit of any, because we didn’t experience any bumps.

Photo from the airplane window as the sun was coming up:

If you look closely right above the bottom of the window and slightly to the right, you can see ice on it. This photo was from March the 8th Greece time, but from March the 7th body/Memphis time. Greece is 8 hours ahead of Memphis.