Taxi arrived outside the house. Typical leaving day in the UK. Drizzle and greyness! Getting a taxi from South Leicestershire to Luton in North London, seems a bit crazy, but when you consider it was 30 euros cheaper than the train, it was an obvious choice. After a heartfelt goodbye to my sister we were on our way. I hate the travelling. I wish we could walk through a door in the UK, and arrive in Symi. Some would say that the travelling is part of the fun.....but not for us. In the winter there are no direct flights to Rhodes from the UK. So.....it's Athens first.
Taxi ride down was very relaxing. Our driver had a Radio 4 play on, which mumbled away through the speakers in the back. To my amazement, he looked like SG regular George but without the beard (and tight Speedos).
We arrived at Luton. I like Luton airport. It's quite small, and the lighting is more in tune with a restaurant or bar. You also never see the crazy crowds more associated with Heathrow and Gatwick. We checked in. Six kilos over. We're always over! Jo and I usually hold back from the queues, to survey which of the checking-in attendants looks the nicest. This time we picked well. Baggage went through with the possibility of the attendant coming to visit us in Symi! Well, we had to distract her somehow!
Time for a coffee. We noticed most of the people at Luton had big long canvas bags. Skiing time of course. While most are off to a colder climate. We always return to a warmer one.
We board the EasyJet 2001 to Athens. Luckily, because we checked in early, we were one of the first to board. Excellent! We notice seats near the middle of the aircraft. You know. The ones near the escape exit. The ones with all the leg room. This is very important you see. I'm 6'2", and usually my knees are somewhere near my ears! Not good if you want to hear the emergency instructions. Jo was near the emergency exit. This scared me, and she knew it. I had this picture in my head, that at some point she would go to the toilet during flight, and accidentally knock the handle. By which we would all be sucked out somewhere over Germany. She enjoyed this, and often pretended to put her hand to the perspex cover and do a pulling motion. I, like the passengers around us were un-amused by this.
We arrived in Athens at 7.40pm local time. This was where the journey was going to get tedious. We now had to wait until 5.30am for our flight from Athens to Rhodes. Why you may think, did we not get a hotel room for those hours. The honest answer is, I don't know! Most of the hotels are in the centre, which is quite a ride from the airport. The one opposite the airport is 5 star, so, we just decided to bum it round the airport.
I like Athens airport. All very new looking from the 2004 Olympics, and enough space to not see the same person twice when you're walking round and round and round for 7 hours like we did. Most of the shops stay open. Accessorize/Monsoon doesn't close till 3am! And even then, I think it's just to change the till roll. This pleased Jo.
We head over to the 'Food Village' where we can get a cup of coffee. Lugging all our cases with us as check-in was not till 3.30am. We start to people watch. We notice over at 'Gregory's Coffee Shop' on the opposite side of the hall, they have two widescreen televisions. One had a Greek current affairs programme, and the other, watched by Aegean Airways ground staff. had soft porn. They all sat pretending they were looking at the Current Affairs programme, but it was quite obvious from where we were sitting, that the porn was winning. I've never seen Greeks drink Frappe so slowly.
We finished ours coffees, and decided to walk round the airport. The slower the better to kill time. Eventually we settled down on some seats, and Jo rested her head, while I listened to my Scott Mills, and Chris Moyles podcasts I'd downloaded for the journey. After an hour we head back to the 'Food Village'. This time for a beer. The Aegean Ground staff were still glued to the television. Surely their coffee break was over? As I drank my beer, I had visions of suitcases dumped outside on the tarmac, and pilots re-filling their own planes with petrol cans. 3.30am finally came round! As if waiting 8 hours wasn't enough, the check-in attendants didn't come out for a further 40 mins. Finally though, we'd got rid of our suitcases, and we made our way to the gate.
We were through, and on the bus which took us to the plane. 17 of us in all. Only a small plane was needed. This scared me a little. It's a strange flight, and we've done it a few times now. The plane basically takes off, climbs, orange juice or coffee, croissant, and wetwipe, then the plane is descending for Rhodes. We arrived in Rhodes at 6.30am, and wasted no time getting into a taxi. If you've ever been in a taxi in Rhodes, you'll know it's not exactly like 'Driving Miss Daisy'. We got to the Hermes Hotel, to wait for our boat to Symi at 4pm. More waiting, but the end of our journey was near now. Bit of sleep, and a shower was well needed by now, so we checked in for 6 hours sleep.
After waking, we were quite eager to get outside, and down to the harbour. Once again we found ourselves killing time, so we walked up and down the main harbour of Rhodes. Seemed strange seeing all the summer tourist boats anchored in. We caught the Dolphin at 4, and our journey was christened with the beautiful sunset, that only Symi can give in my opinion. Once I saw Sesklia out of the window, I knew we were almost home. 28 hours later.
