We headed to the Athens airport on the underground for a late afternoon flight to Bangkok via London. Lots of air miles. Usually we buy the appropriate tickets for the public transportation system, but we have gotten lazier and cheaper. Some cities don’t check and we have gotten by ticketless many times, more a matter of convenience than money. In Athens, you must have a ticket validated to enter the underground……the issue is which ticket you buy to get in. We had bought the $1 euro ticket instead of the $6 euro ticket to the airport. We were surprised to find the ticket police checking validation at the bottom of the platform. I got thru with no worries, but Molly volunteered we were going to the airport and blew it! As dumb tourists, we promised to buy the correct ticket at the next transfer station and we were relieved from a $360 euro penalty each…….being the travelling gamblers, we never did buy the right ticket and left Athens as criminals without a record. I have promised myself I will make it right next time I visit.
Our friend Darren was not so lucky when he left Athens and got caught by the ticket police…..I think it is harder to be ignorant when you have a British accent. Besides, he does not have blonde hair and the dumb tourist look. Darren got some big ticket and left Athens with a criminal record and a decision to gamble with the record keeping system of the Greeks. Hmmmmmm. I am curious to follow the outcome of that.
Speaking of Darren, when we landed in London we had a 4 hour layover and he took the tube to the airport to have dinner with us. What a guy. If there is one person we will always remember from our epic adventure it will be him. Molly and I both love him to death. He is so fun and easy and friendly. He makes us laugh. He treated us to a nice relaxed dinner and visit before we connected to Bangkok.
You would think that with a 4 hour layover we would not be missing our flight. Well, we did not miss the flight, but we did run thru the London Heathrow airport (which is massively huge) because we found out we were at the wrong gate boarding to Thailand. With 10 minutes before the gate closed, I yelled at Molly to run ahead and not let them close the doors before I had my feet across the threshold. She did a great job and we weren’t even the last on the plane or the only dumb tourists at the wrong gate. Maybe that was karma for cheating the Greeks out of subway fair. Anyways, we made it, took our little sleeping pill and woke up in time for breakfast before landing.
I had the privilege of holding a 22 month old on my lap during landing. His name was Mali (like Molly, just spelled different) and his twin brother, Pippin, sat on his mom’s lap. A single parent travelling to Sydney, Australia with these two young kids. A 25 hour plane ride. Boy, did I feel for her. Mali had taken to us towards the end of the flight and I had been playing with him and keeping him entertained, while Pippin ran around the isles. I remember those days.
Luckily, we weren’t continuing on to Sydney, as we were tired. We took a cab to our hotel and immediately had a one hour Thai massage. For about $15, we had a full body massage with oil. FULL BODY. I mean FULL BODY. Need I say more? I have never had a massage like that. Where the Thai’s strength is pricing, their weakness is the mood setting we are accustomed to at home. This massage involved cell phones, fluorescent lighting and the chitter chatter of neighboring masseurs. Still felt wonderful, relaxing and exotic. Maybe it was karma for taking care of Mali.
