The Harrowing Departure From Pireaus

(sunrise at the port of Pireaus)

Unfortunately for us, there was nothing Costas could do to assist us with an early departure and we had a very early flight from the Athens airport, so basically we had to take our luggage and run. The assistant director met us, and put us in a cab and sent us off the airport. We were beginning to feel better about making the plane until we realized that we not only didn’t have our tickets with us, the counter at Olympic Airways didn’t have them, and wouldn’t let us have them. Great.

So, with 40 mins until an international flight, I head off to the ticket counter and leave Holle at the check in counter to hold our place there. After a lot more waiting in line, with Holle’s language getting stronger the longer she had to wait, I find out that they aren’t going to give me tickets. Okey-dokey. At this point, the tour people have a fight with the ticket agent who hangs up on them and tells me I can spend E422 to get us home or go find out if the other airline has our tickets.

Argghhh, we now have 15 mins until the flight and I see no way, but Antonio with the tour company asks if I can go to the other airline’s counter and “be aggressive” – at this point, you bet I can!!

So, Holle is still patiently waiting with the bags and I run down to LTU, where the ticket agent wants to lecture me about my irresponsibility in failing to have the original tickets and for failing to come there first. Well, duh. I would have loved to have come straight to his counter, stood in no lines and gone right to the gate, but no one suggested that!

We just knew we’d never make the flight, but a combination of much nicer check in agents, and a delayed flight that was holding the plane anyway, and lots of running through the airport (first the steps, then a sprint through the airport – no one told us to get a personal trainer before this trip!) got us there on time.

Same sort of problem in Dusseldorf – sent to three different counters before we were allowed to board the plane, not to mention security and passport control.

LTU’s airbus is nice, though, and they’ve done a nice job of feeding us – we’ve just done customs forms and have another 2.5 hours to go into JFK.

Once we landed at JFK, we had to scramble again to get the E-ticket situation figured out, but it finally got solved and we are now hanging out waiting to depart for Jacksonville in 2 hours. Whew.

Keep reading – we’ll post an update/wrap up post soon!