(Still wondering how Spider can use that much soap in a year......)
The trip to Greece was really great, it's so good to get away, and man do I need a dose of real sun every year before the dark starts to settle in on Helsinki.
We were on one of the Islands, so the trip there was a flight to Santorini, overnight there and early wake up for a 3 hour ferry to Naxos. It was a breeze, the ferry was unbelievably efficient. It was basically a bus in the form of a ship. Transfers of hundreds of people happened in about 5 minutes, I mean literally everyone getting off, including cars in 2 minutes and people getting on in 3.
On arrival, the airport in Naxos was obviously small, but getting our luggage etc was quick, so we were left unsuspecting the horrors of departing from said airport.
The trip back started nicely on the same efficient ferry, except our tour company took everyone there WAY before it arrived. So lots of waiting in the hot sun, thankfully we found a sheltered place to wait, but many didn't. Yet the ferry itself was on time and the same ridiculously fast transfer.
We arrived back on Santorini 6 hours before our flight, and the travel agency just deposited us at a bar about 50 meters from the airport and said good luck. So after waiting there for four of those hours my wife suggests we go down to the airport a little ahead of time. I had a sense of unease, but had no idea how bad it was about to become. We had been sitting directly in front of the runway, and in the time we had been sitting there I saw maybe 3 jets take off. That just didn't seem right.
The checking and security process was like out of a 50's movie, no order, go here, go there, in the tiniest airport, 3 counters, lug your own luggage to the X-Ray scanner, pushing through all the people waiting to get to the 3 counters. Get yelled at by the X-ray operators, as people wait so their bag can pass through the ONE scanner.
Now keep in mind Santorini is one of the most popular places to visit in Greece, with probably over a million tourists a year.
After getting the bags through the X-ray we had to go to exact other side of the airport, past the 3 counters to get to the security screening line and into the main waiting area.
Well I'll tell you that area wasn't much bigger than our living room. It had 6 doors each next to each other, that they called gates. It was totally packed with people wall to wall. Every available space was taken, people were sitting on the floor in the stair wells, and mostly standing with no where to sit or be. There were a few seats, but not nearly enough for even a fraction of the people there.
There were a couple of gross bathrooms. And, because security, there was no ventilation, and no open windows or doors, so no air.
We went in an hour or so before our flight was due to leave, we thought we could manage that. But of course that one flight leaving the airport was an omen. All flights were delayed. Now somehow we had two bits of good fortune. One, there was a small duty free shop, and for some reason there were only a couple of people in there, so it was like a small haven. There I also found the best olives I've ever eaten, I love Kalamata olives, so that might be the one good thing to have come from this 12 hour journey of misery.
The 2nd was that when we came out of the shop a flight was announced to be boarding and some seats opened up. Generally there were 5 people eyeing any available seat, but by some miracle there were a few in the back no one had noticed. So we were able to sit for the final 2 plus hours. Though later it was so crowded there I had to stick my feet under the seat to avoid be stepped on.
Here's the view moments before the seats opened up.
I was getting pretty exhausted at this point, it was about 9 in the evening, we started the journey at 10am, and hadn't had much to eat.
The next phase was boarding, which was for the entire plane load of people to be crammed into an even smaller space and wait for 20.30 minutes for a bus to pick us up and take us to the plane.
Keep in mind the plane was quite visible and maybe 50 feet away.
By this point, I had no more sense of humor and as you can tell from the pic above, no one else did either.
So we eventually get on the plane, and are promptly told, we won't be taking off for a another 20-30 minutes, because someone didn't show up and their bags needed to be removed.
After that it was another 20-30 minutes because we'd lost clearance from air traffic control.
So about 2.5 hours late we did finally get in the air.
Now for the pièce de résistance, even though it was quite late, no one on the plane put their seats back to rest, except the girl in front of me. I don't like being that guy, so I resisted as long as I could. I also get horribly painful restless legs when I fly, and there came a point where I just couldn't take it any longer, it was about midnight at this point, so I put my seat back. Not 1 second later, in the whiniest most privileged Finnish voice, the 20 something girl behind me tells me, put my seat back and of all the nerve. I flipped out, and said some things I wasn't proud of, but put my seat up, and then got up to try and walk the restless legs off.
I walked up front and asked a stewardess if there was so no seat back rule, which of course there wasn't. So after a few minutes I walked back to my seat and turned around to the girl to tell her, 'I'm exhausted, it's past midnight and I'm going to put my seat back'. As Finns are experts at, she acted as if she heard nothing as did her traveling companions. I put the seat back but it wouldn't budge, she'd jammed her knees up in the seat so it wouldn't move.
At this point it became an official scene, now I'm in the window seat and the flight was full so I yelled at everyone, 'I'm getting up and getting a stewardess, get out of my way'. My wife was trying to stop me, Finns just don't make scenes unless it's some sort of passive aggressive thing like the girl behind me was doing.
So I stormed up to the front of the plane again, and I think the stewardess was ready for it, she was standing there waiting for me. Thankfully she came and told the girl she had to let me put my seat back. The girl just straight up lied and said she wasn't doing anything, but did let me put my seat back.
And then 5 minutes later after the dust settled, they brought me a cup full of chocolate, I guess to make things better.
With the seat back, I had about 5 minutes of the circle of sleep, it was enough though that the restless legs past. Why only 5 minutes? Because at the time the captain announced we are beginning our decent for landing. lol!
Anyway I hope you enjoyed that story, I think it was better than a story about how beautiful everything was and how cheap and how great the food was, you guys already know that.
