Travelling to Athens
I'v writing this from my apartment desk after having been in Athens for about five days now. It's been a whirlwind of a week, but I'm finally settled in enough to be able to write some blog posts!
Well, Athens is about as breathtaking as I thought it'd be. But more on that later.
Travelling was...interesting. My professors found an Emirates Air red-eye flight out of Newark International Airport that only cost around $650, and then I found another online coupon for $50 off, so all in all I paid $600 for my round trip flight. Pretty good. The only problem was the flight was red-eye, meaning it left late at night (11:55 pm to be exact). My parents weren't too jazzed on driving four hours home in winter in the dark, so they dropped me off fairly early at Newark. We arrived at around 2:30 pm, and after a quick bite to eat at Mediterranean Bistro, we said our goodbyes and parted for three months.
I wasn't alone in the airport, however. Other students were sending messages in our class GroupMe (an app used to create group chats that are easily accessible on all phones) asking if anyone was at the airport already. I ended up finding another girl on the trip (whose flight from Buffalo arrived at Newark at 8 am!) so we ended up sitting with each other and talking about anything and everything until the flight. After a good half hour of rearranging items from carry-on bags to checked bags, we were on our way to TSA. After getting through TSA with ease, we went to the Emirates lounge (yes, they have an entire lounge!) in Newark airport. At that point it was about 10:00 pm, and boarding started at 10:55. We watched a little bit of the Netflix Fyre Festival documentary that's all the rage right now, which actually passed the time fairly well. Before we knew it, we were on the way to the plane!
The plane we took was a Boeing 777, so three seats on the left, four in the middle, and three on the right. Emirates lets you choose your seat either for a fee when you purchase your ticket or any time after, or for free 48 hours before your flight. I chose seat 28K, a window seat on the right. Since this was a red-eye flight, the plane was nowhere near full and I was lucky enough to have no one sitting by me, giving me a whole row to myself!
The flight attendants were all very nice and helpful. Before we took off, they handed out a menu of the dinner and breakfast choices, which were both surprisingly good—probably the best airline food I've ever had, to be frank. I managed to sleep for about four hours on my nine hour flight, and I was surprised it was only that little, because time seemed to fly (no pun intended).
After breakfast, I couldn't get back to sleep, which was fine since there was only about an hour left in the flight. I just sat back and relaxed and watched the scenery pass.
After disembarking the plane, I was pleasantly surprised to find the Athens airport pretty well marked. Everyone on our flight headed to baggage claim, and we all slowly figured out who else was studying in Athens with Penn State or Bucknell. We met our professors and three of our classmates who arrived earlier (including my friend Anelia, who I met in my first Russian class at Penn State in my freshman year and my roommate for this trip) at a cafe in the middle of the airport.
While we waited for another flight of students to arrive, students went in groups of two or three to withdraw euros from ATM machines, and Anelia and I headed to a Vodafone (a European Union cell phone provider) stand to get SIM cards, allowing us to use the internet (and by extension texting and FaceTime) in places even when we don't have WiFi. After everyone got their euros and SIM cards, we headed to the buses and waited a bit longer for the other students.
When they arrived, we headed to our hotel for next two nights: the Art Gallery Hotel in Athens. It was a quaint little place with beautiful balcony views.
One thing we learned very quickly was that Greek streets are...different from American streets. Most are very narrow and usually one-way (only the big main streets are two-way). And, as Keti Barba, one of the guides for the semester, so eloquently put it, traffic laws are somewhat "optional" in Athens. Also, while the general feeling in America is that pedestrians have the right-of-way, that is very much not the general feeling in Athens. I think I've seen one crosswalk in my five days here. We saw so many situations that really should've been accidents but just weren't.
My point to all the traffic talk is that the roads are narrow with cars parking on the sides and buses are not. There wasn't really anywhere for the bus to turn on the street where the hotel is, so it just stopped in the middle of the main street, stopping all traffic with it. We sprinted to the side of the bus and threw the luggage onto the street (kind of exaggerating, kind of not), and after the bus pulled away, we all found our luggage and walked up to the hotel.
As I said, the hotel was pretty quaint with lovely balcony views. Orange trees dot the sidewalks in Athens and make for a lovely tropical setting (although from what I've heard, they don't taste very good). Another thing we quickly learned is that Greece is not...as accessible as America is. There was one elevator that could hold a maximum of 300 pounds and was big enough for two people. We used it to send our luggage up the stairs to each of our floors.
The breakfasts at the Art Gallery Hotel were different than American breakfasts, but good. There were no pancakes, eggs, or bacon to be found, but rather an assortment of fruits, feta cheese, hard boiled eggs, cucumbers, olives, and charcuterie boards.
The first day was very long and very tiring, but it was extremely exciting to make it to Athens. I'll keep everyone up to date with what I'm doing in the coming weeks!
Well, Athens is about as breathtaking as I thought it'd be. But more on that later.
Travelling was...interesting. My professors found an Emirates Air red-eye flight out of Newark International Airport that only cost around $650, and then I found another online coupon for $50 off, so all in all I paid $600 for my round trip flight. Pretty good. The only problem was the flight was red-eye, meaning it left late at night (11:55 pm to be exact). My parents weren't too jazzed on driving four hours home in winter in the dark, so they dropped me off fairly early at Newark. We arrived at around 2:30 pm, and after a quick bite to eat at Mediterranean Bistro, we said our goodbyes and parted for three months.
 |
| Mom, dad and I at Newark International Airport |
The plane we took was a Boeing 777, so three seats on the left, four in the middle, and three on the right. Emirates lets you choose your seat either for a fee when you purchase your ticket or any time after, or for free 48 hours before your flight. I chose seat 28K, a window seat on the right. Since this was a red-eye flight, the plane was nowhere near full and I was lucky enough to have no one sitting by me, giving me a whole row to myself!
The flight attendants were all very nice and helpful. Before we took off, they handed out a menu of the dinner and breakfast choices, which were both surprisingly good—probably the best airline food I've ever had, to be frank. I managed to sleep for about four hours on my nine hour flight, and I was surprised it was only that little, because time seemed to fly (no pun intended).
 |
| The plane menu |
After breakfast, I couldn't get back to sleep, which was fine since there was only about an hour left in the flight. I just sat back and relaxed and watched the scenery pass.
After disembarking the plane, I was pleasantly surprised to find the Athens airport pretty well marked. Everyone on our flight headed to baggage claim, and we all slowly figured out who else was studying in Athens with Penn State or Bucknell. We met our professors and three of our classmates who arrived earlier (including my friend Anelia, who I met in my first Russian class at Penn State in my freshman year and my roommate for this trip) at a cafe in the middle of the airport.
While we waited for another flight of students to arrive, students went in groups of two or three to withdraw euros from ATM machines, and Anelia and I headed to a Vodafone (a European Union cell phone provider) stand to get SIM cards, allowing us to use the internet (and by extension texting and FaceTime) in places even when we don't have WiFi. After everyone got their euros and SIM cards, we headed to the buses and waited a bit longer for the other students.
When they arrived, we headed to our hotel for next two nights: the Art Gallery Hotel in Athens. It was a quaint little place with beautiful balcony views.
 |
| Balcony view in our room at the Art Gallery Hotel |
One thing we learned very quickly was that Greek streets are...different from American streets. Most are very narrow and usually one-way (only the big main streets are two-way). And, as Keti Barba, one of the guides for the semester, so eloquently put it, traffic laws are somewhat "optional" in Athens. Also, while the general feeling in America is that pedestrians have the right-of-way, that is very much not the general feeling in Athens. I think I've seen one crosswalk in my five days here. We saw so many situations that really should've been accidents but just weren't.
 |
| Narrow Greek Streets |
 |
| Narrow Greek streets |
My point to all the traffic talk is that the roads are narrow with cars parking on the sides and buses are not. There wasn't really anywhere for the bus to turn on the street where the hotel is, so it just stopped in the middle of the main street, stopping all traffic with it. We sprinted to the side of the bus and threw the luggage onto the street (kind of exaggerating, kind of not), and after the bus pulled away, we all found our luggage and walked up to the hotel.
As I said, the hotel was pretty quaint with lovely balcony views. Orange trees dot the sidewalks in Athens and make for a lovely tropical setting (although from what I've heard, they don't taste very good). Another thing we quickly learned is that Greece is not...as accessible as America is. There was one elevator that could hold a maximum of 300 pounds and was big enough for two people. We used it to send our luggage up the stairs to each of our floors.
The breakfasts at the Art Gallery Hotel were different than American breakfasts, but good. There were no pancakes, eggs, or bacon to be found, but rather an assortment of fruits, feta cheese, hard boiled eggs, cucumbers, olives, and charcuterie boards.
The first day was very long and very tiring, but it was extremely exciting to make it to Athens. I'll keep everyone up to date with what I'm doing in the coming weeks!
Great recap. I enjoyed reading it. Keep the updates coming when you have time. 😉
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